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Marinette🐞
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When her parents first told her the story of how they met, Marinette was skeptical. Throughout her childhood, her mother would share bedtime stories of so many wondrous adventures. She assumed Tom and Sabine were simply spinning a fantasy, much like she enjoyed spinning thread into lovely dresses. Her father had grown up as the son of a baker, and yet he’d risen into the position of the Commander of the King’s Army. He was a docile man by nature, though his body was more akin to that of a large bear. If he hadn’t been forcibly conscripted into the military, he’d have been content working as a baker himself.
When Queen Emilie was well, the kingdom had been noble and true. Everything changed after her illness when King Gabriel became twisted and obsessed with the dark arts of magics. He would stop at nothing to return his queen to his side— even find a way to cheat death. Unfortunately, the lengths he went to ended up harming Marinette’s family.
In spite of his status as commander, her father was at the mercy of the kingdom, bound by vows of loyalty that were enforced by magic and unutterably unbreakable lest his body transform into that of an actual bear. Though, the love of a husband and father was something the king’s mage wouldn’t risk, the fearsome woman had learned of the unusual background of Marinette’s mother.
Commander Tom Dupain had met his wife Sabine in the oceans of the far Northeast. His ship had been hit hard during a storm and he’d fallen overboard, certain to drown in the frigid waters. Except, a siren had taken pity upon him. Sabine was a creature of the ocean — a mermaid with a voice capable of drowning sailors, but she had never been comfortable with the idea of feasting upon man and preferred the fish and flora that were abundant in the sea. She saved him and abandoned her cove to live as a human with the kind man.
When Tom returned to the kingdom, he brought back a raven-haired, grey-eyed beautiful wife home.
However, the High Mage known as Nathalie Sancoeur had seemed almost gentle compared to the Baroness Audrey Bourgeois. Baroness Audrey was married to Andre, the childhood friend of the gravely ill and comatose queen. Audrey had been at the king’s side serving as regent and her casual cruelty seemed to know no bounds. She had two daughters and the oldest, Chloe, was been molded by that casual cruelty and somehow had bewitched Prince Adrien and yet the younger daughter, Zoey, had been a close friend of Marinette.
It was only with Zoey’s help that Marinette had been able to escape. Her mother, Sabine, had been locked away and held hostage to keep her father docile. The attempt to capture Marinette had been thwarted by Prince Adrien and Zoey helping Marinette escape, knowing their disobedience to their parents would be punished. Adrien had given her a mission, seek Empress Kagami and solicit her aid.
She must find a way to save them all.
Marinette had smiled bravely upon receiving the orders, right while her heart was crushed. Prince Adrien wanted her to give the foreign empress his promise of engagement for her help in taking back his kingdom from his father who continued to descend into madness.
So, Marinette secured her satchel with Adrien’s signet ring and the ancestral dagger her mother had passed on to her for her eighteenth birthday. If she failed to reach the Northeastern continent and convince the empress to intervene, Adrien would be forced into marriage with the Baroness’ cruel daughter. And Marinette’s mother would be only one of the many casualties as there was little doubt the queen’s prolonged sleep would become eternal. Marinette couldn’t afford to fail.
She’d never taken her mermaid form before, her parents always careful to avoid venturing to the sea, worried that it would call to Marinette’s heart and she would leave them. She took off the protective charm that her family had slipped onto her wrist since she’d been a young child and let herself wade into the warm waters of the ocean.
The tingle of magic from her toes up her spine made her shiver. Marinette took a deep breath and steeled herself as she waded further. As she slipped under the waves, body transformed from legs into a strong, ruby scaled tail, raven hair floating about her as a halo, Marinette felt more at ease than ever in her life. She was comfortable in her own skin in a way that aways before eluded her.
The journey would take nearly a fortnight. She could only hope it wouldn’t be too late and that somehow she would manage the unknown, dangerous waters.
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Luka🐍
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Life as the heir apparent for the crown of the Seven Seas could be somewhat stressful. There were countless leagues of territory and so many lives to protect. The humans had become more brazen of late, navigating their ships into uncharted waters. Today, Luka ventured to the west to keep an eye on the shark hunters.
