Short DPXDC Prompts #804
Danny is a Mermaid that lives in one of the underwater caves in the same cave system that the Batcave is in. Damian goes exploring and finds Danny. Why Damian spends a vast amount of time exploring the caves and why he suddenly is very politely asking for vast amounts of raw seafood to be brought to the house is beyond the rest of the family
Danny had been bleeding at the edge of a pool when Damian had found him.
Danny hadn’t intended to go this far into the caves. Caves are dangerous underwater. They are dark, tight, and the currents can drag you deeper than you ever wanted to go. He had just wanted to hide, to escape, so he had gripped onto the edge of a tunnel knowing that only an idiot would get close with the current trying to suck them in.
It had worked, Skulker had known better and hadn’t thought the welp would be that dumb, and if he had been taken then he was lost. He had left. It would have been fine if Danny hadn’t lost his grip.
Tight tunnels, dark cold water, and the current bashing him against the rocks. The journey had been long. Too long. Danny could no longer tell how far or how deep the currents had dragged him as he pulled himself bruised, battered and bleeding onto the edge of an underground pool to rest.
He was trapped. The waterways leading out of this section of caves were too small for him to squeeze through. The ones leading in were too perilous to even try fighting the current.
Danny was alone, with nothing but his voice and his soft green bioluminescence to keep him company. So he sang.
...
The music is what drew Damian to that section of caves. He had been investigating a nearby tunnel when a sound drew his attention. It had been low, mournful, and utterly alien. The language was none he spoke, or had ever heard, but each syllable carried the meaning far more than just tone alone ever could.
longing, loss, lonely, pain, fear, lonely, lonely.
It was beautiful. Damian immediately suspected a trap, but could not bear to leave whatever the thing was to itself. So he followed the sound.
Sound carries oddly underground. It would have been impossible to follow as far as he did under normal circumstances. If it had not been for his training, and the peculiar quality of the voice, Damian would have been lost, if he would have noticed the noise at all.
The tunnel opened up into a large cave with several pools of water. On the corner of the largest pool, came a soft green light that seemed to be the source of the song.
It was a person of sorts. Humanoid upper body with the lower half being comprised of a tail, more eel like than fish, with bioluminescent markings going along the length. He, and Damian was hesitant to call it a he, seemed of masculine build if on the lean side. Dick would make a joke about him having a swimmer’s body. A white, hairlike growth seemed to sport from his head, and Damien wondered if it was a type of sensory organ, or perhaps vestigial. Whatever the case, the white was tinged with red and whatever this creature was, he seemed hurt.
Damian stepped forward, making his steps heard. The creature looked up, its song coming to a halt. Instantly Damian missed the sound. With wide, dark eyes and what appeared to be panic, the creature looked at Damian, and the cave was plunged into darkness
Interesting, Damian thought, he can control his luminescence.
tags from @the-witchhunter
#after writing most of that i have come to a realization#because on one hand romancing the fish person and overcoming communication barriers
#on the other hand earning the trust of an injured creature of legend that's trapped and gradually helping and learning is also what's happening
#plus i just thought it would be cool to utilize siren song as a form of language or communication before basic asl is taught to the fishman
#because something like whalesong would travel better underwater than human languages
#so danny's vocal cords might not even be able to make a lot of the right sounds for english
#so our fishboy has got to sing #dpxdc #dcxdp
