#rinthegreat

It was when he hit the water that Shiro remembered, with perfect clarity, that he couldn’t swim.

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. He could manage, in the water - he hadn’t grown up by the shore but he did cannonballs into the deep end of the community pool with his friends and he’d been at the beach every summer - and that maybe contributed to the fact that he wasn’t as afraid of what lay beneath as some of the long-haul fisherman who sat on the piers and watched the college-age students on break with a disapproving eye.

The tug almost turned over as another wave smashed into its side, the rough blast of seawater scattering everything that wasn’t tied down. Detritus was flung into the ocean as the few remaining passengers yelled helplessly into the storm, most clinging to what they could. Shiro had been halfway up the ladder when the next wave hit and he wasn’t able to keep his grip on the metal, slick with brine. It was a miracle he didn’t crack his head on something as the wave washed him completely off the boat but he hit the water hard enough to stun him, all the wind knocked from his lungs as he plunged into the murky depths.

It was dark and quiet beneath the waves and, disoriented, Shiro tried kicking for the surface when one of the unsecured crates hit the water and he wasn’t able to get out of the way in time. The impact drove what little air remained out of his lungs and the water rushed in, choking him, as he struggled for the surface.

The last thing he remembered, was something above him taking his hand.

*

Shiro stirred, finally, when the most adventuresome of the circling gulls alighted upon his back. He turned his face against the wet sand and groaned, and, startled, the gull took flight again, disappointed that its prospective meal still showed some signs of life. Coughing up seawater and bile, Shiro pushed himself to his knees, blinking gummy eyes open against the harsh, clear sunlight of day.

He was alive.

The stretch of coast was covered in flotsam, bits and pieces of the wrecked tug brought to shore by the tidal current. There was a thick vegetation, lush green and almost tropical that ran along the beach as far as he could see … and most peculiarly, not a single sign of human habitation. Shiro sat on his knees and stared blearily at the jungle, and then looked back over his shoulder. The ocean was as calm as it ever was, the wash of the tide against the shore gentle as it broke over his legs. He could see nothing but water to the horizon, the sky blue and with scant white clouds.

Without warning, one of the rocks that the waves washed over - vanished.

Shiro blinked at the spot in the water, certain he was hallucinating. He’d just survived - somehow - and was probably badly concussed, but as he stared out along the stretch the rock resurfaced at a slightly different position, closer to shore.

What.

Weak and woozy and parched, he didn’t have time for nonsense. Shiro staggered to his feet, amazed for some reason that his shoes hadn’t come off, and turned to fully look out at the water. As he was watching, the rock vanished again. He blinked his eyes and rubbed one hand over them, then turned from the view and back toward the vegetation. First order of business was finding potable water. Anything else - including concussion-induced hallucinations of moving rocks - could wait.

*

There was a small creek running not far from the water line that appeared to be freshwater. With no other options Shiro drank his fill, then sat on the slick rocks and tried to get his bearings. His head was pounding, and after a time he wandered back out to the shore to see if there was anything salvageable among the flotsam that had washed ashore.

Halfway up the beach, out of the water, was a mermaid.

Shiro, having broken the treeline, stared dumbly. It hadn’t noticed him yet - curled and sitting up slightly, back to the treeline and holding what looked like the waterlogged remains of one of the rucksacks they’d carried on board the tug - and Shiro opened his mouth to say something, do something but he didn’t know what so he closed his mouth and watched instead.

The mermaid - because Shiro couldn’t really imagine what else it could be with a long, serpentine lower half that was covered in iridescent blue scales and translucent fins whose pattern transitioned into what looked like soft brown skin at about mid-torso - tossed the rucksack aside and folded their arms, turning their head slightly and pouting. Shiro got a profile then, less feminine than he’d imagined but definitely more human than not, with slightly curly brown hair and pointed ears. The mermaid let out a long low sound that conveyed disappointment, and then glanced back and saw Shiro standing frozen in the shade of trees.

A long moment passed as they stared at each other.

“Uh,” Shiro said. “Hi?”

The mermaid let out a terrific noise, high-pitched and shrill and Shiro winced back, anticipating attack and not having anything like a weapon with which to defend himself. Instead, though, the mermaid lunged forward toward the waves and Shiro knew instantly that the moment it got to the water he would never see it again. Hallucination or not, it was the only living thing Shiro had seen since he woke up, and he ran after it. “Wait, wait!”