He’d been fairly successful at keeping most of the sharks out of the hunter’s nets, but the humans were clever and persistent. They seemed to be under the impression that eating shark fins had the power to cure impotence. So countless sharks were dying for selfish human whims. Luka understood that the sharks were misunderstood and feared by the humans, but they served an important role in the ocean’s ecosystem.
As he flicked his long, iridescent blue-green snake lower body along with the current. If the humans caught sight of him, they’d fear him much more than the sharks. Luka was a Naga — a humanoid creature that could command the ocean around him and could enchant sentient beings with his voice. To humans, he was the definition of a monster.
To Luka, the humans were the monsters.
Then he sensed her.
There was something about her aura that created a melody that made his heart soar. Her hair was black at pitch, her mermaid’s tail glittered as ruby red.
Who was she? Where had she come? There were no merpeople in this part of the ocean. She didn’t seem to be a threat, but she was an unknown, so Luka followed her from a distance. A curious creature such as she, needed observation.
As she swam amongst the colorful schools of fish, she seemed to marvel at the coral reefs. Luka found himself humming as he watched her, vibrations in the water that caught the attention of a pair of eels that twined around each other playfully before they swam off.
He dared to swim a little closer, but careful to stay outside of her notice. With a powerful thrust of his serpentine lower body, he moved closer so that he could see her face more clear. What color were her eyes? What shape were her lips?
For several days, Luka kept his distance, careful to remain unknown and unseen. At night, he would close his eyes and listen to the sounds of her quiet songs. Her voice soothed the anger that often brewed in his heart — anger at the overfishing humans, the pollution dumped into his oceans, the treasures stolen from the sandy bed of the sea. Overtime, he was able to properly identify her unique scent — she was a hybrid. His Melody was part human and part siren. Dealing with the humans, seemed a small price to pay if someone such as she had entered his waters. Her existence should have been impossible. What sort of human managed to woo a siren?
He’d have been content watching Melody a bit longer, if she hadn’t strayed so close to the shark hunters. Recognizing the danger, smelling the blood within the water he rushed towards her, moving stealthily through the water.
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Marinette🐞
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While the ocean teemed with life, the sounds were vastly different than that of the surface world. The rushing of waves, the clicking of dolphins, the growling of sharks, the whistles of whales all formed an aquatic symphony.
She felt at once welcomed and separate from the sea creatures. Her heart longed to belong to life under the sea, feeling asunder from her old life on the shore. Taking a deep breath, her siren body separating the oxygen from the water, Marinette began to sing, letting her voice carry on the currents. The song blended in with the ocean’s symphony. The pitch was such that humans wouldn’t hear. She’d been on the receiving end of enough lectures from her mother than to risk attracting sailors towards her. She was half-human after all and it wouldn’t do to harm her father’s people. Though, her nature was that of protector not predator.
While her eyes still struggled to adjust to the scenes under water, she noticed from the corner of her eye, more often than not, a flash of shimmering blue-green.
Today, more so than the previous few days, there had been so many ships clogging up waterways. It became a great challenge to avoid them. Marinette was still too new towards swimming past the currents to be in complete control of her movements as she lacked agility as a mermaid.
There was one particular ship that was doing something to stir up the sharks. She’d never seen so many gathered in one place. She was still growing accustomed to smelling things under the water, but the strong scent of coppery blood was hard not to recognize.
The corpse of a butchered, half-eaten shark sank towards Marinette. The blood pouring out of its wounds attracting more sharks. She barely avoided a net cast deep into the waters, swimming frantically out of its path.
Clutching her hand over her pounding heart, she’d barely avoided a pair of sharks swimming past her towards the ships.
Then the nets came again, and this time, her hand was caught in the net and she barely escaped it before it was swept back to the surface. Blood continued to pour into the waters, attracting more sharks.
Maybe she could guide the sharks away from the carnage?
As she lingered in uncertainty, more frenzied sharks began to circle around her. A sharp stab of pain brought notice that her wrist had suffered an abrasion from when she’d been caught, spilling her own blood into the water, unfortunately attracting the sharks attention.
As the rows of terrifying teeth from a shark’s open jaws loomed too close, she felt him barrel right into her. A strong set of arms wound around her torso, strong as steel as a warm serpentine body pressed against her from behind.
