glowfic | Part of your world

Honestly, the human's unconsciousness is kind of convenient. Flailing and panicking? No very helpful to keeping the vulnerable human safe by - well, what's essentially body shielding. Lirlaveth doesn't think she could stop the sea beast from killing her charge at this distance if the human managed to escape the very necessary hugs. Since she is unconscious, though, it is quite easy to keep her comfortably wrapped in Lirlaveth's arms.

She looks for other humans that fell overboard, but - no, it's just this one. The beast wouldn't be staring at them so intently if there were others in the water. Or she would have seen it eat them. Which is - good. Sort of. It means that no one else is at risk, but bad, because there's nothing else for the sea beast to focus on. Just her, and her unconscious rescuee. If she messes up at all, lets the human stray far enough away from her that the beast snatching her won't potentially hurt Lirlaveth - well. The human will be snatched, and killed.

No pressure.

Following the direction the ship went seems to be her best bet. Lirlaveth would like to attempt to drop the human off near where she lives, instead of a strange land. Waking up, alone on a foreign beach when the last thing you recall was a sea beast rising up from the depths to try and kill you? Yeah, uh. Let's keep the horror and panic to a minimum, here.

"Shoo," she tells the sea beast, uselessly. To no one's surprise, the beast doesn't shoo. It stays, staring hungrily, looking for an opening. It doesn't see one. Yet. "Go away, no one likes you."

It does not go away.

She sighs, and then starts in the direction the ship went. Swimming with a passenger's sort of awkward, and the terror in the back of her mind doesn't abate. The sea beast follows them, for a ways, watching. Waiting. Telling herself that she is a siren and it will not hurt her doesn't help very much. It's a large, terrifying beast that could snatch her in an instant and kill her in the next. Of course she's terrified. But she doesn't drop the human and run, and she doesn't let herself slip and leave an opening for the monster. She swims, more focused on safety over speed.

And apparently the sea beast thinks it won't find an opening anytime soon, or doesn't think she's worth its time, because it gives a final growl and slinks off. Lirlaveth breathes a sigh of relief, but doesn't relax. She tugs the human along with her, wondering when she's going to find land.

The high cliffs of the northeastern Seraini coast loom in the distance soon enough. Not many great places to drop a human here.

She'll - figure something out, she supposes. They must have beaches. Of some kind.

She does not find a beach before something else finds her.

An undignified squeak escapes her lips when an unnaturally large shadow blocks the sun. Her protective hug tightens a little, and she wonders if the sea beast is trying for the element of surprise -

Her heart skips a beat when she notes that the sea beast has brought a friend. And they both look hungry. Somewhat inanely, she wonders how they could possibly both be sated by a single tiny human. Not that she wants to wish some sea beasts on innocent ships, or anything, but - really, why.

The why becomes very clear when she picks out a small finned figure riding the second, unfamiliar beast.

"What have we here?" says the siren riding the monster, and something in Lirlaveth's stomach must have turned to ice. Why is a siren riding a sea beast?

"... What does it look like, I'm trying to put the human back," says Lirlaveth, because that sounds like something that this siren wouldn't find very offensive.

"Oh, are you dear? Well, there's no need, give it to me, I'll take care of it."

"That's all right. I've got her," why is she still pretending civility, it is very obvious where this is about to go, "don't trouble yourself."

"Hmm. No, I think I will trouble myself. Let go of it, and my pets will spare us both the inconvenience."

"And if I decline?"

"I wouldn't recommend it." The unfriendly stranger smiles. "But you're entirely free to do so, my dear."

Lirlaveth pretends to think. She looks at the two sea beasts and, with more honesty than she'd like to admit, trembles a little. She bites her lip, looking hesitant. Looking like she might be convinced on this subject.

(And she gathers up the water around her, subtly, to prepare to pull the both of them away as fast as she possibly can.)

"Why do you care?" wonders Lirlaveth, timidly.

"Why do you? Have you actually spoken to a human, little one? Have you heard their contempt?"

"... I have."

"So let it go, leave it to me, I'll even hold her until you're gone so you don't have to watch. You can go back home, conscience clear. It was the sea beasts. There was nothing you could have done."

Bullshit, Lirlaveth doesn't say.

"I think I'd rather not condemn her to death because some humans were a bit rude to me," she says, before she can stop herself, because everything about that sentence offended her.

The other siren sighs, almost sadly. "Well. If that's really how you feel about it -"

Lirlaveth feels something tear at her throat and her tail, and she flinches and lets out a cry. Or, to be more accurate, she tries to. The sound dies in her throat, and the pain in her tail magnifies and she thinks Fuck I should have realized she knew magic why didn't I account for that -

"I feel that you're not really a siren at all. You love humans so much? Die with them."

She tries to tell the sea-witch exactly where she can go, and - no sound comes out of her lips. The pain in her tail quiets and it feels wrong, twisted and bent and broken and what the fuck are those, legs? What the hell just happened to -

The sea beasts lunge.

Panic dies away to - well, this isn't really not panic, but it's something much calmer. Certain. She has a job to do, however nonsensical the sea beasts attacking are. Protect the human, don't die. She unleashes the wave of water she'd been building, and she and the human are shunted very quickly towards the island. Attempting to correct with her - she hesitates to call it her tail, with her lower half is an exercise in what the fuck is going on. So she doesn't. Instead, she clings to her human and focuses on the magic. Faster, faster, get away -

No. That won't work. She doesn't have the ability to outrun them. Time to be sneaky.

