| AN: I’ve had merfolk on the brain for some reason or another, so have a silly fanfiction/roleplay!Kajj AU. I’ll probably continue this for a while, I’m quite enjoying myself. |
It was hunger that called him upwards, out of the comforting darkness that he had made his home. Within the depths, there was little prey. Fewer still, with the pod’s swelling numbers only multiplying ravenous mouths.
He tried not to care. He was an exile, the last of a line. The pod was no longer his concern.
It concerned him anyway.
His long body wound silently upwards, his movements gaining in strength as the weight of the ocean lessened and oxygen-rich water flowed through his gills. He allowed himself to exalt in it, taking pride in the power that coiled within him, in the swirling current that followed in his wake, sending pale shrimps spinning off in a helpless spiral, prey for smaller mouths than his.
He hunted food that was much bigger.
Warmer.
It wasn’t long before the pale columns of surface light became visible, a shining cathedral of oranges and blues dancing golden all around him. And within that golden light he saw it — the dark void upon the water that signaled his prey was near. Motherkillers. The twin fires of anger and hunger fueled him as he rushed to the surface, his speed and momentum far too powerful for a fool thing like gravity to hold him.
He breached, tail streaming behind him like a ribbon, bronze scales flashing golden within the light of the dying sun. He took in an lungful of air and he sang, the sound ringing out in a knell that echoed across the sea, filling his senses until gravity and the water swallowed him up once more.
He was Kajj.
He was Seabloom.
And he would have his scraps of revenge.
He spiraled downward in a haze of bubbles, the aeration sending him plummeting faster than their harpoons could follow, his body twisting in an expert dance that used the undulations of the water to his own advantage. While it had been centuries since he had walked among the surfacekind, he could still remember — water played tricks with the light.
And yet, for all his dancing, no spears fell among him, no dull retort of flashfire rang out into the sea. He circled the ship, ever-cautious, suspecting treachery or perhaps a new sort of trick. He twisted and rolled, scraping claws along the belly of their transport, preparing to climb when something new was dropped into his domain, plummeting quickly towards him.
He fled downwards, anticipating flashfire and yet–
None arrived.
The object continued to plummet, shrouded in foam, dragged downwards by what appeared to be a weight, fastened to it by chains. He watched from a distance as the haze began to clear and he saw not a weapon, not flashfire but… one of the Motherkillers themselves.
Wide, blue eyes met his own in a flash of an instant, startling bright until the moment the dark waters swallowed them whole.
By the time she heard the footsteps, it was already too late. The first mate had caught her with her hands in the coffer, a coin held to the light, and she would have sworn up and down that she had seen the mouth on the woman’s face engraved there curl up into a sneer as she was forcibly dragged from out of the the Captain’s quarters.
She’d always been a lucky one, but then… The men had always been so stupid. It had been easy enough to learn her craft, navigating her way through the world with nothing but her wits and the world’s finest currency — the attractive countenance her mother had blessed her with.
Or… Maybe her father had been the handsome one?
To be quite honest, she’d never been sure. Her only remaining memories of them were lost in the fog of the past, their voices drowned out by thunder-crack storm that had taken them from her. All she had left was her necklace — a wooden token in the shape of a sun that she had always claimed as a lucky heirloom.
Not so lucky now as it hit the deck, the leather cord snapped by sea-roughened hands yanking her forward. She watched as the roll of the waves sent it sliding down into a grate, falling down to the deck below.
Funny. She almost felt worse for losing it than she did for getting herself caught. She’d always known her luck would run out someday. She’d only hoped that it would have happened with the necklace’s pale comfort nearby.
She tried to reason with the Captain, but it was little use. Though she’d adequately warmed his bedsheets, it seemed that her heat wasn’t quite enough to touch his heart. Down into the brig she went with cruel smiles.
A heading called out.
They were to sail to the Leviathan’s Cove.
It was madness, surely! She soothed herself with this as she paced the sodden cell. No sailor ever went there without damn good cause. And no crew had ever left there without losing one of their own.
The Leviathan itself was a wive’s tale, she knew this. Some stupid fantasy sailors told one another after one two many ales, whispering stories of a great serpentine dragon that lurked in the deep. In modern day, they all of them knew the truth — the Cove’s reputation was due only to the choking thick forests of kelp and a nasty riptide known to suck whole ships down into the caverns below, but the mundane nature of the thing would do nothing to save her when it came time to meet her fate.
And the crew had made little secret of what that would be.
Throughout the day they stopped by, leering, teasing her with jokes about Davy Jone’s endless hunger and appetites, so thorough that not even her bloated corpse would be left for her love ones to bury.
Ha. More fool them.
The would be no one looking for her anyway.
When the setting sun’s rays turned red, they came to fetch her. She did her best to hold her dignity as they tossed her about, using every ounce of willpower to keep her tears within her and to still the tremble of her lip. She wasn’t about to offer them the satisfaction of her begging or pleading.
She was Asteri.
The star of her parent’s hearts.
And she would have her scraps of dignity, in the end.
Her chains clanked heavy around her ankles as they shoved her onto the deck, the ship tilting wildly on the unnaturally turbulent water. The riptide had come, then.
But no.
There was something in the vicious grins of the crew that didn’t set right.
And there was something dark, coiling within the kelp-thick water.
It burst from the sea in a glittering spray, massive and unknowable enough to call forth an almost animalistic fear within her, freezing her to the spot. The siren sound that rang out in its passage drowned out the jeers of the crew, leaving nothing but ringing silence in her ears as the waters swallowed it up again.
“Do you hear that, tart?” The Captain shouted, barely audible despite being a scarce 4 feet away. “The beast is hungry!”
Laughter followed her out in great, jeering whoops, but she couldn’t focus on their words. All she could feel was disbelief, looking over the edge of the ship and seeing that… Something circling beneath them.
Something huge.
Something… hungry.
“It’s a big one tonight, boys!”
“Davy Jones, himself!”
“This should fetch us a good catch next sailin’, eh?”
No… No!
Superstitions only.
She wasn’t a stupid girl —
It was the rip tide, it was the kelp–
It was something bronze, glinting in the deep.
The ocean rose up to meet her, frigid and hard, knocking the air from out of her chest before she could even think to hold it in, to gain herself another minute of life, a spare second of thought–
She was plummeting, the waters darkening around her, hands pinned tight to her sides so she could not even thrash, not even try, helpless to resist the inexorable pull of the deep.
She felt her tears burning now. But it hardly mattered, her body’s salt an insignificant addition to the sea.
As she took her final, choking inhale, a part of eyes locked onto hers.
Bright orange, against the dark. Set in an… Almost humanoid face.
Merfolk?
No. A final flicker of her dying mind.
She’d grown up on fairy tales. A personal favorite were tales of the mer. This final vision, then, was an appropriate bookend.
She closed her eyes and let the water take her.