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Neuvillette darts through the water excitedly. The storm last night means that the lumitoiles will have washed onto shore, and be so much easier to pick up, whereas underwater, they cling onto whatever surface they’ve attached to with supernatural force.
He loves storms that bring a quick high tide, because it washes up other easy prey onto land as well, and he wouldn’t have to hunt. He’s not a bad hunter, per se. He had been gifted with sharp claws and fangs, unlike some of his brethren who only had fangs or claws, one or the other, but he hates opening his mouth so wide, and when he hunts, debris often gets slipped under his nails, and he hates that too.
Regardless, today would be a day where he doesn’t have to worry about hunting.
He breaks through the surface of the water, and immediately finds his usual scavenging grounds—a white sandy beach cove with shallow pools of water left behind after the tide receded. The blue-pink gleam of lumitoiles immediately attract his frenzy, and he scoops up two in one go to stuff into his sack.
He leverages himself over the rocks and into one of the pools further into the cove, scales protecting him against the scrape of stone, when his eyes adjust to the darkness and sees something dangerous—
An orca.
He’s never seen one before. Orcas are dangerous creatures, eating almost anything smaller than them, and Neuvillette is no doubt smaller than this one.
Its hulking form, at least three if not four times his size, is shoved far inland, dry and crusted with sand, but even on the verge of desiccation as it is, the orca is magnificent in more than just its size. Six arms, all smooth and full muscle, possess a wheat color similar to deep sea merfolk. Its tail, smoother than its upper body, has a pure white and black dermis that looks soft to touch. Both textures of skins, however, are bleached unhealthy with a crust of white sea salt.
But the thing that tugs Neuvillette closer is the wired nets that bound it painfully to one of the cove’s stalagmites, cutting into flesh until a steady mix of blood and pus fill the shallow pool it lays in.
It’s dying.
He ventures closer, dragging himself through the half-wet, half-dry sand, stopping just a bit away when he hears the orca give a weak, warning click.
He swivels his head to meet icy blue eyes, hazed over with pain, but gleaming with a will to fight.
It—he—is conscious.
“I won’t hurt you. I will cut away the wires for you, so don’t eat me.”
The orca stills, so impossibly still that Neuvillette wonders if he had expired right then and there, but a beat passes, and the orca lets out a few softer clicks. “Why?”
His voice is low, deep, but terribly fragile.
“You are sick,” Neuvillette says, grabbing a sharpened rock from his sack that he uses to pry open oysters. When he approaches with it, the orca tenses, but does not do anything. Not when he slips it under the wires, not when he’s sawing away at it, pulling it taut against the orca’s skin.
“That doesn’t explain anything,” the orca grumbles, but Neuvillette doesn’t have any other explanation to give.
He works away at the wires until they bite into his own scaled flesh, the protection on his fingers not enough to stop the bruising and the redness. It’s when he tugs a little too hard, hand slipping and wire cutting into the webbing between his hands that the orca finally moves, and Neuvillette wonders if he had annoyed it—
“Enough. There’s no point in it.” The orca is resigned instead, and it seems that it moved to pull itself away from Neuvillette—with what little room it could move anyway. “Your own tail is drying. You should return to the sea while you still can.”
But Neuvillette feels unwilling.
“And leave you here to die?”
“Otherwise we both die.”
“…I will find something sharper,” Neuvillette says, hating the look on the orca’s face. He leaves his sack there so he’s unencumbered in his search for a sharper tool, but before he goes, he hears a faint ‘wait.’
When he turns, the orca looks embarrassed, as if he hadn’t meant to call out. Neuvillette waits patiently, until— “If you can’t find anything, don’t bother. When the high tide comes, I will survive.”
Neuvillette scowls. How would the orca survive? He looks like he had been bound here for longer than one high tide, and he’s grown so weak—he will only get weaker still, even if night’s waters refresh him. The prey that gets washed ashore is plenty for Neuvillette, but for an orca, that kind of food is but a mere mouthful. Not to mention the infected wounds hidden beneath the wired nets—
“I will return.”
He will hear no protest, and shimmies back to the shore.
The sun has baked the sand between the cove and the ocean now, and it burns against Neuvillette’s skin, but he is determined to wipe that maudlin look off the orca’s face.
If he remembers correctly, there are Hunter Rays not far from this area. They like to carve into rock faces, making sharp, jagged surfaces, and leaving behind equally sharp debris.
He weaves through the water until he arrives at the location, and true to his memory, there are plenty of sharp rocks for him. The rays ignore him for the most part, perhaps due to having eaten already, and are merely floating idly. It gives him the freedom to peruse for the sharpest of the rocks, testing it lightly on the pads of his fingers.
He goes through many, and settles on four.
One has even drawn blood, and he quickly stems the bleeding with his mouth, but this action reminds him of hunger.
His stomach gurgles, and he thinks about the orca—he had forgotten to ask for the orca’s name as well as whether the orca is hungry.
When he returns to the cove, he brings a few oysters and fish with him. They’re not hard to catch, and some of the fish had coincidentally run into him with a stray current. The difficulty lies in bringing it back to the cove proper, past the sun-baked sand and now-waterless cove. By the first drag onto the hot sand, he’s already hit with a dizzy spell.
