You called?

[amalythea]

[the sky is so tragically beautiful, a graveyard of stars.]

amalthea - the third moon of Jupiter

[navigate the stars with me.]

The Moon's Phases || Path of the Comets || Cluster of Stars || The Stargazers || The Solar System || Twinkling Stars of Neighbor Galaxies

╭──────────.★..─╮

you might know me from @soleillunne

affiliated with @astronetwrk & @stellaronhvnters

co-owner of @ecrin-de-litterature

CURRENTLY ON HIATUS

╰─..★.──────────╯

⤷ currently working on my Moonstruck event!

thank you so much @hismourningflower & @lillonvia for helping me with this <3

[soleillunne]

Friends,

I’ve been sitting on this for a while, staring at a blank text post and thinking, “Maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow. Maybe I’m just being sensitive. Maybe if I wait a little longer, it’ll pass.” But it hasn’t passed. It’s only gotten heavier. And I think it’s finally time I say it out loud: I’m leaving Tumblr.

This isn’t something I say lightly. This blog has been a part of me for a long time. I’ve laughed here, cried here, made memories, made friends—real, wonderful friends who’ve gotten me through tough nights and reminded me that there are still kind people in the world. I’ve posted silly things and overshared at 2AM and poured my heart into my writing and, for a while, this space felt like home.

But lately, that feeling has been slipping away. The energy here has changed, and I don’t feel safe or happy in the way I used to. I wish I could pretend that wasn’t true. I wish I could hold on tighter. But the truth is, being here has started to hurt more than it heals.

The anon hate has been relentless. And I know that’s a common thing on this site, but that doesn’t make it easier. I try to brush it off, to not let it get to me—but it does get to me. How could it not? These messages aren’t just annoying or rude—they’re personal. Cruel. Designed to make me feel like I’m not wanted, like I’m not good enough, like I should just stop trying. And when that kind of thing hits you over and over again, it starts to stick. I’ve found myself second-guessing everything. My writing. My personality. My presence. My worth.

And on top of that... I feel invisible.

I put so much of myself into the things I share here—my writing, my ideas, my love for characters, for stories, for this community—and lately, it feels like none of it matters. The interactions have slowed to a trickle, and even when I try to be excited, to start conversations, to cheer on others... it’s been quiet. Too quiet. And I know this isn’t about clout or notes or whatever, but it hurts to feel like I’m shouting into a void. Like I’m the only one clapping at a show I put on for a crowd that isn’t looking.

It’s hard to keep showing up for a space that doesn’t feel like it sees you anymore.

I don’t say any of this to guilt anyone or point fingers. I know life is busy, I know people are going through things, and I know Tumblr is weird and ever-changing. But I also know that I’m allowed to want connection, to want kindness, to want to feel like what I create matters to someone. And right now... I don’t feel that here.

I’ve tried so hard to push through. I’ve stayed quiet about how bad it’s gotten because I didn’t want to seem dramatic or needy. I kept telling myself, “Just wait. It’ll get better.” But it hasn’t. And I can’t keep pretending I’m okay when I’m not. I need to step back for the sake of my own mental health.

This isn’t an easy goodbye. I love so many of you so much. You’ve been my people. You’ve made me laugh when I needed it most. You’ve made me feel heard, seen, and supported in ways I’ll never forget. You’ve given me so many moments of joy and comfort, and I will always carry those with me.

If you want to stay in touch, please reach out. I’m not disappearing completely—I’m just removing myself from a space that’s been doing more harm than good. I need to find peace again. I need to write because I want to, not because I feel like I’m screaming just to be noticed. I need to remember what it feels like to enjoy being creative, to feel inspired, to feel safe.

So... thank you. Thank you for the love you’ve given me. Thank you for reading my stories, for sending kind messages, for just being here when it mattered. You’ve made a difference. You really have. And I hope, in some way, I’ve been able to do the same for you.

Take care of yourselves. Be kind—to others, and to yourself. And if you’re feeling the way I’ve been feeling, please know you’re not alone. You matter. You’re loved. You deserve better, too.

I’ll miss you. But I need to do this—for me.

With love, always,

Alyssa, @soleillunne.

⤷ previous pinned

⤷ writing blog (also archived as of today): @amalythea

[amalythea]

「 mermay day two: childe 」

⤷ info: mer!childe x gn!reader || mostly angst. horror/thriller-esque i guess??? || wc: 9515

⤷ warnings: i tried to make this as scary as possible, mentions of the abyss, descriptions of injuries and death, dehumanization, really heavy descriptions of blood, death and injuries i'm serious, mentions of isolation, relationship between childe and reader isn't specified so this can be read as both platonic and romantic. that's it i think, but please do let me know if i missed any.

⤷ extra: i think this took like 50 years off my life. @fairycourts + @camvrin i'm fairly sure this wasn't what you had in mind, but here you go :') everyone say thank you @lexisism for telling me this is good, and therefore getting me to post it.

You’ve been stranded on this decaying monstrosity of a hell-hole for seventy-one days.

Seventy-one days of staring into the kind of endless, ink-black ocean that doesn't just stretch beyond the horizon—it swallows it whole. Below you, the abyss pulses like a living thing, thick with unseen currents and cold, unknowable pressure, its depths far too ancient and silent for sunlight or sanity to reach. It hums, sometimes—low, almost imperceptible—but it's the kind of sound that sinks into your bones and rattles around in your dreams. Above that dark leviathan, the rig stands—or rather, looms—like the skeleton of something vast and long-dead, a monument to human ambition rotting in the sea. Jagged beams of rusted iron claw out of the water like broken ribs, swaying and shrieking with every blast of wind, while the deck beneath your boots groans like it remembers what it once was.

It used to be an oil rig, they told you. A standard, outdated platform decommissioned and retrofitted for "atmospheric and seismic analysis." Nothing fancy. A few months of monitoring, they said. Some long shifts, sure, but manageable. Routine. Temporary. They promised a generous hazard bonus and hinted at a promotion waiting for you once you got back to the mainland. You remember nodding, signing the paperwork, even smiling.

But that was before the supply boats stopped showing up.

Before your transmissions—carefully composed, timestamped, increasingly desperate—started bouncing back with automated rejections, or worse, nothing at all.

That was when you understood the truth.

You weren’t stationed here.

You were abandoned.

Now, the only company you have are the ancient lab systems that mutter and crackle constantly, their consoles flickering with data from sensors buried deep below the ocean floor. Readings come in day and night—tectonic murmurs, sonar sweeps, temperature spikes—but it’s not geology they’re watching. It never was. They didn’t name the trench after themselves. They named themselves after the trench.

The Abyss.

A project so secret it doesn’t exist in any public database, no official contracts, no personnel files. Just a black insignia stamped on your assignment letter, and a voice over the radio that had told you, flat and final, “Do your job. Don’t ask questions.”

You still don’t know what they’re looking for. But you've seen the readings—saw them shift in ways no natural fault line ever would. Patterns that loop and spiral like something alive. Movements that flicker into existence on the sonar, then vanish before the system can triangulate a source. And then there are the sounds. Low, slow wails that scrape at your ears through the hydrophones. Echoes that almost—but not quite—mimic language, buried beneath layers of distortion, like something vast and ancient trying to speak through static and seawater.

You reported it. Once.

There was no response.

Tonight, the wind is howling again, battering the rig with a force that makes the steel ribs shudder and the cables sing. You’re hunched over the main console in the lab, rubbing sleep from your eyes, watching static crawl across the screens like frost. It’s a quiet night—until it isn’t. Without warning, the main monitor flares to life, every warning light blooming in a riot of red.

ALERT: SEISMIC DISTURBANCE. NON-TECTONIC. MASS ASCENSION DETECTED.

Your first instinct is denial—another malfunction, surely. This place is held together by rust and prayer. Glitches are common. Expected. You reach for the diagnostic tools, ready to confirm it’s just another system hiccup—

And then the power goes out.

Three full seconds of blackness.

Nothing but the sound of the wind and your heartbeat, hammering against your ribs like it’s trying to break free.

When the backup systems kick in, the lab floods with harsh, flickering red light. Every alarm wails at once, deafening. The air pressure shifts around you, popping in your ears like something massive just surged past the rig beneath the waves—close enough to change the atmosphere. Close enough to feel.

You stumble to the primary display. The sonar pulses violently, rings radiating outward from a single, rising signal. It’s moving too fast. Not drifting, not floating. Swimming. With intent. With speed that makes no physical sense.

You curse under your breath and slam the command for external feeds. The deck cameras jitter to life—frames drop, static chews the image—and then, for one terrible second, you see it.

Something.

A silhouette against the sea-slick metal. Towering. Twisting. Its movement unnatural—something more like dragging than walking, yet smooth, disturbingly fluid. There’s a flash of dull, dirty blue, a glint of red smeared across its limbs. It’s limping. Or dying. Or both.

Then the feed cuts out.

BREACH DETECTED: SECTOR B. DECONTAMINATION CHAMBER.

The words blink across your tablet like a sentence.

You are not alone on the rig.

Your hands are shaking as you tear open the emergency locker. Tranquilizer. Flashlight. Restraints. You don’t know what you’re doing—you’re not security, not military. You signed up to track seismic waves, not hunt intruders bleeding onto your deck in the middle of a goddamn storm. But none of that matters now.

