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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Wrote a little thing for mermay, and while there's much more to the idea than presented in this oneshot, I hope everyone enjoys this little preview of the constant aquatic!
Tumblr version will be under the cut:
Hurried steps pounded the dirt by the cliffsides.
Wilson tried his best to catch his breath, but could see it was all for naught- he was too late.
He and a few other survivors were attempting to unravel the small timeloop the constant had tucked away in one of itâs many layers, quite aptly named âthe gorgeâ, but their current attempt to satiate the cruel beast in the sky had already begun with rocky progress. They were hoping if they could satiate it in a way superior to their previous successful attempts, perhaps this loop could end and free the poor residents into the grater constant, butâŚ
The looming Gnawâs appetite had reached its limit before they could finish enough dishes, favor run out and time cut short. The ground and air rumbled with spite and ancient magic, and Wilsonâs harried breathing started to turn into coughing fits, his lungs rendering themselves apart to transform into gills.
Despite the harsh circumstances, Wilson had a little surprise up his sleeve for such an occasion: a little life amulet and the broken shard of a tentacle spike he had brought with him in secret when traversing to the gorge. Had failure halted his process before? Many times, too many times. Wilson was quite keen on figuring out what would happen of a survivor should find themselves after the Gnawâs point in time where it punished failure with mermification, though the process seemed to kick him out of his body once there was no trace of his humanity left, back into the blank nothingness when reforming a body in a new layer of the constant or starting the time loop over again. He had quite hoped that Wanda could help, but in her absence⌠well, Wilson had plenty of experience with practical suicides and timely revivals, he was willing and able to make do.
He looked over at the sea while he rushed to put the amulet on, unchanging in this particular area despite the moon rising the sea in every other area of the constant. The rocky cliffs remained high and impassable to attempt to sail. Never the less, it made for a serene sight to calm his mind for what he needed to do next.
He took up the tentacle spikeâs remaining shard and raised it up for a quick pierce to the heart. Heâs normally one to opt for draining a major artery, but time was of the essence while he felt his legs mutating and his skin turning to scales in patches.
The pierce was agonizing but the results were swift.
Wilson stumbled backwards while twisting the spike until he could feel his heart stop. His lung had gotten nicked in the violent act, spewing blood into his choking fits, but he was in so much pain he paid it no mind.
His heart stopped beating.
His last step back met air.
Wilson didnât have enough oxygen left in his brain to fully realize he was falling, stony sea rocks out of perception in his blacked out vision.
He didnât have anything else left in his brain once his skull hit the sharp shore, killing him a few seconds sooner than the lack of a functioning heart would have.
His partially mutated body was swept away by the waves, and under the surface where his amulet began to glow and activate.
Oo0o0oO
Wilson wasnât sure what he was expecting when he become conscious after his revival, but it wasnât a chestful of water when he took a breath. He opened his eyes in haste and was rewarded with the sting of salt water, hands grasping at his burning torso, unable to right himself to stand or push himself up.
His panic and flailing motions continued for a long moment. After all, why would he expect to wake up submerged? As the pain in his eyes grew to a more bearable level, the gentleman scientist was able to perceive his surroundings, as well as himself.
The light of the cloudy sky just barely illuminated the peaks of the waves from below, just enough for Wilson to know he was indeed under the waters surface. As baffling as it was to be underwater without blacking out, he could at least tell what direction âupâ should have been.
He made no hesitation to swim towards the surface, doing his best to ignore the small collection of air bubbles as he breathed out and the deformed scales jutting out of his gloves.
He breached the surface and tried his best to breathe in, but found himself exhaling water every time he tried to empty his lungs out. Despite having a strong breast stroke to fall back on, his thighs felt numb and difficult to move, leaving him unable to kick past moving his knees. He pushed himself with a stronger stroke upwards, and breathed in as hard as he could, only to spasm with pain once he receded under the waves.