In previous scavenging hunts, he would already be back in the sea, tucked away in his shelf around this time. He had never braved the sun for so long, but he doesn’t need that experience to know that he won’t make it to the cove with just one hand, so he resorts to the use of his hair in absence of the sack. He wraps the oysters in the thickest part of his tresses and ties the fish by its tail. The rocks he puts in his mouth, biting carefully to avoid getting cut, and then with two free hands, he crawls back into the shade of the cove.
When he finally makes it back, the orca is breathing heavily, but there’s a strange quality to him—almost like he’s deflated.
“Orca…” he says, past the scratchiness of his drying throat.
Hazy blues peek open. “Oh…you’re back…”
Neuvillette doesn’t hesitate. He grabs one of the oysters and pries open the shell with his original sharpened rock—some water spills over his hands, and he feeds it to the orca.
What would’ve taken him two, three mouthfuls is easily devoured in one, juices and all. This close, he can see the orca’s teeth—pointed, but not sharp. Not as sharp as his. However, the muscle at the jaw flexes when the orca’s mouth closes over the oyster meat, showing a powerful bite, where fatality lies in crushing rather than tearing.
Surprisingly though, Neuvillette is not afraid.
The orca is gentle—his lips close demurely over whatever Neuvillette offers, never opening wide all the way.
He looks more coherent after the third oyster, turning his head away and refusing the fourth when Neuvillette offers.
“You eat as well. You cannot feed me to fullness,” the orca says, and Neuvillette doesn’t hesitate. He scrapes the oyster clean, finishing the fifth, sixth, and last one before gnawing on the fish. Without strength, he would not be able to cut the wire nets, no matter how sharp his rocks.
Midway through his fish, the orca raises a limp hand, bringing Neuvillette’s attention to it—most of the orca’s hands are free, actually. Only two are bound by wire, while the other four merely lie limp, possibly due to the lack of energy. The raised hand reaches for Neuvillette’s hair, carding fingers through it, tugging gently at the tangles where the oysters had nested.
Neuvillette hums, quietly appreciative.
“Are all orcas as polite as you?”
The orca chuckles. “Not nearly. I am weak now, but had I met you in the seas at my best, I wouldn’t be so polite either.”
It’s not something Neuvillette can dispute. Had the orca not been tied down and on the verge of drying up like crunchy seaweed, he might have killed Neuvillette on sight. Once he frees the orca, there’s no saying he won’t either—but to leave a fellow mer stuck like this is…
He finishes his fish quietly, and then gets to work, picking the sharpest rock to first free the orca’s tail fin. The stone catches on the wire many times, no doubt sending painful vibrations across open wounds, but there are no complaints. Not even a grimace of pain.
When the first wire broke, so did the rock. It’s both a celebration and a lament because Neuvillette had three rocks left, but there are countless tangles in the wire, and he doesn’t know which one will be the one to untangle it all.
He chances a glance at the orca, who had closed his eyes again, likely to conserve energy. If he even had any energy left to conserve.
He decides that he needs to choose wisely on which wires to cut next. If he can sever the bindings that hold the most resistance, the orca can break free of the rest, even in his frail state.
Luckily, he has a discerning eye—each bundle of wires that he cuts end up loosening most of the nets, and he even managed to keep a rock intact to cut three times.
By the time he’s done, a majority of the mess is off of his fellow mer and everything has been freed from the stalagmite. All that remains are tangles that wrap around the tail alone, which should be easy to cut off if he gets them to the water and find some natural rock shelf to tear it on.
The sun is setting, shining amber rays directly into the cove. The sand should be cooler now, easier to slide through. He’s hungry again, but he’s more excited than anything. They’ll be back in the sea’s embrace soon—
“Wake up,” he urges, patting the orca on the cheek.
But there’s no response.
His gut twists uncomfortably, and he lets out a small shrill cry through pursed lips—
Had he done everything for naught?
Had he completely neglected the moment his fellow mer died?
How foolish of him, to continue working away so hopefully when hope had been out of reach…
He looks to the shore, the trail he had left in the sand, and then looks back down to the orca.
He’s already done so much, what’s a little more? If a child of the sea dies, at least let him die in the ocean…
Wriothesley can’t say he hadn’t expected the betrayal from his pod, but he couldn’t say he had expected it either.
After years alone, he tried to seek out company and friendship. He had no need for a mate—no one would want him when they see the scars at his neck and his three pairs of arms. The mutation is a feared and hated thing, even his own family had turned against him for it.
He had tried to trust, tried to push down the paranoia clouding over him, but in the end, his paranoia had proven that it had not been paranoia at all—merely sharp instincts.
He had fully been prepared to die in the cove, suffering the consequences of his folly, when another mer had stumbled upon him.
Hair white like pearls and scales the color of the moon—
How beautiful.
But his paranoia had reared its ugly head once more—is this mer here to scavenge him? It would be a prize for any mer to take down an orca—his bones are strong and sturdy enough to craft things, and his thick layer of skin and fat could provide enough for a season. Dead as he is, he refused to be divested of the final moments of his life, turned into a prize for a weaker race.
And yet, that’s not what happened at all.
