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There were a lot of good things to be said about storms. The raw chaos they exude, the loud noises raging on the outside, the exhilarating feeling of freedom and adventure when you’re standing in the middle of them.
Whenever Kevin tells someone that he loves storms, one reaction he’ll never receive is surprise – something about him and storms having quite a few traits in common. Hell, Brian had just mumbled something along the lines of “Of course you do, ye eejit. Chaos attracts chaos after all,” – however what turns out to be a surprise to most people is that the one thing Kevin loves more than the storms themselves is the aftermath. The quiet calm of the morning after a stormy night. The smell of wet pavement and earth. The leaves and branches littered all over the streets. The newly filled tide pools down at the beach. To Kevin it’s always felt like after every storm the normally busy city will just take a few moments to breathe and enjoy the newly cleared air.
Plus, the fact that Kevin can actually go out during the aftermaths of a storm without anyone wildly screaming at him to get the fuck inside sure is an added bonus. Despite popular belief, and his own actions hinting at the contrary, Kevin isn’t actually stupid. He knows that staying outside during a storm is dangerous, which is why he’s never strayed too far from his front door during the worst of it, but luckily for him the morning after a good night’s storm is just as invigorating and doesn’t carry the risk of people yelling at him.
So here he is once again, walking down towards the beach; feeling more that he hears the leaves and branches under his shoes, ears filled with the singing of the ocean breeze and the occasional drop of water being shaken off of the last few trees lining the path this close to the beach and hitting his head as he passes beneath them. The shore has always been one of his favourite places to go after the storm passes. The sea in these parts is rough and cold on a good day, but nothing can compare to the raw power it exudes on stormy days, the giant waves splashing against the tall rocky cliffs, spraying anyone who thought they were safe this high above the shoreline.
The aftermaths of storms are always when he finds the best treasures – vibrant seashells, small trinkets, crabs’ pincers, one time he even found a bright green scale that he suspects to belong to the ekso- exoc- the flying triton that will sometimes soar through the air of the bay. There’s an entire shelf in his house designated to holding his treasures, and barely a year after moving here the space is already getting pretty cramped. He’ll probably have to free up a second shelf for his collection. Brian might think he’s being ridiculous, but he really has no room to judge, considering the truly astounding number of books and various loose papers he has on merfolk.
The gravel of the path soon gives way to wet, sandy inclines as he slides more than he climbs down to the smoothed-out rocks covering the upper half of the beach. They’re wet and slippery, so Kevin carefully makes his way further down until his feet hit the sand again – though not before picking up a particularly pretty rock, dark grey with white lines and sanded down from decades at the mercy of the waves. He spends a few moments perusing the beach for any interesting finds, but it doesn’t take long for him to set off to his main destination for the morning, one arm weighed down by a piece of driftwood.
The rocky formation further down the beach – halfway between his access point and the cliffs that rise up into the sky and separate this beach from the next one – is too high to be submerged by the tides for most of the year, instead reaching out from the edge of the beach like a dark, sharp finger, stretching in hopes of reaching the sea, unbothered by ebb and flow. Storms are one of the few exceptions to that, splashing fresh water into the tide pools dotting its surface, and whenever the small coastal city Kevin calls his home has been hit, this is where he ends up finding the most interesting and unique treasures, like the aforementioned scale or that ancient looking gold coin Kevin discovered just a couple weeks ago.
It’s one of the few things he didn’t end up keeping, giving it away to his neighbour, this nice little old lady, who knows way more about old things than him and ended up sending it to a museum. He should probably go over and visit her for tea again, they haven't done that in a while and she always seems so happy when he's there.
It doesn't take long before his musing is interrupted, and he finally reaches his goal. His hands find the grooves and crevasses – familiar after almost a year of coming here every other week - that he uses to haul himself upwards onto the large plateau. Now to the really fun pa-
His thoughts grind to a halt as he actually takes in what's in front of him.
For just a moment he believes that he found some unfortunate soul, a person who had been caught up in the storm and ended up washed ashore, battered and bruised.
That illusion doesn't last long.
Even if the darkness that creeps up the figure’s arms could have been explained away through a number of ways, there is no mistaking the glistening black tail barely visible in the muddied water.
