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Entry tags:	katrina, story

"Home to the Sea" by Pearl Jones - Part 1 - Mature Audiences Only!


Part I

Neptune’s most cherished chariot shone, new-polished and ready despite the tides it had waited, unused; racing seahorses browsed in their stall close by. King Solomon’s coral skull stared, pearl eyes gleaming. The Scepter of Queen Ariel the First rested on its pedestal. Silla passed them all, uncaring -- she’d seen them before, and hadn’t been interested then, either. The Hall of the Kings was only a passageway to her, the treasures within worth less than salt; dead, dry testament to times gone long before her birth. And if it wasn’t new, Silla didn’t want to know.

In her hair was a piece of Dayglo plastic, and she checked her reflection in every bulkhead as she swam past. Teams of pilot fish and sculleries kept the walls polished for defense, not vanity -- but, hey, whatever worked. The orange, she was pleased to note, really stood out against her deep green locks. Humans’ best invention, plastic; easier to work than steel, durable. Cute.

Dravid will like it, I think.

I hope. She imagined her lover’s muzzle against her neck, his sagittal crest teasing her ear, whiskers tickling the sweet spot where neck met shoulder, then sharp teeth pulling the bright ornament free. A shiver raced through her from nape to tail as though she were already in his embrace.

The quickest path to their trysting spot lay through a passage she did not often travel; this time, she risked it. The castle built of drowned ships was far too labyrinthine when she had places to be! Her chosen way tended perilously near to a place she had no desire ever to be: the throne room. The very heart of Court.
King Sundancer saw her -- of course -- and called after her, but she swam on with only a wriggle by way of reply. She knew what he wanted: to punish her ears with one of his many lectures on the sanctity of the sea, the safety of the people. Yet another dull treatise on the need to study, to practice her forms and her languages, to contact the humans, or worse, a quiz on some detail of the ever-so-dreary running of the kingdom… Thank you, no. There’s a really buff lion with my name tattooed on his tail, and that’s where my path wends. The throne does just fine with you on it, Father-Sire.

It really did. There had been peace and prosperity for tides upon tides. He was a good king, her father, a wise ruler. And a good mer. She swiped at one of the ubiquitous carvings for luck, and moved on, smiling. Only her family would choose the lowly clam as a ruling sign.

Her fond smile faded when she reached her destination; Dravid wasn’t there. She checked the upthrust cliffside rocks where they’d agreed to meet, and the caves below, swam the whole of his favorite current, even braved his pride’s feeding ground and the stares of the cows Dravid had forsaken to dance with her. He was not there.

The scent of wrongness was. Humans. And fear.

Dravid!

One of the sculleries sputtered as she swamped him; that was the only thing she recalled about the journey back to her father. Not the leagues she must have crossed, not the beauties of plant and fish, the whalesong her passage disrupted, the dash over a reef that left her scales scraped and battered -- none of it. Only sudden fear, a squawk, and fin-deep weariness as she rested at last before the throne and whispered “Where?”

Sundancer, king of Undersea, replied as briefly: “Inland.”

* * * * *

There was no way Silla could simply stay beneath the waves and do nothing, even if there had been anyone else she could send. Dravid’s kin couldn’t help, and those beings her father referred to as his “agents” were busy elsewhere. She even thought of asking him, but the king could hardly go looking for a single member of his kingdom, leaving the rest unprotected. The lion was her lover and her responsibility.

Sharkbait, this is hard! Silla tottered, trying to find her balance on two wholly inadequate extremities. She hadn’t taken full landform in years, preferring the textures of the sea on her skin to air that tried to wither her and light that burned and all the stinks and stenches of humankind. And the noise. Oh, schoolmother, you would not believe the sounds these...people...make.

Thoughts of that kind matron’s soft stroking fin and smile helped, as did practice walking. The fact that it was overcast didn’t hurt any, either. Once she was sure her legs would hold her, she followed the carefully accidental swirls and signs on the sandy shore to a cache and puzzled over what she found within.

Leg coverings were clear enough, split in two; the upper garment seemed much the same as the one she dimly recalled from childhood; and shoes she seized on -- human feet needed protection! But what was this sling, and this scrap of the same fabric? They looked more like the things beach-layers wore than proper clothing. She waved a webless hand dismissively and left them in the box. There would be no time to lie around, not with Dravid captured and afraid.

