#dcfpumermay25

the abyss also gazes into you

You narrowly dodge another person, sighing as you readjust and carry on. You don't even know why you come to the market at busy times like this. Was it for socialization? Because you wished to make yourself miserable? It was hard to say, really.

"There you are."

"Over here, sweetfin!"

Oh, right. You remember now.

It was because of them.

Two mers who you'd accidentally befriended during one of your rare excursions out and about. You'd swam into one of them, and then the other right after. Thankfully, Sun and Moon both were incredibly polite about it, and you'd hit it off quite quickly after.

They both had their own stall at the market, selling various trinkets and the likes. You'd visit and chat with them during the active times to help 'break up the monotony'. 

You think they just liked the excuse to sneak away when the other wasn't looking to get some time off. Not that you minded, enjoying their individual company and all.

Though, you think you like theirs more than they did yours. By that you meant that you found both mers to be incredibly charming and breathtaking in looks as well. They weren't like the typical mers from around your parts, more unique, alluring. Anyfish with eyes could see that, and anyfish certainly did.

It felt near constantly they were being pursued by suitors, all with offerings and declarations of devotion and such. Both Sun and Moon always rejected them, however, never seeming to have anyone catch their eye. 

Truthfully you think a large chunk of the things they sold were actually betrothal gifts they had collected.

The fact that they were so sought after greatly intimidated you, as one might imagine. So, you kept your own feelings to yourself. You could never quite match up to any of the mers that did try to court them, anyhow.

Too clumsy, too shy, too weak. Not to mention you were a bit clingy on top of that. 

You couldn't help it though, with how kind they were to you. Always waiting for you to finish your muffled, stuttered sentences with soft smiles and understanding gazes. Attentively helping you anytime you stumbled through the water, wanting no thanks in return. Whenever you'd apologize you'd get a teasing response from Moon, or a gentle scolding from Sun.

You didn't get why they put up with you of all mers, either of them. You'd asked them both, separately once. Sun lightly, casually, Moon during one of your worse incidents, when you'd gotten a few stares for your awkwardness.

Sun had simply shrugged, "What's there to put up with? I could ask you the same thing, you know." And you'd laugh, shaking your head.

With Moon, he'd bent down, wiped away your tears, and spoke softly. "If I had to 'put up with' anything, I wouldn't be here, star. You're you, and I like that."

Each time they'd question you with why you'd think such, so 'little' or yourself. You'd brushed it away as casually as you could, hoping they wouldn't discuss the incidents with each other and put the pieces together. 

At present, Sun was informing you of how the day had been so far while Moon assisted a customer. If things stayed just like this, you wouldn't complain. You didn't need them to return your feelings, as long as they always treated you kindly, that was enough. 

You wouldn't get in the way either, should one or both finally accept one of their many proposals. It wasn't your place, and you had no desire to ruin a friendship just because you couldn't contain your feelings. 

"—And what about you?" 

"Hm?" You manage to escape your thoughts, quickly becoming embarrassed when you realize Sun is talking to you. 

He chuckles and repeats himself. "Do you have any plans this afternoon?"

"Oh! Um, not really, no. W-why do you ask?"

Sun shrugs, but his smile betrays him. He's up to something, you're just not sure what. 

You let it go, he's switched the conversation to something else, but you keep your guard up just to be safe. They did love to tease you, afterall. 

The morning passes quickly but you can tell that things are different today. Little things, insignificant to someone who wasn't paying attention. You were, however. You could tell your two friends were up to something, just not exactly what that something was. 

Shared glances between the two of them. A snicker or a giggle here and there. You'd asked at least once if something was wrong, but they assured you there wasn't. 

You did eventually have to get on with your day, and bid them goodbye with the promise you'd see them in the afternoon as promised. 

The remainder of your morning—while just as difficult to navigate through gracefully—passed by quickly, leaving you with your thoughts as you anticipated whatever it was Sun and Moon could possibly be planning. 

There was no holiday today, no anniversary or birthday or similar. None came immediately to mind at least. 

The most likely thing would be a prank of some sort. Nothing harsh, they knew better than that. Usually something that would make you roll your eyes and cause your face to heat up from embarrassment. 

You stay on alert as you made your way to the meeting spot; a cliffside over the reef the three of you liked to frequent in your free time. Yet you find yourself surprised that they're already waiting on you looking... nervous?

It's a complete shift from earlier, and you worry to yourself if something may have happened. Nonetheless you approach, offering a greeting. Sun jumps upon noticing your arrival, Moon avoids your gaze. Each gives you a muttered response in turn. 

