#maritime magic

This made number three. The third person that Marcus had to drag back to shore, just this week! Weren’t the winter months supposed to be less busy? Once the would-be victim got his legs back underneath him, he was sent on his way with, hopefully, a powerful lesson about not getting in the water without knowing how to swim. 

“I swear, if the town doesn’t kill some of these people their own stupidity will” Marcus said, shaking his head. He couldn’t be there for every swimmer turned victim. He’d found plenty of corpses and dragged them back to shore just as he would a living person. However, they did serve as a reminder that every person he saves very easily could end up like the floating bodies he came across instead. 

He was tired, and he was hoping to return to the lighthouse just to kick back and relax for a bit. The sun had yet to set, so his watch hadn’t technically started yet, but he took more solace in the lighthouse than he had in his own home recently. Just as he was about to head inside, however, he heard a screaming in the distance.

She was actually totally chill about water. In the same way that someone with ophidiophobia was chill about snakes. (That was the phobia of snakes, by the way – she’d googled it for funsies one day). So why Mahuika had stuck around a coastal-freaking-town in freaking-Maine of all places was as much a mystery to her as it would’ve been to anyone who knew her. 

Luckily, few people did. Which was totally chill, because the fewer number of people who knew her, the fewer number of people who could figure stuff out that she didn’t want figured out. Which was good. 

Except that sometimes she got a little cocky about things – and yes, she could admit this about herself. That was part of what made her such a good person. Mahuika very much figured that she was a good person, and this was just further proof of that. She liked science, she’d excelled in mathematics. She was freaking good at proofs. Just, as it would happen, not so great at looking where she was going (on the coast), and a few rocks got loose and suddenly she was in the water (salt water, which tasted horrible in her mouth) and she couldn’t help but scream. She was a shit swimmer, and the water was really really super dark.

Marcus looked behind him to see a woman crashing into the water, and it didn’t seem like she was doing a great job of even treading water. Marcus took a deep breath and put his head into his open left palm before shaking his head and running towards the drowning woman. Given how the waves were already starting to come over her, he knew he wouldn’t have much time until she was submerged. At that point, it’d be very tough to find her without shifting into his seal form first. He palmed his pelt, ensuring he had it just in case.

“Hold on!” he yelled as he ran closer to the woman. 

He really hoped that she wouldn’t completely go under before he got there. Some people had a tendency to sink like stones and, while swimming was something he excelled at, diving was not. His feet padded along the wet sand as he finally neared the woman, who looked to slowly be losing her struggle with the crashing waves. 

Salt water tasted funny. Not funny good – and honestly, not totally funny bad, either. But it wasn’t good. It was horrible, actually. Nothing to do with the ocean was good. Well, Mahuika supposed that some animals were good and beneficial and helpful, but the ocean on the whole was just bad. She heard someone’s voice, vaguely, far off (though she hadn’t been that far from shore, had she?).

She slipped under, for a moment, then back up, before she was about to try and see if somehow she was able to control the water (it didn’t work). But a figure appeared next to her and without even thinking twice she grabbed onto them. “I – shore. Now. Please.” Mahuika coughed out. “I’d very much like to not be in this fucking water any longer.”

As Marcus approached the drowning woman she quickly clung onto him without missing a beat. He was used to people grabbing onto his shoulders with their full weight, and was grateful he was strong enough to keep both of them afloat as they did so. Too often a rescuer would be pulled down by the victim they were attempting to rescue, resulting in both people drowning. He had heard many stories of it happening, and had even seen it a time or two out on the field. 

He made sure the woman had a secure grip on him before he made yet another grueling trip back to the shore. At least in this instance he didn’t have far to go, but the fatigue from the day was seriously starting to set in, and it was obvious he was moving more sluggishly than he normally would. 

