A Struggling Artist Appears!

What if Magnus was, somehow, the Silversnake?

We know that the Fellows (and the Remingtons/Pointers) viewed themselves as the Experts on Mystids. They felt that it was something that was exclusively theirs and belonged to no one else. Some kind of "Nobody but US is allowed to have these creatures" mindset. (Because of… Pride? Arrogance? Obsession? All of the above?)

That's why, when a bunch of them left Mystid Mansion, they basically gutted the place and took everything with them. Right?

So when the Silversnake got fished up in Silkwirm-On-Sea, the Fellows (minus Felicia) were the ones pressuring the Seafoams to give it up to the "government" for "research" purposes. It was a rare, strange creature with unknown properties, after all! Even if the rest of the town was capitalizing on the hype of having their own cryptid to draw in tourists and business that their little town probably needed.

Sylvia, however, did not want to give up the silversnake. She wanted to keep it! Badly enough that she literally started building an entire submarine with the intention of having her family (or at least herself and her daughter) move into it and live in the ocean with the mystid. She also may know more about the Fellows and Remingtons than they realize she does since she was Felicia's best friend.

Enough to know that they may not want the silversnake for the reasons they claim they do.

(After all, they make a point of mentioning Trophy Hunters in TT and Richard Remington was certainly one in SotS.)

She convinces herself that she needs to protect the snake because, if she gives it up, the Fellows/Remingtons are sure to just kill it and add the body to their trophy collections! She can't let them do that to the poor creature! But she can't just say that to Felicia's dad, even if she's sure it's true.

(She doesn't want to hurt her friendship with Felicia. Although, her friend was more of a Stonetop than a Fellow. She used the Stonetop name far more than the Fellow name. Some people didn't even know she was a Fellow!)

She visits the eatery at the Inn one day (when Felicia was out) and shares her woes with a sailor from far away, but had noticed her mood after she'd had a few and asked what was wrong. An odd but pleasant person who was just visiting for the hubbub, but mentioned that they'll be leaving soon anyway so there was no harm in sharing her thoughts. It wasn't like they'd be in town long enough to spill the secrets to everyone.

The sailor leans back in their seat after she finishes talking, giving her a long, hard look over their stein. Like they were evaluating her deeply for some reason. Then they lean in and, in a low voice so they won't be overheard, ask her for a pencil or pen and some paper.

"I can think of a way to hide your creature that these folks will never figure out. And if they did, everyone around 'em would call 'em mad for even suggesting it." They scribble two recipes out on the paper, one they label 'Change' and the other they label 'Return'. "Hide the beast by giving it the first brew, but make sure you have a story for why no one will be able to find it. When it's ready to go back to how it should be, give it the second."

She takes the papers, figuring "why not?" and goes home. She sleeps off the drinks and forgets about the conversation for a few days.

Then Faustus Fellow comes by and informs her that, in a week, there will be people coming to take the Silversnake from the harbor. (With the full aura of "I am not asking you. I am telling you. And you will listen.")

Suddenly, there is a time limit to what she can do before they'll just take it away. By force, even.

Sylvia finds the brews, remembers her talk with the sailor, and decides "Fuck it, I may as well try." She gathers all her supplies and carefully outlines her ploy before putting everything into motion.

She orchestrates an "accident" at the shipyard with the help of her husband, making it look like something fell and broke the tank the silversnake was in and the creature escaped back into the ocean.

Then she smuggles the snake, in a much smaller tank, into the Inn's basement. She had secured permission to go in while Felicia was out doing something, leaving the Inn basically empty and her free to use it for her "Saving Silversnake" plot. (Felicia figured her friend was up to something, but wasn't asking so she could claim Plausible Deniability if it went wrong.) She makes both brews in the kitchen, so that she can have both on hand if she needed them, and thoroughly cleans up afterwords to prevent anyone from getting clues about her doing something there.

