He battles the waves to swim to them, the stranded figure struggling in the currents, keeping his grip on the axe in his hand no matter how much harder it makes every stroke. The shadowy form is circling in the water, drawing closer - the threat of the storm no match for their hunger with prey in sight.

“Just hold on,” he calls, swimming past the figure - focused on driving away the threat. 

He strikes at them, swinging the blade in the maw of a hissing, slithering thing half made of teeth. They keep coming, and he keeps striking; jaws clamp down upon the blade of his axe, and between the creature and the choppy waves the axe is pulled from his grip.

A poor weapon for a battle in turbulent water - as the creature snaps and jolts forward - Bor draws on his other, pulling on the fire in his blood, the frustration and fever of it - he won’t fail in this rescue.

He roars in its face, and clocks it right in the jaw with a sharp fist.

As it retreats, he tries to speak - turning in the water as best he can.

“Come on,” he manages, the words a struggle with heaving lungs and waves battering his sides, “we’ll get you back to the sh-”

Bor sees dark hair, big eyes - wide with alarm - and as his eyes catch their bare arms - their exposed collar - something brushing against his legs as he paddles in place - he realises this was no castaway thrown starboard.

No - this is a -

He barely has time to register the shimmering tail and the realisation of who - or what - he has saved when an errant wave overtakes him, and he’s pulled under the surface.

Like the hand of a colossus reaching up from the ocean floor to snatch him; the grip of the current around his body drags him down into the darkness. 

The light of the surface is pulling away in his stinging sight, and in his mind is a distant thought; if I survive this, Arthus is going to kill me.

Not the most momentous final thought, but it is what he thinks as his lungs start to burst, the air choked out of them. The darkness swirls as he sinks.

Suddenly, air. Pushed with force into his starved lungs. Lips on his own, breathing into him with a kiss.

Bor feels hands on his shoulders; for a moment the air rushing out of his nose in a flurry of bubbles until he realises what is happening - the blurring visage of dark hair around him as lips linger on his own a moment longer.

Those hands grip him, his saviour moving around him effortlessly, gliding through the currents and locking around his waist, and Bor knows he needs to hold this breath as long as he can as he feels himself pulled through the depths.

–

He chokes out the water in his lungs, taking in heaving, painful breaths as his mind catches up; he’s on dry land - sort of - he blinks away the burning salt water and realises he is in a pocket of air, the stony surface below him a cavern, not sand.

Looking down at him, a pair of big eyes, a mop of sodden dark hair that is dripping on his face; and as he sits up he feels fingers retract from his chest.

Bor takes him in at last. 

Snatched from death into the arms of one as beautiful as this; Bor thinks, and recognises the delirium in the words, but he is beautiful. Sweet, soft features - parted lips like a bow - and trailing back into the water - a tail of silver blue scales, tinged with gold.

He is tense, arms wired, eyes darting across Bor’s face with trepidation. 

“Don’t be scared,” Bor says, and the words come out roughly - his throat is still raw, “I won’t hurt you.”

But he looks confused.

No - he’s not afraid - he’s wary - prepared to be attacked.

“Y-you’re not…” he mumbles, his voice small and soft, unsure, “you’re not afraid of me?”

The stuff of Harper superstitions and hushed warnings, and not a bit the vicious creatures we were warned about, Arthus will never believe this. 

Bor smiles. How could he possibly fear him, with lungs still filled with the air from his own? 

“Well,” he says, “I hadn’t expected to find out merfolk exist today, but I hadn’t expected a lot of things today. Why would I be afraid of you?” 

“You saved my life,” he says, and holds out a hand.

The man looks at it, perplexed expression growing - brows drawn into a knotted frown.

Perhaps they don’t shake hands, Bor considers.

“I’m Bor,” he says, instead, resting his hand over his chest - feeling how his heartbeat is hammering under his fingertips.

His saviour understands, placing his fingers over his own chest in turn.

“Geraldus,” he says.