It makes you hesitate then, had you done something? Was this, were they going to tell you that you couldn't be friends anymore? Had you gotten too clingy, too annoying, too much? Had they found out about your feelings—

"Is something the matter?" The words slip from you as you attempt, then reattempt to sit down. Your clumsiness truly being a hindrance at the moment. 

Still, they rush to reassure you. 

"No! No, apologies on our part, sweetfin. I suppose our waning confidence must be showing." Sun says, placing his hand over yours. 

You tilt your head. "Confidence for what?" 

They share a glance then, Moon being the one to speak up and finally answer the question which has been leaving you wondering all day long. 

"We called you here to tell you we'd like to court you, the both of us. If you'd be so kind as to let us."

It takes a second for the words to click, but when it does—

"Oh... oh! I, you mean, is that really true?" Your hands fly up to cover your mouth, flustered. 

Sun nods. "Please don't feel as if you have to say yes, but both of us individually felt that—"

"Yes!" You blurt, then hide your face into your hands. "I, sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to be so loud. But yes. Yes that's... I'd really like that."

Moon gently tugs at your wrist to uncover your face. "No need to hide, star." Hint of a tease in the phrase.

"Sorry. I, I suppose I'm just, shocked? I never thought that you'd ever return my- or that you'd even consider me..." You trail off, glancing away. 

There's a moment's pause, until you pick up on their shared snickering. 

"What's so funny?" You accuse, looking between the two. 

Sun shakes his head. "I think we've both simply realized that you're more oblivious than you look."

"And that's okay, Star." Moon snickers again, arms wrapping around you as you protest. "We still love you all the same."

You attempt to get out of his hold, laughing but still bickering. If you weren't so offended at their comments your heart would be bursting at the seams from the confession and the close contact. When things have settled again maybe that will be your reaction, and you'll have to handle another round of jokes. 

In the meantime you'll just bask in the idea that being shy, clingy, clumsy you, isn't so bad at all.

That's all i have for now, was a lot fun to play with the tail mechanics and add a little bit of plot with that hehe

Thank you for reading!

Masterlist post is here

Reblogs are always very much appreciated & encouraged! :]

This does not make the inevitability of your death any easier. Your bravery isn’t any more heroic than a spider futilely crawling up the walls of a bathtub. It will never reach the top, and in a day it will be swept neatly down the drain, with hardly a thought given to its endurance to stay alive when it still had a chance. So, too, will your time come to look death in the face and hope that, despite it all, your life was not lived in vain.

But that’s a headache for tomorrow. Today, you are eating dried apricots and watching your third sunrise of the day from your small cabin window, and imagining what it might be like to fly as the stars do.

Inevitability grasps your ship like a bath toy and grinds it to a halt, throwing you across the glorified tin-can carelessly, where you roll and roll and slam into the base of your control deck. Lights flicker, sharing the tremble in your fingertips, then plunge the room into a still, cold, dark.

Heat licks up your spine and draws over your muscles in slow, sore agony. Getting to your feet proves itself to be a nigh impossible task upon the realization that you’ve fractured a rib at the very least; and when you do make it there, hand braced on the control deck for support, it’s all you can do just to keep your legs from giving out on you. It isn’t pain that makes them quiver, but fear. A fear so bone deep and saturating you had spent the entirety of the last seventy-two hours doing everything in your power to ignore dread’s siren call. There is little you can do to run from it now.

The silence that remains is suffocating, ripping the air from your lungs like a tear had cleaved through the sturdy hull of your ship, evoking the abrupt sensation of remorse the same way street asphalt reminds one to wear a helmet.

Your time is up.

It’s just your luck that death is ahead of schedule. You can’t say for certain that the source of your ship’s untimely demise is the same unnamed beast that your persecutors had warned you of, but, given the vast enormity and consequent emptiness of space, it would be just plain foolish to consider any other alternative.

This makes it all the more suspicious when you don’t immediately find yourself in the belly of something incomprehensible. Having spent the days leading up to your departure being lectured on the wickedness of this creature, you had been expecting an omen to indicate the end of everything. A snarl, a roar, an explosion of light. Anything. Anything but the deceptive tranquility that surrounds you now.

Somewhere in the distance, a star grants your wish.

Music, soft on the ears, steadily overwhelms the silence. Vintage oldies from decades past catching and scratching like old vinyl; saturn’s rings are a record that spins with every quiet heartbeat.