She could feel his thick, muscular lower body twining around her mermaid tail. Marinette raised her hands, latching onto the strong arms that pulled her away from the blood-thirsty shark’s maw.
Together, they fell back, deep into the water, far away from the surface and from the bloody shark graveyard surrounding the ships.
Then his serpentine body twined around her tail and he turned her to face towards his chest, holding her close as he carried her through the water faster than she could manage on her own.
It wasn’t until a full two minutes later, in the deep recesses of an underwater cave that those strong arms wrapped around Marinette released.
The stranger swam back just out of arm’s length.
Marinette stared at him in awe. He looked mostly like a mer-person like her, but his tail was so much longer. Was he a mythical leviathan? Whereas her scales were crimson and her skin had a pinkish hue, his snake-like tail was a shimmering blue-green and his skin a pale winter-sky blue. His hair was shorter than her own inky black, but a similar darkness that faded into an arctic blue at the tips.
She was only able to make out the color of his features because of the bioluminescence within the cave he carried her inside. She was able to see fairly well in the pale green glow of the plankton. Her eyes were drawn to his broad torso and the well defined muscles. The level of fierce, unexpected longing she felt in his company made her crush on the human prince fade from her thoughts entirely. Was this the love at first sight her parents had told her about?
“You must be more careful around the shark hunters, Melody,” he warned, his voice raspy from the exertion.
“Melody?” Marinette asked, looking up into his aquamarine eyes. She shivered and rubbed her hands briskly along her arms. “Ma-Ma-Marinette is my name.”
“Ah, well, Ma-Ma-Marinette, I’m Luka. Welcome to my territory,” Luka greeted, a handsome smile upon his face, his perfectly straight teeth were sharply pointed— the teeth of a predator. Yet, his actions were that of a protector.
“How did you know to help me?” Marinette asked, shoving her dark hair out of her face where it kept floating to obstruct her view. “And it’s Marinette, or Mari. My name isn’t Melody.”
“Marinette,” Luka murmured, his smile widening. “I’ve been listening to you serenade me the last few nights.” He laid his hand over his heart, his serpentine lower body coiled beneath him, standing him on the stone floor of the cave. “Your voice is the Melody that sings in my very soul.”
She felt her lips curl into a smile and her heart flutter in her chest. This beautiful creature was a poet. “Luka, where have you taken me?”
“One of the caves I like to visit. I can show you around? You’re safe with me, Mari.” He extended his arm in invitation and Marinette swam towards him, her chest pressed against him as he held her close. “I’ll give you the tour,” he sighed against her ear. “And then you can tell me what you’re doing in my seas.”
Marinette stiffened as his large, calloused hands caressed the skin of her back. “I didn’t mean to invade your territory, Luka. I’m seeking an ally to help my kingdom.” She pressed her palms against his chest, her fingers curling. What was this magnetism that drew them together? She would never have imagined herself to be this forward! Her tail flicked beneath her, pressing her even closer against him.
“Ah, I could help you reach this ally,” Luka offered, his hands stilling between her shoulder blades and at her waist, where the scales met skin.
“What would be the cost?” Marinette had nothing to offer. She barely had any supplies, just a small amount in the pouch she carried strapped to her body.
“As it happens, I’m in need of a Melody,” Luka answered, his deep voice sending vibrations through the water that caused a shiver down Marinette’s spine. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?” Marinette whispered, finding it hard to breathe, she started to push away, but Luka’s hands pressed her closer to him once more.
“I am a Naga, Marinette. Half-man, half-sea snake. Like a cobra, Naga mate for life. The moment I heard your voice, you imprinted on me. The bond was formed.” He brushed his lips over the crown of her head, his hand shifted to cradle the back of her head, fingers twined in her long hair. “You’re a siren and you’ve lured me to you. What will you do with me?”
Marinette slipped her hands from his chest to cupped his cheeks, her thumbs brushed over the sharp angles of his cheeks. His coiled tail shifted under the middle of her tail, analogous to the back of her knees, bringing her up so that they were eye to eye. Aquamarine met sapphire and Marinette brought her lips against his.
Her fingers twined within his silky hair and Marinette lost herself in the feel of Luka’s body against hers. She could feel his lips smiling against hers as she drew back. “I think I’ll keep you."