Dressed, she crossed the beach. Inland.

Human script was one of those things her kind had adopted; she had no trouble reading the postings, but not all of them made any sense to her. She spent some time puzzling over “Post Office” and “Hospital” before finding “Aquarium.” Deciding Dravid was likelier there than anywhere else, or at least anywhere else she could find without trying her tongue on human speech, she headed in the direction that the arrow seemed to indicate -- since humans could not leap straight up.

The hard surface of the narrow path was distinctly uncomfortable to walk upon, and the dark wide kind, which she had hoped would be softer, was not only just as hard, it had things that tried to devour her. Or not. As her gills ceased to flare and she regained control of her land form, she realized they were simply enclosed chariots with human drivers and growling beasts within their shells. Still, they were dangerous. The paler paths were safer. Swaths of green, when they were present, were almost welcoming.

Silla walked a long and weary way, following the signs. Sometimes she thought she must have missed one, but the thought of backtracking was too much to bear, so she strode on. Or limped, as light faded into an almost underwater dusk.

Dravid. Oh, my own, how afraid you must be. I am coming, you know that. I am sure you do. Have hope! I am on my way. I will find you. I will bring you home.

I must.

The thought rose in her mind that her father had foreseen this, had tried to convince her to do something about it. He had been harping on the “human problem” more than usual of late. Talking of encroaching ships and non-allied expeditions and other things she had never cared to hear about. And I was too busy dancing to bother. If Dravid is hurt, I… The plastic was still in her hair; she tore it out. A hank of yellow came with it. She blinked, trying to decide if that odd, pale color was something worth worrying about, if she had the energy to do anything more than put one sore, too-flimsy foot after another.

“Hey, hey, mamacita! Shake it!”

If the order referred to her head, then she obeyed. She had no time to spare for humans who stank of the world above; the ones she sought would smell more than a bit of the sea whence they had raided away her love. She sniffed, seeking a particular combination of scents. Following the too-brief hints of life within the alien smell of humankind.

She walked until she felt she had walked forever. The sky was cool-current blue and speckled with celestial pearls; stars, Silla remembered they were called in the human tongue, or réaltóg, in formal speech. She hadn’t seen them in a while, the ocean’s natural lights and darkness so much more interesting to her than the air. But now, they felt like home, like a sea above her. She smiled up at them, and yet another human made still another incomprehensible remark, and she turned to scowl, then returned her gaze to the sky when the person had gone.

Her sigh lent a welcome moisture to her skin, reminding her inevitably of Dravid. Was he near sea water, at least? Could humans be that cruel? She sighed again, then inhaled -- and gasped at the familiar tang of salt. Dravid? Sore feet or not, she ran.

The scent-trail led her to a round, flat-topped structure surrounded by that horrible, lifeless, uniform not-stone. Even over the myriad stenches of humanity, she could smell the sea, and life. Lives, more than just the one she sought. How many of her people had the monsters abducted, carried away from their home beneath the waves?

Glass barred her way. She snarled, balled her hands into fists, pummeled. No joy; landform strength barely shook the clear stuff. She drew in a breath of fetid air, prepared to shift. Smelled the presence of another. Not her kind, but...

“Sorry, miss. The aquarium’s closed for the night.”

Gently. Silla could smell the ocean on this one, this human with eyes as dark as the sky and a soft, slow voice that made his words easy to understand. Ask him for help. If he agrees, life just got simpler. If he doesn’t, then you can kill him. She smiled.

He bared his teeth in his turn and shifted his stance, leaning his weight back. She decided it was meant to be a nonthreatening posture. He held out a hand. “Hi. I’m Marsh. And you are?”

“In need of your help.” It would be wiser not to mention her lover; males did tend to respond better to unmated females. So she widened her eyes, signaling receptiveness.
His own shuttered, half closed.

Dreck! Why didn’t I pay more attention in school? Humans must have different dances. How am I supposed to flirt?

Bet anything they do it standing up on these tiny little feet -- just my luck. Dravid, I hope you know how much I’m going to have to go through to get you home safe.
Bridling and roaring filled her mind, the challenge he would doubtless make. His rage.

