adelphoi | (no subject)

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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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[ he goes, and takes part of her heart with him.

she can't help but feel like such a fool. so easily she had trusted, had allowed herself to believe that humans could not be so bad as the elders said - the arrogance of youth, isn't it? to think that she would know better. that they were wrong, stuck in the past, and she has paid the price for her presumptuousness. a steep price. if he of all people, this boy who laughed and smiled, who had a voice so warm, could be so cruel and underhanded.. what hope is there for the rest of them?

well, she may not need to worry about that for much longer. who can say how long they will bother to keep her alive? it's only a matter of time before they pull her apart right down to the bones, and to be perfectly honest, it is for the best. she will only suffer here, and the longer she is alive, the more they will attempt to drag information from her. she is not strong enough to kill them all, she certainly isn't strong enough to use her magic to escape, without the proper tools.. though she is a fighter at heart, she does not underestimate the odds stacked against her.

at the very least she may be able to take some of them down with her.

and so time continues its slow crawl, the facility never closes and so she has no way of tracking day and night, the time before prompto arrived had been an eternity, and so the time after him is the same. moments pass slowly, dragging, they continue their work, pulling her and testing her and drugging her, sampling her skin and scales, her claws and saliva, anything and everything they possibly can. it becomes routine, and they learn to sedate her more often, to keep her mildly tranquil even when she is in her tank, for fear that she might harm herself in her violence, and attempts to escape.

so it takes a moment for her to notice the noise - the sounds of many running footsteps and shouting voices from beyond the shroud over her tank, and soon after, silence. but she is tired. too tired to bother. whatever's panicking them, good, she hopes it kills them. with heavy eyelids, alisaie reasts her head on her arms again. ]

[ Alisaie isn't the only one it has felt like a lifetime for, though in reality, it has only be a few weeks. Prompto needed to give himself time to plan, and given this operation involved only himself, it was going to take even longer to pull off. He thinks once, twice, several times about getting his friends involved, but he can't put them in danger like that. He knows if he asked they would help, even with as ridiculous of a quest as "saving a mermaid", but this is his weight to bear. This is his fault. He is the one who needs to make things right, and he won't implicate the rest of them with such a risky operation.

He's never tried anything like it. Aside from the time he's spent fighting alongside the prince in the past, Prompto has never taken on a mission such as this. And fighting is one thing, but infiltration? Is there any way he can possibly succeed?

But he has to try. He knows the minds of men like these far too well. If he doesn't rescue her, then soon enough they will tire of their research that barely scratches the surface and they will seek for something more. It will be a shame to lose their specimen, but think of what they could learn vivisecting her body, by piecing out her organs and bones. Once their stream of visitors runs dry and their funds deplete, they will kill her.

He can't let that happen.

His plan is simple, straightforward, and a million things could go wrong at any moment. When he returns to the lab to take his photos, he takes a magic flask with him - the only thing he had borrowed from Noctis, and without explanation - keeping it hidden deep in his pocket until he has an opening. As he falls to the back of the group of press being toured around the facility, he makes sure there's no one behind him who might be hit, and then he casually lobs it backwards - firaga, of course. The hallway explodes into flames.

In the ensuing chaos, it's easy to break away from the group unnoticed. He memorized the location of her tank, far on the other side of the lab, but sprinting as he does, it doesn't take him long too get there. The fire alarm is blaring now, loud and flashing lights, and others push past him towards the building's exits, heedless of the man going the other way in their haste.

Finally, he makes it to her chamber. It's quiet here, no alarm in this room, and it is deserted. Even so, he won't have long, and he has a lot of work to do to free her. He doesn't waste any time.

He pulls the shroud back from her tank, and he freezes a moment in place when he sees her again. Gods, she looks...awful. But not for long, if he has anything to say about it.

Summoning a handgun into his grip, he fires at the glass, cracking it. Already water starts to spurt forth, but it is thick and sturdy; it will take more than that to set her free. So next he summons one of Gladio's greatswords, gesturing for her to back up and away from the front of the tank before he's running forward again, hurling the weight of the mighty blade against the already fragile glass.

