Chapter Text
The weather was abysmal: the sun remained hidden behind heavy clouds that had threatened a downpour since dawn, but worst of all was the suffocating stillness—not a ripple on the water, not a whisper from the sails, as if the world had frozen in anticipation of disaster. The nearest land was still days away, and every hour in this unnatural silence stretched like tar.
Under normal circumstances, the route wasn’t considered dangerous, despite the jagged rocks and coral reefs lurking beneath the surface. The true peril emerged only when rains and melting snow swelled the sea, concealing the stones beneath a treacherous glassy sheen—or when storms erupted, reducing mighty ships to helpless splinters, tossed chaotically in the raging depths.
But a dead calm… To sailors, no weather was more terrifying. It drained hope from men drop by drop. With luck, it might last a few hours. Without it—days. Weeks. With no way to preserve provisions in the relentless humidity, food rotted quickly, and the water in the barrels turned foul, becoming a putrid sludge. When supplies dwindled, whispers spread in the hold about the last resort—about what had happened on other ships stranded in the same windless hell… When hunger gnawed at reason and thirst scorched throats, even the strongest began eyeing the weakest. History knew too many cases where a prolonged calm led to cannibalism—the final threshold of human despair.
Xeno had known since childhood that Lady Fortune was not kind to him. He realized it the moment he was born in a remote island town where people considered him a spawn of hell. His snow-white hair—as if he'd gone gray in his cradle—and pitch-black eyes with no visible pupils terrified the superstitious locals.
The irony was that he lived in a church orphanage and never missed a sermon. Xeno didn’t believe every word of the Bible, but he understood the precariousness of his position all too well. He’d lost his parents before he could even remember their faces, and the townsfolk took this as further "proof" of his cursed nature.
Not that he was an angel. His revenge was far more cunning than those narrow-minded fanatics with their moldy brains could ever imagine. He poisoned livestock, tore fishing nets, ruined catches—yet always stayed in the shadows. To divert suspicion, he even made himself the "victim" of his own schemes. There was no pattern—Xeno planned every move meticulously, as if playing chess against the entire town.
Not that it spared him from fresh accusations. They blamed him for everything: sudden storms, drunken fishermen’s deaths, droughts. As if he had power over the elements or some deadly gift—those moss-brained zealots wouldn’t have lived long enough to voice their pathetic accusations if he did!
Of course, Xeno would have left this godforsaken place at sixteen, but—as usual—luck wasn’t on his side. Their settlement was trapped in a stone prison: treacherous reefs and submerged rocks only permitted ships to enter the harbor once a month, during the full moon, when the tide rose high enough to briefly clear the deadly stones. Few could afford passage on such a vessel.
Years passed. Finally, after scraping together his last savings, Xeno took the desperate leap—he refused to accept the fate of a common fisherman, withering away in this backwater. His mind demanded more, and his pride wouldn’t let him rot among those who’d seen him as a demon since childhood. A truly divine irony: the ship meant to be his salvation could, at any moment, become a floating coffin. Instead of longed-for freedom—an endless desert of water. Instead of new horizons—the prospect of being first in line as provisions for sailors driven mad by hunger.
Every hour of dead calm methodically inched him closer to that ignoble end.
Then again, perhaps Xeno had nothing to fear—the monstrous stench alone might kill him first. Today was his turn on the bilge-pumping crew, hellish labor fit for convicts. The unluckiest soul had to descend below, where knee-deep in putrid sludge—a mix of saltwater, rotting fish, human waste, and decomposing rat carcasses—they filled bucket after bucket. The water teemed with larvae, its surface coated in a pulsating oily film. The others, teeth clenched, passed the filled buckets down the chain, dumping the devil’s brew overboard. All this in utter darkness, where the only "light" came from the greenish glow of decaying organic matter. Candles were hoarded not just for their cost—in this reeking hell, a single spark could turn the ship into a funeral pyre.
On deck, where Xeno emerged gasping for breath, the air seemed only slightly less poisonous—but just barely. The stench of unwashed bodies reeking of sweat, rum, and fish oil mingled with the noxious fumes rising from the bilge. A week at sea had turned the crew into a pack of foul-smelling beasts, yet even they avoided descending below unless absolutely necessary.
Dark clouds on the horizon promised they’d be spending the night in the stifling forecastle*, where the air hung so thick it felt like breathing through a damp rag previously used to wipe up sewage—and never rinsed. Compared to that, even the reeking deck seemed like salvation.
(*Forecastle — the crew’s shared living quarters aboard the ship.)
At last, the work was done, and they could prepare for sleep. The rain that had promised to refresh the exhausted crew never fell, leaving only a clammy dampness in the air. After twelve grueling hours of dead calm, a fickle breeze finally teased the sun-bleached sails—only for the sea to shroud itself in milky fog, forcing the ship to drop anchor. Sailors swayed on their feet from exhaustion, yet they lingered on deck, delaying the inevitable descent into the reeking forecastle, where the stagnant air hung as thick as gruel.