Now Kevin knows merfolk exist, everyone here has seen their local triton flying through the air of the bay in the distance before, but there’s a huge difference between that and finding one washed up in a random tide pool. He can feel the panic slowly building up. What is he supposed to do? Should he call Brian? He’s the one always going on about these creatures after all. He’ll probably know how to deal with the situation, right? These things are notoriously hard to catch and dangerous to boot. Aggressive, equipped with sharp claws and even sharper teeth, most recorded merfolk encounters have ended with spilled blood on the human side.
Though looking closely Kevin might not have to worry too much in the first place, it seems. The water around the creature is darkened by what he originally thought was mud, but a closer look reveals not only a distinct reddish tint, but also a coppery smell in the air. It's already wounded and clearly not conscious, laying as still as it is under the early morning sun.
Is it even alive?
Now Kevin might not be stupid, but he is curious to a fault. There’s no telling if he’ll get an opportunity like this one ever again, and just poking it with his driftwood for a bit before contacting the authorities – and Brian – shouldn’t do any harm, right? Plus, it’s his duty as an upstanding citizen to get as much information as he can before he makes that phone call. It’s not like anyone is there to stop him anyway.
His mind made up, Kevin tightens his grip on the porous wood in his hands and inches closer, step by step. The figure doesn’t move a muscle, and once he’s close enough to see past the arms splayed onto the rocky shore, he can see that its eyes are closed under the brown hair fanned out across hi- its face. Emboldened by this, Kevin closes the remaining gap. Despite his earlier bravado his hands still shake when he reaches out with the driftwood and pokes it into the creature’s shoulder.
There’s no reaction.
His eyes travel over the creature’s body, trying to spot the bigger injury it’s bound to have. Its back is littered with bruises and scratches, but nothing that looks severe enough to be the source of the blood. It’s still breathing at least, though Kevin throws a quick glance towards its face confirming that the triton hasn’t woken up yet. It wouldn’t do him any good to be caught off guard after all.
His gaze travels further down, lingering on the submerged tail. There’s something weird about it. Now Kevin might not be an expert on this subject and merfolk are rare enough that any research on them has more than a few gaps, but everyone back at the aquarium has been pretty adamant on the fact that the tails are supposed to shine in a myriad of colour, multifaceted scales in any hue imaginable, mixed together to form intricate patterns. The few times Kevin managed to spot the triton who roams the bay, effortlessly gliding through the air, the sun reflecting off of its tail, the bright turquoise and almost toxic green had been so far removed from the black of the creature before him.
It's not like the tail is a solid matte black, the sun reflecting off of the dark scales makes them shimmer not unlike a scarab’s carapace, but it’s still very different from what he’d expect.
He’s so transfixed by his observations that he doesn’t notice the eyes of the creature fluttering open.
What he does notice is the way it suddenly lurches towards him and the stinging pain in his cheek.
There’s not a whole lot that Daniel remembers of last night other than the full-bodied pain and the suddenly encroaching darkness.
He’s still in pain when he wakes up, and his upper half feels uncomfortably itchy to top it off, not to mention just how heavy he feels. The ground he’s lying on is rough and there’s sunlight hitting his back. Belatedly he realises just what that itchy feeling is. Dehydration. He’s on the surface - at least partially.
This is bad.
This is very, very bad.
Okay, deep breaths, Daniel. Panicking won’t do him any good. With any luck he’s just stranded on the shoreline, and he can drag himself out into open waters again. Hesitantly, and with a great deal of effort, Daniel opens his eyes.
His sight is blurred out, more of a kaleidoscope of colours than anything else, but there’s no mistaking the figure of an armed human towering over him.
Running more on instinct than anything else, Daniel’s hand shoots forward, ignoring the pain pulling through his lower body at the movement. He feels soft skin give way beneath his claws, but he can’t afford to wait for any reaction. With a hiss he throws himself backwards, feeling the sharp pain tearing through his throat at the rough treatment and not for the first time he wishes this would come as easy to him as it does to Seán. His hands scrape against rocks and barnacles in an attempt to scramble away and back into what is hopefully the ocean behind him, gouging small marks into the skin of his palm in the process.
His lower back slams into a rocky outcrop, forcing him to a standstill. Daniel's eyes blink rapidly, trying to clear up, to endure through the pain, to assess the situation, to do anything, really.
It’s hard to make anything out with how blurry the world around him is, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that no, he isn’t right at the border where ocean and land meet, he’s in a tidepool barely big enough to fit his entire stretched out tail and so shallow that the ledge digs into the skin just below his shoulder blades– in other words, he’s royally fucked.