He hacked and gagged as a burst of air bubbles came out of his mouth and his sides, the pain lessening as he involuntarily took in more batter between fits.
Wilson became weary with confusion and strain alike and decided it might be worth it to just let himself drown at this rate.
He let himself sink to the bottom, the little granules of sand floating up with the soft impact.
Letting himself go slack on the seabed, he couldnât help but think of how peaceful this moment in time was despite drowning to death, the gloomy light of the gorge glistened above and the water around him was so much quieter in the depths away from the violent waves and whooshing winds. It was a shame he fell into the sea and wasted his chance to explore the gorge beyond the looping point, but heâs just have to try again the next time he could sneak some âextra itemsâ by in the portal. He closed his eyes and sighed, a few leftover bubbles rolling out of his throat, relishing the feeling of a rare, peaceful death.
âŚ
He felt the current pick up, water gently flowing through his hair in a rather pleasant way.
Wilson didnât feel any pain in his chest anymore and wondered why he wasnât upright at the florid postern back at their current base yet.
He opened his eyes to the same underwater view, and a gentle breathing in of the sea water seemed to be like breathing thick air, his eyes didnât even sting anymore. He took another deep breath to confirm it; he was breathing water, but something on the side of his ribs was sticking to his shirt. His mouth formed a line once it caught up to his brain that was was going to be in the here and now for some time.
He pushed his arms out in front of himself to properly investigate what happened to him; it was clear he wasnât able to die quickly enough to prevent his lungs from turning to gills, and he could feel the wrongness throughout the rest of his body too. His arms retained a more human shape than the blobby merm appendage it was doomed to turn into, but his nails turned into sharp white claws at the end of his more angular fingers, and something felt like his skin might have been partially degloved beneath his actual finger-less gloves, though the rest of the gloves had been torn up with some prominent green scales lifting the fabric up and away in too many spots. Removing the gloves proved to be a small hassle, but once he got them off the pressure on his forearms and palms receded. He mostly has human skin where patched of various sized scales didnât grow in, but between his fingers were thin growths of skin akin to webbing. He waved his right hand around, feeling the increased resistance of the water when his hand was outstretched. He simply observed and muttered âHuh.â
The mutter was something he felt vocalize in his throat, but he could also feel the subtle vibrations on the sides of his neck. He reached a hand up to touch, and the tips of his claws he could feel small ridges, just like a sharks gills. He kept his hand nearby while he yelled out âHello, is anyone there?â into the distant kelp masses. Naturally there was no response, but Wilson took the time to look around the environment, finding himself in a little patch of fine sand between the high rocks reaching up and past the surface, a thick âfieldâ of an unknown kind of short kelp, and a clear stretch of water that seemed to go⌠somewhere.
Wilson had momentarily become distracted with all the new things to discover around him that he had neglected to finish inspecting the changes within him. As soon as he tried to swim over to the kelp, he had the strange sensation in his thighs again, not quite numbness but he couldnât explain why he couldnât feel them moving they way he was trying to. Looking down, he was that his trousers were in a precarious state, not just torn up but sucked into the mass patch of scales on his lap, spreading over each thigh and twisted into a mass of flesh that bridged the gap between his thighs. He put his hands over the mass and tried his best to spread his legs with a strenuous grunt, but to no avail- his thighs had become stuck together in the middle, possibly a healing error from the amulet mistaking the scales for a wound and trying to fix a body that had expired between states of being. He pulled his muscles so hard that the new skin formed over it began to tear and bleed slightly, but without a means of healing, Wilson wasnât willing to try to cut his legs back apart just yet. He sighed and looked down at the rest of his legs, his calves were free and still human shaped though the scales had shredded the lower portion of his trousers completely, and his shoes had split at the tips to accommodate his longer toes, also with skin webbing added.
The changes to his body were novel and fascinating, but the rumble of hunger in his stomach was a familiar feeling, both a reminder and confirmation that he would still need to feed himself despite his physical state and new location.