Xeno leaned against the creaking bulwark, greedily gulping the salty gusts of reviving freshness. His lungs burned, and a dull throbbing pulsed at his temples—the aftermath of hours spent in the bilge, where the stench of rotting fish and human waste clung like a suffocating curtain. Even after a week at sea, he couldn’t acclimate to this torment. Gradually, the crisp sea breeze eroded the nauseating weight in his chest, and his thoughts sharpened once more.
Xeno had been on edge since the moment the ship departed from his hometown's docks. Every creak of the rigging, every splash overboard made him tense. Mermaids, or sirens—call them what you will—were considered by seasoned sailors to be figments of imaginative minds. From a distance, they could be mistaken for humans if one ignored their strange movements and unnatural speed in water. Few tales existed about them, and all differed in details. Probably because almost no one who encountered these creatures up close lived to tell the truth. Almost no one.
Their meeting had happened when Xeno was eleven or twelve, on a desolate rocky beach the superstitious townsfolk feared to approach, believing it cursed. For an outcast boy accustomed to universal fear and rejection, it became the perfect refuge. There, among sharp stones polished by endless tides, he could quietly pursue his studies and other work without fear of interruption.
At the edge of this deserted beach, where boulders formed a natural outcrop into the sea, Xeno discovered a small cave. Two massive stone slabs leaning against each other created a triangular space. The cave's stone floor dropped off abruptly at the water's edge—where the depth became dangerous even for an adult. The cave itself never flooded, even during the highest tides—the half-meter lip of stone reliably protected it from the sea.
It easily concealed him from prying eyes. A perfect place. Here, Xeno conducted his anatomical studies, dissecting the bodies of dead fish, birds, and occasionally cats or dogs, meticulously comparing their internal structures. Despite obvious differences between species, they all followed a shared blueprint—especially those with spines. These parallels suggested a kinship between creatures, as if they were all distant relatives. Xeno wondered: did humans belong to this same chain?
He was well aware that such thoughts could get him anathematized*. In his world, these ideas were considered dangerous heresy. But his thirst for knowledge outweighed his fear of punishment.
(*Anathema — a formal ecclesiastical curse and excommunication in Christianity, particularly in Orthodoxy, serving as the ultimate punishment for grave sins like heresy or schism.)
This cave became Xeno's secret repository. Here he kept all his personal belongings: metal needles, a small knife, charcoal for temporary notes, wooden tablets with his scientific observations, a sharpened bone for writing, a flint, several baskets, unfinished fishing nets and crab traps, and a couple of balls of coarse netting thread. His treasures were safe here, beyond anyone's reach to destroy.
Superstitions had long ceased to frighten Xeno. First, he himself was the townspeople's embodiment of the ultimate curse—a living incarnation of their worst nightmares. By that logic, this beach might as well have been made for him, so what did he have to fear? Second, his mind rejected the very possibility of magic, gods, or devils—everything he'd witnessed in his short life only reinforced humanity's cruelty and the world's indifference. No prayers had saved his parents; no incantations changed how people treated him. Only cold reason and sharp observation gave him an edge in this hostile world.
This rational fearlessness, born of despair and isolation, granted him an odd serenity. While others crossed themselves at the sight of a black cat or spat over their shoulders, Xeno merely narrowed his pitch-black eyes in contempt. He'd watched superstitious fishermen drown in storms despite their amulets, seen prayers fail to heal sick children. If God existed, He'd clearly lost interest in this miserable island—if not the world altogether.
Xeno couldn't pinpoint when it started, but for several days now, he'd felt someone's intense gaze fixed on him. Only here, on this desolate beach. The strangest part was that the attention came not from the shore, but from the sea. Yet there were no boats or ships in sight—nor could there be, given the treacherous reefs spanning miles around the coast. Fishermen avoided these waters, yet the unseen scrutiny persisted, stirring in the boy a mix of irritation and unease. All his attempts to track the mysterious observer proved futile.
Over time, the boy grew accustomed to this sensation of being watched and resolved to patiently await his observer's approach. It certainly wasn't anyone from town—had it been a local, the entire settlement would have known Xeno's hiding place by now. An animal, perhaps? Yet no beast would stare at potential prey for hours without attacking. So who—or what—was watching him? Xeno became determined to find out.
Apparently, his secret visitor was interested in him and his activities—which meant they'd eventually come closer. Curiosity was dangerous; he knew that better than anyone. It was like hunting: sit still and wait, and the prey would creep closer, lulled by false security. The trick was not becoming prey yourself.
