Chapter Text
Light’s POV:
The world had changed drastically during his few centuries of life. When he’d been just a guppie he’d felt like time moved at the pace of sea anemone, each second inch by as he had nothing to do in between hunts but watch his sire fight off evaders and his dam try and control his mischievous hatch mate. He’d tried to follow his sire along on fights, but he was too young to fend off another siren so he’d always been chased off and eventually realized his sire would never let him join. They spared on their own to get him ready, but it wasn’t the same as the brutality that came with a real battle. The blood and flesh that would soak the water was what had really interested him and his sire refused to injure a guppie and his own fangs were still too small to tear into the man’s thick, scarred skin.
Back then, meals had been plentiful, so many sailors to lure down into their brutal waters, and even when they were absent, the sheer amount of fish that traveled the seas kept them well fed. His song had come in earlier, within only a few decades he could convince the strongest men to dive into the depths. Their skin was much thinner than his sire’s, he had no trouble piercing their flesh and getting to the good bits inside. They tasted so much better than even the freshest fish, so warm and stuffed full of muscles and fat, the scent of their fear engulfing him in a delicious spiced aroma.
But as the years dragged on, fewer and fewer humans traveled the waters and the ones that did became harder to hunt. Their ships got larger and louder, drowning out the sound of his beautiful call. When he’d first left his nest after gaining his cycle to find a mate he’d managed to hunt at least a human a month, now he was lucky to get a three or four in a year. There was still fish, but even those were becoming more difficult to snag, or at least enough to satisfy his ever growing hunger.
At first, territorial fights became more common as food grew more precious. His beautiful nest within the complicated caves of the cliffs was encased multiple times, usually by another bearer who was hoping to take his nest, but on a couple memorable occasions there had been callers who hoped to mate. None of them had been up to his standards, far too pushy and weak with lackluster scales and terrible songs.
But as time dragged on, he encountered fewer and fewer sirens and he knew it was because most had died from starvation or in battles over hunting grounds. It was certainly more peaceful, but he missed the thrill of the fight, nothing could compare to brawling with another siren. Sharks and barracudas didn’t have the strategy sirens did, it wasn’t nearly as fun as he could always just trick them with a flick of his tail and sink his claws into their throats.
Everything was so boring, his time was spent hunting what he could, tidying his nest, grooming himself, and sleeping. He’d been alone for so long that he’d begun to think about moving on, to go search the depths of the ocean just to find something new and exciting, or someone.
Now, he realized just how great he’d had it back in his cliffside caves system.
They’d caught him in the middle of the night during a storm. It wasn’t like any boat he’d seen before, it was still the frustratingly modern type that made it impossible for him to even attempt to climb up, the material too slick when wet and hard to dig his claws into, and he’s long since given up on trying to sing to these ships that had those noisy engines. It was small, only a few humans on board if his echolocation was to be believed, but it also didn’t hold many crates. He should’ve just ignored it, he knew that the chances of getting ahold of one of the sailors was next to none, but it had been so long and he had been so hungry that he was desperate. He’d climbed onto the rocks, dragging himself up the side of the cliff until he could see over the edge, hoping he’d be able to spot some way to get aboard and bewitch them.
But they saw him and that was it.
The dart had pierced his neck and chest, each one sinking deep into his skin, further than any siren’s fangs or claws had reached before and he’d screeched in agony. He’d tried to rip them out but they were stuck and the last thing he remembered was losing his balance as his head swam, and falling back down into the waters. As his eyes closed against his will, his body felt heavy, and the last thing he’d been able to perceive with his terrified clicks was a large net shooting out in his direction.
Life in captivity was a million times worse than in his lovely caves.
When he’d been caught originally, he’d been so sure that it was the end, that the humans were going to kill and eat him like they did with other sea creatures, but instead he’d woken up in a massive tank that looked like his sire and dam’s nest. The water was a bit too warm for his liking and there was a fake beach as well with caves constructed from the same material their ships used that’d been covered in a layer of sandy, rocky mud. At least they had the decency to put in some actual boulders for him in one portion, but it still wasn’t nearly as great as his cliff. The tank was deep, and there were real plants, but he didn’t fit the color scheme and he felt entirely too exposed as his clocks echoed back an image of several humans watching from behind the painted walls. His eyes let him know that he wasn’t supposed to be able to see them, that the humans thought they were being clever and watching him in secret, but his ears knew the truth. Apparently, these humans had no idea he could use echolocation, he wondered what they thought he was doing making so much noise.
Maybe talking, the humans talked a lot.
At first he’d struggled a bit understanding them, it wasn’t the human language he’d been designed to use, but he had heard it before from sailors. It took him a while to fully understand, but his mind was sharper than any other siren and his memory never failed him.
Mostly they talked about him, how he’s apparently very different from their other ‘specimens’ and wondered why he was able to go on land, and refused to eat the plants, and why he was small, and why he kept throwing the dead fish they gave him at the walls.
It was funny and somewhat insulting as he realized what the issue was, they thought he was some sort of mermaid instead of a siren.