He swam over to the seaweed growths he saw earlier, though to say âswimâ would undermine just how clumsy his movements were- he had not had a chance to practice such movements since he was a younger man, leaving him paddling and flailing and doing little incomplete kicks like a miserable creature going every which way in all directions until he remembered how to do a breast stroke. By the time he actually got to the seaweed patches, he had managed to regain some competency in his form, despite the atrocious changes to his body.
He started to grab at some of the kelp, noting small and short brown leaves next to bundles of grape-like growths that would bob up with a distinct translucent yellow tint. He picked at some of the leafy fronds, and taking a nibble out of one proved disappointing, empty of any value much like eating the leaves of a deciduous tree. He grabbed one of the âfruitsâ off the bunch and popped into his mouth like a berry. The foul burst that came out of it was horrendous, like a concentrated sample of the most seal and seagull infested coastal pungency he had ever had the misfortune to experience, and the salty water around him was a stark relief as he clawed any remaining substance from his mouth.
As his frenzy died down, he fingertips and clawed nails brushed over his teeth more slowly- he could feel his teeth had become sharper, but at this point the shock of his mutations has dulled down. He still needed to find something to eat, and swam towards the more open water to explore.
The sand stretched far and long into the distance.
There was nothing but sand for a good while.
At this point, Wilson had to take an occasional break to look around for any distinguishing features, clutching his grumbling stomach to soothe the growing ache. Something seemed different not to far off from where he wound up, the long stretch of sand seemed just a little bit shorter, stopping abruptly where the water became brighter and the current became stronger.
Once he swan to the void in the ocean floor, he grasped the edge to keep himself steady and peered over.
The entire sea poured over into infinity, the water around him spilling over into a torrent and down onto a floating disk that looked an awful lot like the land masses and circular sea Wilson could easily recognize from any of the maps he made over the last however-many-cycles, in turn high above other disks of land and sea that poured into one another like overflowing goblets, going repeatedly into a black infinity. The sun over and under each disk looked like blurry stars in their own right, their lights beautiful and small through the refraction of the water spilling over from the high level of the gorge. Maxwell once mentioned the darkness that laid âout of boundsâ wherever the layer he would generate, the odd tranquility of quietly looking off to something beyond what even their eyes could not truly peer, and Wilson understood how breathtaking the whole system was and how interconnected each âworldâ of the constant really was in ways he couldnât perceive.
As much as he would have loved to stay where he was to observe, he knew his hunger was a clock ticking down, and heâd rather have a much better reward for the risk of death. There didnât seem to be much in the way of edible or usable materials here, so that left the massive volume of water cascading over the edge and wherever that might lead; a much more exciting sort of death than starvation by any measure. Looking straight down, Wilson could see the water falling a great distance before forming a base of mist and cloud, and began to tip himself just a little further with each moment looking at it, lest he scare himself out going down preparing for a big leap over.
The pull of the current did the rest of the work once he had reached out far enough.
The sudden acceleration of being pulled down had caught Wilson off guard, but he had a long way to the bottom. He was swam under the pressure of the current towards the edge of the water, just enough to stick his head out but not far enough to risk a premature ejection, and was rewarded with the clarity of the beautiful sight he had sampled before. He could see each segment fly past him, most unfamiliar, but a few he had an odd recollection of, like a circle of rocks around a crab king right by where the sea poured over, just like the one he saw five âstart-overâs ago, same placement and everything! He was swept down past a few more, but the one he could see that got his attention was another familiar world where he could see a boat.
He could see himself on the boat, with the same prime-mate killing him in the exact way he remembered dying that time.
Wilson extended a clawed hand to his chin in thought- the time issues the gorge experienced surely meant that timeâs rules had different changes depending on where one was in the constant, and being between all the worlds and layers and sets and boards meant that for the briefest of moments, he too was between time itself, however long this ride would last.