Not that he would seek to attack her, of course, and she wasn’t exactly defenseless if he should try. Still... On second thought, my own, I don’t think I’ll tell you about this part. She had no desire to try to deal with his rage in this frightening eternal dry, and once she had him home, she would be too busy to cater to wounded male egos.
Studying, now that she saw the need for it. Why had it taken this to prove to her how right her father was? Wrong question. How fast can I learn everything I need to know?

And how do I apologize for being so stubborn? Why was I so stubborn, anyway? That thought niggled at her, but it would have to wait; she had a task at hand, a puzzle on two thin stems to unravel. A human. She let her eyelids fall and looked up at the man through her lashes.

Marsh made a strangled sort of sound. “How can I help you?”

She opened her mouth, realized she hadn’t the faintest idea what to say, and closed it again.

“Come on. I don’t bite.”

“You do not?” Humans really are alien.

“Well, not unless you ask nicely.”

“Oh.”

Marsh offered her a cup of coffee, and though Silla had no idea what that was, when he added “and a place to sit down for a while,” she agreed. Her feet hurt more than she had ever imagined anything could, hot throbbing worse than any bruise and tingling like jellyfish stings and burning like the time she’d walked the lava cap all at the same time.

“It’s not very guard-like of me, I know,” he said as he poured dark, acrid fluid into a cup, “but I’m only a guard ’cause I have to be.”

“I do not understand.” A safe enough remark.

“I’m really an oceanographer, or, at least, I’m studying to be. A sea explorer. But school’s expensive, so I do this, and they let me help out sometimes on the boats.”

She lowed softly, a cow sound that Dravid would have found encouraging; it seemed to work on human males, too, or at least on this one. He preened, tossing his head, all seal-brown hair and driftwood skin beneath the strange artificial lights, lips like salmon flesh and cartilage-white teeth and a smell that was both familiar and not.

No. Oh, no. Not now, not him. He’s human! But Silla couldn’t help it; she breathed deeper, drinking in that smell. The ocean tang had shifted to something fresher, something deliciously delicate. Salt, still, but changed. Refined.

What is that? She shifted in her chair, leaning forward toward that delightful aroma, and unbalanced. Reflexively, she moved -- forgetting she was in landform. Instead of using her tail to push off, she knocked both feet against a table leg. “Ow!”

“Feet hurt?” Marsh dropped to the floor so suddenly she nearly unbalanced herself again. “Here, let me.”

The shoe fastenings that had perplexed her were as nothing to him; in the blink of an eye, they were off, and he had placed her bared feet on his thighs. The fabric of his pants was much softer than her own, and soothing, slightly cool with warm flesh beneath.

The smell was stronger.

For a moment, neither moved, her trying not to let her tongue roll out, wishing she could spread webs her land form did not have, longing to lean down and taste him, and him staring up at her, his eyes as wide now as she could have wished.

Perhaps the dance is the same on land, after all.

And then he slid one hand beneath her foot and cupped her heel, and she hissed out her breath in pain.

“Poor little thing,” he murmured, and slid his other hand along her sole, and pressed in at one particular point.

Silla gasped. It hurt, but in a good way. Dim pulses rose from that point up through her body to pool as warmth in her belly. She thought of Dravid; her lion had never made her feel anything like this.

Well, no, but he couldn’t. I don’t usually have that part. A bubble of laughter slipped free.

“Yeah, I thought that would help.” Marsh seemed altogether pleased with himself as he shifted his grip and began to rub, warm hands and callused fingertips moving surely, confidently over planes that had never before given Silla a moment of pleasure.

She had more than a moment’s pleasure now as the man tended to her feet. Relief from pain was only part of what she felt; this was new, different, and had more than a hint of the forbidden to it. Her man, her strange human who smelled of life and the sea, knelt before her as no mer would until she took the throne, and he did so by his own choice, not at any command. By the time he switched feet, she could not have stood to save her life; desire had melted the strength from her legs.

“Better?”

“Oh. Yes.” Something more seemed required, but what? “Thank you.” One of her father’s favorite sayings: When you don’t know what to say, try thanks.

It worked. Yes, Father-Sire, and I can already hear you gloating. I hope you get the chance. She shivered, and Marsh leapt up -- easily, despite the kneeling, she noted -- and grabbed a garment from the back of a chair to wrap around her.

