Chapter Text
You screamed.
You screamed and you screamed and you screamed. You must have been so shrill and annoying, it made Alaula puff up and hiss at you like a cat.
You ran up and down the deck of the Alpha King. Whoever stocked this boat, you praised them one moment, then rolled your eyes the next.
This dual-engine sailer was like an electric car, using either wind or gas – which there was gallons upon gallons stored. You nearly cried at the solar powered hook-up for the small grill, fridge, desalinator, and a heated cabin. It had actual cookware for all the food that was packed – food and drinks you hadn’t had in months. Eggs, cheese, butter, and even lemons! You shook your head at the boxed wine labeled ‘Le Vin’ in flowery script, but whatever. You had enough reusable filters for the watermaker to counteract alcoholic dehydration.
There were fresh clothes, coats, shoes, sheets, and blankets. There was soap, shampoo, sunscreen, moisturizers, and even a tube of bronzer. There was a fresh, fully stocked first aid kit, generic pain medications, and other over-the-counter pills and ointments. There was a full tackle of fishing supplies, bait and all. Whoever these faceless strangers were, you apologized for keeping their boat and tried not to judge too harshly. There were a lot of pornographic disks in one of the cabinets.
The snow started to fall, again, and you hauled up the last of your supplies – including your trash. You decided to sort it all once you were on course. Right now, you needed to see why Alaula was tilting your boat. Donning a ridiculously poofy, real fur-lined coat, you exited the cabin. Between his fangs was a fish.
“You want to eat, first?” You stepped close and he readily let go once you grabbed a hold of it. “I thought you’d want to take off as soon as we’re ready.”
Alaula glanced down, and you leaned over the railing to see Koa, mouth and arms full of more of their catch. Your brows squeezed together as you tried to sort their intentions. That was a lot of food if they were trying to feed you, and they weren’t so clueless to think both of them could fit up here to have a meal with you.
Alaula snorted, getting your attention. He pulled himself up a little more, rocking your boat, and balanced himself on the steel rail to gesture with a sweep of his hand out towards the great expanse. The snow wasn’t coming down hard enough to obscure the gray horizon – and that’s all that was out west and south. Ocean. Miles and miles of open, deep, water.
Your eyes snapped back to the golden nereid. He was stocking up.
Along the side of the deck was a quaint little bench – but the seats were actually a lid to a livewell. Making sure Alaula was watching, you crossed the deck and opened it, dropping in the dead fish. The frigid, icy water circulating within would keep it fresh for now, but you made a mental note to pull that one first when food was needed.
The golden nereid craned his head to look, tilting your boat even more. If Alaula tried hard enough and had help, he might be able to tilt it completely over. He spoke to Koa, fins flicking in that animalistic way of communication. You yipped when Koa pulled himself up on the opposing side of the boat, leaning in to drop off his bounty in the catch.
“Okay. We should pack, then.” You went to help, taking the tangled mess of seaweed Koa clutched against himself and tossed in it the well. You waved him off, and held onto the railing to steady yourself as the boat rocked back towards Alaula. In so many gestures, you mimed as you spoke, “Bring whatever you catch to me. I’ll get it packed and stored away.”
Alaula nodded and returned to the sea, leaving a charge in the snowy air. If this was the kind of journey where they feel the need to pack your boat with food, then it must have been one hell of a trek. You doubt that nereids at their size would find crossing deeper waters easy. The rest of the day was preparing. You sorted the dead from the live fish, packing the dead ones in the freezer. Everything else was tossed in the livewell.
Snow started to fall harder, and you couldn’t see anything past the rails of your boat. The nereid brothers continued to bring you more and more till everything was packed full. You even emptied a cooler of beer and filled that up.
There was no way you could navigate this whiteout. You’d be on top of a rock first before you’d see it jutting from the water. It couldn’t be helped. The nereids needed to prepare, and the time spent was not time wasted. You had to wait for the weather to clear before you could set sail.