“I won’t hurt you. I will cut away the wires for you, so don’t eat me.”
If he doesn’t want to be eaten, he could very well just leave Wriothesley there. Wriothesley tries to find a reason why this fish would help him, but nothing makes sense.
When the mer leaves to scavenge sharper rocks to cut him free, he wanted to stop him.
Had the mother sea listened to his plea for companionship and sent this beautiful merman as an answer? If that’s the case, why is he leaving?
But in the end, he shakes away the silly thoughts.
The merman probably sees the hopeless situation, and is simply finding a polite way to leave. Any other orca in Wriothesley’s situation would hold him hostage, maybe lunge for a bite—but if the merman leaves him alone, he’ll let him go. It’s only fair.
And yet.
In the moments alone, when the heat of the sun dries his skin to the point he can feel it tear, he wishes the merman had stayed. He’s been alone most of his life—at least, if he had someone in his final moments, he’d let them have his skin and bones.
But then the merman returned.
He had thought it a moment of delirium, a dream manifested by his most desperate wishes. It proves reality when the merman poured oyster meat into his maw, and the flavorful, fresh food flooded his senses.
It’s enough—it’s enough. It’s more than he’s ever had. Surely, he should be content.
But he’s not.
He falls asleep as the merman works away at his bindings like promised, and when he next wakes up, he’s being dragged across the warm sand, towards the sea.
The merman is panting as Wriothesley lays on top of him as complete dead weight, but the merman doesn’t give up. His spindly arms reach out in clawed grasps, trying to find traction in the sand, one pull at a time.
Wriothesley wills his body to start, and pain assaults him on all sides, but he knows if he doesn’t do it, the merman will exhaust himself to death, and that’s a poor way to thank his savior when he can do something about it.
“Allow me,” he says, and the merman’s arms give under their weight, startled.
He wraps one pair of his arms around the merman, and the other two pair work to roll them all the way to the tides. When he is on top, he braces his weight on his elbows so as to not crush the merman, and when the merman is on top, he wraps his arms thoroughly on dry skin, to make sure he doesn't burn. Perhaps it's because he knows he's already dying, that he cares so much for another, or perhaps he had already started seeing the merman as something more than a stranger—it matters not. Throughout the journey of rolling to the shore, the merman makes concerned little warbles, which only makes Wriothesley even more protective.
How cute the merman is, being concerned over him.
The sweet salt scent of the ocean refreshes him the closer they get, but he burns and collapses right at the final stretch, muscles locking up in hellish agony. The sand, although no longer being actively heated by the sun, is still warmer than comfortable, and had not helped.
“You’re almost there,” the merman urges, tugging on one of his arms.
“Go,” Wriothesley croaks, the smallest wave lapping at his face. He can smell it—home. After days of torture on shore, teased by the high tide, he can finally sense the vastness of home. This is enough.
This is enough for him, really, but it seems the world isn’t ready to stop giving just yet, because the merman resumes the laborious task of dragging him the rest of the way.
He fades, and when his consciousness returns just the slightest bit, he is somehow returned to the cradle of the mother sea.
It lulls him comfortably, even as it stings his wounds, as if scolding him for having treated his body so horribly.
Bubbles escape him, and he knows that he needs air, but he can’t open his eyes, much less surface for a breath that only orcas and whales ever seem to need while the rest of the ocean had gills to get all they needed.
He curses his constitution in his mind until a pair of gentle arms encircle him and pull him to the surface—the buoyancy of the water helps him along—and when his head breaks the surface, he inhales.
The person holding him so gently can be no other than the merman. He knows that much. As he lays limp in the merman’s hold, head lolling onto thin but strong shoulders, he resolves to repay him somehow.
If he had to spend the rest of his life repaying this grace, he would do it. After all, this life is only saved because of him…
Neuvillette works tirelessly for three moons before the orca starts showing signs of life again. Luckily, even if the orca is unconscious, his body knows it needs sustenance, and would open its mouth obediently for Neuvillette to feed it.
He is daunted every time he sees those large teeth that could destroy him in mere bites, but as the days pass, he grows…accustomed to it. One of the orca’s snaggletooth even looks cute when it peeks out of his lips disobediently, and he find it rewarding when the unhealthy tinge of paleness gives way to a more vivid shade.
Sculpted muscle fills with a layer of pudge, giving the orca a stocky look, and making him harder to drag around when he needs a breath of air like humans do. Luckily, he only needs to drag the orca to the surface three times per moon, but it’s still three times too many when the orca has six flailing limbs, each one weighing at least half of Neuvillette’s weight.
Alas, he had started this arduous journey, and he is determined to see it through.
He does hope that the orca would wake up soon though. The prey in the surrounding areas have grown scarce, and he hates to compete with the Fontemer Abberants. The fish had been the first to go, and now, he digs through coral reefs for eels or octopus. He had been lucky to find a host of eels the other day, which he had promptly bagged and fed to the orca before gorging himself on an octopus.
Today, he’s digging in the reefs again when he feels an ominous gloom.
He looks up and around, but sees nothing.
He knows it’s not nothing though, and prepares to leave—it is only his instincts that let him dart away before he had a chunk taken out of him.