The floor is slick beneath your boots, puddles of seawater glittering under the red lights as you make your way to Sector B. The hallway feels tighter somehow, like the rig is holding its breath. You stop outside the decontamination chamber, pulse hammering against your throat.

Then you hear it.

A sound that’s too wet to be footsteps. A low, ragged wheeze that might be breathing, if breathing were an act of pain. You lift your flashlight, and the beam catches movement.

Something is curled on the floor inside the chamber.

Slumped. Bleeding. It heaves in shallow gasps, limbs too long and contorted. The blood beneath it is thick and dark, pooling like oil under flickering lights. Slowly, it lifts its head. Hair clings wetly to a face that might have been human once. But the eyes—it’s the eyes that stop you cold.

They glow faintly. Not with heat. With presence.

And then it moves.

It surges forward faster than your instincts can process, a blur of claws and teeth and motion. You scream, slap the lockdown control with your palm, and the chamber door slams shut a split second before its claws —gods, its claws —crash against the glass with a shriek like tearing metal. The whole rig shudders with the impact. You hit the floor hard.

And still, you look up.

There it is, behind the barrier.

Glaring. Seething. Alive with something ancient and feral. Its face is twisted, not with fear, but with fury. Its tail—a long, scaled thing that should not exist—thrashes against the walls, torn and bleeding. And yet those eyes stay fixed on you. Seeing you. Judging you. Hating you.

You back away slowly, heartbeat thrumming like a trapped animal’s. And somewhere in the back of your mind, a new understanding begins to bloom.

This isn’t a myth. This isn’t some test subject or artifact pulled from a trench and cataloged.

This is a creature.

Wounded. Cornered.

And it wants you dead.

So you do what any rational person would do in the face of something so far beyond reason: you run back to the lab and try to call for help. Every emergency channel. Every old line. You shout into static.

“This is Agent 2—this is urgent—there’s something on the station, it’s not human, it—”

Nothing.

Not even an automated response.

Eventually, you try the restricted lines, the ones you were told to avoid unless the station was falling apart. You try the classified channels buried in folders labeled “EXPERIMENTAL ASSETS,” praying someone was listening.

No one was.

And after a while, the system stops responding altogether.

Like it had given up.

Like they had.

You don’t sleep that night. You lie awake on the narrow cot in your quarters, hands clutching the scratchy blanket, eyes locked on the shadows shifting across the ceiling. The rig groans with every wave, every gust of wind, and with each sound you flinch. Because you don’t know anymore if it’s just the wind. Or something moving through the dark, something waiting.

You keep seeing its face. No—its face. You remind yourself not to humanize it. That’s what they’d tell you. That’s how they’d justify everything.

But you remember the sound it made. Not that first roar. The one it made after.

The second night the creature makes a sound so raw, so low and broken that it didn’t sound like rage anymore. It sounded like pain. Like something dying.

You bury your face in the pillow, but the noise lingers—long and hoarse and thick with something that shouldn’t exist underwater or above it. You tell yourself it’s not your problem. That you didn’t ask for this. That it would’ve killed you if it could.

But by the third night, the sound is softer. And it’s not moving anymore. Just lying there, barely breathing, tail curled in on itself like an animal trying to disappear. There’s still blood on the floor, but it’s dried now. Rust-red and quiet.

You watch the feed for over an hour.

You watch it not move.

And then the question starts to grow in you—not suddenly, but like something sinking its roots into your thoughts, sprouting in the silence: What if it’s dying?

The argument lasts an entire day.

You pace the hallways, cursing yourself. What do you think you're going to do? Feed it? Help it? Bandage the wounds of a thing that would tear your throat out given the chance? But it’s not moving. It’s not trying to break out anymore. It’s just lying there. Waiting to die.

And something in you can’t stand that.

Because it might not be human—but someone left it here too.

So, on the fouth day since the thing crashed on the rig, you stand in the galley, hands trembling as you prepare a tray. One of the few remaining ration packs. A bottle of purified water. A single med patch and a clean cloth. You stare at the tray until it stops feeling like a decision and starts feeling like inevitability.

Then you walk.

One step. Then another. Down the corridors, past rooms that haven’t seen another soul in months, through doors that hiss and sigh like they resent your presence. The station groans under your boots like it knows what you’re doing. Like it’s warning you.

When you reach Sector B, the air feels heavier. The bulkheads are cold to the touch. You hear the ocean closer now—gurgling, whispering through the pipes and seams.

You see it through the glass before you reach the door.

Still slumped. Still breathing. Barely alive.

Its head lifts as you approach. Just a fraction. Just enough to meet your eyes.

And in that instant, something behind its gaze shifts.

There is no hunger there. No plea. No submission. Only that same wildfire hatred—quiet now, but alive. Watching. Waiting.

You stop a few feet from the chamber. You hold the tray like a shield, unsure why you came. Unsure what this is now.

And for a long, slow moment—timeless, suspended—you both just stare.

Like two ghosts waiting to see who fades first.

You take one hesitant step forward, then another, the emergency lights casting red pulses over the tray in your hands. The creature—if that’s what you’re still calling it—doesn’t move. Doesn’t growl, or snarl, or lash its tail against the floor. It just watches you, unmoving, unblinking, like it’s already memorized every inch of you and is trying to decide what matters.

The reinforced door of the decontamination chamber groans as you engage the manual release on the airlock chute beside it. You don’t dare open the main door—aren’t suicidal enough for that. But there’s a hatch designed for transferring samples between secure environments. Small, narrow. Big enough for a tray. Not big enough for a limb, or teeth.

Your fingers tremble as you slide the tray into the chamber. Ration pack. Water. The sterile bandage and the tiny med patch that’s probably too little, too late. You push it forward until it clinks into the metal floor on the other side and then pull your hands back like they’re touching fire. You wait for a reaction.

The creature doesn't move. Its breath hitches once, rasping through lungs that sound like they're full of salt. Its body rises and falls with each breath, shallow and slow and strained. You catch a clearer glimpse of its torso now, and your stomach clenches. The wound there is... wide. Torn, not clean. You see strips of muscle puckered and dark, the glisten of exposed tissue, salt crystallized along the edges. Some of the gashes look cauterized. Others look recent.

It shouldn't be alive.

It shouldn't still be moving.

You don't speak at first. You're not sure if your voice would come out steady if you tried. But after a long silence, with the creature still staring at you, still making no move toward the tray, you finally force the words out.

“Use the bandage.”

Your voice sounds wrong in the chamber. Flat and muffled, like the metal walls are trying to swallow the sound. You clear your throat, try again. Louder this time.

“I brought it for you. Use it.”

The creature keeps staring. Its eyes—those awful, burning things—don’t blink. Don’t shift. It doesn’t even look at the tray. You can’t tell if it understood, or if it’s trying to. Maybe it’s waiting to see what else you’ll do. Maybe it’s weighing your usefulness.

You swallow. Your throat feels dry. You step back from the hatch, hands in the air, a silent gesture of peace you’re not sure it even recognizes.

“I’m not coming in. I’m not stupid.”

The creature doesn’t respond, of course. Not with words. Not even a sound. Just that stare. Deep and heavy and ancient. Like it sees through the skin of you. Through the bones. Past the training and the titles and the orders you once believed had meaning.

You glance at its side again. The wound is ragged. Torn open near the ribs. There's blood—too much of it, pooled thick around one arm. One of its legs is curled at an unnatural angle. You don’t know if it’s broken, or just useless now.

You want to check. You want to do something. Anything. But the moment you lean closer, it shifts—barely, but enough. A tensing of ruined muscles. A slow curling of clawed fingers. Not a threat. Not quite. But a warning.

It doesn’t want your hands on it.

You step back again, heart thudding hard in your chest.

“Fine,” you say. “Whatever. Just—take care of it yourself. I don’t care.”

It’s a lie. And you think it knows.

The red lights pulse once across its eyes, twin reflections that make it look like they’re glowing. You wait, arms crossed now, jaw tight, for some sign—any sign—it’s going to reach for the tray. For the bandage. For anything that means this wasn’t a mistake.

But nothing happens.

Seconds drag into minutes.

You shift your weight, breath fogging the inside of your face mask. The rig creaks around you, the ocean battering the walls in dull, rhythmic thuds that you’ve learned to ignore over the months. You’re not sure how long you stand there. Long enough for your legs to ache. Long enough to start feeling stupid.

And still it doesn’t move.

You look down. The tray sits untouched. The ration packet’s seal glints in the dim light, unopened. The water bottle rolls slightly with the vibration of the rig but stays within reach and yet the creature doesn’t so much as glance at it. Not even a twitch of its eye.

It just keeps watching you.

The tension thickens, coils. You can feel it pressing against your ribs now—tight and invisible, like a fist just beneath your sternum. You shift again, rub your arms, and try not to say the thing you’re thinking, which is: This isn’t working. The entire plan—if you could even call it that—was built on the assumption that it wanted to survive. That it wanted help.

But maybe it doesn’t.

Or maybe… maybe it doesn’t know how.

You don’t know what kind of pain it’s in. You can guess—anyone with eyes could guess—but the deeper kind, the one buried in its silence, the one clawing through its expressionless stillness, that part terrifies you. It looks like something that’s not used to being touched, not used to being seen. Something that’s never been offered a choice that wasn’t violence.

You glance again at the med patch. Tiny. Pathetic. A joke against a wound like that. Still, it’s something. More than nothing.