You felt your boat turn, unnaturally. The prow pointed out towards where you thought was the open ocean. A trill called your attention. Koa was by where you set your anchor, and gave the chain a tug, warbling insistently.
You glanced back at the front of the boat. The rope that was used to lash the vessel to the dock was pulled taut. The nereids were going to lead you out.
This was it. There wasn’t any more you could prepare for, but you still felt like there was one more thing you could do. Was there, or were you hesitant to leave the island for the unknown?
You wouldn’t have survived on your own. The rocky terrain was difficult to traverse, there were hardly any edible plants to forage, and the best shelter you had was in a cave miles away from the best shore you could fish from. The nereids were your lifeline, just like how at one point, you were theirs.
The snow gusted in, stinging your cheek. Mother Nature wasn’t being a bitch to you. She was just trying to tell you it was time to move out with your ocean lovers.
You turned the crank and hoisted the anchor. Your boat started moving slowly out into the blizzard, and you had to trust the two nereids to know where to go. You saw the vague shape of the island’s cliff side, and you had to accept that was the last you’d see of your familiar, rocky home, before everything around you was swallowed by the storm.
You sought shelter in your cabin, at the mercy of those you trusted, and found yourself okay with it all.
~~~
They never had to worry over weather before you came along.
It was a strange new stress to check the skies often, to hope for gentle winds, and to curse the waves when they’d get too choppy. At least you had a place to warm up on chilly days.
Sideswipe wasn’t the type to feel grateful towards the divine. He was imprisoned and tortured, experimented on and ripped from his only family – but there were some mers who would believe that this was all orchestrated by the Guiding Hand. If that was true, he’d have some words, and some claws, for them.
Days became weeks, but the weather kept relatively calm throughout the majority of their long trek across the sea. The worst that it had gotten – and Sideswipe used your yelling at the sky as an indicator – was when the wind kicked up roiling waves and the thick clouds dropped sheets of rain.
Mainly, the wind and current had been favorable for the past several days. Be it the season, or something beyond understanding, Sideswipe didn’t dedicate much thought to it as his stomach grumbled.
Out in the open ocean was much harder to forage and hunt. This part of the sea was much too deep to search for shellfish or greens, and to remain on a straight path and hope to come across a school of fish was foolish. It was like finding a shrimp in a bed of lobsters.
Mers were not made for the deep sea.
Thankfully, they were able to store several weeks’ worth of food – but it had been several weeks’ worth of finding nothing and having to rely on their stores. It stretched a little further since you ate whatever human morsels were already on the vessel, but it still wasn’t enough.
Less food meant the mers tired easily. Your boat, as sleek as it was, would never be as fast as one of them, except for now. Sideswipe found himself crawling up to rest on your boat more and more. He was constantly hungry and tired, and he knew Sunstreaker was, too. It wasn’t the crankiness that gave him away, but how sluggish he moved, how he hung onto the boat and insisted he could keep going.
Trying to keep up became a feat. This was the terrifying side of human ingenuity: success with the least amount of effort.
“I’m getting really tired, bro,” Sideswipe hesitantly admitted for the third time today. His old injuries were playing up as his side started to ache. He held onto the rope you let trail behind your boat. “I’m really struggling...”
“Take another nap, then,” Sunstreaker said from up on the side of the boat’s hull.
“I don’t think sleep’s going to help. I’m starving –"
“We just ate.”
“Yesterday!”
Sunstreaker huffed in his usual judgey, irritated way, then huffed again in that ‘can’t be helped’ sort of softness. “Just keep going. We’re almost –
“Dead, Sunny. We’re almost dead. We’re swimming ourselves ragged.” Sideswipe cut him off. “We’ve never been this far out without food. Elders taught us as merlings: traveling over the deep is risky.”
“I know that,” Sunstreaker snapped. “But what do you want us to do? We can’t go inland – I can’t risk her being spotted. We have to ration out our food. We have to swim hungry.”
“We’re tired and weak, Sunny. If we come across any dangers, do you think we’d be strong enough to fight them off?”