He enjoyed how stupid they were, but he couldn’t believe he’d been mistaken for such a thing. Not that mermaids were the most annoying of ocean creatures, but he could do a fair bit more than those massive, clumsy creatures. Why the hell they thought they found a mermaid along the shore was beyond him, they had no reason to go there, usually preferring kelp forests or the deep seas, but the humans were so sure he was a mermaid.
Which unfortunately led them to believe that he would be a good candidate to mate with a mermaid only a few weeks into his captivity.
She hadn’t been the worst, but she was suffocating and refused to leave him alone. Misa, as she called herself, was a deep sea type who’d been in her mating season when they dropped her into his tank. Only showed how little the humans understood mermaids and sirens when they decided to send her. Firstly, mermaids and sirens could not mate properly, their DNA was too different and if they did somehow manage to actually make an egg it would likely die, and secondly, she was another bearer, so even if he was a mermaid neither of them could’ve gotten pregnant from mating. Although, those facts hadn’t stopped her from pestering him their entire time together.
“Can’t we please do something?” She’d plead, her pheromones stinking up the water. “I don’t care that you’re a siren, you look so handsome and I’ve waited like forever for a mate.”
She had repeated the same few things over and over until he’d finally snapped and cracked her head against a rock to knock her out. He ordinarily wouldn’t attack a mermaid, sirens and mers don’t get along, but there’s a mutual understanding to not fight another endangered and intelligent species. But she was so annoying and he just wanted her to be quiet.
The humans had seen it and taken her away quickly, the human in charge of watching over the girl—Rem—shouting behind the glass at him and calling out for Misa.
After that, they hadn’t bothered trying again, claiming he was too aggressive for the breeding program.
That had suited him just fine, he didn’t want to be stuck with another mermaid, and he’d lived for five blissful and utterly boring months without having to see another one.
L’s POV:
“You understand what we are asking of you?” Watari, the human who’d raised him, questioned him again. He was growing annoyed with the constant doubt, the man had never been so skeptical about his intelligence before, but for the past month, he’d been told the same thing over and over.
“Yes, as I’ve said several times now I understand what I need to do and that it could be dangerous," he drawled, fin flicking in irritation. “I want to meet the new mermaid, he seems very interesting, and I know how important it is to learn about wild mermaids.”
The humans researching the existence of mermaids had only managed to find a handful of them alive, himself who’d been found as an egg by Watari himself, and four others who they’d caught later along in their lives. He’d met the other three so far—Misa, Near, and Beyond—but he had yet to interact with this new, and apparently very strange, mermaid. Beyond had been a wreck and had needed to be put down within only a few weeks of being caught as he kept trying to break his tank and kill the researchers. Misa had been…interesting, she had a beautiful tail and was nice, but she liked Rem a lot more than him and had begged to not have to get back in a tank with him. It had stung a bit, he wanted to get to know other mermaids, to learn about himself as well as them, but her voice had also been too high pitched for his sensitive ears. Near was sweet, but shy and distant, Watari theorized that he’d been separated from his parents too young due to his odd pigmentation and wouldn’t be able to properly explain the social systems of mermaids because of that. Near still visited on occasion, only for a few hours whenever Watari thought it was a good idea, but each time it became more and more clear that it wouldn’t solve his desire to socialize since the boy always wanted to draw in the sand instead of talk.
So despite the warnings about the new mermaid being aggressive, he still wanted to meet him.
“Fine. We’ll arrange to have you placed in Kira’s tank tomorrow. You’ll be monitored closely and hopefully he’ll be more receptive to you than Misa.”
Watari had told him about the fiasco that was Kira’s interaction with Misa. They had been trying to get them to breed as Misa was in heat, but Light hadn’t been interested and ended up attacking her by slamming her head into a rock until she lost consciousness. The researchers had been terrified, thinking they might have another mermaid like Beyond on their hands, but Kira hadn’t attacked anyone when they’d retrieved Misa. Apparently, he’d just wanted her gone and thought that was the best way to go about it. Watari suspected it was because Kira hadn’t been in his mating cycle as well, that both mermaids needed to be in season to be willing to breed, but he thought it had more to do with the fact that Misa was irritating.
He wondered if Kira would think he is irritating as well, he knew that he didn’t understand mermaid social norms, that was a large part of the reason he was so desperate to interact with other mers, but he liked to believe he was clever enough to figure them out quickly. Near had explained that mermaids tend to live in pods of immediate family for their entire lives unless something terrible happened or one was rejected. They tend to eat together, hunt together, sleep together, but unlike humans being isolated would not drive them crazy. They mated for life as well, dancing and giving gifts to one another as they courted. He hadn’t been able to explain much more than that since he was separated while so young.
He hoped Kira would be able to explain more, and would be able to show him what it was really like to be a mermaid living out in the ocean. Although, he had been found in an odd spot and was clearly a different type of mermaid than the rest of them. He wondered if there were regional differences, if his being able to breathe above water was because his type was confined to the shore lines, or if it was just a mutation Kira had developed. If it was a mutation it would explain why he was alone. Misa and Near had no family when they were found and he’d been just an egg. Beyond was with another that had been too quick to catch and Beyond had refused to talk about the other mermaid while alive. Perhaps, Kira had a similar story to Misa and Near, but he hoped that it wasn’t.
It would be a real downer if every mermaid alive was some sort of orphan.