She adds the Change brew to the seawater of the tank, unsure of how else to feed the serpent a bottle of the stuff without risking her fingers, then she sits back and waits for it to do whatever it's supposed to do.

What it does is turn the Silversnake into A Guy.

One that she has to hurridly yank out of the tank to keep from drowning. (She gets smacked in the face at least once and has to deal with the bruise for a few days.)

The silversnake is not handling this well, because he has no fucking idea what's happening. There's this knew thing he's never dealt with before (eyes and sight) that are making his head hurt, his chest and nose hurt from the water (they've never hurt before???), it feels like he's choking on something, everything is muffled and then too loud in his hearing, the Noisy Grabby Thing is being Loud and Panicky and grabbing at him, his limbs aren't working the way they should, and everything is wrong wrong WRONG!

He's laying on something hard and rough, coughing and hacking and panicking. Because what else can he do when he doesn't know what's going on?

He feels stuff being wrapped around him, heavy and scratchy and unfamiliar, the Noisy Grabby Thing making it's noises at him like it thinks he knows whatever it's sounds mean. Then he's hauled up and moved somewhere else. Eventually he's set on something softer, more heavy things wrapped around and thrown over him, before he finally passes out.

Leaving Sylvia to stare at the mystid-turned-man and wishing she'd asked the sailor more questions about what the brews did before they'd left.

When Felicia comes back from her mini-trip, she finds Sylvia with a thousand yard stare in the bar, a random dude she doesn't remember giving a room to wrapped in towels and comforters, and an empty water tank in her basement.

They agree on letting the silversnake stay at the Inn and leaving Felicia to teach him How To Person. Since him staying with the Seafoams would raise questions, and also Sylvia's dealing with the Fellow Inquisition now that the snake has "escaped" from the shipyard. Having him there would be too stressful for all of them.

They also decide to name him, properly now that he's person shaped. After much arguing, they settle on "Magnus Mortuga" as the name they would tell anyone who asked who he was. With the excuse of some kind of illness or head injury for why he didn't know how to do things everyone else knew to do. (It was not very well planned but, well, Sylvia didn't expect her pet dragon to become a guy so-)

Magnus learns quickly, getting to the point of "functioning human" soon enough. It sucks a lot at first, because he can't/doesn't understand them. Noisy Grabby Thing languages never had any meaning before. he'd been a creature living in the dark, quiet depths of the ocean for most of his life. Nothing down there needed to make much noise, never mind the many complicated ones Noisy Grabby Things used to communicate. They made so many noises! All the time! Why would anything need to make that much noise?! He only ever made noises to find his way, but the Noisy Grab- The-the humans… Couldn't do that, apparently.

((I'm assuming that, since the Silversnake doesn't have eyes, it uses some kind of smell/taste/hearing combination to navigate. Much like cave-dwelling Olms do. (Those are a type of cave-dwelling salamander!) I would assume that would explain the use of it's long whiskers, as sensors to help it move through the darkness safely. Echolocation might be unique, but usable in the open ocean though.))

Moving on two legs is hard when he's so used to having more. No tail to balance with, no claws to get a better grip, and they're so… so.. soft and squishy and easy to hurt! He's bumped and fallen so many times and that hurt so much more than he thought it should. Stumbling under the water had never hurt that much! And their hands were so big, even if they didn't have claws.

And eyes! Everything was so much with those! There were things everywhere and he didn't need to echo to know about them! If it was too bright they hurt, too dark and he couldn't move around without falling. They stung in seawater, but he needed them to move because he couldn't hear as good anymore.

It was strange and overwhelming and there was so much happening all the time.

Felicia has a hell of a time getting him to even leave the blanket nest that's become his room, but at least she's able to get him out and doing things. She's basically teaching from scratch for every single thing that went into being a human. Like, all the things they normally learn as small children now need to be taught to a full adult. Thankfully, Magnus seems to be a natural quick-study.

(Is it because he's actually a mystid? Is it a trait of him just being smarter than the average critter? Is it the thing that made him Person letting him learn so fast? Any could be true!)

