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[ the surface is a perilous place, forbidden by her peoples, and not without reason. theirs is an ancient colony, hunted near to extinction and so to preserve the whole they must take care. it has been many generations since last they interacted with the land creatures in any formal capacity, commerce and communion with mankind strictly forbidden since time immemorial. so much time has passed that more than like they have become myth to any who do not know the secret of their existence, and that is just as they prefer it. long lived as they are, new births are rare and come slowly; it will be millennia yet still to replenish their numbers to what they once were.
but alisaie has ever had a taste for the forbidden, a curiosity for the unknown, and a fierce wanderlust. she loves her peoples and her home but it is not enough, it shall never be enough, and as she grows and comes of age she is more and more dissatisfied.
they cannot stop her visiting the surface. theirs are a free people, and the sea is vast, parties of hunters and workers always coming and going. no one tracks her, and she says nothing of her visits above, of how she peers at passing ships and lays on warm rocks beneath the sun to watch the waves roll over the shoreline. she does not fear mankind perhaps as she should, and the more she quietly, secretly observes them, the more assured she becomes of their goodness. their behavior is not so different from her own, from what little she can glean from the lives of the sailors she watches - they laugh and love and suffer and work together, and they build such strange, incredible things..
she has watched this ship for several days, following its path, blending with pods of dolphins to swim near the surface during the day, risking more under cover of dark, when she peers through the portholes and listens to their voices on deck. their language is foreign to her, but the tones of their words speak plenty, their expressions easy to read. it's a small group of men, few, but perhaps they are brothers, for how fondly they seem to behave toward one another, laughing and sharing food, roughhousing playfully, the small, fair-haired one especially, who seems always to be smiling about something.
storms at sea are common and set in quickly, often with little warning. it's late in the night when it hits, stirring alisaie from her doze nearby, the crack and groan of wood cutting sharply through the water, the shouts of human voices muffled, but discernible to her keen ears.
alisaie is off like a shot, darting through the waters toward the source, but there is little enough to be done - the ship is split asunder before she can even reach it, and her heart sinks for those on board; the sea is no place for man, who braves much to sail her waters. they have paid the price. ]
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His friends didn't believe him, of course. Even if he wasn't already the type to cry wolf, they wouldn't have believed him. A mermaid saved him from drowning? To be sure, his survival was unexpected and seemingly miraculous, but they could each come up with other reasons that he had survived. Instinct kicked in and he figured out how to swim in time to see himself to shore. A fortunate current took him the rest of the way. There were any number of other unlikely possibilities, but none of them as unlikely as being rescued by a mermaid. They don't exist. And after a few months, Prompto begins to believe them, just a little. He couldn't have encountered a mermaid. Who was he kidding? He probably had hallucinated her, her gentle yet strong hands, her stormy eyes, her supple skin...
Heh. It's typical, of course, that he would have it bad for a girl he knows nothing about, who likely doesn't even exist, because she's a mermaid.
Still a few more months go by, nearly half a year gone since that fateful voyage, things more or less returning to normal in Insomnia (once the prince was home and safe, of course), every day much the same as the last as Prompto begins work as a photographer for the local newspaper. Don't get him wrong - it's his dream job, and he loves what he is able to do, but it isn't exactly glamorous and the pay leaves a great deal to be desired, but he's mostly content, if a little...listless at times, daydreaming about the sea, and the girl beneath her waves. He had, of course, returned to the shore several times - more times than he would readily admit, really - to seek her out, but to no avail. He never sees anything, though he occasionally leaves things on a rock near where he awoke on the beach. Little trinkets, tchotchkes, small items that most people wouldn't think anything special. They're always gone by the time he returns again, but he has no real reason to believe the mermaid girl is taking them. It's probably just birds or other animals or humans taking them away, or even the wind. His silly romantic's heart is running away with him.
But even listless as he is, working at the paper, he doesn't miss the striking news that hits his ears soon. Yes, at the central laboratory...I heard the king isn't happy about it, but it can't actually be real, can it? They've captured a mermaid? What a lark!
He knocks a glass off his desk in utter surprise, quickly apologizing and sweeping up the remnants.