You consider, ever briefly, that it is the space station’s way of sending you off with one final goodbye. An impersonal show of pity, so they might be able to continue holding your fate at arm’s length and wash their hands of your death when it’s finally over with. This theory reigns for as long as it takes you to realize that the music isn’t coming from your intercom at all. Nor does it stem from your ship’s internal system, her desperate beeps of distress having been silenced long before now. The longer you look for its source, the deeper that palpable fear drives into the pit of your stomach, until you can no longer ignore the answer right in front of you.

The music sings louder, captivating as the voice of a siren, from directly outside of your ship.

A quiet tap against the exterior threatens to drag your spine between your teeth, drawing every hair to stand on end. Its echoed by another, and a final tap after that, punctuated with a beat of silence before the noise repeats itself. Dread pricks at your skin as you realize that it isn’t a tap at all, but a knock.

Somehow, someway, in the tremendous vacuum of space, someone – something – waits for you to open the door.

This is a solitude mission, a suicide mission. You aren't meant to have company. Yet the knock at your door is unmistakable, its volume increasing with each echo, and so, too, does the music swell until it drowns out everything else. The knocks, the heart drumming in your chest, even your own thoughts become impossible to register as each new song goes from overwhelming to excruciating.

Any longer and your head is sure to split, stuffed to the brim with static and voices you don’t recognize. Blood interrupts the stale air in your helmet as it empties from your ears and rivers down your cheek. Louder and louder, still, does the music tear into your soul, driving you up the face of a cliff and running you towards the edge in hysterics, closer, closer, closer–

When had you gone outside?

The notion chills you, but pales in comparison to the weight in your gut when you turn over your shoulder and see, undoubtedly, that your ship has been cleaved in two.

Warmth spreads over your jaw, somehow reaching through your helmet to draw your attention back to the front, where you’re met with something…peculiar.

No, not something. Someone. A misshapen estimate of a human, wrong in many ways, like it had been created on a guess, yet right where it counted; in the eyes which stared back at you like pearlescent mirrors, and the curve of their jaw, which felt especially human, and the gentleness of their hand cradled under your cheek. Their anatomy mirrored yours in that they smiled with crooked teeth and boasted too-wide shoulders, but the resemblance disappears past the torso, which tapers into something akin to the tail one might expect from a fish, a stream of light that goes on for miles, ending not in a fin but in a trail of stardust.

Oh. It isn’t a tail at all, it’s a comet, and it hugs their waist like the moon orbits the earth.

They burned against the darkness of space, casting a beautiful glow like the very stars themselves, like an angel, and like an angel it pained you to focus for too long. Blurs of cerulean and gold bled together, flowing across their body like the tide of a shallow creek rushes over stone. They emit a light so radiant, so abundant with color, so beautiful amidst the emptiness of your surroundings that you hardly even notice that their touch is scorching you.

They don’t allow you the time to realize, rather, you’re swept into the embrace of a dance. Planets rush by as the creature spins you about, waltzing between the stars to the tune of Don’t Be Lonely. Your mind swims back to that spider in the bathtub. If you are the arachnid, that would make this creature the hands that gently guide you into a cup. Their touch is merciful, each movement placed with careful intentions, as though they are intimately aware that the smallest tug could rip you limb from limb.

At any moment you could be thrust towards the nearest galaxy, too. Made to drift through gravity, aimless and lost, until your suit ran out of air. Yet their hold on you is firm, steadfast, and you find yourself forgetting about the inevitable, focusing instead on the charm in their smile and the way it warms your belly, sending giggles up your throat. Your defense evaporates as their tail surrounds you, replaced with a wonderful sense of relief, and, forgoing all former apprehension, you begin to dance along.

You’ve never been much for waltzes. Yet when you’re swept into the dip, and their forehead taps innocently against your helmet, you can’t help but feel like it isn’t supposed to end this way.

The dizzy feeling in your chest is swallowed by an overwhelming sense of dread you can taste in the back of your throat, its weight so crushing it feels as though your body is rupturing from the inside out, and a single thought fights through the music and drifts to the surface, unprompted.

I don’t want to die.

You wake with a start, returned to your ship with little more than the echo of warmth to remember the moment by.

If it was nothing more than a dream, it must have been the best sleep you've ever had. For the first time in years you are warm, you do not ache, you do not hunger, you do not thirst. You feel no fear.

Your coffin remains in a functioning state. Lights, sounds, gravity. The walls are in one piece, and the outside is, once again, terribly quiet.

Against your better judgement, you find yourself mourning the experience. At the very least you can say that in your dreams you aren't so lonely, nor still heading for death, regardless.