So you try again.

“You’re going to bleed out if you don’t do something.” The words come sharper this time. Not a threat. Not anger, either—just exhausted honesty.

Still no reaction.

But the longer you look, the more certain you are that it heard you. It’s thinking. You can see it now—the faint twitch in its jaw, the flicker of a movement behind its ribs that might be breath or hesitation.

“You don’t have to trust me,” you say. “Just don’t be stupid.”

You let the words hang. You’re not even sure who you’re calling stupid—it, or yourself.

And then… something changes.

It’s not dramatic. Not a sudden leap or growl. It doesn’t lunge. It doesn’t speak. Just a breath. A shift.

Its right hand twitches. Then flexes.

A slow, careful movement. The claws don’t retract—maybe they can’t—but they press against the floor, scrape lightly as it drags the tray an inch closer. It doesn’t look down. Doesn’t break eye contact with you for even a second. The ration packet is first, torn open not with urgency, but with eerie precision. It eats—mechanically, quietly. Every motion strained. Then the water, lifted in an awkward, two-handed grip.

And finally—finally—it lowers the bottle, and looks at the bandage.

Not touches it. Not yet.

But sees it.

Its hand hovers over the strip of sterile fabric for a moment, fingers splayed. It’s close enough to grab, and it doesn’t. Not right away. Instead it glances back at you.

Just once.

A flick of its eyes. Barely a second.

But it’s not a warning this time. Not a threat. It looks almost like a question.

You feel it like a chill under your skin.

It’s not asking for permission.

It’s asking if this is real.

You nod. Swallow hard. “It won’t stop the bleeding, but it might help slow it down.”

Another beat. Another second.

And then it picks up the bandage.

It doesn’t use it well—not at first. The way it fumbles the fabric, wrapping it once, twice around its middle, feels uncertain. As if it’s mimicking something it saw once, long ago, or doing something it remembers more than understands. The motion is jagged, rough, but it doesn’t stop. Doesn’t throw it aside. It pulls the cloth tight with a hiss of pain and knots it once, awkwardly, just above the worst of the gashes.

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

It’s trying.

It’s trying.

You don’t say anything else. Don’t congratulate it, don’t step closer, don’t ruin the moment by making it something fragile and human. You just stay where you are, hands loose at your sides, and watch it work.

The creature slumps after it finishes. Its arm trembles from the effort. Blood still pools beneath it, but not as freely now. Its breathing is shallower, but not as ragged. It doesn’t look better, but it looks… stabilized.

For now.

You stay like that for what feels like forever—on opposite sides of reinforced glass and reinforced silence. The lights above pulse once, then again, and you both flinch at the low moan of the station’s hull shifting under pressure.

Somewhere deeper in the rig, a vent fan fails. You hear the low whine taper into silence, followed by a faint thump.

The power grid is failing. You’ve known that for days.

This won’t last forever.

You look at the creature again. Its eyes are still locked on yours. Less guarded now. Still unreadable, but different. Not softer, exactly—just… less alone.

You nod once. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

You don’t expect a response.

You don’t get one.

But this time, when you turn to go, it doesn’t feel like walking away from a cage.

It feels like leaving something alive.

You go back the next day.

And the day after that.

At first, it’s the same. You slide the tray through the chute, wait for it to move. Sometimes it does quickly—other times, not at all until you’re already gone. But it always eats. It always drinks. And it always uses whatever crude medical supplies you scrounge from the wreck of the infirmary. Not gracefully, not expertly. But it tries.

You think about that a lot, how it keeps trying.

The rations are dwindling. You’re down to meal bars that taste like chalk and water purified with old filters that leave a chemical tang in your mouth. But you still split it. Half for you, half for it. It hasn’t earned that, not really. You don’t know what it is, what it’s capable of. You don’t even know if it’s safe.

But something in you won’t let it starve.

Somewhere in the fifth cycle—what would’ve been Thursday, back when days had meaning—you realize you’re not waiting outside the chamber just to make sure it eats. You’re watching its hands. The way they tremble less. The way the claws are still sharp but not always curled like weapons. You’re watching its breathing. The steady rise and fall that’s a little stronger now. Its chest doesn’t hitch the way it used to.

And you’re watching its eyes.

They haven’t changed color. Haven’t softened. But they don’t glow quite the same way in the dark anymore. Or maybe that’s just your mind adjusting. You’re not sure what’s worse—if the creature is becoming easier to look at, or if you’re just… learning how.

By the sixth cycle, you start talking to it.

Not conversations. You’re not insane.

Just… words. Sentences. Observations. You mention the cracking in the coolant line near Hall B. You curse the lack of updates from central command. You complain about the water filters and how everything smells like brine and blood and rust.

It doesn’t respond. Not with sound, not with signs. But sometimes—when you speak and pause mid-sentence—it tilts its head. Or it looks at your mouth like it’s tracking the shape of what you’re saying.

And when you leave now, it watches you go. Not like prey. Not like threat.

Just watches.

It gets harder, with each visit, to think of it as a thing. You stop calling it that, even in your head. The word doesn’t fit anymore. You still don’t know what it is, exactly—but you’re beginning to know who it is. Or at least the outline of someone who used to be.

On the tenth day, you make a choice.

You don’t even let yourself overthink it. You override the outer lock with your security code, activate the decontam protocol, and pull the manual lever until the door hisses open.

It’s the first time you’ve seen it without glass or distance between you.

It tenses immediately.

Muscles coil. Shoulders rise. The long fingers at its side curl ever so slightly, claws scraping the floor in a sound that makes every part of your body scream to leave.

But it doesn’t move.

Doesn’t growl. Doesn’t leap. Doesn’t bare its teeth.

It just stares.

And you stare back.

Up close, you can see the jagged scar that runs from just below its ribs to the underside of one arm. The bandages you gave it are holding, but barely—slipped and stained. You think about fixing them. About walking over and helping. But you don’t.

You don’t dare.

Instead, you sit. Just inside the door, still near the frame. Still close enough to bolt if it decides this was a mistake. You pull your knees to your chest, hands flat on the cold floor, and you breathe.

It watches you the entire time.

Minutes pass.

Neither of you moves.

The silence isn’t comfortable. It’s brittle. But it doesn’t crack. It stretches between you, drawn tight and trembling—but it holds.

You speak first. Quietly.

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

It doesn’t answer.

You nod, more to yourself than to it. “Figured. Just wanted to say it.”

Another pause. The creature shifts slightly—just a fraction, a breath of movement—but it doesn’t look away.

You try not to look directly at its face. Not yet. There’s too much you don’t know how to process there. The inhuman symmetry, the sharp edges softened only by exhaustion. You don’t know how to read that face yet, and it scares you—not because it’s alien, but because it’s not as alien as it should be.

Eventually, you speak again.

“I can bring more bandages. Real ones. Not just strips. Some actual painkillers too, if I can get into storage. The door’s half collapsed, but... maybe.”

It blinks.

Just once.

You don’t know what that means.

But it’s something.

You stay there for maybe twenty minutes. You think about asking questions. What it is. Where it came from. Why it’s here. But the words die on your tongue before they reach your teeth.

Some things are too soon.

Eventually, you stand. It doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. Just watches.

You walk backward to the door. Slow. Careful.

When you reach the frame, you say, “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

No answer. But you swear—just for a moment—you see something shift behind those eyes. A flicker of thought. Maybe even recognition.

You step out. You seal the door. You don’t look back.

And for the first time since it crashed into your life, you don’t feel like a jailer or a nurse or a scientist playing god.

You feel like someone who’s trying their best, like a person, finally meeting it in the middle, not with fear or control, but with quiet understanding.

You don’t sleep that night.

You lie stiff and silent in the narrow maintenance bunk, your back pressed to the chilled metal wall, every muscle tensed in a way that sleep has long since stopped recognizing. Overhead, the lights have dimmed into emergency mode, pulsing faintly in a slow, mechanical rhythm—red and low, like the flicker of a failing heartbeat trying to remember how to keep going. The rig itself hums around you, an ever-present vibration beneath the floor that never quite fades, like something breathing just out of sync with you. Every so often, from somewhere deep in the bowels of the station, metal groans in protest, warped under the slow but inevitable shifting of pressure.

You know you should rest. You tell yourself that, over and over, like it’ll matter. That you’ll be stronger in the morning. More clearheaded. Less likely to do something reckless. But none of that logic cuts through the looping thought that’s been rattling around your skull for hours now: the door to Storage C—the way it sagged against its warped hinges, half-swallowed by the collapse, and the way you had said “maybe” like the word had already carved itself into a plan.

And so when the clocks tick over—if you can even still call it morning in this place where time has melted into an indistinct smear of lightless hours—you rise.

Not out of energy. Not out of clarity. But because momentum has its own gravity.

You suit up, but only barely. There’s not enough functional gear left to cobble together anything resembling a real suit. Just the remnants: a reinforced vest that still holds shape, a cracked helmet with a flickering visor, and gloves with more patches than grip. You jab one of the last stim shots into the crook of your arm—a needle saved for emergencies you didn’t name—and feel the chemical fire bloom beneath your skin, racing through your veins like synthetic courage, dulling the edges of your fear just enough to move.

You grab a crowbar from the emergency kit, sling a ration pack over your shoulder, and step into the corridor that leads toward the collapsed wing.