“So, ready to tell me what brings you here in the middle of the night? Or,” he lifted one foot, precarious perch though that seemed to Silla, wiggled it, set it down, and lifted the other one, “maybe I should make my rounds first. I’m supposed to check once an hour, make sure there’s nothing wrong. Will you be okay for a couple of minutes?”
Alone, within the glass wall? “I will be fine.”

Her feet tingled, still, where he had touched them, and when she put weight on them, pain flared. No matter. She needed to find Dravid, and pain would not stop her. Who knew what might have been done to him? Sparing a glance for the shoes that offered more pain and yet protection, she crept silently, barefoot, down the hall in the direction Marsh had not gone.

Though it was hard not to follow the scent of him, so warm and full of promise.
Some passages were lit with harsh, unsteady blue-white light, and the noise that accompanied those flickers hurt her ears. Other halls were dark, and smelled of dust; she padded down a few, but found only doors that would not open, and no scent of life or the sea there. Her feet throbbed, her back hurt, her shoulders ached, her nose was dry and itching within and without, her eyes stung, and she was afraid. Afraid she would not find Dravid, afraid she would, but he would be hurt, or dead, afraid she would never find a way home to the sea --

Afraid she would soon make her way home again, with Dravid, and never again breathe in that aroma so strong in the air now.

“If you wanted a tour, all you had to do was ask.” His voice was calm, but he smelled angry, or what she thought human anger must smell like, hot and bitter as the drink he had offered. And there was something dark and heavy in his hands, pointed at her. “Tell me who you are and what you want, or I call the cops.”

The last word meant nothing to her. She thought of telling him so. Thought of lunging at him, of tearing his throat out, of being alone to search for whatever time remained until some other human came. Thought of simply asking for his help. She wasn’t sure what thought was uppermost in her mind to make her say only, “You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

You wouldn’t survive. She realized just before she would have spoken that he hadn’t meant it that way. He meant only to invite her to tell her tale. Well, why not? Whatever that thing is, he can’t hold it forever. She was in no danger from him unless that tool was more dangerous than it looked, and his arm already trembled with its weight. I can outlast him, and I can always switch forms if I have need. Her land form was smaller than he, but her natural form, she thought, would be a bit longer -- taller, whatever -- and quite a bit more muscular. Talk a bit, relax him, and then...
Come closer, meat. The look on her face must have been fierce, for his scent changed, becoming sickly sweet, cloying even in the thin air. Prey scent.

He growled low in his throat, and his arm straightened, pointing the dark tool at her midsection. “I will. I don’t want to, but I will if you make me. What do you want?”

The pain in her feet decided her, more than anything. “Let’s sit down, and I’ll tell you. You won’t believe me, but I promise, it will all be true.”

He led the way back to the small room with the table, and returned the tool to its holder only when she was seated again. Without turning away from her, he backed to the counter, poured himself more coffee, downed it, poured again. “Talk.”

She knew what she was going to say, and do. “I am mer.”

“Mary?”

“Mer. Oh,” she blew out her breath, “just watch. Do nothing...rash.” Closing her eyes, the better to concentrate, she took midform, rock-climbing form. Not one she’d worn often; from a distance it could have been a girl in seal-fur “gloves” and “boots” that were her hands and feet, though with a sleek silhouette more reminiscent of a dolphin than an adult woman, for all the tales lovesick sailors had been wont to tell.

“Cushla machree,” Marsh breathed.

Those words were like music to Silla’s ears; the attraction, the smell, all of it made sense! And he would help her, she was sure of it. She let the midform go, returning to human-seeming. “A Fey! I am so sorry; I thought you were one of them.”

Her relief did not last long; Marsh did not return her smile.

“Th-them? Wait, fay? Fairies? Holy Mary, Mother of God.” Marsh half slid, half fell to the floor, scooting to the wall and setting his back against it. “I gave a selkie a foot rub. That is what you are, isn’t it?”

Her form quivered in her distress, scales gleaming for an instant before she gained control. Not Fey? But the words! That was formal speech. I heard it! I think. Sea-wrack, I am so lost. “You...are human.”

“Duh. I mean, yes, I am. And you?”