Originally, their plan was for him to be human until Felicia's paternal family stopped harassing the Seafoams. Then they got attached to their Weird Guy, and he reached the point where he kinda liked being a human. Even if he still got confused by some culture stuff humans insisted was important, like using "money" instead of just trading things they needed.

(Felicia knew the family that ran the Navigation Emporium tried to teach him about the importance of money. She got to laugh when she saw how frustrated they were when it didn't work. The map guy seemed to have fun teaching Magnus about how to read different charts, at least. And she got to see him make at least 1 friend with someone from out of town, too!)

He was the stoic but nice guy who lived at the Inn and helped out there.

Then Sylvia got sick and passed away, leaving her submarine plans and her family behind. Then something went down with Felicia's family and see was deeply upset and determined to do something. Then Magnus took the map he and Felicia couldn't read to Godrick Gripp, so they could find whatever it was she was insisting they needed to find. That this was a trip she couldn't afford to not make.

Magnus didn't understand it. He wasn't sure if not being born a human was the reason why.

Godrick, after deciphering the map, insisted on joining them for the voyage. Felicia hadn't refused, so he'd let the man aboard as a navigator. Felicia finally told him about what it was she was after when the sea gave him clues that there was danger, and his instincts told him they needed to leave. Felicia talked him out of it, insisting that he was being paranoid and that everything would be fine. They went and collected the mask, the eerie green light of it's marker making him far more nervous than he'd ever felt before.

Felicia decided she had to test it before they left. Winding it up with the necklace-key that she'd always had for as long as he'd known her, pulling on the mask and saying… Something while she wore it. He couldn't understand the words, but the tone… Something about it felt familiar.

Then the ship rocked and the Mermaid appeared.

Magnus was a mystid. He was human shaped but, at his core, he was still a silversnake. Something made by the remnants of the Mermaid's birth.

He couldn't speak the mermaid's language. It was just as unintelligible to his ears as it was to human ones. But at least part of what had made her, had also made him. And that meant he could understand the meanings behind her words. The feelings and thoughts carried by her tone.

He could feel a loneliness, a call hoping to be echoed back. Confusion at what it found instead. A lack of understanding behind what it was looking at. And very little thought paid to the small creatures that had somehow called out to her.

Magnus knew the Mermaid wasn't malicious or cruel, but she knew nothing about humans. And had no idea how much harm she could do to them without meaning to. Harm that she does do when she grabs at their tiny, frail ship with her too large, too hot hands. When her touch burns his skin and scorches the wooden deck.

Felicia is the one that gets them to shore again. He doesn't know how they got away. If she'd managed it by convincing the Mermaid to let them go or if it was sheer luck.

It takes weeks for him to recover. In that time he finds that; Felicia didn't sink the Mask to the bottom of the sea while he was out of it, Godrick survived because of driftwood that brought him back to land on a lucky current, Felicia had fled town without telling him or her other friends where she'd gone, and that Godrick was obsessed with learning what the mermaid said to him. No matter the risk of calling a being that didn't understand the frailty of a human's life.

Magnus wanted to put it all behind him and return to the comfortable life he'd found as a human, to find Felicia and learn if she was really okay after everything that had happened to them. (He knew first hand what it was like to have your world completely changed, after all.)

Godrick didn't care about his life on land, and refused to let go of his obsession with the mask or the mermaid. And he refused to tell Magnus where Felicia had gone, denying him any kind of closure with the remaining human that knew his true nature.

Somehow, this battle of wills ended with him as the captain and helmsman of a submarine that Godrick had commissioned and named after him. Searching the dark seas for a mask they would never find there.

(Magnus would later lay awake at night and ponder the irony of living in the changed submarine. That, despite everything that had happened, he would be living in a place built with him in mind. But without any of the people who'd wanted to be there with him.)

Fast forward roughly 4 to 5 years, just after Sinthia joins them.