The air changes as soon as you cross the threshold. It’s colder here—not in temperature, exactly, but in memory. In weight. As if the space itself is holding its breath, still bleeding from an unseen wound the sensors can’t track. The floor beneath your boots is uneven, buckled in places like it had twisted mid-scream. The lights are long dead, leaving you to navigate by the dim glow of emergency wall panels and the sickly flicker of your helmet lamp, which sputters every time you turn too fast.

You reach the door to Storage C and find it worse than you remembered. It’s crushed inward, the frame twisted like paper in a storm, the metal warped and seared, edges blackened by whatever pressure or heat had tried—and nearly succeeded—to tear this whole section of the rig apart. One of the structural beams is bent clean across it, braced at an angle like it died mid-collapse.

You get to work.

There’s no finesse, just slow, deliberate clearing—shards of rusted metal you toss aside by hand, tangles of wiring that spark weakly when disturbed, a cracked coolant pipe leaking moisture that beads on your glove like sweat. You wedge the crowbar into the largest seam you can find and heave, bracing your feet against the warped bulkhead.

It doesn’t budge.

You grit your teeth, grip tighter, and try again.

Still nothing.

Frustration wells up fast, hot and bright in your throat, and before you know it you’re shouting—raw, furious sound echoing down the corridor, not from fear, not from pain, but from the maddening helplessness of it all. You slam the crowbar into the door again. And again. And again. Each hit louder than the last. Until finally—finally—something gives.

The metal peels away just enough to create an opening.

Just wide enough for your body to slip through sideways, shoulder first, scraping against the jagged edge of steel that slices through your glove and into your skin. You don’t notice the pain yet. All that registers is movement. Forward momentum.

Inside, the room is silent.

Stale.

The kind of silence that isn’t empty, but listening. Heavy. Intentional. Like the room itself remembers what happened here and hasn’t decided whether to let you forget it, too.

You ignore that feeling.

You get to work.

You find the med kits first—shoved behind a shelf that’s halfway collapsed but still upright enough to form a pocket of space. The auto-dispensers are fried, but the manual kits have survived. Gauze rolls, spray-sealant, the comforting weight of bandages wrapped in crinkling foil. You shove everything into your pack. Then the food—protein bars vacuum-sealed into blocks of nutrition that barely count as edible, and a dented hydration unit with just enough clean water in its tank to make it worth carrying.

You almost make it back.

Almost.

You’re halfway through the ruined doorway, balancing your weight against the frame when the floor beneath your boot shifts with a sickening creak. Then it gives. A chunk of grating crumples, dropping you nearly two meters into the undersection. It’s not a long fall—but it’s enough. You land hard, ribs slamming against twisted steel. A stray edge slices across your side, and your temple clips something unforgiving and sharp. Your ears ring. The world flashes white, then dulls.

When the sound fades, pain floods in.

Your limbs tremble as you drag yourself out, one arm wrapped around your side where warmth is already spreading—too fast. You clamp a wad of gauze over the wound and wrap it tight, the blood soaking through before you even finish tying the knot. There’s no time to evaluate. No time to breathe. You move. One foot in front of the other, every step burning.

By the time you reach the decontamination chamber, your legs barely feel like they’re yours. You punch in the code once. It fails. Twice. Fails again. Your fingers are slick—shaking. The third try works, and the outer door hisses open with a slow exhale of recycled air and dim red light.

It’s waiting for you.

Already there.

Not curled on the ground like before. Not inert. It stands now—barely, but it stands—leaning against the far wall, back hunched like it doesn’t quite trust the vertical world. Its eyes find you instantly, and for the first time, they don’t move to your face.

They move lower.

To your side. To the dark, spreading patch beneath your arm where the blood hasn’t stopped.

It doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. But something in the air shifts, as though you’ve been re-categorized—no longer just another anomaly in its world. You’re something else now.

You slump to the floor, chest heaving.

Drop the bag with a dull thud.

“I got what I could,” you say, barely more than a whisper.

You sit where you did before. Closer now. Not touching, but within reach if either of you dared. You pull the med kit into your lap, fingers trembling as you peel back the sodden bandage. The wound beneath is a jagged mess—shallow but wide, angry red rimmed with steel-gray bruising.

You feel its gaze as you disinfect it. As you hiss through clenched teeth and tape gauze into place with hands that won’t stop shaking.

It hasn’t moved.

But its posture has changed—shoulders coiled, hands twitching at its sides. Not with tension, not quite. With uncertainty. As if, somehow, this is the moment that confuses it most.

You glance up and meet its eyes.

And in that look—brief and silent—you see something flicker.

Not instinct. Not suspicion.

Concern.

You say nothing.

You don’t want to scare it back into silence. You simply nod, slow and deliberate. A small gesture. One that says I see you.

Then, carefully, you slide the rest of the kit toward it across the floor—what’s left of the gauze, the spare painkillers, the sealant, a single protein bar with the wrapper already half-torn open.

It watches your hand. Then the supplies. Then your face again.

And this time—this time, you know what you saw.

It recognizes you.

You let your head fall back against the cold wall behind you. Your eyes slip shut, exhaustion tugging at your spine with relentless weight. You can’t sleep. Not yet.

But for the first time since this all began, you think—just maybe—you’d wake up if you did.

And you wouldn’t be alone.

You lose track of the days.

Time bleeds in this place. Lights flicker, cycle wrong. The air recycling unit makes odd noises when it remembers to work at all. But somehow, through the static and cold and fear, you and the creature—you’re starting to use he now, even in your head—fall into a rhythm.

He doesn’t talk. Not even once. But he watches. Listens. When you enter the chamber now, he doesn’t flinch or tense. Just lifts his head from wherever he’s crouched and tracks your every move, quiet and calculating.

You still sit by the door. He never invites you closer, and you don’t push. But the distance between you shrinks. Not with footsteps, but with understanding. With little things. Like how he stopped growling when you changed his bandages. How he lets you near his injured leg now without so much as a hiss. How he never eats until you do, even when you pretend not to notice.

You talk more now. Not because you expect answers—but because the silence feels different. Not empty. Not threatening. Just… waiting.

“I should call you something,” you say one day, your voice low over a cold protein bar. He’s chewing slowly, shoulders relaxed for once. “Can’t keep thinking of you as ‘the creature’ forever.”

His eyes shift at that. Not offended—almost amused.

“Not a pet name,” you mutter, raising a brow. “Don’t get any ideas.”

Still no answer. But the look he gives you lingers. Less like a beast. More like a person who’s choosing silence.

You lie on your side then, wincing as your healing ribs press against the floor. You let out a shaky breath and close your eyes. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”

He doesn't move. Doesn’t respond.

But you think—maybe—he’s a little closer the next time you open your eyes.

It’s not long after that the alarms start.

Low at first, like a glitch in the system. You don’t notice right away. But then a shriek of failing power rattles through the floor like a dying animal, and your skin goes cold.

You know that sound.

Emergency lockdown. Unauthorized access. Multiple breaches.

They’re back.

You stumble toward the outer corridor, dragging your patched-up gear onto your body like armor that’s already failed you once. Systems are going dark all over the station. You check the cameras—what’s left of them—and your heart goes hollow.

Figures. Masks. Cloaks.

Them.

The Abyss.

The same bastards who left you here. Who stole your chance to live your life fully. Who sealed the rig behind them like a coffin and never looked back.

But they’re not heading toward the control room. Or the comms.

They’re going straight for Section B.

They’re here for him.

You don’t think. You move.

Down the corridor. Down the slippery metal steps where the power’s dead and the lights flicker blue and white like a heartbeat on the edge of stopping. The door to Section B is already half open when you get there. He’s inside—waiting.

He knows.

Of course he knows.

You slam your palm against the panel, override the last locks. “They’re here for you,” you say breathlessly, as if he hasn’t already figured that out. “You need to run—hide—do something—”

You don’t finish the sentence.

Because the door at the end of the hall blows inward in a blast of smoke and static and screaming pressure. Shapes pour through. Weaponized. Pale masks and black steel and hands glowing with something cold and cruel.

And then he moves, fast for a thing that doesn’t have legs.

But not away.

Toward you.

In an instant, he’s at your side. You’re on your knees from the shock, ribs flaring with pain, but he moves in front of you like a shield, wide shoulders squared, bloodied body shaking with rage. His claws scrape the floor. His eyes blaze like molten fire.

He growls. A low, vicious sound that makes your bones ache.

The soldiers freeze.

Then one steps forward. The leader. Mask cracked at the jaw. Voice flat and sharp like ice. “Tartaglia.” He says.

The name hits the air like a detonation.

And Tartaglia—if that really is his name—snarls. The sound he makes isn’t human. It’s pain and fury and betrayal bound into one long, ripping note of defiance.

They raise their weapons.

He raises his claws.

You can’t move. Can’t breathe. Blood drips from your side again, warmth pooling under your palm. But still you watch. Because this thing—this man, if you can even call him that—isn’t standing between you and them like a prisoner protecting his captor.

He’s doing it like someone who chose to.

And you realize—maybe too late—that you were never the one rescuing him.

He was just waiting for a reason not to give up.

You blink blood out of your eyes, one hand pressed to your side, the other scrabbling weakly for a piece of pipe nearby. You’re not sure if it’s the pain or the adrenaline, but something sharp is blooming in your chest, something not quite fear.