“Still need your help, drown it all.” His pose looked much more sensible than her own, secure on the floor where he couldn’t fall any farther. She didn’t dare his slide, but rose, limped to the wall catty-corner to him, and sat down, bending her knees and hugging her legs to her chest.

“The little mermaid is sulking in the break room. No one would ever believe this.”

“I am not little.”

“No-o.” His voice and his scent changed again, soft and slow the one, and enticing the other. “But I’ll bet your feet really do feel like you’ve been dancing on knives.”

“Very like.” She tried to ignore the smell, to think. I need to find Dravid. I need to get him home! “Would you do what you did before?”

“Since you asked nicely.”

His teeth gleamed in the artificial light. She remembered what he’d said when first she saw him. There’s no threat there. Still, her heart sped a bit. She lifted her legs, together, and stretched, her toes describing an arc before landing in Marsh’s crotch.

He squeaked, a strange, high sound to come from a male, then swallowed hard. His hands slid up beneath her pants, around her calves, stroked down toward her heels. Squeezed.

She shivered.

“You like that.” Human or lion or Fey, mortal or immortal, that tone was one Silla knew. That so-satisfied, pleased, proud tone men had when they knew, beyond a doubt, they had their woman where they wanted her.

Where she wanted to be, with his breath hot on her skin, his smell all around, his hair shining like Dravid’s pelt in the changing light, his body humming, singing, thrumming against her lateral line -- calling mating colors to her surface; she felt the charge as her skin shimmered and flared. A heartbeat later, the patterns were gone again.

“Eep.” Marsh did not pull away, but rather leaned close, his lips almost touching her calves. “God. I can’t believe this.” His hands clenched, hard enough that she wasn’t sure she could have freed herself without changing form, not that she had any desire to escape. His grip on her was far less a prison than her own need, expressed in panting and small, urgent sounds and wrigglings.

She didn’t know how to proceed. Dravid would have taken the lead, and courtship among the mer was ritual as dueling, but Marsh’s kind... How do humans mate? Not for the first time that day, she wished she had been a more attentive student, a more obedient daughter, learning about the land dwellers when she’d had the chance. But, no, she had spent her time in dalliance instead of study.

His hands relaxed the slightest bit, and he slid them up her calves, softly scratchy planes and warmth, almost a familiar caress though drier than she was used to. “I want you,” he groaned.

“Want me to what? What are you doing?”

“Oh, God. No.” His hands were gone from her body, and he was halfway across the room, and she hadn’t done more than blink. “Please tell me you’re not.”

“Not what?” I’m tired, and scared, and lonely, and rutty as all the Deep, and that scent is near to driving me to froth. Just tell me you’ll help, please!

“Have you ever, uh, done... I mean, well, mated. Have you ever had intercourse?”

The first of his terms she understood. The second wasn’t so clear. “I have not yet borne.”

“Uh, yeah. What about, uh, for fun? Pleasure?”

“Of course.” Even with the smell of Marsh strong in her air, on her skin, she could smile and sigh at the thought of Dravid, his mane waving in the sea as they played, teasing her fingers and fins...

“Male and female type fun.”

“One of the best kinds.”

“Damn. There is just no way to say this, is there?” He ran his hands through his hair like she longed to do. “Are you a virgin?”

“I told you, I have not yet birthed young.”

He groaned again. Tapped his fingers on his legs. “Look, my shift’s nearly over. There are going to be people here soon. I don’t know what you want, why you came to me, but if you’re one of those disappear-at-dawn apparitions, maybe you should just go now.”

She looked out the window. “It is already dawn.” And I haven’t found Dravid yet. “I shall not disappear.”

“Well, how about waiting in my car, then? ’Cause if my boss sees you, I could lose my job.”

“I need your help.”

“Yeah, we’ve been through that.” Marsh stroked the bulge on his belt, the holder where his tool rested. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“I am looking for,” she closed her eyes against a sudden vision of her lover gutted, skinned as some of his young kin had been by a group of humans, “a friend.”

“Selkies don’t have cell phones?”

She did not understand his laughter, or why he smelled so suddenly dark and sad.
“Never mind. Why do you think I can help you find your friend?”

“Humans took him. I had nowhere else to look.”

“Took him? Who? When? Why would you look in an aquarium -- wouldn’t a hospital make more sense? Or a sideshow, if he looked like your...other shape. Why come here?”