"Good morrow," crackles a voice from your intercom. It is instinctively familiar, yet not a voice you immediately recognize. Most certainly, it is not the voice behind those who sent you to die. "Damaged?"

You blink in quick succession, attempting to make sense of the question. After a swift once over of yourself you lean against the control deck and confidently tell the mic that you're unharmed.

Silence answers you before it's followed by the whistle of a note, like that of an old song. You're met with the sensation of something poking you between the ribs.

"Curious little proto. How have you survived?"

Their voice sweeps through the intercom with curiosity and awe, crackling like static. It does little to soothe your confusion.

"What do you mean?" You fiddle with the controls, attempting fruitlessly to find some answers. "My ship lost power for a moment — I think it did, at least. Or I was dreaming?" Words dribble down your chin in a rush before lapsing into silence. Though your heart is content, the feeling that something is terribly wrong remains nearby. "Am I still talking with Mission Control?"

A short matter of breaths pass in silence. That is, figuratively speaking. You find the concept of lungs confusing, and the sensation of a heart no longer beats within your chest. The lack of it scares you.

"It was our hope that this would be easier on you," says the voice, suddenly quiet and meek, "but we cannot stay for much longer."

Your body warms exponentially, as though your very bones now begin to crackle and split like logs on a fire. "This?" You ask, barely a whisper.

The room is distant, your body not your own. The skin you wear itches with unfamiliarity. Panic creeps in past the haze and drives you back, away from the window and the empty, black sky outside of it. Away from the voice, the feeling of hands ghosting over your skin. Away from the answers you so desperately sought out.

"Who are you?" You demand. "What's going on?"

Your shoulder bumps against something stiff.

You swivel on your heel to face it, and are met with the sight of your own corpse, still floating, still aimless.

The scream does not leave your throat. It rattles in your chest, against bones that aren’t there and through a pipe in your neck that feels swollen and raw, ringing between your ears.

"Easy, easy, now." A new voice enters the fray, scratchy like static all the same but shriller. Splashes of gray and blue cross your mind, crashing through your fear like a tidal wave. "Do try to relax, traveler. This is new for all of us."

You will breath into your lungs, yet find none of it. Your heart squeezes around nothing, blood vessels twisting painfully, until every sensation slips away one by one and ultimately fades into nothingness.

"What did you do to me?" You rasp, unable to take your eyes off of the you that looks like it's been here for forever. Even your words are unfamiliar, spilling from between clenched teeth in a voice that isn’t quite your own.

"You weathered the toll of a star's devouring," answers the second voice. "Survived what should not be survivable, endured what most cannot." The voice pauses, mercifully allowing you a moment to try and understand, then, "Now you exist within us."

Your body feels as though it, too, has begun to float. The room around you crumbles, piece by piece, until you see the truthful mangling; entire sections of your ship devoured by the insistent tug of space and gone forever. Your coffin, your prison, your home is devastated beyond repair, and looks to have been in that state for some time.

“How…how long have I been dead?” You croak.

“Four centuries prior,” answers the first voice.

“A blink of the eye to us,” says the second. “So we waited. Wanted to be sure.”

Your throat constricts, finding you lack the spit to swallow. “Sure of what?”

“That you would wake somewhere familiar,”‌ says the first voice, light as air and honey yellow. “But it isn’t safe for us to stay in one place for much longer. We must leave this place, little proto. You are trapped here no more.”

You manage to tear your eyes from the body if only so you can turn over your palms, not finding flesh, muscle, or bone, but blurs of color in its place. Cerulean, gold, and...something new. Something...

You.

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Because you are a protostar,” says the second voice. “An infant, by millennium's standards, having only joined us a moment ago.” There’s a pause, then, “Worry not, little star. We will learn to get along.”

You fail to comprehend the significance of what’s occurred, feeling new and raw, still, but you will surely understand in time.

“So…what happens now?” You ask, staring past the body of your ship to stare into the unknown. It no longer looks empty to you. Instead, the sky and its many blinking stars, so vast that its majesty is incalculable, now appears…beautiful.

You might have never known.

“Anything,” answers yellow. “This world is our playground, friend. It’s just waiting to be explored.”

Something new, something dangerous, addicting, stirs within your chest. You think it might be hope. “And you’ll be here, with me?” You ask. “I won’t be alone anymore?”

“We aren’t going anywhere,” says blue, chuckling. “You’re a part of us now, inseparable, invaluable. So tell us, little star…”