The slightest movement from the human – a shocked stumble backwards – is all it takes for his attention to snap back to the acute danger. While in recent years humans have taken to capturing his people instead of straight up killing them, this is still not a safe situation to be in. Most of those who get tangled up in the human’s nets never make it back, and the very few that do will refuse to talk about it, often wasting away in the months afterwards, becoming a hollow husk of who they once were. Ever since he was young, he's been taught never to take his eyes off a predator. Them seemingly not being quite as lethal anymore isn't going to change that.
Letting the humans take him is not an option, but how is he supposed to get away from here? He only momentarily allows his gaze to flicker from the human to the ocean. It’s a blue speck on the horizon, the tides low as far as he can tell. His eyes jump back onto the human as he considers his options.
Even without the added complication of this human, his chances of getting back into the sea are slim. The water is too far away for him to drag himself all the way there, especially since he seems to be on some sort of rocky ledge. Of course, the steadily thumping pain at the base of his tail that he’s been doing his best to ignore doesn’t ameliorate his outlook at all. Even without looking, the tell-tale smell of blood and the familiar sting of salt in a fresh wound make it obvious that dragging himself over stone and sand would be even less fun than it usually is.
Waiting for Seán to come and get him isn’t a possibility either. Who knows how long it will take him to even realise that Daniel is gone, not to mention how much time he’d have to spend looking for the right beach and finding him. Even if Daniel hadn’t been found by a human already, the odds of no one stumbling across him until Seán would have gotten here would have been minuscule at best.
He’s well and truly stuck then, at the mercy of this human. At least his earlier aggression has made the human wary of approaching. With any luck he’ll just fuck off and take his sweet time coming back with reinforcements. Sure, the drop and drag method wouldn’t be fun, but he’d take it over capture any day.
At this point Daniel has pretty much resigned himself to the slow and painful crawl back towards his home, but he’ll have to get the human to leave first. It shouldn’t be too hard, seeing as how he’s still obviously shocked, another little nudge would be enough to get him to high tail it out of there.
Daniel experimentally swallows, testing to see if he can afford another hiss, maybe that could spur him into action, but the motion is painful enough to make his ears flatten down against the side of his neck, and he can feel the way his face contorts into a pained expression.
The human’s eyes track the movement. His face shifts from shock to confusion.
Shit, without the fear clouding the human’s judgement there’s no way he’s going to leave Daniel alone long enough for him to make any escape attempts.
He’s still standing where he stumbled to a stop, far outside of Daniel’s reach, so even if he could stomach another attack – which without the adrenaline and instinct fuelling his strike Daniel doesn’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon – it wouldn’t be an option.
Confusion becomes comprehension. Has the human seen his wounds? Realised just how defenceless Daniel is right now? Whatever just clicked within the human’s mind, Daniel has the unpleasant sensation that his time to remedy the situation has just run out.
The human raises his hands and Daniel flinches back, trying to flatten himself even further back into the rocks behind him, eyes tracking the piece of driftwood he had mistaken for a weapon earlier (though a hit with that thing would probably do its fair share of damage). Daniel expected the human to take action, what he didn’t expect was for the human’s steps to falter upon seeing his reaction. The man comes to a standstill at arm’s length from the pool – Probably still cautious after Daniel’s earlier attack – but instead of the expected attempts to catch him, or even find backup, he simply sits down on the still wet rocks.
The movement is slow and gradual, almost like he doesn’t want to scare Daniel any further. He then raises the driftwood again and tosses it, far away from the both of them. Is this some sort of attempt to trick him? Lull him into a false sense of security? It’s in moments like these where Daniel’s lack of human interaction for the entire duration of his life really comes to bite him in the ass. Despite Seán’s best attempts to teach him about their culture, he still doesn’t know anything about actual human behaviour.
A strange rumbling distracts him from his musings, strangely reminiscent of his best friend's attempts at the human language, and holy shit, when exactly did he get lost in his own thoughts? Daniel mentally chastises himself; he should really know better by now. He’s been living independently for a good few years, you’d think that your survival instincts wouldn’t just dull down like that. The rumbling noise filters into his hearing again, forcing him to turn his attention back onto the human. If anyone ever asks, he can probably blame it on the blood loss. Or tell them he hit his head. Just to spare himself the embarrassment.
Daniel dutifully ignores the part of him that points out that for that to happen he'll have to get out of here in the first place.