Another world he was still high above was folding in onto itself, crumpled into a ragged ball like a failed blueprint before massive shadow hands flexed their fingers over the mass, forming trees and rocks and other things as the ball stretched out again into something new. Wilson could just barely see two little dots coming out of a flash in the center before that world passed him by entirely, only a deep sort of rock with itâs own little leaks visible from underne-
Wilson hit the end of the waterfall, but realized mid-air that the end wasnât the splashing water against the surface but a storm absorbing all the water to rain down on everything below it.
Wilson flipped past the freezing cloud and through the sky, screaming all the water in his gills out and drowning in air for a brief moment until he landed hard into the sea on his belly with an impressive splash.
The pain of the landing caused Wilson to be dazed for a long while, only just being able to breathe to regain his composure. He left himself drift in the new current. He had plenty to mull over in his own brain, there would be no urgent need to see where he wound up, if not for the continuous hunger pains. He brought himself back upright (What he thought was upright? All he had to tell was the light on the surface and the slightest sense of buoyancy) to look around, and he found himself in a much more lush environment.
Far from a flat sand field, the would around him had too many things to note at once, lots of little rocks next to bigger ones, familiar stretches of bull kelp reaching high from their roots to the surface, and a variety of shells all across the seabed. Wilson went right for the kelp, knowing it to be edible even when raw, grabbing fistfuls and shoving into his mouth with haste. While the texture wasnât particularly appetizing, the salty taste seemed mellow after getting used to breathing and swallowing salt water. Luckily for the scientist, there was plenty to harvest when one wasnât restricted to the very top, though it was hard to say how much he had picked when most of it went right between his pearly whites to try to fill his stomach for the next while. He put the remaining amount after his feeding frenzy into what was left of his pockets for later, though he certainly wasnât excited to eat it again if he had to.
Now that his immediate need for food had been taken care of, he could properly explore!
He began to grab at some of the shells, recognizing the familiar shellbells from his time on the surface, and raising some of them up to see if the tiny creatures inside behaved differently when underwater. The tiny green⌠snails? Crabs? Salamanders? seemed to be just as reclusive as on the surface, tucking themselves further into their shells. Wilson supposed heâd have to look into them later when he could get a hammer.
The thought of a hammer had Wilson reaching into his pockets for the materials. His hands met the distinct squish of kelp fronds and nothing else.
Wilson began to sober up from his need to explore. He had no materials, not even an axe or a spear to defend himself when the need would arise, and it would arise here in the constant, no matter his special circumstances.
He began to look around for things to gather, easily finding rocks and flint on the sandy bottom and pocketing them as well. He swam up closer to the surface and was able to grab a little bit of grass, but he felt his immediate findings would be inadequate, and so swam away from his landing zone.
Skimming the surface let him find some floating bundles of sticks and more grass, but with how much he had to swim between each find, he couldnât help but be worried. He was at least able to make a regular spear, but⌠Making a few test thrusts with it let him know his mobility would be an issue when attacking, putting enough power behind the spear also forced his entire body to stiffen, and hitting a rock below had him pushing away without ground to properly stand on. Wilson sighed, making do and putting the spear on one of the loops on his pants, keeping it ready to grab the moment he felt he needed it.
He stroked a webbed hand though his hair whilst looking around for anything of use, swimming forward while his mind drifted. The fact his hair seemed to retain some of its shape rather than floating everywhere was nice, though it floated off his scalp just enough to make him feel the need to smooth it back down before it got in his face again. His fingers brushed by his ear, pointed and lengthened in various places like a merms head fins, though thankfully only on the edge of the helix, helping to keep the side of his magnificent hair in place.
The thought was interrupted when he got close to a pillar of white rock, and to the familiar shadows that made Wilsonâs heart speed up with stress.
He hated cookie cutters and he was certain they hated him too. They seemed to always swim too close when it was most inconvenient, and today would be no exception as one plunged down from the surface and towards Wilson, jaws open for all the sticks Wilson had gone though the trouble of collecting. Wilson took his spear back out, jabbing it the things creepy creepy face, backing up as much as he could swim to make sure it didnât try to eat his spear if it got too close. Sure, they were aggravating to fight on a boat, but at least they were face down and distracted eating rather than opening their empty maw and eyes right at him. After a few more unnerving blows and a lucky bite from the grey menace, the cutter began to twitch and turn belly up, Wilson did not hesitate to grab the purple meat before it could float to the surface, and swam away as fast as he could before the others drifted close enough to take an interest.
While swimming away, he lamented he could not collects their discarded shells to make a helmet, but he knew better than to take a risk with such foul little bastards close by. He rubbed the bite wound on his left arm and got as far away from the salt pillars as his stubby little flippers could bring him.
Wilson drifted off into darker water, concerned that it was already dusk, the seafloor fading from gritty white sands to murky grit and white roots. All sorts of silhouettes could be seen from below, faded with less sunlight to highlight them but still recognizable as tree tops and figs and hanging spiderwebs of the waterlogged environment. Wilson sighed with relief, the darkening skies above the sea merely the shade of the great massive knobbly tree, and all the boons that could be found under it. He swam over the larger looping roots of the tree and up to the surface, collecting a little haul of grasses and twigs and driftwood. He made an axe, a backpack, plus a torch by habit for later, and quickly got to work on cutting the smaller trees from the root up for some regular wood, eager to get back to being fully equipped.
A few sweetfish swam by during the cutting, Wilson made a mental note to invent some sort of sea-trap to harvest them later.
He was able to get plenty of wood, and quite a bit of entertainment watching the sea striding spiders comes down with nobody to find on the surface. Once Wilson felt confident he had the upper hand, he began to stab at them from below, completely safe as long as he remained under the surface. He felt satisfied for how much silk he was able to get from a little pest control, proud as he could be despite the circumstances, and almost wished Maxwell could be here to see how well he was doing with a new kind of environment to discover. He laughed to himself with a memory of the first time he brought Maxwell to a waterlogged forest like this. Maxwell had gotten into a bit of a sour mood once he realized the only thing easy to access were the figs, and hadnât gotten into better spirits until Wilson showed him how to harvest the tree nuts by recklessly ramming the boat at top speed into the tree. Of course, Maxwell was furious whilst patching the many holes the boat had sprung open, but once they retrieved the nut he seemed to be quite amused with such a ridiculous harvesting method, even laughing about it until the fireflies came out and the lantern needed more fuel. Remembering that spontaneous laugh made Wilson feel warm all over, lights still all around him.
He looked up and realized the fireflies were already out again, and the darkness was starting to encroach.
His warm feelings halted immediately, he held his breath and swam up to breach, and lo and behold, the sun was already setting above the surface, and setting quickly.
Wilson supposed it was his own fault for not being more diligent about checking the conditions above sooner, but he did not panic. He pulled out his torch the same way he had thousands of times before, and stroked a stick over the main knob to ignite.
He remained in darkness.
Wilson slapped his clawed hand to his scalp, scales on the sides of his palms scraping down his stupid face. He forgot for the briefest of moments that he was underwater, and fire of any sort was out of the question.
Panic began to seep in as a familiar, distant hissing started to approach.
He swam up to the fireflies on the waters surface, kicking so hard that his thighs began to tear apart again, but there was no time to care about that, he needed light more than anything else!
The fireflies scattered within seconds of getting splashed, leaving Wilson in their fading memory of a glow.
Wilson took the torch and tried to hold it up over the surface, only to be defeated by the waves spilling over the highest point he could attempt to keep it up.
He was dragged down by claws before he could get another attempt.
While the scent of roses didnât carry well in seawater, her touch was something Wilson could always remember.
It was not frequently that Wilson had the chance to hear Charlie speak, and less so that it did not fill him with dread.