It shatters. ]

[ the cover is pulled away, flooding her tank with light, and though she is weak still she hisses and frills her fins halfheartedly, though it takes her several moments still to focus, to see who it is who stands before her.

it's.. him.

bleary shock and confusion are clear on her face - what is going on? has she been dreaming? he is the only one here, dressed differently but she would know his face anywhere, the first human face she touched, her distant friend, and then betrayer. what happens next is fast and sudden, sedated as she is she hardly has the time to react at all, barely able to slip to the back of the tank by the time the sword impacts, striking true.

with a rush, the water is dragged out, and alisaie with it. she hits the floor and slips against it, unable to find purchase, but the chain around her neck snags and stops her abruptly, snapping around her throat. struggling, alisaie opens her lungs with a great, wet gasp, her short claws scratching at the tiled floor, her mind spinning - what is this? what is he doing? what does it mean? ]

[ Prompto nearly drops the sword to help her when she scrambles over the floor, but that chain around her neck - he has to get her free, first. He doesn't have the time of the tools to take off the chain completely, but he can at least break it so it no longer binds her to her prison.

He hefts the greatsword again, trapping the chain beneath his boot and bringing it down hard, severing it with a great crash. The chain gives as Alisaie is set free, and a second later Prompto dismisses the blade to kneel down next to her, heedless of the sharp glass that pricks into his knees.

Is she alright...? ]

[ the chain gives, and alisaie exhales hart, prying the metal away from her neck. the collar remains for now, but that horrible tether is at least no more - though still, there is little enough she could do. she cannot run, has no idea how far the sea is from here even if she could.. but at least she has him.

if he is here to spirit her away for himself, or to some better, wealthier owner, he can certainly think again. were she of sound mind, she might think better of it - he is her only chance at escape, even if he means to simply swap her to another master, and it is the best and likely only opportunity she would have to potentially secure her freedom.

but she is not of sound mind. she is angry, burning with a deep and injured fury that she cannot rein in. with a vicious hiss, alisaie summons what strength she has left to seize him by the throat and slam him down hard onto his back, her long fingers tight around his windpipe, claws pricking his skin. how foolish of him to draw so close. she is small for her kind, but she is strong, and he is not a large man; even without the buoyancy of the water it is easy enough to pin him. ]

[ Before he can so much as reach her she is springing at him like a wild animal, and he cannot jump back in time or even get his hands up for defense. She grasps him by the throat and pushes him down, hard, his head and back flaring with pain as they collide with the hard stone floor and glass remnants. He hardly thinks on that, though, because her grasp on his windpipe is tight and restricting, and he cannot breathe. He struggles and tries to gasp, his lungs burning for air much as they had on that fateful day that she had rescued him from drowning, but no matter how he pries at her hands, at her claws that cut into his skin, he cannot pull free.

He seeks her face with his eyes, mortal fear meeting her cold fury, and as impossible as speaking is while he's fighting for his very breath, he manages two words. It's all he can. ]

P-please...s-safe...

[ He needs to get her to safety. As justified as her killing him might be, for having caused the circumstances that brought her to this place, if she follows through with it, he won't be able to get her out of here. No one will. But gods, will she even understand him? Is it too late? Already there are stars in his vision, and his attempts to pull her fingers off his windpipe grow feeble. ]

[ she can feel the pounding of his pulse beneath her palms, his lifeblood surging beneath the grasp of her hands which, even when weakened, grip tight as an eagle. he feels so fragile beneath her, how easy it would be to crush his windpipe and be done with it, and allow whatever catastrophe that created this distraction take her along with it. a poetic end. not quite the vengeance she would like, but as close as she knows she will ever manage.

but he whispers to her, and she has learned only a handful of their language, but please is a simple word to pick up. something in his tone gives her pause, a prickling sensation of wrongness that she cannot wholly identify - simple intuition perhaps, that gives her cause to hesitate. perhaps it was simply enough to snap her from her blazing fury, to bring her back to herself long enough to truly realize what an opportunity she might be missing here.

all at once her grip slackens, and alisaie exhales hard and trembling, drawing her hands away, though still she leans over him, her gaze sharp. she gestures toward the exit, and then to herself. ]

[ It's immediately apparent when she slackens her grip and air gusts into his lungs once more, but he needs a moment longer to blink the stars out of his vision, to gather himself enough that his body no longer thinks it is about to die. Adrenaline thrums hard and fast through his veins, his whole person trembling, but watching her with wide eyes as he is, he doesn't miss her gesture. She is sparing him, as a means to escape this place.