Sideswipe’s concerns weren’t unwarranted, and Sunstreaker wasn’t about to tell him he was wrong. Out in the open was dangerous. This area was too deep. Without an island or shallows, coral or kelp, there were no secure places to rest or food to hunt down. Flanking your boat gave some semblance of security, taking on the appearance of a larger creature to anything lurking beneath. To rest and float, alone and out in the open, was asking to be someone’s meal.
“Okay, Sides. Let’s just eat the rest of what we got.” Sunstreaker was panting as if the argument exhausted him further. “Let’s both squeeze up there and take a nap. Let her take us the rest of the way.”
“You think she could?”
“No! I was being sarcastic!”
“Really?” Sideswipe volleyed. “Because to me, it sounded like a pretty good idea.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, except for the fact that they might tip and sink your boat. The times one of the mers would crawl up, you would yelp and shriek as the vessel rocked. It was a tight fit, and many a fin was tripped over and stepped on as the mers – mostly Sunstreaker – bullied you for space on your boat.
Sunstreaker started to feel foolish. He thought he planned well enough for food scarcity, but he didn’t think it would have been this bad. He got over the distraction of how happy you were with the gift they brought you, and even reined in his concern when you endured the snow to help store away their food. You knew the importance of planning, and you never once complained at the delay of leaving the frigid island.
But it wasn’t enough. With only a fish and a claw-full of mussels between them, it just wasn’t enough for the big mers. There was one who was faring better than they. You were a member of the pod, so there was no shame in consulting you.
“Hold on.” Sunstreaker dropped back behind the boat. He pulled himself up and hung over the railing.
The front reared up just a bit, but it was enough for you to yelp in surprise. It looked like you were napping in your chair. You must have also been exhausted, as you had not slept much throughout the nights – but you were on your feet pretty quickly to shriek at him.
Sunstreaker ignored your panic and mimed as he spoke. “We’re hungry. We’re tired. You have any way to help us?”
Despite your groggy brain, you processed a little faster than usual. You were familiar with all the hand-signs, but more so, you were familiar with the sag of his shoulders and the exhaustion in his face – which if that was the case, Sunstreaker really needed to get his sleep before meeting other mers.
You imparted your understanding with a fervent nod, now more awake than you were a few klicks ago. You gestured for him to wait before you rushed about the boat. You babbled to yourself, sounding a smidge panicked, as you hoisted up the sails. The boat slowed almost immediately with the weight of the mer dragging behind.
Sideswipe curiously drifted up beside Sunstreaker, trying to get a peek at what you were doing. He went to pull himself up, but let go of the railing as soon as you barked. As big as your boat was, it was ridiculous the amount of effort it would take to flip it over.
Sideswipe tugged at his brother’s arm like a merling pup. “Let me see. What’s she doing?”
“The usual. Running around like she’s got water-fleas on her tail.”
You circled your cabin, moving items from the narrow pathway along the railing. You unhooked a few cables and clipped them to the mast. After holding out your arms, like you were judging the width between the cabin walls to the railing, you turned back to Sunstreaker and waved him up.
You couldn’t mean...
You squatted down and slapped the narrow space insistently.
“You’re joking,” Sunstreaker deadpanned.
“What? What is she –?" You cut off Sideswipe by singing your name for him. The red mer traveled around the boat, finding where you were, and you motioned him up to grab the railing. Sideswipe hesitated. “You don’t like it when we mount up from the sides.”
You warbled adamantly. You turned back to Sunstreaker and skittered to the opposite side, motioning him over to do the same. The golden mer blinked. You had a plan.
“Okay. Do as she says, I guess,” Sunstreaker said, tone woven in a mocking and unsure drawl. He let himself down and went to the side you designated for him.
When Sideswipe pulled himself up, Sunstreaker was quick to put his weight on the side of the boat to keep it somewhat balanced. You barked and yipped at him, trying to direct where you wanted him to lie. Sideswipe grunted, squeezing in. The metal railing groaned and bent outwards, and there was a ping sound as a bolt snapped. The wall of your cabin popped loudly, and the side window had a crack down the center.