âYou thought you were so clever, didnât you?â
Her voice echoed around him, full of venom and amusement alike. The claws around him and inside of him dug in. He was stunned- no words could come out of his mouth, not that they would be anything more than a stuttering plea made in pure terror.
A charming little laugh wasnât quite fitting with the mood, but that didnât stop Charlie, nothing could stop her in her own domain. Wilson could just barely see her face peering out from shadow.
âBut this little detour of yours has given me some lovely⌠inspirations. We have some new plans for you. I wouldnât trust anyone with my new little project more than you⌠Do you trust me?â
Wilson couldnât muster an answer to that predatory smile. To Wilson, this was a loaded question; he didnât have a choice. To Charlie, this was surely like a cat playing with the poor little bird it already began to mangle on the ground.
Wilson hesitantly nodded his head, figuring it was better to not resist whatever great and terrible thing Charlie was about to throw him into.
âGood.â
Charlies visage snapped into a terrorbeaks maw and around Wilsonâs head, making quick work of the half-mutated form.
Charlies face returned to normal with a smile and she let what was left of his body sink down into the depths. She was excited to see what he would do at her new postern, and all the little things she had created.
After a much, much longer hiatus than planned, chapter 4 for A midwinters nightmare is complete! You can check out the chapter here, but make sure to mind the tags! Please for the love of god mind the tags
Because I didn't have this account when the rest of it was written, here's a cool little link to the start:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Heyy do you think you'll ever do a sequel for your fic 'a little time for science'? Or maybe say if you had anything planned for the after effects?
Yep, one is still planned! I answered a similar ask a while back and I still want to avoid spoiling the twists I intend to write for it.
However
It's going to be on the backburner for a long while. Not only do I still need to finish the last chapter of A Midwinters Nightmare, which is over a year overdue at this point, but I'm also going to be running a live pony cyoa on /mlp/ in the new year (The next time I say I'll do prep work over the holidays I'm going to hire somebody to kick me in the shins). Live greentext writing is my forte rather than normal prose for fanfiction, so that project is going to take precedent for a long while (I was supposed to run it in the fall but my brain got stuck staying available for a zine that got super delayed, hopefully I'll be able to show the fruits of that soon)
Tl;Dr Yes but I update at a glacial pace due to irl exhaustion and other projects that I've already promised to follow up on
(I also have the sequel planned for the merman fic! but that's going to be EVEN LONGER to wait for)
Hello! I've been rereading your fics for like the hundredth time and was wondering if you ever actually drafted/wrote a sequel for "A little time for science" about the after effects? I've reread that one so many times and my mind can't help but run wild about what would have happened next :0
If you have anything, even unfinished, I'd love to read about it. If you don't could you maybe talk about any ideas you had at the time if you can remember any?
Sorry if I'm bothering you with talking about an old fic, i love your fics in general, your writing is amazing, never stop writing :)
Thank you! Alas, due to my current circumstances (full time employment combined with fatigue issues and adhd), I haven't been able to start the rough draft for the sequel fic yet. I had every intention of finishing up A Midwinter's Nightmare first before I start on the sequel fic and then... never did. My internal calendar broke a while back so it doesn't feel like it's been so long, and I'm really sorry to keep you waiting.
I do know exactly how it's going to start out, with Wanda talking to Maxwell about what happened in the caves due to her already knowing about it (and helping to make sure no other survivors pick up on the actual lewd details of the event), and then Wilson waking up weak and sickly in a tent... 'alone'. I don't want to spoil the core mystery so far ahead of time, but it's going to have a tug-of-war about what the actual nature of the plot driver really is. As a little hint, it is going to go into plurality, and I don't know how to refine that hint without spoiling it, the only thing I haven't thought of is the ending, but we'll see what I can come up with after the core mystery reaches its crescendo.
It's no bother at all to talk about my work; who cares if it's old as long as it's enjoyed! Thank you for asking me about it!!