A shark.
Its teeth had come terribly close to his neck and shoulder, and unbidden, he can see strands of his hair cut loose by those vicious teeth before his tail had taken him far away.
It pursues him, launching for another bite, but he is unafraid.
Sharks mostly hunt alone.
He can take one, easy.
He falls back so that when the shark lunges, he is at its belly—and with an expert maneuver, his tail coils around it once, twice, and squeezes.
Not many mer can perform this, their tailbones more aligned with waving and wading through water, but Neuvillette had been born with more bones than normal mer. His tail grip is comparable to that of snakes, and he had mastered it due to a distaste of hunting with claws and fangs.
The shark struggles in his grasp, teeth chomping on nothing with near manic frenzy, and Neuvillette almost celebrates, before he catches sight of another shark.
This one larger than the one in his grasp.
It’s mate.
She sees Neuvillette with her partner dying in his grasp, and charges like a vengeful wraith, her fins cutting through the water with not a single displaced current.
Neuvillette is caught off guard and lets the shark go, bolting away to make a run for it.
The two sharks give chase, and he lets out a panicked trill when one of them comes near his fins, teeth snagging at the delicate membrane between the spines.
He knows—he knows sharks hunt well in reefs, but they’re too fast. He has no choice but to use his environment in an attempt to stall them, and rounds a corner to dive down into a crevice that could hopefully stop them in their tracks.
He squeezes in, the daintier of his scales falling off at the rough slide of the reefs against skin.
The smaller of the shark doesn’t follow—the larger one does, and her snout comes close enough to touch him.
He strikes out, raking four deep wounds on her face and she rears back in surprise, but she becomes even more enraged, opening her maw wide before taking hysterical, bubble-fueled bites.
The fury of her assault has Neuvillette pressing deeper into the crevice, heart racing faster and faster—
BOOM!
—until it stops.
He opens his eyes slowly, and a large shadow covers the crevice like an eclipse, pushing him further into trepidation.
Had another predator come?
He feels the waves of the water whirl in a deadly torrent, indicating the presence of a large-bodied creature. He stays still and hidden, hoping for the best outcome where the sharks are no longer a problem, and the larger predator stalks off with a satisfying meal, none the wiser to Neuvillette’s presence.
The smell of blood suffuses the ocean water, and even when his heart beat is calm, he fears—
A familiar clicking sound echoes through the crevice, but it's accompanied by a deep, sonorous hum, surrounding the water with the sound in all directions.
“Little fish, are you alright?”
That voice…
He inches out and finds the orca, well and awake.
His maw is a dark, bloody red, stained with the scent of sharks. All the scars that mark him, both old and new, make him look like an apex predator, and Neuvillette can’t fool himself even if he tried.
“You’re…”
A hand is held out towards him.
“Come, those sharks were part of a pack. Their group will come for them before long.”
He inches towards the hand despite the visage of death that the orca appears with. His recent brush with death pushes him to seek safety—and though he reminds himself that the orca is another predator, perhaps even more than the shark, he can't help but feel compelled to trust the earnest expression, and the pure sound of that voice.
The orca might have sensed his hesitation, not moving until his hand is well and truly within the orca's much larger hand, but once he has entrusted himself, he's swiftly pulled out of the crevice and into an all-encompassing embrace, carried through the waters in a steady tread.
"You're awake," he finally manages, after they swim quite a way away from the assault.
"Yes, I heard your call," the orca responds placidly.
"My call...?"
He thinks back, and remembers the sound he must have made when the shark had nearly torn his fin.
"You saved my life. It is only fair I care about yours."
Neuvillette hadn't expected it. He had hoped the orca would not eat him, when the time came, but to be saved by the orca? Humans know the concept of debt and honor, but most wildlife is about survival. If the orca becomes hungry enough, would he still care for Neuvillette's life...?
They make their way back to the underwater cave that Neuvillette had made a temporary home out of, decked out in seaweed and coral. The entrance is hidden cleverly by a swirl of water currents, and only by taking the correct ones can they find the cavern. He also doesn't expect the orca to navigate it cleverly, because these caverns are always easy to leave, but harder to enter, except he is constantly surprised today.
He finds himself gently deposited on a kelp bed, and the orca inspects his tail like it's a precious thing. His hand looks as if it could wrap around Neuvillette's entire tail with thumb and middle finger, but the touch is so gentle, Neuvillette can't help but think of the orca as anything but a predator.
"...what is your name?" he chances.
Ice blues glance up at him, and he's given a mild, close-lipped smile before a whistling buzz vibrates through the water.
Neuvillette tilts his head, and listens closely. "Wriothesley…?"
"Yes," the orca continues to smile. "That's my name."
"It's a strange one," Neuvillette hums. "Perhaps given by a human?"
"How did you know?" Wriothesley blinks.
"I too, have a human-given name." And he sings it.
"Neuvillette…" Wriothesley rolls the syllables on his tongue, mimicking the intonations with a chirp. His eyes light up, like clear, stormless skies. "How funny that we should find each other with similar names."
Neuvillette watches as Wriothesley's hands, clawless things, tend to his fin, smoothing out the ragged edges.
Yes, how funny indeed.