Needless to say, Prompto is on this scoop in an instant. The researchers at the lab aren't exactly thrilled about the idea of having a photographer inside their workspace, and there are specific rules set out about where he can go, and that he won't ever be alone. After all, aside from their research, this acquisition is something of a sideshow, a way to generate income on the side for their projects. And if too many pictures get out of their find, fewer may come to see it. It, they keep referring to her, like she's a thing, an object, and it makes Prompto's skin prickle uncomfortably, his fingers picking at the band over his wrist. But finally, they relent, agreeing that a little publicity won't be too bad, and their public relations could use some improvement. He is allowed inside to take a few photographs, and the article should focus more on the facility's research than their latest attraction.
Honestly, he couldn't care less what their terms are. He just has to get in there, one way or another, just to see...
But it isn't going to be her. What would the odds of that be? Nothing short of impossible. But then again, the impossible seems to be happening an awful lot lately.
His bones buzzing with anxiety and excitement both, Prompto heads into the lab, led by two white coats towards the tank where their specimen is kept. ]
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had she known, when she saved him, that this is what it would have come to, she might have thought twice about dragging him to shore. worse, she has returned.
at first it was circumstance. she swam back to the site of the wreck to scavenge, to pick among the scattered remains of the small vessel for anything interesting or useful, but it was simple.. curiosity that brought her to the lagoon again. she has no idea what she was looking for, mayhaps something left behind, a bit of torn clothing or a piece of jewelry, something to remember her extraordinary encounter by, and she finds her reward in the form of a little blue glass marble sitting upon a stone.
a coincidence, surely, to have ended up in so strange a place, as if it had been set there, but alisaie takes it nonetheless. when she comes again, in the same place there is now a little silver pin in the shape of a bird, and then a decorative egg, a small pocketwatch..
she knows that it must be him. who else could it be? but to know for sure she lurks about the waters to wait for him, hiding still and silent against the sandy lagoon bottom for the leaver of trinkets to arrive. when at last he does, it warms her heart. she had known that they could not be so bad as the stories had warned, that there is goodness within them, but she still does not reveal herself, and surely never will. the risk to her kind is simply too great, and while alisaie might burn with curiosity to know him, she is not yet selfish enough to endanger her family and her people to satisfy her own desires. she watches him, and she takes his little gifts, and that is enough.
perhaps she was wrong. she should have known that it was risk enough to return to the surface so often, and worse, to the same place every time - it was only a matter of time before a different set of eyes found her. or perhaps she was mistaken all along - perhaps he had been leaving these baubles to earn her trust, to lure her here consistently until she began to feel at ease, to trust this place. the thought of it burns her heart, but nevertheless, the price is paid. she reaches from the water to take the little silver bangle from its place on the rock when suddenly the thicket erupts in shouts, there is a terrible bang, something grazing her shoulder -
instinctively, alisaie darts away, back beneath the water again, her heart pounding fiercely. she cuts fast across the shallows, to the mouth of the lagoon, and right into the light, thin net that waits for her there, snagging her easily, knotting and tightening with every thrash. she claws and bites at it with sharp claws and teeth but the threads are insidious, she cannot free herself - they haul her from the water, tangled, shrieking her outrage. there is another bang, a sharp pain in her neck, and then cold darkness.
alisaie does not know how long she has been here in this tank, how many days have passed that they have prodded her and sampled her, scraping her skin and scales, cutting bits of her hair. she fights viciously, badly injuring several workers before they learn to sedate her heavily enough to work with her, to pull out her arms and marvel at her fins and shine bright lights into her eyes. every inch of her is studied, touched, tested, the ignominy and violation are wildly infuriating, but what is there to be done? she is stronger, but they are many, and they have tools to subdue her. she is firmly within their territory, should she even escape, what then? crawl to safety? she would never make it, though of course she does try.
at the very least, they cannot steal the thoughts from her head. she does not speak their tongue, but they get their intentions across with other ways, with pictures and gestures - are there more? there must be more. she cannot be the only one of her kind. but no torment in the world could pry that information from her. that she has been caught at all is atonement enough for her stupidity and recklessness, she will never give up her home.
they bind her now, to keep her from attempting escape, by a light chain around her neck bolted to the floor of her too-small tank. her space is limited, the tank some ten feet wide and tall, but comparative to a vast ocean, they may as well have put her in a shoebox. to keep her calm, the tank is usually shrouded to block her line of sight which is perhaps for the best - the sight of their faces alone is enough to stir in her a limitless rage.