You didn’t get mad. You were not distressed over the damage to your new and favored gift. You were more concerned with getting Sideswipe settled and as comfortable as the limited space would allow.
Sunstreaker found himself smiling. You were a good mate.
Then, it was Sunstreaker’s turn. You motioned him up, gesturing to him where you wanted him to be. With similar damage to your boat now on his side, Sunstreaker’s tail laid the length of your vessel, and his torso squeezed out in the front deck. Once everyone was still, the boat floated evenly. A little deeper, but even.
You praised yourself in a cheer, obviously proud of yourself.
“Well,” Sideswipe said, looking over at his brother. “Looks like your sarcastic plan works. Now to hope nothing human flies overhead...”
“What choice do we have?” Sunstreaker grumbled. “At least on this, we can rest. You were right. We weren’t going to last much longer, going on the way we were.”
You checked on either side, murmuring to yourself. Evidently, you were searching for a way to the back of your boat, and settled for crawling through the narrow window at the front of your cabin.
“I’m sorry, did you say I was what?” Sideswipe teased with a laugh.
“I said you were an annoying little hatchling and I hope your fins fall off,” The golden mer snarled sharply. “We just need to last till we make it to those spires you found and restock up on food. How much further is it?”
“We should’ve been there by now. I’m worried we might have missed it.”
“And you made this trip all by yourself?”
“I had a lot of energy to burn, bro.”
Sunstreaker was about to respond, but a clatter in your shelter had him trying to search through the windows. You crawled back out, and he felt the urge to put his head in his palm, as he seen you do many times. You emerged with one of your bigger cooking pots.
“What are you –?" He cut off his words as you came up to him, tilting the pot to reveal that you brought out much of your human food. You had enough in there to share.
Sunstreaker was struck dumb. Over and over, he found himself absolutely taken with how selfless you were. At every turn, you thought more about them, worried more over them, given yourself to them, and you never seemed to hesitate.
“What is it? What does she got? Hey, Warm One. What’s that?” Sideswipe called for you, and you turned to show him. You handed out a large, brown bird’s egg to Sideswipe, and he didn’t move to take it.
“This is your food.” He looked between the egg and you. His worried gaze shifted past you to his brother. “We can’t eat her things. She can’t hunt –"
“I know,” Sunstreaker said quietly. “But... she’s a part of the pod. Don’t deny her this. She provides, just like we do.”
It was an unspoken rule of podmates, to give what they could to support the others. High tide raises all, not just some. But if that support was refused? It was essentially saying that you were not part of the family.
Sideswipe hesitated to nod. You technically weren’t mer, but you didn’t have to be. You were a part of them. You were a part of their pod, even when you couldn’t swim like them. He took your egg and popped it in his mouth, shell and all. The gooey inside nearly made him gag in surprise as he crunched down.
“So?” Sunstreaker said as he warily took the egg you offered him.
“It’s not bad,” Sideswipe said slowly. “Bland.”
Sunstreaker didn’t intend to be picky, but he didn’t want to be surprised. Mainly, he didn’t want to make faces in front of you. He ate the egg and thought the same thing. Nearly everything you gave them tasted strange, but it was food.
You gave them two slabs of red meat. It was frozen, but not inedible. The twins have tasted land mammal before, but this meat was very fatty and not as gamey. You had a few raw vegetables and fruits, which tasted like the dirt they grew from. They didn’t want any of that. Your taste buds were worlds different and inferior – as Sunstreaker had called it.
You ate what they didn’t like, which was mainly the wilted vegetables. You sat between them, back against the cabin, looking between the two before staring ahead.
The boat, and in turn, the mers drifted gently with the current. It was slow, but they were still gradually going in the direction they intended. Sideswipe huffed some, resisting from reaching for you to encourage you closer. Sunstreaker also felt the craving to nuzzle against you, to share his well-deserved affection.
They had to get land. If not for a good healthy rest and to resupply, then to feed their need to be by you. The need to treat you like a mate was beyond instinct, right now. You were theirs to shower with affection, and you deserved to know it, every day.