She cursed her lack of familiarity with humankind yet again. No one’s fault but your own, and regret nets a mer no fish. “I do not know all those words. I looked where your kind cages ours.”

“Wait.” Marsh held up a hand, and she found her eyes drawn to the lines on his palm. A familiar pattern. His initial? How charming! But likely not important. “Tell me, quickly, what this friend of yours looks like.”

She sighed. “A bit more than twice as large as my landform. As dark as your head, all over his body, except that his mane is lighter on the top, sandy. He wears a ring in one ear, and has my name tattooed--” she frowned down at her body “--I have no place to show you where, in this form. Down below.”

“Okay, a black male selkie. What would he be wearing?”

“Wear? Nothing. Just his fur. I think perhaps you do not mean what I think you mean. Tell me, what is a ‘selkie’ to you?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m dreaming. It’s one of those frustration dreams, it just has to be. That, or someone spiked my tank and I’m still on the boat. Okay, figment,” he smiled at her, “selkie: a sea-dwelling creature of Fairy, who takes the form of a seal, or, I guess, a seal-like humanoid shape, in the water, and becomes a human on land. Mythical, unless I am awake.”

“Oh. Deeps, I should have studied more. I am not a selkie. Neither is Dravid. The word is close, though...seal?”

“Pinniped? Aquatic mammal, walks on its flippers? Eats fish and barks?” He made a sound to illustrate.

“Ah, yes.”

“Please tell me I’m asleep.”

“If you wish. You are asleep.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Oh.” She looked around. “Are we not alone?”

“Yes.” He barked out a rather seal-like laugh. “Never mind. Your friend the seal was picked up where? When?”

Thank Neptune! She took a breath, trying not to swoon at the myriad scents of him -- how had he gone through so many variants in so little time? And why had they not been carried away by the currents yet? Pay attention. Play tourist later. And, perhaps, play... “Ah, Dravid. Two dawns ago now. From...”

It took some time to translate her measurements to his, but they managed. After that, it didn’t take long at all for Marsh to realize which specimen she meant. He grumbled a bit, mostly about “sloppy talkers” who didn’t distinguish between seals and sea lions, but as he was leading the way down into what he said was the aquarium’s infirmary at the time, Silla made no reply.

“Is this him?” Marsh’s voice shook; his scent had changed yet again. Silla paused, intrigued, but when she inhaled more deeply, she smelled Dravid on the air -- and others. None of them smelled quite right, and the stench of humanity was strong. She rushed forward, to test for life and injury with eyes and other senses.

“What is wrong? He lives, but...” Oh, my own! The ring was gone from his ear, the wound long clotted and halfway healed, with thread holding the bits of flesh together. They hurt him. She turned her glare on Marsh, who held up his hands again, palms out.

“He’s all right, mostly. Had an inclusion in his ear and pneumo -- ah, a little trouble with his lungs. That’s why they brought him in, you know. Really, he’ll be fine after the medication.”

“I cannot wake him!”

“Oh, that. He’s tranked.”

“Tranked?”

“Tranquilized. Knocked out. Uh, sleeping. We -- they do that sometimes, when they have to stitch something, someone, up. Worried the big brute might hurt himself. Or the docs. The anim... Sleeping helps the body to heal. He’ll be okay, but he won’t be awake for another ten or twelve hours. Until the sun sets again.”

“What am I to do? I cannot move him myself! Even my truest form is not strong enough for that, not out here.”

“Wait, I guess.” He didn’t give her a chance to object, even if she could have found the words. “Come home with me. You can rest, eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. And tired. I’ll bring you back tonight, and you can see him. Okay? Uh, is that all right with you?”

No, it is not. But she could think of no better plan. So she followed him as he instructed, away from the glass-walled enclosure where Dravid lay, snuffling as he did when he was ill, but seeming mostly uninjured from what she could scent, and out to one of those chariots, this one blessedly still and silent.

“Wait. I won’t be long, but even if I am. Wait.”

By the time he returned, she felt half an age had passed, though the sun was still not bright enough to be blinding. He carried her shoes in one hand; she stared at them, wondering if her feet would hurt more in them or out, too tired really to care.

Marsh sighed, and she thought he must feel much the same.

- T B C -