Neither of them leave, nor do they mention it, even as food becomes scarce. Call it attachment, call it curiosity, but they stayed together for a while longer than sense could dictate.
Wriothesley insisted on hunting for them now that he is mobile once more, to repay Neuvillette for his life-saving grace, and Neuvillette finds that it's a novelty, to not have to worry about food every passing moment of the day. There is a kind of serenity that reminds him of days when he could go on the surface for extended periods of time, of idyllic and halcyon seasons…but he had long grown accustomed to the life in the ocean, of hunting and being hunted. When the novelty wears off, Neuvillette goes to hunt together with Wriothesley.
It's a new experience, to know that someone is watching your back, that any predator trying to steal prey will be dealt with swiftly by a powerful tail slap.
Some predators, Neuvillette even gets to feast on. He's not a fan of the Fontemer Blubberbeasts, but the Armored Crabs are a delicacy he never got to try because as good of a hunter he is, he isn't as strong as Wriothesley, who could break through shells with a single twist of his hands.
They had found a King Armored Crab, and that had taken more than two hands, but Wriothesley had hands to spare. If two isn't enough, then four and six certainly are.
With less time spent looking for food, boredom quickly overtakes them. Wriothesley suggests that they go exploring, and Neuvillette, while inclined to lounge about at home, agrees on occasion. He shows Wriothesley the smoothest currents to ride from one end to another, and Wriothesley shows him the beauty of haloclines.
"How fascinating," he says, dipping a finger in the undersea river. He puts it to his lips, and finds that it's saltier than the ocean itself, with a distinctly mineral taste. "Have you ever swam in it?"
When he turns to address Wriothesley, he catches the orca staring intensely, as if he would just eat Neuvillette up in one bite. A blink, and Neuvillette wonders if he had imagined it.
"No, I'm not a fan of being drenched in all that muck," Wriothesley says, swishing his tail. "You're free to though. I hear it's good for scales."
Neuvillette does, indeed, dip his tail in, chirping in surprise at the warmth of the water. It feels nice, and when he waves his tail, it clings to him like a cocoon.
Wriothesley swims around him, circling idly as he enjoys the tail bath. At some point, he drifts off, and when he wakes, Wriothesley is decorating his hair with seaweed and romaritime flowers. He even finds a hydro crystalfly, trying hard to escape.
He laughs. “What is all this?”
“I want to give you beautiful things,” Wriothesley says, running his fingers freely through Neuvillette’s hair, and Neuvillette lets him.
When Neuvillette breaks free from the halocline, a stream of it follows him and his fins, like fine, silk ribbons.
This time, Neuvillette definitely catches the hungry expression on Wriothesley's face, but for some reason, he doesn't feel threatened by it. His heart skips a beat, but not from fear. He doesn't get much time to think about it when Wriothesley helps him rinse away the film of halocline water clinging to his tail. Those hands rub the salt off, and when they're done, his scales seem to shine just a bit brighter.
"You're beautiful," Wriothesley praises, and Neuvillette's fins flare out, just the slightest hint of wanting to show off.
"Flatterer," he merely says, swimming away with a flick of his fins brushing Wriothesley's face.
They continue their days just like that; they swim idly in sunray patches, and Wriothesley would, occasionally, be struck with moments of impulsivity that draws Neuvillette in, breaking him out of the mundane. It’s one of those idle swims that they venture a little closer to the surface, and Wriothesley, at one point, performs a leap for Neuvillette, typical of whales and dolphins.
His fins propel him forward and breaks him out through the water's surface, disappearing from view for the longest moment, as if he had gone flying like a bird instead of the marine creature he is.
Neuvillette had swam up, wanting to follow, but he's barely moved when Wriothesley comes plunging back down in a flurry of bubbles and turbulent waves, joyful chortles like a chorus in the water. He grabs onto Neuvillette before Neuvillette can be blown away.
Despite his size, he seems almost childlike in his glee, asking Neuvillette: "would you like to come leap with me?"
"I don't know how."
"Don't worry; I'll teach you."
Neuvillette refuses to tell him that he had been utterly entranced, but Wriothesley's ego seems to grow anyway when Neuvillette smiles and agrees. Wriothesley, despite his exhilarating glee, is a patient teacher, first teaching him to just skim the water's surface. Their fins are different, but Neuvillette's svelte body cuts through the water's resistance just as well as Wriothesley's dorsal fin. It isn't before long Neuvillette manages to make little arcs, and then agrees to being taken higher.
"Ready?" Wriothesley asks, wrapping his hands around Neuvillette's waist, as both of them are belly-up.
"Is this really a way to leap...?"
"Trust me," Wriothesley says, and Neuvillette just barely realizes how close they are. His agreement is a foregone thing, and he follows Wriothesley's lead on maneuvering their fins.
And when they had both broken through the surface of the water together, he had suddenly forgotten everything he had been taught because the view of the sky kissing the sea is like worlds colliding—like their fated meeting—and his head is empty of all thoughts except for what could only be...happiness.
When they fall back into the water, Wriothesley's body overlaps his, and Neuvillette couldn't resist the urge to curl around him, tail lightly flirting with the other's. He hears more than he sees Wriothesley's sudden stop, but before he could feel uncertainty over his own actions, the orca embraces him, and they tumble fully underneath the waves.