So Xeno waited. He continued his studies, taking notes on small wooden tablets. He'd tried writing on homemade paper before, but the damp sea air and cave humidity made it warp and disintegrate. Wood was far more reliable—it wouldn't catch fire from a stray spark and wasn't ruined by water. If it got dirty, he could simply wash it.
He also gathered oysters and mussels from the beach, mended nets, and sometimes wove new ones. The orphanage didn't feed anyone for free—you had to earn your keep.
A little over a week passed before Xeno's patience was finally rewarded. The mysterious observer drew close enough for the boy to see. He didn't so much see its arrival as feel it—the air thickened with something alien, sending icy shivers down his spine.
Turning slowly, he froze in shock: before him stood... a child? It appeared to be his age, but no such child lived in their town, the island's only settlement.
Its appearance was angelically beautiful: skin whiter than sea foam, damp golden curls, delicate features like those carved by a master sculptor. But most striking were its eyes—bottomless, piercing, gazing with the cold curiosity of a predator examining its prey. Xeno almost mistook it for human until he noticed... What lurked beneath the water bore no resemblance to legs—too long and sinuous, more like a serpent's tail. The distance prevented closer inspection.
The stranger continued studying the boy with the same unnerving, unblinking focus of a snake poised to strike. Its gaze seemed to physically palpate Xeno—assessing every movement, every muscle, every breath—like a hunter sizing up its quarry.
It was terrifying yet mesmerizing. Oh, Xeno wasn't fooled by its beauty—he keenly sensed the threat radiating from it. Still, he knew humans could be far more monstrous. Meeting the creature's gaze briefly, the boy calmly returned to his work, utterly unfazed by its intense scrutiny.
Thus began their strange shared days, filled with silent mutual observation. Throughout this time, Xeno never once saw the creature emerge completely from the water. Every morning, the boy arrived at his favorite spot at the same time—and invariably found it already waiting. And when the hour came to leave, those hypnotic eyes would follow him, gleaming from the depths until Xeno's shadow disappeared around the bend in the path.
Over time, the silent observer began drawing closer, allowing for better inspection. Its upper body was nearly indistinguishable from a human's, save for several crucial details:
Shimmering yellow eyes with vertical pupils, unnaturally vivid against pale skin, were framed by long, lush lashes that lent its gaze an eerie expressiveness. When it turned its head, three neat gill slits appeared on each side of its neck—they parted slightly with each breath, revealing pinkish mucous membranes within.
Its fingers appeared delicate and almost human, were it not for the thin webbing between them and the sharp claws tipping each digit.
The lower half, however, betrayed its true nature—a powerful scaled tail with a forked fin, of a deep blue hue that shimmered with turquoise where sunlight caught the scales. When the creature moved, the water parted before it, flowing around those sinuous curves with unnatural, almost hypnotic grace. An incredibly elegant being.
Considerable time had passed since their first encounter, yet neither Xeno nor the sea dweller had broken their silence. The boy maintained his usual behavior—avoiding direct eye contact, making no sudden movements, as if unspoken rules governed this peculiar game. The merman, for its part, remained equally passive, as silent as water on a windless day. Were it not for those golden eyes constantly tracking Xeno's every move, one might have thought it wasn't there at all.
The distance between them gradually diminished. Now the triton* regularly swam so close that its turquoise-blue tail nearly brushed against the rocks where the boy sat. The shallows rippled with its movements, yet one invisible barrier remained—neither party dared take that final step.
(*Sometimes used to refer to male merfolk)
Everything changed the day Xeno, absorbed in his notes, accidentally left his wooden tablets too close to the water. They immediately caught the merman's interest. Its clawed fingers carefully picked up the strange object. It turned the tablets over, examining them from all angles, ran a claw along the carved symbols, brought them close to its face as if trying to catch a scent. For a moment, it even licked a corner, immediately wrinkling its nose at the unfamiliar taste.
"Hey! Put that back!" Xeno exclaimed the moment he noticed his notes were missing. His irritation in that moment knew no bounds.
The sound of a human voice made the creature jerk its head up. Those golden eyes with vertical pupils dilated in surprise, then ignited with keen interest. To the triton, these were merely strange vibrations in the air, but the very fact of a human voice proved far more fascinating than examining wooden tablets.
It turned them over slowly in its webbed hands, clearly not understanding the meaning of the engraved symbols, but now its attention had fully shifted to Xeno himself. Its webbed fingers tightened slightly around the tablets as the triton focused properly on the human's face for the first time. Its nostrils flared faintly, as though trying to catch the subtlest changes in scent tied to the boy's emotions.
The triton didn't release the tablets, but it stopped examining them—now it was studying the human with almost scientific precision. Its gaze traced from the lips that had just made sounds, to the eyes, then the eyebrows, as if mapping the topography of human expression.
Xeno felt irritation boiling in his chest. He wasn't about to wait patiently for this tailed nuisance to even attempt understanding his words—if it was capable of that at all. Gritting his teeth, he lunged for his notes, but the triton—swift as an eel—simply glided backward, keeping the tablets just out of reach in its webbed, claw-tipped fingers. Its golden eyes slitted with amusement as it watched the boy strain futilely.
The young merman seemed to have finally grasped what this strange land-creature wanted. And it decided to make a game of it. It began teasingly bringing the tablets closer, letting Xeno's fingertips almost brush them, only to snatch them away at the last second with reflexes so sharp it seemed to read the boy's mind. Its movements were calculated—not so fast as to crush Xeno's hope, but quick enough that he never quite managed to grab them.
In the heat of this bizarre game, the sea creature lost itself in the moment and made a fatal mistake—its tail sent the tablets flying into open water with one powerful flick. For an instant, something resembling fear flashed in its eyes, but before it could react, Xeno, unable to restrain himself, splashed water directly into its face.
The merman's expression was truly priceless. Its golden hair, woven from sunlight itself, clung to its face, while those vertical-pupiled eyes widened in genuine astonishment. It froze as if struggling to comprehend what had just happened. The sight tore genuine laughter from Xeno—but his amusement was short-lived.
The world turned upside down in the next heartbeat. Clawed fingers seized his collar, and Xeno felt horrifying weightlessness before the icy embrace of water swallowed him whole. The triton tossed him into the sea as effortlessly as if he weighed no more than a sea sponge.
Only then did Xeno fully grasp the peril of his situation. He could swim, yes—but what chance did a human stand against a creature born of the depths? What if this being, which had just flung him into the water with terrifying ease, decided to drown him? Before him stood (if one could even call it standing) a complete stranger, and who knew what it might do next? Letting his guard down had been a lethal mistake.
The merman's copied smile did nothing to ease his terror. Under different circumstances, Xeno might have admired its mimicry skills. But now his gaze locked onto the needle-sharp teeth glinting between the triton's thin lips—undeniable proof of a predator. And who knew what might happen if this game spiraled out of control? At best, this creature might prove as unhinged as dolphins or orcas, those terrifyingly cruel beasts of the sea.
The triton seemed oblivious to Xeno's shifting mood. It continued circling him, its tail occasionally nudging the boy as if inviting more play. But when met with no response, it suddenly stilled two meters away, golden eyes scrutinizing the human's face with unsettling focus.
The boy stared inward, his right hand raised to face level with his index and middle fingers crossed. He remained frozen like this for some time, completely detached from his surroundings. After several seconds of silent contemplation, he made his decision and began climbing back onto shore.
But scaling the rock face proved far from simple. The stone floor of the cave rose too steeply from the water to simply pull himself up. His bare feet slipped helplessly against the algae-slick surface, finding no purchase—it felt like trying to scale a sheer cliff. Of course, he could always swim away from the cave and attempt to land elsewhere, but Xeno wasn't about to risk lingering in the water with that dangerous siren still lurking nearby.
Suddenly, something solid and oddly springy surfaced beneath his feet. Without thinking, Xeno pushed off, grabbing the ledge and hauling himself onto dry land in one fluid motion. Only then did he realize—it had been the merman's tail, offering unexpected assistance.
Well, that was... unexpectedly decent of it, not that Xeno would ever admit it aloud. Safely ashore, he watched bitterly as the current carried away his precious notes. *I'll have to start from scratch*, he thought with a pang. His gaze drifted to the horizon—the sun was already dipping toward sunset; he'd need to return to town soon. And thanks to that insufferable sea creature, he was soaked to the bone.
Xeno shot an accusatory glare at the culprit. The merman still watched from the water, but its earlier predatory intensity had vanished. Instead, its gaze seemed almost... expectant?
With a resigned sigh, Xeno began gathering his scattered belongings, stowing them safely in the cave's farthest corner—well beyond the reach of thieving hands. He'd occasionally caught the siren perched on the stone ledge, but it always slipped back into the water at his approach.
Spotting several flat, sun-warmed rocks near the entrance, Xeno set about peeling off his drenched clothes. First came the shirt, revealing a painfully thin torso with ribs starkly outlined beneath pale skin. He wrung it out vigorously, water streaming down in rivulets, then slung it over his shoulder to dry before tackling his trousers, leaving only his undergarments.
Finished, he stepped into the sunlight—a rare occurrence. Part of why he cherished this stone cleft was its perpetual shade. His pallid skin pinkened alarmingly after even brief sun exposure, forcing him to hide in shadows until evening. Carefully, he spread the wet garments over the rocks, smoothing out wrinkles and weighing the edges with stones against the wind. Satisfied with his handiwork, he hurried back to the cave's cool embrace.