He chose to protect you.

And in this dead, godless place, where trust is currency and betrayal is written into the steel—you know that means everything.

They speak again.

“Tartaglia,” one of the soldiers calls out, his voice a knife-edge of cold familiarity, slicing clean through the still air of the corridor. “You’ve been gone long enough.”

There’s no warmth to it. No hesitation. Just a statement—flat, final, and cruel.

You don’t know how they know his name. You don’t know how they found him, or why they’re here now, but none of that matters. Because when the soldier raises his arm, fingers splayed like a conductor about to begin a funeral march, you realize—this was never about reclaiming you.

They came for him.

The others step forward, boots striking metal in perfect, deliberate rhythm, their formation tightening like a noose. Their weapons rise in eerie synchrony, and one of them—a taller figure in heavy armor—unfolds a device from his side, the metal whirring and clicking into a compact square, humming with unstable energy. Your breath catches in your throat.

Containment tech. Abyss-made. You’ve seen it used once before—designed to trap monsters too strong to subdue by conventional means.

And the moment Tartaglia sees it, he moves.

The snarl that rips from his chest isn’t human. It’s deeper, older—something born from salt and pressure and black-water fury. It reverberates through the very bones of the corridor, making the walls tremble and the lights overhead flicker in warning. In a single powerful coil of his tail, he launches himself forward, all muscle and momentum, cutting through the air like a thrown spear.

He hits the first soldier with enough force to crumple armor. The impact is brutal—bone shattering beneath claws, steel folding like paper beneath his weight. The man goes down instantly, his body jerking once before falling still. The containment device skitters out of his hands and lands with a hollow clang on the floor, fizzling out uselessly.

Another soldier shouts, but it’s already too late.

Tartaglia twists midair, tail propelling him with uncanny, fluid grace, like a serpent uncoiling through water. He’s not just fast—he’s precise. He spins low, then rises up with a feral roar, claws catching the second man’s face. There’s the sound of splintering ceramic, then something softer—wet, yielding. The helmet shatters like brittle ice. The blood that follows fans across the corridor in a sweeping arc.

You stagger back, breath hitching. The pipe you were holding slips from your fingers, clattering uselessly to the floor. You don't remember letting it go.

You can’t move.

You can barely think.

The third soldier raises his weapon—too slow. Tartaglia dives like a torpedo, jaws flashing, tail slamming against the floor with enough force to send a tremor rippling beneath your feet. He crashes into the man, dragging him down, pinning him with a weight no human could resist. You hear the awful, wet crunch of teeth meeting bone. The scream that follows is mercifully short.

Blood spatters the wall to your left. It’s warm. It clings to your skin.

The fourth soldier turns to flee.

But escape doesn’t come.

Tartaglia’s tail lashes outward with terrifying accuracy, catching the man’s legs mid-sprint and yanking him back with such violence that his helmet slams against the floor, cracking on impact. There’s a brief, wheezing gasp—and then Tartaglia is on him, dragging his claws down the man’s chest, fangs bared in a silent, shaking snarl.

You try to shut your eyes.

You try.

But it’s all too fast, too vivid. You see the way his gills flare open, his body slick with blood and seawater and fury. The screams fade—then stop entirely.

The aftermath descends like fog: slow, heavy, suffocating.

Silence settles.

Not peace.

Just absence.

The walls are streaked with blood, floor pooling with it, collecting in the seams of the plating where water used to drip. Limbs lie where they fell, armor cracked open like broken shells. A helmet rolls lazily across the floor and bumps against your foot.

You flinch. It feels too loud.

And then he turns.

Tartaglia's body is heaving with exertion, chest rising and falling in labored, shallow bursts. His claws are drenched in gore, slick and crimson, his arms painted elbow to fingertip. His hair sticks to his face in wet, matted strands, and beneath the red, his eyes glow faintly—still caught in that impossible light you don’t understand. His fangs flash beneath parted lips. His tail, that immense, muscular length, twitches in the blood pooling beneath him, coils shifting slowly, almost unconsciously.

His gills flutter open and shut again. A rhythmic, automatic motion. Too fast.

He’s still in fight-mode.

Still not human.

And his gaze—when it meets yours—it burns. That eerie, luminous stare drills through you like it’s looking past you, through you, as if he's still somewhere else. Somewhere he hasn't come back from yet.

You can’t breathe.

Can’t speak.

But after a moment—long, unbearable—he blinks. Once. Slow.

The tension shifts.

He retracts his claws.

His fangs vanish behind tight lips.

His tail lowers, uncoiling slightly, relaxing—not all the way, but enough. He exhales, slow and shuddering. His shoulders sag, the adrenaline bleeding from his frame. His glow dims just a fraction, and what remains behind in his expression is something brittle. Something you’re not prepared for.

Shame.

Not for the violence.

But for the fact that you saw it.

He doesn’t disappear this time. Doesn’t slip back into the shadows to hide, the way he did that first night you glimpsed him bleeding through the grate. No, this time he simply turns—slowly—and slinks across the blood-slick floor with the exhausted drag of his tail behind him. He moves to the far corner of the corridor and curls in on himself, arms folded loosely over the long length of his tail, head bowed low.

He doesn’t speak.

Doesn’t look at you again.

He just waits.

And as you stare at him—this creature, this stranger who just tore through a trained Abyss squad like paper—you realize with a deep, spiraling ache in your chest:

He’s waiting to see if you’ll run.

You don’t run.

You think about it—more than once. The instinct to flee screams in the back of your mind, echoing through every limb that still works, through every beat of your frantic heart. It screams at you to leave while you still can, while he isn’t looking. But your legs refuse to obey. Or maybe it’s the way Tartaglia hasn’t taken his eyes off you since he curled into that corner. Watching. Waiting. Not with malice, but with something unreadable. Wariness. Curiosity. Guilt.

Or maybe it’s just fear.

You can’t tell if it’s his or yours.

The corridor is still soaked in silence, but it’s not quiet. Blood ticks as it drips from broken panels, the lights above flicker and buzz weakly, and somewhere behind you, something metal groans—dented from a body’s weight. It’s too much. You try not to breathe too deeply, but the scent of copper is heavy in the air. Too thick. Too warm. You can taste it at the back of your throat.

You reach up, almost absently, and your fingers come away wet. There’s blood on your face—spattered, smeared—and it doesn’t belong to you, but your own injury flares in protest the moment you shift. Your side, still raw and half-dressed, pulses with heat and pain, and for a moment the nausea creeps up like a wave, unrelenting. You grip the wall beside you, knuckles white.

You want to be anywhere else.

But there’s nowhere else to go.

And eventually, your thoughts spiral to the inevitable. When these soldiers don’t report back, when their comms stay silent long enough, someone else will come. A squad. A unit. A full security detail. You’ve seen how the Abyss operates. One team fails, two more replace them. You don’t even have to guess how many more Tartaglia can survive before he falls.

He knows it, too.

He hasn’t moved. Not really. But his tail twitches again, slow and thoughtful, dragging through the red on the floor as his gills shiver with every breath. His gaze hasn’t dropped from you once.

And then, abruptly, he rises.

It’s not a threatening motion. Not loud or sudden. But it still makes you flinch. He uncurls from his spot like smoke, fluid and eerie, his long tail sliding across the metal without sound. You watch as he slinks forward on his arms, pulling his weight with powerful shoulders until he’s several feet closer, then stops, claws pressed lightly to the floor.

He looks at you. Tilts his head.

And then he points.

Not at you. Not at the blood. Not at the bodies.

But at the water.

You blink, not understanding. Your thoughts are too sluggish, caught in too much static. You follow the gesture slowly, eyes dragging toward the massive reservoir entrance—Section B’s submerged lock, cracked and rusted from disuse but still mostly functional. Beyond it, the ocean churns dark and endless, storm-thick and cold enough to freeze you solid if you stay submerged too long.

He gestures again.

And now you’re sure—he’s telling you to go.

Your heart stutters. “You want me to—swim?”

It’s absurd. With your ribs like this? With open wounds and a blood trail and the sea raging with enough current to drag you under in seconds? You want to laugh, but your breath hitches in your throat instead.

“I won’t make it ten feet,” you rasp, trying to understand if he’s serious. “Even if I could… where the hell would I go?”

But he just stares. Unblinking. Jaw tense.

Insistent.

The more you look at him, the more you realize—he’s not just suggesting escape.

He’s demanding it.

Your stomach lurches again. “You want me to leave,” you whisper.

Tartaglia doesn’t answer with words.

Instead, he moves.

He glides across the floor with eerie ease, his massive tail dragging behind him in a slow, soundless sweep. Closer. Closer. Until he’s just in front of you—his form hulking and blood-soaked, his eyes fixed on your face. He reaches out, hesitating only when his clawed hand is a breath from your arm.

You tense. The smallest movement.

He sees it.

And stops.

His hand hovers, his gaze flicking up to yours, searching, studying. Looking not for weakness—but for permission. It shocks you, that gentleness buried beneath all that violence, all that rage. You don’t say anything. Don’t pull away. You flinch—you can’t help that—but you hold your ground.

He touches you.

Claws graze lightly along your side, avoiding the worst of the injury, curling instead around your ribs and spine like a brace. He supports you with more care than you thought him capable of, as though you were glass. As though he knows how badly you’re hurt.

Before you can say anything, he moves again.

