ヘ(´－｀;)ヘ omg here comes the boy
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skeleton: ivory character name: han minsun age & birthdate: unknown gender & pronouns: cismale & he/him birthplace: unknown length of time in port vale: on-and-off for 20 years occupation: art restorer fc: Song Joong-ki
THE OCEAN —
There were no memories, no past to look back to. As the eldest of the remaining members of the Hippocampi, the passage of time was elusive. Memories stacked, one on top of the other until he had forgotten a time before the nothingness of the ocean. His memories only truly began with the distant trill of siren’s songs and the fractals of light reflecting off mermaid tails.
Minsun spent his days at the sides of his brothers, never one to stray far from the home he had in them. Loneliness was a void, abyssal and all-consuming—the empty waters his brothers told him of reminded him of that. But the blue that surrounded them then was alive, a picture so beautiful that he did not want ever escaping his constantly-fading memory.
He had taken to collecting rocks, creating crude images from pebbles and discarded shells as a reminder. Anything he saw would eventually be documented: his brothers kicking up detritus on the seafloor, the flow of a mermaid’s hair. They would all be washed away when he went to check on them, a futile effort on his part, really, but he kept on. It was a way of having just one more day with a memory he knew would eventually escape him.
Unrest was nothing but a distant haze, nothing more than a fractured whisper on his side of the world. He was too busy with his head stuck in the rocks creating his pictures to notice that anything was amiss. It was only when he finally picked his head up that he had realized that less and less of his brothers were coming back. It was a strange thing, to see their numbers dwindle, and he was once again reminded that the sea was a lonely place—vast and all-reaching, quiet.
Eventually, Minsun had had enough. Gone were the days of carelessly chasing the steps of his brothers and collecting shells. The Hippocampi were now but a few, and he had the overwhelming feeling that he could have done something about such a loss. He had spent so much of his time pretending that the blue around them wasn’t turning red. He would make up for it then, take the remainder of his brothers and hope to survive.
But it was all for naught. Even with his vigilant protection, one by one, more of them were gone. No traces of anything left behind no matter how hard he and everyone else looked. It was as though they had never existed, only remaining in the span of their memories. Each loss would tear at him, hardening his resolve until there was nothing left of his former self. More memories stacked upon each other, and each of them were the faces of the family he’d lost.
Even if he wasn’t enough to save them, they would not be lost with the tide. History would be kind to them, and they would live on like that. He would make sure of it.
ON LAND —
He could never stray from the waves for long, often finding himself standing on the surf, looking to the gray vastness of the ocean with longing. Often, he would find himself succumbing to such desires, lost underwater, time treading on like sea foam on the shore. Years would pass him by without his knowing, and he would feel guilty for it. Eventually, the feeling would overcome him—his sense of loyalty and above all, his duty would see to it that he would avoid the water at all costs. Maybe one day he would be able to return home.
But in that town by the sea, he felt a sense of calm—a tentative lull in the storm, allowing himself to let loose but never truly free from that promise he had made to himself all those years ago. Even he knew that constantly worrying would do him no good—but words were just words. He had to actively do something about it. So, he turned to the arts, back to where it had all started for him. Those were his where his memories started, the memories that lasted through every moon cycle and change in the tides. It was the closest he could get to seeing without having to worry that he would run off again. His fascination led him to taking classes, ending up with him taking up a job as an art restorer for the local museum. Often, he would find himself holed up for days on end, delicately reviving damaged paintings and forcing the pain of having left the ocean down with seven cups of coffee.
He finds it hard to maintain any sort of social life when most of his hobbies are solitary activities. Reading a book inside a bar, while not against the law, just feels wrong to him somehow. But a life of solitude was never one he wanted outright; he had always been one to follow at his brothers’ feet, letting them lead the way. He couldn’t do that anymore, so he finds himself wandering, forcing himself out of the house to see as much of that small port town as he can.
Distractions aside, he can never truly be free from the ties that bind him back to the sea. He can paint all he wants now, instead of having to stack pebbles and shells together, but he knows that it is just a small comfort. This place would never be home, not when the proud numbers of his people had dwindled to only a handful, when he could not set foot in the ocean without a prickling sense of danger underway.
So he waits. Waits for the sun to break through the clouds, for the day that he can run for the vast blue beyond and never look back.