A quick peek confirms that the strange noise he heard was indeed the human talking to him. He’s still going at it, words rolling off his tongue, and forming a pleasant melody. He doesn’t sound aggressive or anything, his tone staying calm, though there are some nuances that Daniel can’t quite identify in his inexperience. The apparent friendliness coming from the human doesn’t have to say anything though. With Daniel not understanding a lick of what’s being said, the human could be detailing exactly how he plans to hurt him, and Daniel would be none the wiser. He tries to impossibly squeeze back even further against the wall.
His incomprehension must be showing on his face as the human tilts his head to the side and stops talking. Daniel might be foolish for this, but he almost misses the gentle sound. At least it filled the silence between them better than the ocean breeze ever could. The human suddenly moves and Daniel flinches back again, prepared for anything the universe might throw at him now, but instead of approaching him, the human stays right where he is and instead angles himself towards the ocean.
One of his fingers points out towards the deep blue waters on the horizon. It then moves to point towards Daniel and finally he pokes the finger into his own chest.
Just what is he trying to say? He can’t possibly mean what Daniel thinks he’s meaning, right?
Not to be discouraged by Daniel’s lack of understanding the human points again, more frantically this time, first at himself, then at Daniel, then at the ocean, finishing it off by miming carrying something.
No, Daniel wasn’t mistaken, the human is actually suggesting carrying him out to the water. There’s no way he really means that. This is some sort of trick, a subterfuge meant to lure him in, make him feel safe so the human could get him when he least expected it. Daniel vehemently shakes his head, pressing himself further into the rocks behind him.
The human looks frustrated now, but once again goes through the whole charade, wincing when the movement pulls at his injured cheek. Daniel’s eyes are drawn towards the three bloody gouges. They make him realise something.
He’s hurt this human.
He normally couldn’t stomach doing something like this. But the human doesn’t know that.
He’s hurt this human, and as far as that human is concerned, he could hurt him again.
He’s hurt this human, and yet, the human is still here.
He’s hurt this human, and he’s still offering his help.
In this human’s eyes, Daniel would fully be able to hurt him – even kill him – if he doesn’t bring him back towards the ocean. So, if he’s offering his help, he probably has every intention to follow through with the deal.
This still doesn’t mean that Daniel trusts the human, not fully at least, but he doesn’t really have another choice. There’s no way Seán would find him before the next humans show up. Accepting the human’s help is the best chance he has right now.
His choice made, Daniel detaches himself from the wall and slowly approaches the human. His hesitation is obvious, but the human’s eyes light up when he sees that, and he crouches down near the edge of the water.
He doesn’t approach any further, letting Daniel come over to him, he does however start talking again. By now Daniel is so used to not understanding him, that he tunes the rumbling out at first, focusing on inching closer. That is until he realises that the human is repeating the same two syllables over and over again while pointing at himself, starting with a pretty hard sound and finishing with a melodic lilt. Is this the human’s name?
What is it? C’he-fin? Khe-win? Something along these lines, at least. He pushes himself the rest of the way into the human’s reach and shoots up a tentative smile. It’s shaky at the best, but if the huma- Khewin is going to put himself out there to try and make him feel more comfortable, Daniel is certainly going to put in the effort himself.
His attempt is rewarded with a beaming grin and Khewin slowly reaches down to wrap his arms around Daniel, mindful of his injuries. He does tense up when Daniel’s hands come to rest behind his neck, claws straying just a bit too close to his throat for his comfort probably, though to his credit he doesn’t falter when he finally straightens up again with Daniel in his arms.
Being fully out of the water is uncomfortable, and the walking jostles his wounds, but with the reassuring tone of human language rumbling through him the trip doesn’t feel quite as long as it probably could.
The moment the water beneath him seems deep enough he wriggles out of Kehwin’s arms and pushes himself deeper into the sea. He does take a few seconds to stop and look back at the human back near the shore, knee-deep in water and somewhat flabbergasted by Daniel’s quick departure. When he sees Daniel’s head bob up over the water though his eyes light up and he lifts a hand for an energetic wiggle. Wasn’t that one of the human greetings Seán introduced him to? Daniel lifts his own hand and wriggles it from one side to the other. He’s rewarded with delighted laughter, which seems to accompany him even when he finally sinks below the water again.
A fond smile forms on his lips. Maybe this one human really isn’t as bad as he thought.