Sudden. Fluid. Terrifying.

His arms wrap fully around you, and before you can cry out, he rushes you toward the water.

Your body jerks in panic—your side screams in protest—but he’s already pulling you with him. You barely have time to gasp as the two of you plunge beneath the surface together.

The cold hits like a slap.

You sputter, twist—instincts roaring—but you don’t sink. You don’t fall. His arms remain around you, holding you against him tightly, his powerful tail curling beneath and behind to keep the both of you afloat. He’s not dragging you under.

He’s keeping you above it.

You stare at him, stunned, struggling to understand—and finally, it clicks.

He’s not sending you away.

He’s coming with you.

The panic drains from your chest, leaving something else in its place. Still fear. Still pain. But quieter now, as your head rests against his shoulder and his gills flare, pulling in water like a steady rhythm. You watch him as he watches the dark ahead—eyes narrowed toward whatever path he intends to take.

He wants to escape, too.

And he wants to bring you with him.

He moves like the current itself—strong, assured, tireless. His body coils beneath you with every push, his long tail slicing through the depths with startling precision, propelling you both through the dark water with terrifying ease. You’ve seen war machines that moved slower. Less gracefully. Less alive.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t glance down at you. But his arms stay firm around your torso, careful not to jostle your wound more than necessary. One hand supports the back of your neck to keep your head above the surface. The other cradles your side with a surprising gentleness, as though afraid you’ll come apart in his grasp. His own body keeps you lifted. You barely have to float at all.

Rain hammers down around you in sheets, the storm dragging the sky down to drown it. Wind lashes the water into peaks and troughs, but none of it matters. He cuts through it all like a knife. Like a predator with purpose.

And you are nothing but his cargo now.

It should frighten you more than it does.

Your limbs hang half-useless in the water, aching and numb. The pain in your side pulses with each breath, each movement. Your head spins. Your teeth chatter. You try to ask where he’s taking you, once, but it comes out a croak and vanishes into the wind. He doesn’t answer, but his grip tightens for a beat, firm and grounding.

That’s the last thing you remember clearly for a while. Your mind fades in and out, watching pieces of sky pass over you like fragments of broken glass. A memory. A dream. You remember the warmth of blood on your face, and his face above yours, and the violent way he defended you. You remember the way he looked at you before he took you into the water—not just with urgency, but with something deeper. As if this escape, this act of rebellion, wasn’t just for your sake.

But for his too.

Eventually, the sea begins to calm. You don’t know how long it’s been. An hour? More? You’ve stopped shivering, which is probably a bad sign. Still, you register when his pace slows. His tail shifts from driving speed to gentle sweeps, nudging you forward instead of tearing through the tide.

Land. You see land.

Not the harsh steel of a dock or the outline of a base. Not civilization. This is different—wild, untouched. A rocky inlet cradled in cliffs and overgrown brush, half-lost in the fog that still clings to the surface of the sea. He must’ve known it was here. There’s no other way. You’d never have found it on your own.

He carries you into the shallows with care that borders reverent. The water’s no longer deep enough to swim, but he glides forward anyway, adjusting his grip. His tail drags through the stones, bracing for balance, and then he crouches low—bringing you down with him, slowly, carefully. He sets you down in a still tidepool carved into the cliffside, letting your back rest against a smooth incline of stone. The water here is shallow and warmer, protected from the worst of the storm.

You collapse into it, trembling. Weak. Every inch of you aches. But you’re alive.

And he’s still with you.

He draws back a few inches, watching. His webbed fingers hover near your arm like he might need to catch you again. His eyes are wide in the low light, luminous and wary, scanning your face. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move away.

His gills flare once, then settle.

You stare back.

There’s blood crusted along the ridges of his face. Bits of armor stuck in the curve of his claws. You realize, distantly, that his arms are trembling too—but not from cold. No, this is something else. The tension in his frame has nowhere to go. Not yet. He’s still waiting to see what you’ll do. If you’ll scream. If you’ll run.

But you don’t.

You can’t.

So instead, you whisper, “Why…?”

Your voice is broken, barely audible. But something flickers in his expression—sharp and uncertain, as though he doesn’t know the answer either. Or maybe he does, and he’s simply afraid to give it shape. His eyes lower for a moment, then rise again.

And finally, he speaks.

The sound scrapes like it hasn’t been used in years—raw, halting, shaped around his tongue with effort. It’s quiet, but it crashes through the cove like thunder.

“…Ajax.”

Just one word. Like it costs him something.

And somehow, you know it’s not a warning.

It’s a name. His name. It suits him better than Tartaglia, you think.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

@amalythea 2025. | do not re-upload, copy, translate, etc. my works on any form of media.

[amalythea]

「 mermay day one: kaveh 」

⤷ info: mer!kaveh x gn!reader || fluff || wc: 5034

⤷ warnings: none that i can think of

⤷ extra: happy mermay!! especially to @lexisism and @circism <3

The sea is quieter in the mornings.

You rise before the sun fully warms the sand, when the shoreline is still untouched by footsteps and the gulls haven’t begun their shrieking. There’s a hush to everything—the gentle lap of waves, the occasional whisper of wind through the windchimes on your window, the creak of your screen door as it swings shut behind you.

You take your time walking, barefoot as always. The wet sand clings to your soles, cool beneath your feet, and you let your gaze drift out across the horizon. The tide is low today, pulling back like a breath held between stories. Bits of kelp have tangled near the rocks. A line of shells curls like a comma up the beach, as if the sea meant to say something but stopped halfway through.

You speak softly as you walk. To yourself, or to the ocean—sometimes it’s hard to tell.

It’s become a habit, really. Whispering observations, muttered thoughts, the occasional line from a book half-remembered. The sea doesn’t respond, of course, but it listens in its own way. The rhythm of waves often fits the cadence of your voice, and sometimes, when the wind changes, you imagine it’s carrying your words farther than you intended.

Your mornings have their rituals. You comb the shore for smooth glass and driftwood, pausing to inspect anything that glints in the sand. You pass the same weathered signs nailed to old piers. You nod to the lighthouse, though no one has tended it in years. You hum when you don’t feel like talking.

Some days, you read aloud.

Not because anyone’s around—there never is—but because the words feel better out in the open. You perch on a rock or sit with your back against a sun-warmed slope of sand, book balanced on your knees, and let the sentences wander into the salt air. The pages flutter in the breeze. You stumble occasionally, lose your place, but keep going anyway. It’s not a performance, after all.

You never expect anyone to hear you. Not really.

The first time you notice the carving, it’s tucked near the edge of a tide pool.

You almost miss it. It's thin, pale wood, shaped by water and time, and the surface is covered in delicate whorls—patterns that seem to ripple and curl like sea foam. It's too precise to be natural. Someone took time with this. Someone shaped it with care.

You run your fingers over the grooves. The touch is smooth but purposeful, like the markings are meant to be read, even if they don’t form any language you know.

You glance around. The beach is as empty as always. No footprints but yours.

You tuck the driftwood into your bag.

The next day, another one waits, nestled in the crook of a rock like it was placed there intentionally. This one is darker, richer in color, and the carvings are different—more geometric, almost like overlapping waves. You study it for a long moment, then set it beside the first on your windowsill when you return home.

You’re not sure why you keep them. They feel like… offerings. Messages without words. Beautiful, curious things left behind by someone who doesn’t want to be seen but very much wants to be heard.

It happens again the next week.

Then again.

Always in the morning. Always just before the tide begins to creep in. Sometimes you find them half-buried in sand. Once, one had a strand of seaweed knotted gently around it, like a ribbon.

You wonder, at first, if it’s a local playing games. A quiet artist. A bored teenager. But none of those ideas fit. There’s too much intention in the placement, too much elegance in the design. Whoever’s leaving them doesn’t want to be caught—but wants you to notice. Wants you to keep them.

One morning, on impulse, you leave a note.

You write it on a scrap of parchment and seal it inside a small glass jar, which you bury halfway in the sand where the last carving had been. It’s not much—just a thank you. And a question, written without any expectation of answer:

“Why?”

No one responds.

Not at first.

But the next time you find a carving, it’s different.

Your breath catches when you see it.

It’s a spiral. Carved deep into the surface, the grooves weaving in and out like the rhythm of a tide. Not quite a word, but close—like the path a seashell takes as it forms, winding inward with quiet intention. It reminds you of the trails your fingers leave in wet sand when you're lost in thought. A rhythm shaped by habit. A pattern shaped by presence.

It’s not a message. It’s a mirror.

And you realize: someone’s been listening, observing.

You don’t see them—not yet.

But the beach has begun to feel different. The water lingers longer near your feet, the breeze carries a hush that feels almost expectant. You start looking out past the surf more often. You pause before you speak, glancing sideways as if someone might be just beneath the surface, waiting.

You’re not alone out here.

You never were.

You start reading slower after that.

Not by design, not even consciously at first—but the rhythm of your voice changes. Words stretch longer, hang heavier in the air, as if you’re giving someone time to listen. Sometimes, you read the same paragraph twice. Sometimes, you stop midsentence just to watch the waves shift and wonder if that spiral carving really was an answer.

The carvings keep coming. One appears coiled around a feather you’ve never seen before—long and translucent, tinged with color like coral caught in light. Another is heart-shaped, warped from saltwater but unmistakably intentional, the grain worked with fine detail you can't imagine replicating with even the most delicate tools.