Their nights pass with similar feelings, and when the moon pulls the tides high, Wriothesley sleeps on the same kelp bed with Neuvillette, the extra arms keeping them in place so that they don't float away from each other.
Moon after moon, the season changes, once, twice, and again, until there is nothing in the waters left to hunt. Until Neuvillette had forgotten how to live alone.
"Come with me," Wriothesley says, on the eve of their departure from the cave.
"Where will we go?"
"Anywhere. As long as you're with me, I'll protect you."
"That doesn't seem very fair. I will only be a burden to you."
Wriothesley drags Neuvillette close to him, all six arms wrapping around him like octopus legs.
"You are my savior. My companion. My Neuvillette," Wriothesley says. "No burden at all, but if you are, I'd gladly carry you for the rest of my life."
Neuvillette feels himself heat up.
Although he is not a temperate creature, he had grown accustomed to Wriothesley's warmth, the soft give of his skin instead of the unforgiving stone and chafing sands.
He had once had a dream to live under the sun, and though he is cursed to never stand on two legs, he finds that the peace he finds in this mer's arms is something quite similar.
But...
"One day you will find a mate. You will leave," Neuvillette says, fins whipping in agitation.
"No, I will not. No mate will want me. I'm a defect," Wriothesley retorts, giving Neuvillette the most soulful look. It says, 'stay, don't leave, come with me,' and everything in between.
"You're not a defect."
Neuvillette's hands drift to the scars on either side of Wriothesley's neck. They're large, jagged things, inconceivably procured, and dip slightly into the skin, as if a pound of flesh had been carved out. The orca is a survivor, through and through, and Neuvillette—
"I want you," he says, throwing his arms over Wriothesley's shoulders. "I want you, my companion. My partner. My Wriothesley."
Wriothesley lets out rapid clicks of happiness and excitement, and Neuvillette responds with a trill of his own until they're waltzing in the water, Neuvillette's hair like a curtain that hides their modest feelings, slowly drifting towards their kelp bed.
"I am not dreaming? This is not a misunderstanding, is it?" Wriothesley whispers, face so close that their lips ghost over each other.
"No, not a dream, and no misunderstanding," Neuvillette replies, and closes the distance.
Neuvillette doesn't know if orcas kiss, but Wriothesley responds naturally, tongue poking out to pry at Neuvillette's lips. He opens up, and when their mouths slot together, Wriothesley's tongue fills his mouth until it's poking all the way to the back of his throat, stretching his jaw with a mild strain, sending sparks all over his body, which fires up upon the sudden introduction of what is unmistakably a mate.
He warbles through the kiss, his tongue struggling to repossess space in his own mouth, and even though he doesn't need air, even though his gills are still working, he feels as if he can't breathe. He kisses Wriothesley just as ardently though, returning fervor for fervor, and Wriothesley eventually pulls away, licking his lips, looking satisfied and hungrier all at once.
"You taste delicious," he says cheekily, and Neuvillette tries to muster up a scolding, but the kiss leaves him dazed and loose-limbed.
"Then savor me...?" he offers with a chirr.
"Don't mind if I do."
Wriothesley kisses down the planes of his chest, stroking at the iridescence of scales that shine all the way down to his slit, which is shamefully leaking. When Wriothesley licks at it, and Neuvillette keens at the gentle sensation—no one has touched there before, not even himself. When he had first come into this body, he had been ashamed, and much like Wriothesley, no one had wanted to mate with him, not to mention the fact that he had no desire for such things. Wriothesley's touch is like the sun without all the hurt, his warm, fat tongue prodding lightly at Neuvillette's slit until it bullies its way inside, one insistent press at a time.
His slit, wet with his own slick, slowly gives way, and the tongue goes deeper and deeper, until Wriothesley’s nose is pressed to the swell of flesh above his opening, surging in those final inches—
"Mngh!"
He moans as he's filled—the stretch, too, burns, but it is also pleasurable. Wriothesley doesn't give him much time to adjust. The tongue licks Neuvillette's insides like it is savoring a feast, and Neuvillette can tell he's leaking even more shameful fluids into the water, if the slight cloudy strands in the water are any indication.
Wriothesley too, seems to sense it, but seals his lips completely over Neuvillette's slit and sucks, drinking up the liquid like he would with romaritime flower nectar.
"Agh!" Neuvillette's hands, which had been grasping at the kelps, reach for Wriothesley's head, fingers tangling into the hair as he arches into the sensation. Wriothesley doesn't stop, his mouth a pulsing suction at Neuvillette's slit until he can feel his cocks begin to come out of his vent. Wriothesley's tongue plays with them, licking and swirling and prodding, driving him completely crazy, tail thrashing hard against the sand.
Wriothesley's other hands aren't idle—one of them caresses his tail, another plays with his fins, and a pair hold the width of his hips, to keep him in place while Wriothesley feasts. The last pair of arms curl up along his back and torso possessively, fingers rubbing into his skin and making him feel completely and utterly surrounded, engulfed by the presence of Wriothesley.
"W-Wriothesley..." he calls out, a whine to his tone that conveyed all intent.
When Wriothesley pulls away, Neuvillette feels the tongue leave in one glorious slide, leaving him bereft and empty, even as his slit falls closed around his cocks.
“I have to prepare you,” Wriothesley says hoarsely, one hand skimming down to insert a finger where the tongue had left, wiggling between the two protruding members, the tips blue and leaking. Neuvillette’s inner walls are soft, so soft and wet that Wriothesley can barely wait for Neuvillette to adjust before a second finger follows, and while the width of the two barely compares to the tongue, they’re longer and reach in deeper, making Neuvillette quail.
“I—I want you, Wriothesley,” Neuvillette pleads, but Wriothesley shakes his head, two hands holding him still while one caresses his face, even as a third finger is stretching him a bit beyond the girth of the tongue.
"You're not ready yet. I don't want you to tear."
The three fingers push in and out, tugging at the rim with each pass, exploring his folds like one would a coral reef for tiny morsels. Unlike Neuvillette, Wriothesley's fingers are dull and clawless, and their blunt tips nudge into his sensitive tissues in the most delicious way until—
"!!!" Neuvillette eeks out a high-pitched whistle as the fingers find the opening of his womb, the spongy entrance squeezing down as the fingers dig in. A burst of slick, liquid more viscous than the water around them, floods out of Neuvillette.
"You are too small," Wriothesley laments, and Neuvillette shakes his head.
"No, no you will fit. Wriothesleeyy...!" He sings so beautifully when Wriothesley flexes his fingers, adding a fourth that slides in easily along with the other three.
"Not all the way," Wriothesley refutes, but his voice is shaky. Hesitant. Wanting.
His fingers curl, and Neuvillette’s voice reaches a new pitch as his cocks shoot out a thin stream of turbid liquid.
The cavern fills with Neuvillette’s scent and song, his words taken and turned into staccato melodies that tell of pleasure. Chirps, trills, moans, and hums—all mix with the thick wet sound of Wriothesley preparing him—stretching him. His mind goes numb as his insides clench down on those fingers, the stimulation too much yet not enough. When he nears second orgasm, his slit tenses, clinging onto Wriothesley’s fingers like a greedy mouth, unwilling to let go—but Wriothesley pulls out anyway, and Neuvillette’s song ends with an unhappy rumble.
“Wriothesley…!”
“Behave,” the orca rumbles back, fingers at his hips digging into Neuvillette’s side when Neuvillette tries to arch his back, to show off his now-swollen slit, the pink parts unable to hide its lewd pulsing. It closes tightly over Neuvillette’s twin cocks—a stark, vivid color against the pure white of his scales, and even more eye catching than the blue of his luminescent fins.
Neuvillette ‘behaves,’ watching as the orca aligns their bodies together, attention torn between two things—the way he barely comes up to Wriothesley’s chest, unable to kiss unless Wriothesley curled over him and bent down to accommodate his shorter form. His tail is not any longer than Wriothesley’s, but it’s not any shorter either. Yet, their top halves are far too different, and for a moment, Neuvillette mourns how he had not been born an orca as well.
The other thing—he had not noticed when the orca’s cock had emerged from his own slit, and its sudden presence makes him hunger for it. It’s a lighter pink than Neuvillette’s flesh, blessed with a tapered end, but it is still thick—as thick as his four fingers, if not a little more. Yet while the thickness can be debated, the length cannot.
Neuvillette puts his hands on that wide expanse of muscled chest as Wriothesley slides his length against his opening, smearing all of Neuvillette’s fluids over his cock, tip catching onto the hole—but he doesn’t plunge in. Instead, he slides it against Neuvillette’s stomach, and they both see how deep it will reach. The tip, at its deepest, will penetrate halfway up Neuvillette’s entire torso.
Both of their breaths stutter, and for very different reasons.
Neuvillette knows it will hurt—mermen bodies aren’t meant to take such deep penetration, but his womb is empty, and the orca’s cock will no doubt penetrate all the way to scratch that itch.
Wriothesley however, worries. Neuvillette had already been thrashing and worming his way out of Wriothesley’s grip, madly fucking himself on Wriothesley’s fingers—he worries that Neuvillette will hurt himself on Wriothesley’s cock, and his worry is proven valid when he sees Neuvillette salivate, hips thrusting in a way that hopes the tip will catch and thrust in.
“Patience,” he repeats through gritted teeth, but his partner doesn’t seem to be able to hear him.
Given no choice, he lets out a low thrum used to call for a hunt—the sound of a predator having found the prey.
Neuvillette freezes in place as Wriothesley’s teeth grazes his throat, his topmost arms takes hold of Neuvillette’s wrists, pinning them above him while the bottommost pair holds down his hips, freeing the pair at the center to caress his stomach, one large palm splayed right over where Neuvillette’s womb would be.
“You will take what I give you, and nothing more, do you understand?”
Neuvillette whimpers, but nods.
“Good.”
Wriothesley takes hold of his tapered cock with his free hand and nudges the head between Neuvillette’s cocks, where he knows the opening is despite the tightness.
The head slips in easily, and so does the rest of his length, Neuvillette’s insides convulsing around him, sucking him in while molding to his shape as Neuvillette himself writhes, kept only in place by Wriothesley’s ironclad hold.
“Deep…!”
Wriothesley makes sure there is no pain, no bleeding as he goes deeper, groaning as Neuvillette clamps down.
“Relax for me, sweetness,” Wriothesley grinds out. It takes all of his self-control to pull out slightly before rocking back in, so as to not force his way through.
Neuvillette tries to relax, but he feels like he’s being lit on fire, the heat of passion taking over all conscious thought and action as his body reacts by itself without his permission, all involuntary and knee-jerk twitches. He can’t control himself, not with this, and not when his tail coils around Wriothesley’s tail, looping around once, twice, and holding on for dear life—
“AAAHH!!!”
—and Wriothesley slams all the way in.
Stars flash behind Neuvillette’s eyelids, sparking and fizzling until there’s not a single thought left. He can only feel—Wriothesley’s cock shoving aside his own to wedge into the spongy entrance of his womb, his cock throbbing inside of Neuvillette who is so, so full, he can’t vocalize anything but broken little thrums.
Wriothesley couldn’t help it either. The second Neuvillette wrapped their tails together, something in his brain snarled—he needed to breed his mate. Look at how willing he is. Look at how he’s filled up of Wriothesley, stomach bulging with the length of his cock. He had felt it under his hand when he rushed in, the way Neuvillette’s core gives way for him, hugging him so tightly in all ways, inside out.
“Sorry,” he bites out when he sees Neuvillette crying.
Neuvillette shakes his head. “M-more, more Wriothesley, I need, give me—“
When Wriothesley pulls out slightly, both of them moan. The sweet friction of being full, of filling—it drives them both insane, and they chase after it with short, quick ruts.
Wriothesley presses down on Neuvillette’s stomach, where the bulge moves according to the swing of his hips, salivating at the contractions.
“You feel so good,” he praises, curling his spine so he can lean down and kiss Neuvillette’s neck, blushing when Neuvillette tilts his head so Wriothesley can access the pale skin better.
Who is he to disappoint?
His teeth draw over where he knows blood courses through vital veins, but he doesn’t bite down. Never, he won’t ever bite down, but he scapes, he sucks, he scratches, leaving little red blossoms and indents in the delicate scales.
“Rhyth—sley—!” Neuvillette slurs when a particularly hard thrust has him cumming again, a fresh burst of ejaculate clouding the water between them. His cocks, elegant little lengths, twitch wildly, expressing themselves. His claws flex in Wriothesley’s hold, trying to break free, but Wriothesley only holds him down harder, fucking him harder through his orgasm.
With one particularly brutal thrust, Neuvillette screams, throwing his head back as Wriothesley breaches his cervix, crushing the two cocks between their bodies—only to pull away and thrust back in, again and again until Neuvillette’s eyes roll to the back of his head.
Seeing in Neuvillette in such euphoria makes Wriothesley see red.
He let go of Neuvillette’s wrists, he let his hands roam over the curve of each part of Neuvillette’s body, slick with more than just water. It’s an oil, secreted through the scales in an attempt to cool the body down, giving Neuvillette a divine shine to his skin.
Wriothesley licks it, and finds that he can’t get enough.
It tastes like ecstasy and wild, unfettered bliss.
With one last vicious plunge of his cock, he occupies every last inch of Neuvillette, and floods his womb until it is due to burst. He can feel this underneath his hand too, the way the womb, originally small and unbroken, bloats with his seed.
Neuvillette’s body gives one last spasm, and falls limp.
Wriothesley pants, not realizing how far gone he had been, nor how he’s now shivering with the aftershocks of pleasure still as Neuvillette’s insides massage him in rhythmic throbs.
He catches sight of Neuvillette’s wrists, wincing at the blue-black bruises ringing around the joints. Angry-looking fingerprints are left on the hips as well, and the only blessing is the fins, left unscathed, if a bit ruffled.
Neuvillette is a vision, laid out like a five-course meal, but Wriothesley knows he should refrain from overindulging. His smaller mate looks one orgasm away from perishing…but he does indulge with a few more moments deep inside, the more bestial part of his brain wondering if his seed will take.
He takes his beloved companion to another part of the cave, where the water currents run cleanest, and begins to rub the oil secretions off of the scales, knowing that while it makes Neuvillette look like a primordial sea god, it will be uncomfortable once it coagulates underneath the scales.
Gentle hands massage the bruises and blemishes, the love bites and all, before he finally pulls out, admiring the gape of Neuvillette’s slit, now more opening than slit, his cocks limp but unable to recede into the hole that is fucked too wide to close. His cum flows out in dribbles, mixing with Neuvillette’s cum.
He reaches in to scoop it all out, perhaps finding a mild sadistic pleasure when Neuvillette gives a plaintive whimper, but kissing his temple to soothe away his unconscious protest.
Still, seeing all of his seed flow out feels like such a waste.
He daydreams a beautiful dream—one where they both create a home, the sound of calves chirping and clicking in waters surrounded with warmth.
He wonders if Neuvillette would share this dream? The odds are high. The merman might not think so, but his expressions and desires are an open book to Wriothesley—but they have all the time to figure it out.