She heats the water around the witch to boiling, smiling just a little when she hears her scream. Inflicting pain is not the point of the exercise; the point is to distract her. And, from the sound of it, it worked. Then Lirlaveth pulls the witch after her, pushes at the sea beasts to slow them down, then - yes, one siren in front of a charging sea beast. It stops in its tracks, before detouring.

One's charge is broken, but she's not done yet. You can't be that large without taking a hit to your ability to turn. She waits until the sea beast has almost gotten them, and then she twists the water, goes left and stops when it was expecting them to continue as quickly as possible. It tries to compensate, and only gets so far as giving her what she'd call a very aggressive scratch before it's too far away to do anything else. She doesn't give it time to correct this; she switches directions, pulls the both of them that way. Still towards the island, but a different part of the island.

Another charge broken, but it hasn't bought her very much time. Where is a beach, all she's seeing are mountains, mountains, mountains, and maybe a cliff just to break up the monotony a little.

She picks a place that looks less steep than the other places, and sends the both of them towards it. To slow down the monsters chasing them, she heats up the water behind them, but it's not really enough. Had to go and be heroic, she thinks, followed by, Oh look sharp rocks I can use those. So she does. She can dodge more effectively than they can, but that's not saying much, sea beasts rely on overwhelming force and the element of surprise over finesse. She grazes a rock she can't manage to compensate for, whimpers soundlessly, and notes how she can correct her course to prevent that from happening again.

And then she spots what looks like an inlet, surmises that it should have some kind of beach available, and pulls the both of them that way. A few heart-pounding seconds later, and the water shallows enough that the monsters can't manage to properly move - any further and they'd probably beach themselves. They stop. She doesn't, she is going to find a beach right now because what the fuck.

Edited 2016-02-14 03:11 (UTC)

The shores of the inlet flatten out relatively quickly, and a soft beach opens out on her left.

Beach!

Excellent. She picks the two of them up in a wave and deposits them as far up the beach as she can manage.

She drags the human up the beach, putting her internal screams that run along the lines of where has her tail gone aaaa to the back of her mind while she focuses on this thing. They get far enough up that Lirlaveth doesn't think she's in danger of inhaling water anymore, and tilts her head neatly to the side so all water can be safely exhaled. The siren herself neatly exhales all of the sea water in her and switches to breathing air. And then she checks to make sure her injuries aren't immediately life threatening - nope, they aren't - and promptly flops back onto the sand to internally scream a bit.

She has legs she has legs she has legs what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck she's completely mute and has legs and the sea beasts attacked her what the fuck!

She might be like that for a while.

Edited 2016-02-14 03:35 (UTC)

The unconscious human makes a noise.

Lirlaveth - swallows her remaining panic and sits up.

She didn't really check the human for injuries, did she. Are there any nasty injuries?

No visible ones!

"Wrgl," says the human, blinking hazily.

She'd say something, here, but it's an exercise in frustrating futility and she might be in danger of crying if she tries to speak and fails again.

Instead she waits. She'll wave when the human looks at her.

She sits up, winces, clutches her head, and sits very still for a few moments.

How does she say hello when she can't talk?

Um. Um.

She shifts a bit on the beach to purposefully make a sound. There. Yes. Good.

Still holding her head, she looks around. She catches sight of Lirlaveth.

"Um?" she says.

She waves. Looking very much like she's trying to smile and is utterly failing at it - somewhere between traumatized and very pissed at something that is not the human.

She's bleeding. And has no pants. She hasn't yet realized that not having pants is a problem.

"I - what," she says. "I was on a ship..." She shakes her head, assumes a momentary expression of deep regret, closes her eyes and pinches her nose for a few seconds, and then opens her eyes again and says, "Okay, first things first. Do you want healing?"

Lirlaveth nods.

The human crawls a little closer and puts her hand on Lirlaveth's arm and frowns in concentration.

There's a wavering sensation of heat and cold around Lirlaveth's injuries, and then they start to fade. Five seconds later, she's in perfect health. Although still with the legs.

"Okay," says the human, relaxing and taking her hand away. "Now I want to know what's going on."

Yeah. The legs - are going to be hard to fix.

Hmm. How to explain this without talking...

She considers, then points at the ocean for the human to look at. Then she pushes part of the ocean back in a distinctly magical manner.

She drops it once it's demonstrated. Point made, she's a siren. With legs.

"Well that explains both how we got here and why you're half naked," says the human.

Half-?

Oh.

The siren has the courtesy to blush and look away. She shifts a bit to try and cover herself. It's only moderately successful.

Apologetic smile?

Edited 2016-02-14 04:43 (UTC)

"I'd offer you a spare pair of trousers if I had any," she says. "Maybe my sisters will bring some."

Eyebrow raise. She motions around them. And how will they know where to find you?

Edited 2016-02-14 04:53 (UTC)

"We have a magic sister-finding mirror."

Ah! That makes sense. She nods.

...

She looks pensively at the ocean. She prods the sand with a foot.

"Um?"

Oh, right. All body language is now taken as communicative.

She considers how to word this. She decides that maybe she can't figure that out, so she goes with drawing in the sand.

She draws what could be reasoned to be a stick-siren, then draws a giant monster that could be surmised to be a sea beast. Then she crosses out the tail of the stick-siren, and draws arrows from the sea beast to the no-tailed siren. ... And angry eyebrows. On the sea beast.

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