It starts to feel like a conversation. One where you speak in stories and find answers in patterns carved into driftwood and left with care.

You begin leaving more notes—brief ones, not full letters, just things you think to say. "I like the feather. Do you live nearby?" "This one reminds me of a moon snail shell." "What’s your name?"

You don’t get answers to the questions. But the carvings continue. And sometimes, the next one reflects something you mentioned. A spiral after you read about whirlpools. A long slat of wood with tight little interlocking curves, just like a nautilus diagram you’d left open on your desk that morning, facing the window.

Sometimes you wonder if it’s your imagination. A strange kind of loneliness shaping the world around you, filling the silence with meaning. But then a morning comes when the tide smells different, sharper and cleaner, like rain before it falls. You step outside barefoot as always, the wood of the porch warm from early sun, and the breeze curls against your neck like breath.

The beach feels... alive.

You don’t bring a book that morning. Just your bag, a light shawl, and your thoughts. You walk slower than usual, listening, scanning the waterline like you might catch movement beneath it.

It’s low tide again. Pools have formed between the rocks, and the sea is glassy with calm. The air smells like brine and sun-warmed algae, the kind of scent that stains your clothes even after you wash them.

You reach the place where the driftwood usually waits—and find nothing.

No new carving. No feather. Just sand, flat and untouched, the rocks glistening with the retreating tide.

Your chest sinks a little. Maybe it’s over. Maybe they’ve gone.

And then—movement. Just at the edge of your vision.

You freeze.

It’s not a gull, not a fish. Too big. Too deliberate.

There—by the rocks. Something—someone—moves through the shallows with grace that doesn’t belong to any land-walker you’ve ever seen. The water barely stirs around him, and yet it parts for him like it knows how he wants to move.

At first, you only see the arc of a shoulder, slick with seawater and gold light. Then a line of long hair, wet and streaming like pale silk. You catch the glint of a tail, glimmering bronze and rose-gold beneath the surface, scales catching the light like stained glass.

And then, he rises.

You don't breathe.

He is beautiful—not in the clean, delicate way of portraits, but in a dramatic, breathless kind of way, like he belongs to poetry more than reality. His hair clings to the curve of his jaw and over his collarbone, plastered down in rivulets, but the shape of it only makes the angles of his face sharper. His eyes—sun-struck and mesmerizing—fix on you with an intensity that makes your skin warm.

He is bracing himself on a rock, arms bare and lean, his tail coiled beneath the surface. You hear the wet shift of his fins moving, delicate and soundless.

You open your mouth.

Nothing comes out.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. He looks at you with the stunned expression of someone who’s been caught mid-thought—like he meant to observe, to listen from a distance, and was pulled to the surface before he realized it. His gaze flicks to your hands, then your eyes again.

And then, he speaks. His voice is smooth, low, with the kind of cadence that suggests music more than conversation.

"...You’re earlier than usual."

You blink. You weren't expecting a voice.

He blinks too, as if surprised by his own words. Then, with a small huff, he glances aside and swipes wet hair out of his face. The movement is graceful until he tries to flip it back properly and miscalculates the angle—his elbow slips on the slick rock and he lets out a startled noise, catching himself too late.

Your hand flies to your mouth before you can help it. He looks up, eyes wide, then narrows them slightly like he’s weighing whether to pretend it didn’t happen.

“I meant to do that,” he says, too quickly.

You don’t laugh. You try not to. But a sound escapes anyway—half choked, half delighted—and the moment it does, something in his posture relaxes.

"You are the one who’s been reading," he says, watching you again. “I thought so.”

He shifts in the water, and a small wave ripples outward from him, stirring foam over your toes. “You have a lovely voice. Though your metaphors are questionable.”

You take a step closer, still stunned.

“You’re the one who’s been leaving carvings,” you say, softly. “Aren’t you?”

He smiles, and it’s a little crooked. A little proud.

“I thought you’d notice.”

His hair clings to his cheek, his shoulders are gleaming with sea spray, and the sun casts shimmer through the water around him. He looks like something the ocean made just to prove it could.

You’re not sure if this is a dream.

You’re not sure you want to wake up if it is.

“I didn’t think you’d ever let me see you,” you admit.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says.

Then, after a pause, quieter: “But I’m glad I did.”

The silence that follows isn’t awkward. It’s delicate—like sea glass balanced on your palm, clear and fragile and humming with weight. He watches you with a strange kind of openness, like he's never had to hide what he feels, even when he tries to. His expression is thoughtful and bare, and when he tilts his head, the water shifts around him like it’s listening too.

You lower yourself to the sand without thinking, folding your legs beneath you and letting the tide inch closer. He seems taller now, even partially submerged, but not in a way that feels distant. He leans forward a little, arms braced on the rock, and rests his chin on his hands like he’s settling in. Like he's been waiting for this.

You don’t know where to start. There’s a quiet flutter in your chest, something like nerves but not sharp enough to hurt. Just awareness—of the moment, of him, of how utterly surreal it all is.

“You really made all those carvings?” you ask at last, voice soft. “By hand?”

“With my claws,” he corrects with a little grin. Then, more seriously, “Yes. Or...well. Not all by myself. I have tools. Carving coral and driftwood is common where I’m from. But I suppose I get a bit more dramatic with it than most.”

“You don’t say,” you murmur, glancing toward the sea where so many of his pieces had floated in like messages in bottles.

He doesn’t seem offended. In fact, he brightens. “They’re not supposed to last. The wood decays, gets washed away. That’s the beauty of it. It's meant to be fleeting. Like waves. Or first light.”

“That’s...beautiful,” you say, and mean it.

He beams, but then his smile falters slightly. “Most people at home say it's wasteful.”

You look at him then—really look—and you see the flicker behind his proud expression. Not insecurity, exactly. Just a kind of quiet, worn frustration. The kind that comes from trying to explain your heart to people who only listen with their heads.

“They’re wrong,” you say.

He blinks at you, startled, and then looks away quickly, like the compliment lands somewhere deeper than he was prepared for.

You talk for a while—just little things, at first. He tells you about currents that run under the cliffs nearby, how he likes to ride them with his eyes closed. You tell him about the way the tide pulls different kinds of shells each season. He lights up when you describe the soft ones, the fragile little fans that splinter like sugar. “We don’t have those,” he says, and you promise to save one for him next time you find one whole.

His world sounds vast and impossible. He speaks of it like art—of sculpted coral towers and long trails of glowing seaweed, of orchestras made of whale-song and hollow shells, of night-time ceremonies lit with jellyfish lanterns. He talks with his hands, gestures sweeping and loose, and his tail flicks idly in the water like it has thoughts of its own.

“You talk like the sea’s in love with you,” you say at one point, half-joking.

“It is,” he replies without hesitation, grinning. “Or at least, I like to think so. I flatter it often.”

He tells you his name. You repeat it, savoring the syllables, and he closes his eyes like the sound of it pleases him. Then you tell him yours, and he repeats it under his breath, carefully, reverently, like he’s engraving it into memory.

Time becomes loose around the edges. You don’t notice how long you sit there until the tide creeps past your ankles and soaks your hem. You don’t care. Kaveh talks like each thought is a gift, and when he listens, it’s like nothing else in the world exists.

When you mention your habit of reading aloud, he lights up. “That was you,” he says again, softer now. “I wondered if you were doing it on purpose.”

“I wasn’t,” you admit. “At first.”

He leans forward slightly. “And now?”

You feel yourself blush under his gaze. “I suppose... I started hoping someone was listening.”

He doesn’t respond right away, but his smile returns—gentler this time, almost shy.

“I always listen,” he says. “Even on the days I can’t surface. Even when I can’t understand all the words.”

You draw your knees closer to your chest, unsure what to do with the warmth that curls in your stomach.

He notices your silence but doesn’t push it. Instead, he hums—a soft, strange melody that lilts like the tide, and for a few seconds, you forget the air, forget the sun, forget everything but the echo of it in your chest.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” you say eventually.

Kaveh looks at you for a long moment. His fingers trail through the water, slow and absent, and his tail sways lazily beneath him. There’s something new in his eyes now—vulnerable, uncertain, and very real.

“I could say the same,” he whispers.

You don’t know what to do with the moment. So you sit with it. With him. With the quiet.

Then he shifts slightly, glancing back toward the open water. The tide is coming in again, faster this time, licking up the sand in greedy strokes. He looks torn—reluctant to go, but aware that he must.

“I should go,” he says, softly. “But...I’ll be back.”

You nod, not trusting yourself to say more.

Kaveh hesitates, then reaches for something tucked behind the rock. It’s a small piece of driftwood—pale and smooth, shaped into a curve like the cusp of a wave. He holds it out to you.

“For when you miss the sea,” he says, eyes twinkling.

You take it with careful fingers, cradling it like something precious.

And just like that, he pushes off the rock and slips into the water. His tail arcs once in the sunlight—rose-gold and luminous—and then he disappears beneath the surface.

You sit there long after the ripples fade. Listening. Waiting.

The carved driftwood rests warm in your palm.

And for the first time in a long while, the beach doesn’t feel lonely anymore.

There’s no line you can draw between when he was a stranger and when he became… something else.

It just happens. Quietly. Like low tide becoming high. Like wind shifting without warning.