If Sunstreaker was in the water, he would have smelled the animals before seeing them. Off in the distance was the unmistakable sound of a blowhole snorting. Everyone’s heads turned in the direction of a pod of humpback whales passing by in the same direction your boat was drifting.
You hummed an impressed note at one breaching and slapping their tail on the surface. Sideswipe asked, breathlessly, “Are those the same kind...?”
“That migrate near the Reefs.” Sunstreaker looked over at Sideswipe, his slight smile paired with the pleased flex to his fins. When you met eyes with Sunstreaker, he inclined his head towards the whales, gesturing with his claws in the direction they swam. He spoke to Sideswipe, but hoped you understood him, too. “We’re on the right path.”
You nodded with a smile, pointing in the same direction as confirmation. You rose to your feet and picked up your pot and any leftovers, then climbed back within your cabin.
Sideswipe laid his head down, eyes lulling closed. “Now I want to keep going. How long should we rest?”
“Let’s drift for a while. We need to digest and recuperate. We’ll sleep till –"
A roar of machinery drowned Sunstreaker out. Both mers pushed themselves up as much as their spines would allow, twisting to look back and see you at the wheel. You motioned for them to lie back down.
The boat jolted forward, and Sideswipe cried out in surprise, then cackled. Sunstreaker hunkered back down as you eased into a gentle pace. You gradually sped up. You took into account for their weight, as the vessel remained even and balanced, cutting across the water at a speed they didn’t know was possible.
The noise made it difficult, but Sideswipe fell asleep before Sunstreaker. The golden mer gazed ahead, pleased with this way of travel. Progress with the least amount of effort. You were so full of surprises. Eventually, he laid his head down. With you as their guide and sentinel, Sunstreaker felt more at ease to let down his guard, and drift asleep to the growl of the motor.
You were a good mate, but more so, you were a valuable part of the pod.
~~~
The ribbons of sandbars were beautiful, but disappointing.
You thought they were trying to take you to some kind of rocky island, but maybe you misinterpreted? Maybe you passed it? Didn’t matter. The nereids were happy.
It was a nice reprieve from seeing nothing but flat ocean water day after day after day. You didn’t know what cabin fever felt like, but you may have had an idea. Things went from magical to dull. It was the same view wherever you looked. The luster from sailing out into the open had died to gray. Gray skies, gray seas, gray mood.
Rainy days just added to the blegh feeling you carried on your shoulders.
The day you saw the sun, though, was when you realized you hadn’t seen it for weeks, and you were probably suffering from a deficiency. You started feeling much better as the weather started transitioning from cold and cloudy, to temperate and sunny.
You sat at the back of your boat, anchored in the shallows, and let your legs hang off the side. You could head for the beach, but judging by the sun and the lack of anything skittering across, that sand must be uncomfortably warm. You settled with watching the nereids zip around.
Renewed, they foraged and feasted. Soon, they would get enough energy to hunt. You would wait till dusk to scrounge along the beach for clams and crabs to add to what would get stored. You shared nearly all of your food, and between you and the two larger nereids, the pantry was getting sparse. You resorted to eating the things they didn’t want, including sticks of butter for the fatty calories. You couldn’t afford to be picky.
Buttered crab sounded nice, though.
The rest of the journey would be a little more trying. You no longer sailed with the California Current, nor had the south-to-north seasonal Davidson Current running up along the coast to cut down on the numbers of casual boaters. You’ve been lucky to not come across anyone else, but now, you worried over coming across any industrial fishing freighters transporting cargo. You didn’t have a clue of what part of the world you were in.
You just had to rely on luck, as you had been.
Your boat rocked as a nereid hoisted himself up on the back railing. Koa had a fish in his mouth, and since you hadn’t eaten a proper meal for the last couple of days, you figured he brought it for you.
“For me?” You tapped your chest, and the red nereid nodded, dropping it on the deck. He leaned in a little more, chuffing persistently. You laughed at the way he pursed his lips in his needy request.