Whatever will happen after they get out of here will have to be something they figure out later. For now, still shaking, he climbs back onto his knees, and carefully slides one arm around her back and the other beneath the curve of her tail. ]

H-hang on, I-I-I got you —

[ Even if his nerves don't make him sound tremendously reassuring. His knees are unsteady, but he manages to stand, and hurries towards the door.

He pleads to the gods they won't come across anyone in their flight. ]

[ being lifted in this way is such a strange thing, but something she has gotten far more accustomed to than she would like, for the amount of times she has been hauled around and manhandled since her capture. by rote her arms close around his shoulders, seizing tightly, but there is little else she can do to assist, most especially given how weak she is, much of her adrenaline burst having been used up in fighting him down.

she must rely on him now more than she has ever relied on anyone in her life, and that is terrifying, yet wholly necessary. there is little more that she can do but hold on, and pray. ]

[ It would seem the diversion he caused is taking precedence over anything else in the lab, as the path to their escape is unhindered. During his weeks of planning Prompto had mapped out the building from the outside, and he heads in the direction of an emergency exit in an alley where he has parked his car. Even if the fire is keeping the others busy, he doubts they wouldn't notice if Prompto just strolled out the front doors of the lab with a mermaid in his arms.

No, instead he kicks open the emergency exit and barrels towards his car, holding to her tightly. He wrenches the door to the back open before setting her down gingerly onto the seat. He isn't sure how long she can go without water, but he doesn't have another mode of transportation, so mermaid chilling in the backseat it is. He only hopes he can make it back to his place before anything too damaging or painful happens to her. She's already been through enough. ]

Stay down.

[ He whispers harshly before shutting the door and slipping into the drivers seat. A moment later, they're off. ]

[ alisaie doesn't recognize those words, but thankfully she is smart enough at least to recognize the danger, and what she must do. being seen could easily result in her recapture, and she's exhausted enough that even her wild curiosity isn't enough to draw her to the windows. she has been in a vehicle only once, but she remembers the feel of it, the odd hum of the engine, the way the carriage sways and bounces uncomfortably - how can they stand this movement? she can barely fit herself across the seats, but alisaie curls up nonetheless with her head on her arms, her heart pounding against her ribs.

wherever he is taking her may very well be worse than where she was, but.. that is a chance she simply has to take. she would not have survived much longer in the laboratory, so she can only hope and pray that this gamble will result in a better opportunity.

and most dangerous of all, she must rely on him. weary and weak and landbound, she is utterly at the mercy of his whims, and though she can't help but feel infuriated with herself over it, somehow there is a part of her that.. trusts him, that wants still to believe that he is not what he seemed to be. she saved his life, once. mayhaps he shall return the favor. it's all she can hope for.

for now, there's nothing to do but wait, curled tightly on her seat, her skin and scales itching as they dry, every nerve on edge. ]

[ It isn't a long drive back to his apartment, but Prompto takes a roundabout way to get there, redundant and overly complicated, so they can lose anyone who might be tailing them. Once he's satisfied they haven't been followed, however, he heads towards the building, occasionally muttering reassurances to the mermaid in the backseat even though he's sure by now she won't understand them. ]

I-It's going to be okay. I-I promise. I'm going to make this right.

[ He's saying it as much as for his own benefit as hers, his nerves similarly on edge as they approach the high-rise he calls home, and parks at the back of the building. Once again, he doesn't dare enter through the front door, but he's left his window unlocked and the fire escape is an easy enough climb. It'll be tricky carrying another person, but...he'll do what he has to.

He pulls open the door to the backseat open once more to pick her up once again, and starts to ascend the fire escape. Once they make it to his window, he swings one leg over the sill and then the other, carrying her through with him, breathing out an immense sigh of relief once his own two feet are on relatively safe territory.