It hit the water well before him and vanished beneath the waves. “Wait,” Shiro called futilely, standing the shallow water, his voice still hoarse and worn. After a moment a head appeared above the waves, well out of reach and only enough that he could see its eyes. From this distance, the mermaid looked like a rock. “Wait,” Shiro said, and put one hand on his chest. “Did you … save me?”

The mermaid’s head bobbed in the water and, suddenly seemed to realize that Shiro wasn’t chasing it, just trying to speak with it. It rose slightly out of the water, head and shoulders to mid-chest and Shiro realized, startled, it wasn’t a mermaid, per se … although who knew. He was a little out of his depth when it came to mythology turning into reality. “You save me?” Shiro said again and this time the mermaid nodded enthusiastically. “…Thank you,” Shiro said. The mermaid gestured emphatically and quickly and Shiro stared at him with dawning comprehension as he recognized that the mermaid was signing to him.

“Oh, shit,” Shiro said, because he knew approximately five signs and three of them were obscene. “Um, I don’t,” he gestured helplessly at the mermaid who was still frantically signing to him. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

The mermaid let out a loud, disgusted noise, and swam a little closer in the shallows, still signing. Shiro shrugged, wide-armed. “I don’t know sign language,” he said, because the mermaid appeared to understand him even if he had no clue what he was saying.

He watched the mermaid gesture wide, and then make a very unmistakable ‘come here’ gesture.

Shiro looked around the beach, and the mermaid made a noise of impatience. Well, he had dodged death once already in twenty-four hours, if the mermaid had wanted to eat him that task could have been accomplished without letting him wake up on an abandoned beachfront in god-knows-where. Shiro approached the mermaid cautiously, and the shallows dropped off suddenly under his feet, the water going from mid-leg to mid-chest almost instantly. He floundered for a moment but then the mermaid drew up to him, catching Shiro by arms.

He flailed despite himself as the mermaid put his face up close to Shiro’s squinting at him like he was studying a specimen under a glass. “Uh,” Shiro said but then a wave broke high and he spluttered. The mermaid nodded his head, then bit his own hand.

What happened next was quicker than Shiro expected. The mermaid had bit his own hand, puncturing the soft brown skin with sharp teeth. His blood was as red as Shiro’s, which surprised him, but what surprised him more was that the mermaid licked his blood clean, then grabbed Shiro with his wounded hand and dragged him forward, kissing him.

Kissing a mermaid was, Shiro thought in retrospect, something he ought to have put on his bucket list for the sheer visceral thrill of being able to cross it off. Not that the thought had ever occurred to him because mermaids were purely fiction, relegated to the realm of mythology except for the very real mermaid holding Shiro in the warm ocean and kissing him right now. There was a metallic tang to the kiss, the hint of the mermaid’s lifeblood and when Shiro blinked his eyes open glittering blue ones stared into his intently, watching him closely.

“Um,” Shiro said because how exactly were you supposed to respond to being kissed by a mermaid?

’Did it work?’ the mermaid asked him, clear as a bell, and Shiro yelled and flailed back in the water, feet going out from under him. That dunked him under the surface and he came up sputtering, stumbling in the soft sand and flailing back to slightly higher ground. The mermaid slid forward smoothly in the water, barely rippling it and pushing himself up on the beach, just enough so that the water broke over his powerful blue tail. 'I think it worked,’ he said in amusement, clapping his hands softly.

Shiro was reasonably sure the mermaid wasn’t moving his mouth but, whatever, he was going with it anyway. He stumbled out of the water and sat heavily in the damp sand, slightly away from the mermaid and staring at him. “You talked,” he said. “Who are you? What’s going on?” He looked back at the jungle, and then to the mermaid again. “Where am I?”

'You have many questions,’ the mermaid said, sounding amused. ’This is the first time I’ve spoken to a Man since I came of age!’ He drew himself up and put one hand on his chest, his hair floofing out as if dry. 'I’m Lance,’ he said, and then stuck out his hand in a comical, over-exaggerated mannerism like one who had only seen the gesture and never performed it.