Magnus comes to Silkwirm at least once a month to restock supplies for them all. Usually sending out Godrick and Zacharias with things he'd salvaged from the depths to get food or clothes or parts for everyone. He convinces Godrick to go and check with Don Drummand if it was really okay for his daughter to be staying on the sub or if she'd snuck off without permission.

He agrees, with some reluctance, and visits the shipyard to see the father of the teen girl who'd had the gumption to row out into the ocean with a duffle bag and a walkie-talkie in vague hopes of finding the submarine and speaking to Magnus.

Somehow, he gets his hands on a journal written by the late Sylvia. (I haven't decided how. Maybe being given stuff to take on the sub that Sinthia might need while with them? Possibly?) A journal where she talks about everything that went down with the Silkwirm Serpent, many of which she kept from the rest of the time. And she outlines her original plot to smuggle the silversnake out from under the noses of the Fellows and the Remingtons.

He finds the recipes for the brews. Old and yellowed and hidden at the very back of the book.

He finds out about mystids. He finds out about the Fellows and Remingtons "Trophy Hunting" ways. He finds out that Felicia helped her hide it at the Inn. He finds out she accidentally made it human. He remembers a man who'd appeared overnight, barely understanding the world and how it works, constantly being watched and guided around by the local Innkeeper.

Godrick puts two and two together and gets four. Aanndd Then he proceeds to fuck up the math after that.

By coming to an incorrect conclusion about Magnus' motives for keep him from the mask.

Godrick's new theory for Magnus' stubbornness is now anchored on the short talks he must have had with Felicia before she skipped town. Possibly even before then.

Magnus was the Silversnake, trapped in a human form. (Trapped because he must want to return to the sea!) With his only way to return to his true form being held by Sylvia Seafoam for the longest time. And then she died without turning him back. His only hope had, surely, been left in Felicia's hands. She and Sylvia were best friends, so she must have been told how to make the cure at some point.

He was so determined to find out where Felicia was… Had she, possibly, promised to turn him back in exchange for guarding the mask for her?

He keeps his discovery a secret, swiping the journal and recipes to take back to the engine room.

He creates the Return brew in secret in the Engine room, doing his best to keep anyone from knowing what he was doing other than his usual work there. He needed to have a vial of the stuff in his pocket for his future plans. A new tool he could use to convince Magnus to finally, properly search for the mask and not just puttering around in the dark ocean with no true goal. He needs to have it on hand to show Magnus how serious he was about it.

But he can't just race in with that information. He needed to ease his way into revealing that he'd acquired the recipe to return the Mystid-Turned-Human back to how he should be. And that he was willing to make it in exchange for finally getting the mask.

Godrick starts dropping hints. Carefully planned ones to try and get Magnus to confront him first. Magnus picks it up after a while, but he's unsure on what to do with that.

He doesn't know how to unpack Godrick knowing that he used to be a Silversnake. He knows that Sylvia and Felicia were trying to keep it a secret. He knows that something bad could happen if the wrong people found out what he used to be. But it's been so long since he was brought to Silkwirm and how many humans would believe that he used to be the silversnake? (Could he even function as a his former self again? He'd been human for so many years now, he'd gotten so used to being human. Could he live any other way now?)

He ends up shelving it, because he just… Has no idea how to deal with it.

Wirman and Dirk arrive, getting him busy enough to not allow a proper confrontation between himself and Godrick. Followed by Mariana and the Mourning Envolope with the Key inside.

Godrick takes that moment to confront Magnus about his origins as the silversnake, and his theory that Felicia was holding his true form hostage to make him act as a guard for the mask for her. If she's passed away, then he has no reason to keep guarding it.

Magnus denies that he's been guarding the mask's location for Felicia. He denies that he's being forced to act as a guard for anything. He denies that the mask has actually been on the ship the whole time. He says he'd rather destroy the mask that keep it for himself. But, key to Godrick's perspective, he doesn't think to deny being the silversnake. (He's more focused on the rest of the accusations.)