Then - straight to the bathroom. He sets his down into the tub, breathing hard, his face flushed, turning on the spout and plugging the drain so the tub can fill with water. ]

[ she may not know the meaning of his words, but nevertheless his tone is.. sweet and soothing, and despite herself she finds that it relaxes her. even drying out in the back of a moving vehicle, alisaie would rather be here than in that cramped, horrible tank.

but it isn't long before she begins to drift, her adrenaline spent, leaving her tired and weak, surrendered to the forces that be, and the whims of this one single human man, on whom her entire life is pinned.

she is unconscious by the time they stop at last, when he gathers her up in his arms for a long climb - it isn't until he sets her in the tub and water begins to rise around her that she at last begins to stir, blinking blearily, looking into his face through hooded eyes.

so it was true. this was no fever dream. he came for her, took her from that place, and now they are.. where? she does not know. somewhere smaller, she hardly fits in this space, but there are no more oppressive lights or sterile scents, no throngs of men in strange white coats, only her, and him, alone in this small room, the space around them quiet. she can hear no other voices, or footsteps. ]

[ His eyes are on her when she looks up at him, marked concern in his features. She seems to be coming to, thank the gods, but he still worries over how strenuous the journey may have been on her. But even despite that, he's overcome with immeasurable relief. They're safe. They made it out of the lab unharmed and unseen, as far as he knows, and while he hopes his little stunt with the Firaga won't have harmed anyone, he hopes it will at least cripple their facility enough that they won't be conducting any experiments anytime soon.

It's difficult to keep the tears of relief out of his eyes, then, though they only hover on the fringe of his eyelashes instead of spilling over. A smile breaks over his face, warm and earnest, as the water continues to fill the tub. ]

Th-this is my home. I-I'm going to keep you safe h-here, until I can figure how to get you back to the ocean.

[ That will take even more planning, but this was the first step, and the most dangerous one. She may not understand his words, but hopefully the feeling behind them has gotten through. A moment later, steps out of the room to grab a small toolkit from the closet and then he's returning, gesturing to the collar still around her neck. ]

Let's get that off of you.

[ alisaie's brow creases lightly, her eyes following him, his expressions, his mannerisms. his face is so much more kind than the others had been, though of course, that might not mean anything at all, and when he stands to leave the room her heart clenches tightly in her chest.

this is it, isn't he? he's off to fetch his friends, or whatever master he hopes to sell her to - she remembers the stories, how before her people withdrew, how humans would keep and sell them as pets, as possessions; if he does not mean to give her over to research, surely that must be what it is that he intends.

but when he returns he is.. alone, carrying only a box she does not recognize. at last, the tension begins to ebb from her body - not entirely, but still substantially. her eyes follow his hands, and then his gesture, one of her hands lifting to the hard steel around her neck. ]

[ He nods in response to her gesture, opening the little toolkit. The tools inside may not look like the friendliest of instruments, but he isn't using them to hurt her. He leans forward over the side of the tub with a screwdriver in hand to start unscrewing the brutal collar.

As he works on the collar, he keeps talking, to distract her. ]

I'm Prompto, by the way. I...I'm sorry the tub isn't any bigger. Hopefully you won't have to stay here long. In the mean time, I'm going to keep you company, okay? And when I can't be here, I'll bring you some things to do. L-like some of those puzzles I left on your rock. If you'd...like that.

[ those instruments definitely look unfriendly, and she jumps away instinctively, though of course she can't go very far. she's been poked and prodded so damned much, torn at and cut into and injected, her heart leaps into her throat -

but he does not touch her skin, only the collar around her throat, and she.. settles. even if his words are meaningless, the tone of his voice is nonetheless gentle and soothing, easing the hard slam of her heart. it would have been so very easy to tear out his throat were he to try anything untoward.

the collar falls away, and alisaie exhales hard, gliding her fingers over the bruised, abused skin of her throat - gods but it feels good to have that infernal thing off of her at last. her eyes lift to his face. ]

Tha.. thank..

[ her voice is little more than a dry croak, but she is.. trying. ]

[ It's startling, to hear her speak so suddenly, and a word he can understand, but it brings a smile right back to his face once more. She's picked up a little of his language, it would seem, and what's more, is capable of producing the same sounds. Maybe it won't be so difficult to communicate after all. ]

You're welcome. Are you...hungry? [ He mimes biting into some food, and then patting his belly. ] Eat?

[ But what does she even eat? Seaweed? Fish? ]

[ she knows a few words, but not many, mostly those that were often used - yes and no, please and thank you, now, and stop, and a handful of others.

but not most of the ones he's saying, especially when he speaks quickly. she looks puzzled, but he pats his stomach and soon she's nodding vehemently. part of the way they had kept her complacent was by keeping her hungry, it kept her tired and willing to perform how they hoped she would. ]

Yes -- yes -

[ Okay, so, she's hungry. That's not surprising, but how can she tell him what she wants short of bringing everything from his fridge in here and letting her pick? And if it's seaweed, he definitely doesn't have any of that on hand.