You hadn’t forgotten about those days before the snow. You thought about it, often. You also assumed that once their rutting season was over, the passion would abate. You assumed wrongly. The emotional attachment was there, as there were several times where one of the nereids would sleep on deck and insist you lie with them.
They loved kissing. You became accustomed to hanging off the edge of the boat, giving awkward smooches when they demanded or whined for your attention. There were a few times your lip would catch on fang.
You kissed Koa, and he purred as he nuzzled against your face. You directed his attention by guiding his chin to the livewell, pointing. “We have to fill that, and then we leave.” With a sweep of your hand, you mimed a floating boat heading in the intended direction.
Koa huffed, casting a sad glance over at the strips of land. There was nothing for you, here. No trees, no grass, no wood, no rocks. Just warm, salty sand. He nodded before bumping his head against yours and launching off. Your boat rocked and you clung to the railing, grumbling.
You retreated back to the shade of the boat canopy, slathering on whatever coconut-scented sunscreen you found, now with extra glitter, preparing to do your part.
~~~
Sideswipe made a face as he licked you. “What is on you? That tastes awful!”
You warbled with an annoyed tone, swimming your way towards the sandbar. You scolded him sharply as he took your arm and tried to rub off these weird, sparkly scales.
“Why do you want this yuck on you? Stop fighting and let me wash it off.”
“Sides,” Sunstreaker warned. “Leave her be. Come help me. We have to gather as much as we can. We’re not that far, but far enough were we need to get something to eat – especially for her.”
They did eat the majority of your food.
Sideswipe feigned ignoring his brother to swim circles around you, making sure you made it to the sandbar. You had a few bags, and seemed to know he wanted his favorite – the one you always laughed at when slipped on over his chest.
“Touch your lips to mine, again.” Sideswipe pulled you close as you finished helping put on the pack. “I can’t wait to take you home. I want to show you everything.” You didn’t fight him as much as you rolled your eyes and didn’t look pleased to have your mobility held hostage. Your expression changed when he took your hand and pressed it against his chest. “I want you to learn about me, meet my friends, see how I live.”
You smiled softly, chirping out a gentle question. You leaned in to give him a sweet peck on his lips. You smiled against his mouth as he hugged you close, purring with an excited flicker of his fins. “You’ll love it. The Reef is so big –"
“Sides, cut it out and come help me,” Sunstreaker called out to him.
“-And there are lots of green plants for you to play in –"
“Sides! I swear to Primus!”
You glanced over at the roaring mer, then Sideswipe took your cheeks and smooshed your face. “And it’s nice and warm, so you’ll never get sick from cold, again.”
You giggled and batted his hands away. Sideswipe snuck in one last peck and pulled himself back into deeper water. He joined his brother in foraging until the sun clung to the edge of the horizon. You stored away all that they found – clams, crabs, eels, fish, and a few shrimp – and you bedded down in your shelter upon your boat.
The mer-twins slept deeply, resting up for the second leg of their journey.
~~~
You woke to the bottles in your mini-fridge clattering as the boat wobbled harshly. It sounded like your one college roommate rummaging through last night’s mess to find a drink and ease their hangover.
You stretched and rolled over, sinking yourself more into the mattress and nesting in the plush covers. As the days continued on and on, and the heat of the sun cooked the deck more and more, you spent your time in the shade of the canopy, or napping in your solar-powered, air-conditioned cabin.
“Keep it down,” You grumbled. “You’re ruining a good dream.”
A dream of kissing fish-men and of lazy, hot days of sailing over the ocean blue and not a dream. You sat up near ninety-degrees. It was broad daylight. How long did you sleep in?
You kicked off the sheets and quickly scrambled out of the cabin. Koa was hanging off the side, trying to wake you via rocking the damn boat.
“Hey! Stop! Stop that! What is it, what’s the –?" You stopped in mid-question, your gaze drawn to what the fuss was all about.
On the horizon, was a string of islands, but towering over them all was a lush tropical island atoll.