When he leaves, frustrated and grieving, Godrick has a different idea of what to do now that he 'knows' Magnus is really the Silversnake. And he has a short scope of time to prepare a plan/trap to finally get the mask. Even with Magnus' continued refusal to work with him.

Instead of wedging the necklace key into the bell, he very carefully uses the small bottle of Return Brew instead. It's far more fiddly than the key was, but he's determined to get it into place as a trap for Magnus when he opens the cauldron. He's sure he'll open it soon now that they've got the mourning envelope. Either to hide it somewhere else on the sub or to discard it entirely to keep it from Godrick's grasp.

(He believes that Magnus isn't actually doing this of his own will, in this au. He thinks Magnus is in denial, on some level, that Felicia is actually dead and still holding onto the idea/hope that she has the key to return him to normal. That she'd made him promise to not allow anyone to take it. He's still pissed about the lying, but he's got something holding back the level of violence against Magnus himself.)

When Magnus finally does go to open the cauldron, with the intent of ripping the accursed mask to shreds so Godrick couldn't get himself (or anyone else) killed because it, the bottle smashes him in the head.

It's a thick bottle, originally so Godrick could be sure it wouldn't break while he was carrying it around, so there's a lot of force behind it when the bell swings it around. Enough to knock him out cold, the brew changing him back to a silversnake while he's out.

When Godrick slips in after getting the key, he feels some sympathy for the wounded creature laying in a tangled pile on the floor of the storage room. He takes a moment to tie Magnus' bandages over the new painful-looking crack in his head before finally taking what he'd come in after.

Instead of Tanya finding blood dripping into the bilge after the tilt, she hears a low pained croon from Magnus through the vents above. It's such a weird noise, she has to check it out and see what the hell made that sound.

She finds the silversnake in the store room, lying in a heap on the ground in front of an open cauldron. And realizes that the cloth tangled with it is actually the remains of Magnus' half-coat and trousers/pants, his shoes laying near by too. Also, there's a giant crack in the side of it's head and it looks like it's bleeding. (Meaning it's not only alive, but genuinely hurt as it lays there.)

Tanya feels insane at the idea forming in her head, but Magnus wouldn't just wrap some random critter in his clothing. Nor would he just leave it in a room that he knew Sym liked using without saying anything to the rest of the crew about it. Even if the door was too heavy for anyone but Magnus or her to open without help.

She carefully steps back, closing the door to keep the kids from getting in and possibly interacting with a wounded creature that might lash out. Even if she thought the creature might actually be her dear friend. She then races out to figure out what the hell happened and how Magnus got hurt. She goes looking for Zacharias, since this is weird as hell so maybe it falls under his field of skills? Unsure but she needs to find someone.

When she gets to the parlor, she notices that the door to the deck was open and that makes the idea that someone did this to Magnus kick in. She goes from worried/concerned/confused to Mc-Friggin-Pissed:tm:. She has the canon chain of events for Godrick trying to summon the mermaid, hurling the oar from Sinthia's dingy like it's a javelin at the "Demon" standing on the aft deck.

She comes in through the airlock with the mask, tucking the coral/gems into her treasure chest and leaving the leather remains of the mask in her room.

Then she's back to looking for Zacharias to get him to look at the Creature-That-Might-Be-Magnus in the Store Room.

She spots a very confused Sym outside the Store Room's closed door, Dirk trying to open it for her but doesn't stop them before they can get it open. And they both get scared by Magnus dazedly flopping out on the floor of the hall.

Magnus' head is throbbing, he can't see shit, and he very off kilter as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on now.

He whines at the shrieks of surprise from Sym and Dirk, the combined noise making his head ring painfully. But it gives him a familiar feeling of echoes that he hasn't felt in a long time. And, for the first time in years, he uses his echolocation to "see".

Becoming aware of the gathering people and his own form at the same time.