but they cannot block her keen hearing. she has learned a scant bit of their language, enough to recognize certain terms. she listens to the hum of machinery and the chatter of researchers, footsteps, the scratching of pens. today she hears many more footsteps than usual, and anger and fear both clutch at her gut - this can mean nothing good. the moment the shroud is pulled away and the light hits her eyes alisaie hisses, her gills and fins hackling and shivering with obvious threat, and she slams to the front of the glass, teeth bared and hard, short claws scratching at its smooth surface. ]
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But then they take him to the room with the mermaid's tank. Even before they remove the shroud, he can tell it's very small; hardly enough space for a creature of the sea to inhabit. His finger shakes as he clicks the shutter, and he's ready, camera poised, when they pull the shroud away. The mermaid surges forward the moment the light exposes her, wild and ferocious and anguished, and Prompto gasps aloud.
He drops his camera in utter shock, and it's all but forgotten in an instant.
For a few moments, all he can do is stand and stare. Gods, it is her. How could this be? How could the hand of fate so impossibly drawn them together again? He must be mistaken, perhaps it is the light and the water distorting her appearance into something familiar, but no. The longer he stares, the more sure he becomes. He would never forget her face, the face of his savior, the girl who has swam through his dreams for so many nights now.
Here. In a tank. A specimen. A subject. A prisoner.
The researchers attempt to speak to him, but no words get through. His reaction is a bit extreme, but they don't seem too concerned about it. It is an alarming sight, after all, and the creature is so grotesque and unusual it's no wonder he looks so pale and shocked, who wouldn't be?
They chatter on, about the mermaid and her properties, the curious things they have learned so far. Prompto hears none of them, slowly stepping forward, his expression pained and sorrowful as he reaches a hand out to press his fingers against the glass.
...Is this his fault? ]
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but seeing his face is a shock.
alisaie had.. not expected that she would see him again, but now, she supposes that she should have. if it was he who led them to her, of course it stands to reason that he would show his face eventually, once she was subdued, unable to strangle the life from him for this terrible repayment of his debt, and his presence here at all seems only to lend credence to his guilt. why else would he be here?
still, it hurts to look upon his face, one she has grown fond of while she watched beneath the waters. she had thought him so gentle, and kind..
the fight drains from her, her fury replaced instead with a deep, despairing betrayal that shines clear in her eyes. how could you do this to me? she had saved his life, and this is how she has been reimbursed. she should have listened to his father. how could she have ever thought such cold, selfish creatures to be good? the shock is clear on his face, but alisaie does not know why he should be surprised - just what is it that he had expected? with her heart twisting in her throat, alisaie jerks her gaze from his face and turns away from him and his offered hand, retreating to the back of the tank and away. this is simple insult to injury. ]
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Would that he could plead with her, to make his case and promise her he'll get her out of here and beg for her forgiveness, but of course, he cannot, if she can even understand his language. Gods, what had he been thinking, visiting the beach as often as he had? Leaving gifts for her and drawing her near to a world she was meant to be separate from? He had been so selfish, thinking he was bridging the gap between them, trying to show his gratitude with his stupid favors. What a fool he had been, what an utter fool.
Tears rise, hot and stinging to his eyes as his hand drops away. Keeping his head bowed, Prompto stoops to pick up his camera from where it had crashed to the floor. The lens has shattered.
The lens has shattered...
In a moment, his resolve grows, blinking away those tears while his face remains hidden. He knows what he must do. There is only one choice for him to make now. If this is the cause of his actions, then he must be the cause if its undoing as well. Though she is strong and fierce, he sees no way she can get out of her on her own, guarded and subdued as she is. But perhaps, with a little help from the outside...
I'll come back for you.
And then he returns to form, springing up, a mask sliding into place. There is steely determination behind his actions, and that's the only reason he doesn't flinch, doesn't hesitate. He laughs, cites his shock and his clumsiness for his dropped camera. He'll have to replace the lens, but if they will pleeeeease let him come back later and take pictures, they will get the best story the paper has to offer. Headlines, great publicity, and little about the mermaid. Nonspecifics. These photos will be for his personal collection only.
He is, of course, in no place to make such a bargain. He'll figure that part out later. All that matters is that the researchers reluctantly agree, and then begin to lead Prompto out of the facility.
He maps it out as they go. Nice thing about having a photographic memory... ]