An idea strikes him then, and he holds up a finger to excuse himself. ]

I-I've got an idea! Hang on!

[ He slips from the room once more and is gone a few moments longer this time, but when he returns, he has two things: pad of paper with a pencil and a box of photographs.

He demonstrates with the pad of paper, how the pencil draws onto the page, drawing a little smiling fish as an example. He then picks a few of the photographs out of the box, and shows them to her. ]

You can draw what you want, or try to find a picture of it. I know it's not ideal, but until I learn mermaid-ese...

[ there is certainly a delay in their communication, but thankfully alisaie is very bright, and it does not take her long to put together what it is that he is asking of her. food.. drawing - yes. art is not unfamiliar to her, and though they do not paint, they carve into stone and etch transient patterns into sands.

.. she's never been a very talented artist, however. it should hardly matter much now though, when she's simply trying to get her point across. taking the offered pencil and pad, it takes her some time to maneuver her fingers to properly grip the pencil, before she begins to carefully trace the outline of a fish, her lines trembling and sloppy, but it at least is recognizable. she'll get to the photos soon enough.. ]

[ He squints at her little drawing, at the shaking lines she makes, but it is easy enough to make out the outline of a fish. Okay, that's much easier to get a hold of than seaweed. He's about to try and ask her if she eats it cooked or not before remembering right, no fire to cook on in the ocean. ]

Got it. Sit tight. I'll be back in just a jiff!

[ There is, at least, a market just across the street, so although Prompto doesn't have any fresh fish in his fridge, it's not too far away. He'll leave the photographs and the pad of paper, at least, to keep her occupied in the interim.

He points to the door, and then mimes walking with his two fingers. ]

I have to go. Will you be okay?

[ ...How does he even communicate "okay"? ]

[ his intent is clear enough, and so she nods quickly, still holding to the notepad in her hands, following him with her eyes while he goes.

and then, for the first time in what feels like a thousand years she is.. alone. it's so quiet all around her, but in a way that is peaceful rather than menacing, a comfortable emptiness and at last she can.. relax. this tub is very small and uncomfortable, but it feels like luxury after that terrible tank, to be freed from that horrid collar and the constant probing from, terrifying, unfamiliar men. she still can't entirely trust him, it's difficult to allow herself to feel safe, but.. well, there's no arguing the results. this is one step closer to freedom.

and so alisaie reclines against the tub, tired and spent, and while she's intensely curious about - well, everything around her (what are these knobs? why is there a drape? what is that white roll?) she's simply too exhausted to go picking at much. instead, she rests one arm on the lip of the tub with her chin upon it, and drops her other hand to the box he had left behind, sifting through the strange little flat images. hmm.. ]

[ Prompto isn't gone long. Ten, fifteen minutes perhaps, but it's long enough that by the time he's dashing back into the apartment, anxiety has burrowed deep into his skin to convince him he will find her somehow gone or taken by the time he returns. But as he barrels into the bathroom with his grocery bags, he breathes a loud sigh of relief, leaning into the door frame —

Ah...and there's the toilet paper all over the floor.

Well, he can worry about that later. She seems to have gotten into the photographs, too, which the more he thinks about it, will make an excellent tool for communication, but they can worry about that more later. For now, he's tearing into one of his bags, a container of raw fish inside which he hands to her promptly. ]

Dunno if that's a kind you like...hope you do. I-if not, I can get somethin' different next time.

[ He smiles, encouraging her to take the fish. ]

[ alisaie can smell the fish before he even reaches the bathroom, and she's sitting up further, leaning toward the fresh, delicious scent. her eyes are all over him when he enters the room, and she can hardly wait for him to unwrap it, and the moment it's offered she's snatching it right out of her hand.

gods, it smells heavenly.

he's saying words, but alisaie hardly comprehend it - she all but dives onto the meat, lifting it with her hands and sinking her teeth into the soft, raw flesh and gulping down great mouthfuls - within moments she's devoured it right down to the skin, and is licking the fresh juices from her fingers. mmmmmm. ]

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http://78.media.tumblr.com/5d92e1eeee8d98fe66e04c8de8e1ab0a/tumblr_myt8qfcOqF1s3hm0qo4_250.gif

i knew exactly what the gif would be before i clicked...

i knew you would :blush: