22-Aug-2001
Title: Ask For More 1/?
Author: Ryan Harbin
Warnings: AU, shounen ai, love triangles, devious Relena
Pairings: 1+2/2+1, R+1, maybe a bit of 1+R (don't kill me yet, please! It's disillusioned 1 + sneaky R!)
Archive: GWA, etc
Begun: Friday, July 13, 2001 *gasp*
Finished: Saturday, August 18
Finished:
"Ask For More" (Title taken from a really fun song called 'Unlimited Galaxy,' by Aaron Kwok and Faye Wong)
Notes: As I was pondering Noir's recent absence and thus, the absence of her fic, I started pondering how I would do a mermaid fic. This is the result. It's basically my "The Little Mermaid" crossover with a twist.
So where's yours, Noir?
^^
Dedicated to Nibun, without whom I would still be thinking that Works was dead.
Like in my other schtuffs, ~~~~ is a POV change (same scene), ---- is a scene change
Suggested ristening: "Kirei na Kanjou" from 'Noir,' (amazing anime btw...) performed by Arai Akino (aka my goddess), or "Where is my Mind" from 'Fight Club.'
Wondering for the umpteenth time why he had chosen to be a sailor - and especially, why he had chosen to be a sailor on Princess Relena's ship, for she was known for her disregard of storms and all other things dangerous on the sea - Duo Maxwell wrung what water he could from his sodden hair. It was a useless gesture, really, he thought belligerently, as the rain stinging his skin and obscuring his vision would soak it again within seconds.
Small, slender, and light, but still mysteriously tough and strong, he was almost always the one chosen to clamber through the rigging and tighten loose moorings and lines. It was a singularly unsafe activity, he knew, clinging to wet wood and rope, the highest thing in the air, in the middle of a violent sea storm; But if Relena-sama wanted to be home by her birthday, she got to be home by her birthday, no matter how much of the crew was killed before they arrived. Like Sandy...
He wiped angrily at the tears that flooded up at the memory of his friend, disappearing with only a slight scream beneath the roiling, black waves, and the mate forbidding any rescue attempt. Relena had been sufficiently sympathetic, enough to appear the benevolent mistress, but hadn't adjusted her orders.
So here he was.
Blowing rivulets of water out of his mouth, he finished tying off a line just in time to almost lose his grip and fall into the ocean as a particularly violent swell tipped the boat at a dangerous angle.
That's when he saw it. Whether it was he or a she was undeterminable, but he definitely knew what it was. A mermaid. Riding the waves as if born in a storm, apparently staying afloat with light sweeps of the glimmering tail, a colorless blob in the murky water, it watched Duo.
Broken lines and flapping sails forgotten, Duo stared at his observer. It was impossible to judge the length of its dark hair, wetter than Duo's own and molded in shadowy tendrils to its skull and face.
So spellbound was he that he forgot his precarious position, and even the noise of the storm dimmed. The lightning was entirely unexpected, throwing him suddenly from the mast, and, reminiscent of lost Sandy, it didn't even occur to him to scream as the water rushed up to swallow him.
What had driven him to the surface today was still unknown, lurking somewhere in the recesses of his conscious where he preferred to confine all such desires. Yet he had heeded this one, swimming up to the surface just in time to be caught in the middle of a storm.
As secure and natural as the water surrounding him in his ocean home was, the chilling drops that spattered his face were unpleasant, and he was about to duck back beneath the surface when his attention was drawn elsewhere.
He'd heard about human ships, of course, and had curiously explored a few wrecks, but those were old and already crusted entirely with barnacles. Never had he seen one with that piece of white stretched hazardously in the gale, loose ropes whipping through the air and men racing frantically to accomplish things he didn't understand. One in particular interested him, crawling through a tangle of ropes, high above the ship itself.
Contenting himself in watching with slightly scandalous - what his father would do if he was aware Heero was at the surface - curiosity as the small body scrambled through the rigging, its long plait of hair seemingly more of a hindrance than anything father sky threw at him.
Then the boy turned, for a reason Heero couldn't understand, as there was nothing that should have drawn his attention away from his task. He was near to fleeing back beneath the obscuring water, but the sailor moved too quickly. And he was spotted.
Yet, as much as everything instilled in him throughout his upbringing screamed at him to escape, before the human made sense of what he was seeing and called the others. He'd heard the tales of adventurous teenagers lost forever, undoubtedly hunted to be a display in some human's freak show or exotic museum.[1]
Yet...
This human hardly seemed dangerous, staring at him with unblinking violet eyes, distracted from what he had been doing.
And then the sea's wrath proved too much for the ship - what was it doing out in this weather, anyway? A large bolt of white lightning stuck the outstanding mast, at once cracking it in half and flinging the shocked human into the water...
He woke unwillingly, fighting the daylight whose unbroken beams demanded entrance through his flimsy eyelids, not enough to repel the invading illumination and restore his previous state of sleep. Or perhaps unconsciousness, as the brief, flashing images of his last memory reminded him. Where was he? How had he gotten there, for the last thing he recalled was being tossed aside into the treacherous, stormy sea, a certain death if ever he'd known one.
So then, was he dead? Certainly he hoped he was not in heaven, for the slight smell of mildew, presumably from his air-dried clothing, as well as the deep ache in every muscle he had not even been aware of, were not at all the haven he was led to believe the just were taken upon their demise. Nor were the cool, damp sand beneath his back and gently lapping surf reminiscent of the hell that was also preached to the masses.
So it was with the purpose of determining his location that he rose, showering tiny particles of sand as he moved, swiping the tediously clinging grit from his mussed hair and ragged clothing.
He staggered a few steps, reacquainting his legs with the steady earth, though his efforts were somewhat thwarted by the sand, which shifted troublesomely under each step. So it was that he did not even notice his surroundings for nearly a dozen minutes, nearly overwhelmed by the effort of just walking.
When finally he did look up, he nearly collapsed once again. Though he'd been unable to truly concentrate on them, at the back of his mind, little niggling voices had been plaguing him, taunting him with the notion that he'd been entirely ignorant of the ship's location, and who knew what strange land he may have been in. Yet, the city he saw before him was his own!
Ignoring the pain that assailed him, ignoring the cottony, parched sensation in his mouth and throat, he began to run, all the dread at being stranded in an unknown country overwhelmed by relief at being home. His once unsteady prints in the sand trailed him, ethereal reminders of his bizarre salvation, though at the moment he seemed not to care.
Indeed, perhaps he should have turned around, taken even the briefest wondering glance to ponder at why the sea had deemed him worthy to live. For maybe, were he clever or aware enough, he would have found his answer readily, evident in the pair of deep blue eyes, watching him steadily from beneath salt-stiffed bangs, never before fully dry as they were now, until he vanished behind a shielding wall of surf-wracked, craggy rocks. Mayhaps it wouldn't have been so obvious, though, for even the owner of those eyes was unsure of his purpose, lingering at the surface where he so obviously didn't belong. For the silvery tail was not that of a human, even one who spent an unhealthy amount of time in the water. For a long time he floated, eyes never wavering from that last glimpse of damp brown hair, confusion echoing in distant blue depths, bottomless as the deep sea from whence he came. Yet finally, even he vanished, gracefully and suddenly beneath the waves with an instant flick of that tail, and only bubbles, soon gone as well, to mark that he had even floated there at all.
End Part 1
O.ooo (triclops face!)
Thanks to Misu and Sephy for beta reading! ^^ Ne, Sephy, where's the tenchi fic? *pokely*
Notes:
[1] Sephy asked how Heero would have heard about a museum, as it's a human thing. My answer is, he's been told lots of horror stories. You all remember 'The Little Mermaid' a la Disney, ne? Don't worry, this diverges quickly.
Ryan Harbin
Please send comments to: rioroute_vilgyna@yahoo.com