Soon after, the pair reached the shore line and Marcus ensured the woman he rescued was on her feet before collapsing onto the sand, spitting out sea water as he did so. The woman didn’t appear too worse for wear, and he hoped the same could be said for himself. After catching his breath for a moment, he sat up and said “You gotta be more careful. The currents this time of year are unpredictable, and a riptide can come on at any moment. If I wasn’t here…” 

Then, rather than chastise her further, he simply shook his head. He was frustrated at the folly of humans, but this woman didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of that frustration. Hell, she had just avoided drowning to death, the least he could do was show a touch of sympathy rather than berate her. Marcus took a deep breath to recompose himself. 

“Sorry, just having one of those days. Are you okay? Do you need any kind of medical attention?”

She wanted to snap at his reminder for her to “be more careful”, because what? Mahuika was a very careful person (when she wanted to be) and this stranger judging her? So not it. Still this stranger had saved her life and she was probably supposed to be grateful for that (not even probably, she genuinely was), but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also be annoyed and frustrated about things. She was amazing at multitasking, after all.

Mahuika brushed her hand through her hair. She was so going to have to go home and wash it with extra shampoo and conditioner, which was a total waste of money, proving once again how stupid and awful and terrible the ocean was.

“I’m fine.” She coughed, spitting water out of her mouth, “or, like, at least mostly, haha.” She resisted making a face and figured she should be rewarded for that. Except that this dude had just saved her and asking for a reward at a time like this was so not tactful. Mahuika wanted to be tactful. Most of the time. “I might need a towel? But I don’t think I need medical attention. Unless it looks like I do?” She frowned.

For having almost drowned, Marcus couldn’t help but notice the woman seemed pretty non-chalant about the whole ordeal. Something told him this wasn’t her first offense. To Marcus, she seemed okay. Her color was good, she was moving appropriately. She was able to speak without difficulty, and Marcus hoped he wouldn’t end up being annoyed by this fact. 

“You seem okay, aside from being soaked of course. I don’t have a towel on me right now unfortunately, I came running as soon as I heard you hit the water.” He said flatly. The adrenaline from the situation was starting to subside and he finally started to look at his rescuee as an individual instead of another dumbass almost getting themselves killed. 

“I uh, take it you don’t swim much.” Her ineffective flailing was proof enough of this. “What brings you to the beach then? Especially so close to the shore line”.  

Marcus was always perplexed by people who made it a habit of being near the water yet never learned how not to die in it. It was like setting up a lawn chair next to an active volcano. 

“Yeah, well, I don’t know if I’m okay, but it’s – I’m alive.” It was easier to focus on that than on her fear. Her fear that shouldn’t have ever even existed, because fear made you weak and Mahuika was not weak. She refused to be, and that would work.

“Well, I’m glad you were there to rescue me.” She offered him a small smile. Because she did have to be nice because he’d saved her life, and she wouldn’t be alive without him, because you couldn’t control water no matter how hard she’d tried (she could remember trying when she was tiny, being pissed that she could help people confess love, could make her siblings bring her snacks, but couldn’t move water around.

“I don’t. No. I – well, I can’t. Not technically.” Or well at all. Much at all. Mahuika sighed. “I was out for a walk and I slipped. I don’t usually do that.”

“Alive is a very underrated thing to be,” Marcus began. “You’re on solid ground now. Well…solid as sand can be I guess,” he continued, finally allowing himself to laugh a bit. He had saved a life. And while the work could be tiresome, it was also rewarding. Remembering this is what he needed to help keep himself going.

“I’m glad I was too. Don’t know if I’d forgive myself if I saw you washed up here tomorrow morning.” There was a brief pause, just enough to be really awkward, before Marcus realized how morbid what he had just said really was. “Not to be all gloom and doom or whatever. I’m just saying. I’m glad you’re alive.” 

“A lot of people slip around here,” Marcus often wondered how. He figured the sand would add a little extra grit to people’s feet, but it seemed to do the opposite for most. “Maybe they should set up rope barriers or something? A lot of other piers and beaches do that. Makes it a lot harder for people to fall in.” He then shrugged his shoulders. “What do I know? I’m just the guy that hauls people back in.”

“That it is. It’s a great thing, and too many people make a waste of it.” Mahuika wasn’t exactly going to go about explaining in what ways she thought people were making a waste of it, and then of course, there was that girl, whose name she tried to forget, who’d been taken and not even had a chance to waste or not-waste her life.

She thought she was going to be sick for a moment, but she spat against the rocks and shook her head and everything was better (temporarily, at least). “Doom and gloom’s part of life sometimes, but yeah, that was a bit… much.” It was, and he’d admitted as such, so wasn’t it more rude of her to claim that things were super wonderful and hunky-dory? It was, Mahuika decided. If he didn’t think so, his loss.

“Ropes might be good. Yeah. You also should get a better job. Unless you’re a lifeguard in which, well, I think I might still tell you to get a better job but at least saving people would be your whole job.” She fought off the desire to roll her eyes, and, just for a little bit of fun, willed her savior to do a spin in place. Something simple. Just to make sure that nearly dying hadn’t taken her powers. That would be worse than death.

Marcus found himself agreeing with the woman’s sentiment. People often squandered their life and health. He figured people in this town would be more grateful for their lives than in other places. 

“Sorry…I don’t have much of a filter lately.” It was true, Marcus had much less tact since William was killed. The burdening weight of death seemed to be looming everywhere for him ever since. 

“Lifeguard is only part of the job. I do maintenance and lookout work at the lighthouse over there” he said, pointing to the lighthouse nearby. “I really like it actually. Guiding ships to safety, saving wayward swimmers caught by the waves. It’s rewarding work, but incredibly exhausting.” 

Without warning, Marcus felt his muscles twitch and he quickly did a small rotation in place. What the hell was that? Marcus eyed the woman suspiciously before slowly backing away. She must have been more than she appeared to bed to be

“I’ve been told that I, too, at times lack a filter, so you’re all good there.” At least he was relatively easy to talk to, though Mahuika certainly wasn’t paying too much attention to their conversation. Which yeah, was probably rude, especially to somebody who’d just saved your life, but she also didn’t really care. Which sounded bad, even if her head, but there was simultaneously a certain delight in that.

She gave a half-hearted shrug at his comment about work. “Well, lighthouses are quite nice.” Which was a lame and half-baked sort of thing to say, but what exactly else was Mahuika supposed to talk about? The weather? As if! 

He backed away from her after she’d made him turn around, which was intriguing. It might’ve meant nothing but it also could’ve easily meant that he knew more about Things than most people in this town. Huh. “You good? If you want any like, payment, I’ve got some random-ass Certs in my car. Or I could give you like, five bucks? It was in my jeans, so it’ll need drying out, but it’s something. Or I can just leave.” Mahuika raised an eyebrow. “I don’t even know your name, though, so like, what’s up with that?”

Marcus was thankful the woman seemed to understand at least. “I’m usually more…reserved. Just one of those days, you know?” Marcus found that “one of those days” was often a surprisingly good excuse for mildly bad behavior.

“Well, they help stop shipwrecks and save thousands if not tens of thousands of lives a year. So I’d say they’re very nice” he said, somewhat defensively. He could tell the woman didn’t have much interest in maritime affairs but figured she could at least appreciate the business of saving lives. 

As Marcus looked on at the woman horrified at what she may be, his anxiety rose when she asked for his name. The odds of this being some sort of fae magic were far too high for him to give her his name. No way would he fall for that. 

“My name…you can call me Mark.” He figured it was close enough. “You really don’t have to repay me. Honest. In fact, I should really get back to work. Never know when someone else might need saving. Nice meeting you though!” He said, hurriedly turning to leave. If she were some sort of malicious fae, he needed to get out ASAP

“Yeah, valid.” There wasn’t much more Mahuika could say, and she was pretty sure there wasn’t much more that needed to be said, honestly.