One day he’s a curiosity, a story you might never tell anyone. The next, he’s part of your rhythm. You find yourself pausing mid-sentence when you read aloud, waiting for the soft splash of him surfacing. You start bringing extra towels down to the shore, even though he never uses them. Your pockets grow heavier with shells you think he’ll find amusing, odd-shaped stones, coral fragments that remind you of his sketches.

You know the exact pitch of his laugh now—the way it catches when he’s trying not to make fun of you and always fails. You’ve learned he’s dramatic about the smallest inconveniences (“How is it that you creatures tolerate sand in your shoes?”), and yet heartbreakingly quiet when talking about things that clearly matter (“Sometimes I swim just to feel far away from my own thoughts”).

And he listens.

God, he listens. You once made a joke about the way the gulls here sound like they’re arguing over taxes, and three days later, he brought you a carved figurine of two birds mid-shout, complete with little stormy eyebrows and an exaggerated fish bill between them.

You keep it by your bedside.

You never intended to fall for him.

But now, you catch yourself tracing your name where he once said it, lingering in the soft hush of dawn when you hope he’ll be waiting. You memorize the curl of his hair when it’s slicked back from the tide. You think of his voice when your room is too quiet, when the wind rattles the shutters and you find yourself longing for a melody shaped like him.

And the worst part?

You’re terrified.

Because it’s ridiculous. He’s—he’s ocean. He belongs to depth and salt and light that filters through water instead of windows. And you—you’re just you. You can't hold your breath long enough to meet him where he lives. You can’t turn into anything he could keep.

But even knowing that, you never stop coming.

Even on days when it rains. Even when your heart pounds too loud when he tilts his head at you just so, and your stomach twists because this shouldn’t be real, shouldn’t be possible, and yet—there he is. Always.

Or… he was.

At first, you don’t notice. The days blur. He misses one morning, then two. You assume he’s busy. Tides shift, after all. Maybe he’s gathering supplies. Visiting family. You sit on the familiar rock anyway, reading aloud with your voice a little softer, your eyes flicking to the waves more often than they used to.

Then the days stretch longer. He comes, but briefly. He doesn’t swim up right away—he lingers at a distance, floating just beneath the surface. When he does speak, it’s a little hurried. Distracted. He doesn’t carve you things anymore.

You try not to take it personally. Maybe something’s happening undersea. Maybe he’s needed elsewhere. You tell yourself not to push, not to ask. You’ve never asked anything of him before. Why start now?

But the silence settles deeper. The waves still carry the same salt, the same lull. And yet it feels… different. Lonely, again. Like before.

You begin to count the gaps between his visits. Three days. Then five. Then a week.

You keep coming.

You sit with a book you can’t focus on, lips moving through words you barely process. You leave pebbles stacked by the tide line. You hum his melody under your breath, just in case he hears it.

Nothing.

You try to be rational. You tell yourself not to spiral. But still, it scratches behind your ribs.

Did you talk too much last time? Was he overwhelmed? Did you—did your eyes linger too long? Did you say something foolish? Maybe he realized. Maybe he knows. That you're falling. That it’s not just curiosity or friendship or fascination anymore.

That he matters.

You shouldn’t have let that happen. You shouldn’t have hoped for more.

And so you sit, again, in the late afternoon light, watching the waves lap the rocks. The sun begins to sink behind the horizon, casting orange across the shallows. The water is still. No movement. No shimmering tail. No glint of wet gold hair catching the light.

Just the sound of your own breathing.

The ache that lingers in your throat is unfamiliar.

You wonder if he’ll come tomorrow.

You wonder if you’ll see him again at all.

You wonder—softly, bitterly, and with more weight than you’d like to admit—if you did something wrong.

The shore feels quieter without him. That’s the first thing you think as you approach, the sand cold against your ankles despite the afternoon warmth. You’ve started coming later now, half-hoping the changing tides might bring him back. Half-hoping the world will tilt again in your favor, just slightly.

And then, the water shifts.

You almost miss it at first—just a ripple, a glimmer, the sound of something moving beneath the surface. But you freeze mid-step, heart catching as you watch the pale outline beneath the waves draw closer.

It’s him.

He surfaces slowly, as if unsure. His hair is longer than you remember—wet gold clinging to his shoulders, the strands at his temples darker now from days in the deeper sea. His expression is unreadable at first, the lines of his face soft with hesitation.

You don’t think. You call his name.

Louder than you mean to.

He startles, flinching slightly—not because of the volume, you think, but because you noticed. Because you sound like you care. Because you sound a little like someone hurt.

He begins to turn.

“Wait—please, don’t go.”

He pauses. Doesn’t meet your eyes.

“I just…” You breathe in deep, the wind catching your words. “I want to talk. Just talk. Please.”

There’s a long silence. Then he sighs—dramatic, but tired—and drifts closer to the rocks, resting his arms on one. He doesn’t look at you directly, but he stays.

It’s enough to make your chest squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt.

He blinks.

You sit down clumsily on your usual spot, fingers curling into your sleeves. “I didn’t mean to—I mean, I wasn’t trying to—” The words rush out before you can stop them. “I thought maybe I said something or stared too long or maybe I kept you too long or maybe—maybe I wasn’t respecting your space and I’m really sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I just didn’t know how to—”

“Wait,” he says, brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

You falter, suddenly aware of how fast you’ve been speaking. His eyes are wide in that soft, ocean-glass way they get when he’s confused and concerned all at once.

You exhale slowly.

“I thought I pushed you,” you admit, quieter now. “That I crossed a line. That I made you want to stay away. And I’m sorry. I should’ve noticed. I should’ve asked. I never meant to make you feel like you had to leave.”

His lips part, as if to speak. Then he closes them again.

He looks… embarrassed. Genuinely. His fingers twitch against the stone, his gaze darting briefly toward the water like he’s considering sinking beneath it again.

“I’m the one who should apologize,” he says finally. And it’s soft. Sincere. “I left without saying anything. I didn’t want to—hurt you. But I did anyway.”

You blink. “You didn’t—”

“I did.” His voice is firmer now. Still quiet, but with that conviction you’ve come to know. “I know I did. And I’ve regretted it. Every day.”

He’s silent again for a moment. You can see it in the way his jaw tightens, how his fingers curl slightly against the stone. Whatever he’s about to say, it costs him something. You wait.

“I like you,” he says, finally, in a breath that’s barely audible over the waves.

It takes you a second to register it.

“I like you,” he repeats, a little more desperately now, like he thinks you didn’t hear the first time. “And I didn’t know what to do with that. I thought… if I stayed away, maybe it would fade. Maybe I’d stop thinking about you every time I saw a shell shaped like your laugh, or heard your voice in the tide.”

You stare at him.

His cheeks are flushed now, pink all the way to the tips of his ears. He still won’t meet your eyes.

“I thought I couldn’t give you what you deserved,” he says softly. “I don’t have a place here. Not really. I can’t walk with you. I can’t share your world. I didn’t want to keep coming and make it harder. For either of us.”

You don’t know when your throat started hurting.

“I missed you,” he finishes. “Every single day. Even when I told myself not to.”

The quiet hangs between you again. This time, it’s not heavy.

You reach out, letting your fingers skim the edge of the stone where his hand rests. He tenses slightly—but doesn’t pull away.

“You could’ve just told me,” you say gently.

He huffs, flustered, finally daring to glance at you. “I’m not good at these things.”

“No,” you agree, smiling softly. “But you’re here.”

And that’s what matters.

That he came back. That he stayed. That he told you.

That he missed you too.

There’s a strange kind of quiet after confessions. Not the absence of sound, but something slower—like the air itself has softened to let you breathe differently. You don’t say anything, and neither does he. Not right away.

Instead, you both just sit there. Close enough now that your fingers graze when you both shift, awkwardly aware of the space you share and the space you don’t—land and sea, dry and water-warmed.

Kaveh’s still looking anywhere but at you. He’s wound tight as the tide at moonrise, knuckles pale where he grips the edge of the rock. You want to reach for him again, but part of you doesn’t want to push.

So you speak.

“I missed you too.”

His head jerks slightly, like he hadn’t expected it. Like all the fears in his chest didn’t allow him to imagine that might be true.

You continue, softer. “Not just your voice, or the carvings. I missed you. Your terrible seaweed jokes. Your stories about coral tides. The way you ramble about shape and beauty and forget to breathe—if you even do breathe, I still haven’t figured that out.”

“I do breathe,” he mumbles, voice muffled behind one hand.

You smile. “Good. That’d be really inconvenient otherwise.”

He laughs under his breath. It’s small. A little surprised. But the tension in his shoulders lessens just enough for the moonlight to find him again.

And still, neither of you moves.

You could say something else. Something clever, or gentle, or carefully phrased. But none of that would be honest. Not now. So you just look at him—at the flush blooming across his cheeks, at the long strands of hair clinging to his skin, at the way his gaze flickers nervously toward your mouth when he thinks you won’t notice.

It’s a look you recognize. You’ve worn it too.

“I want to kiss you,” you say, quiet but sure. “If that’s okay.”

His breath catches.

His golden eyes finally meet yours—and they’re wide, uncertain, almost startled. But he doesn’t pull away. His lips part slightly. He blinks once, then again, and slowly, shyly…

He nods.

You lean in first, careful and slow. The rock beneath your hand is slick with sea salt, and your heart beats too fast, but you don’t stop. You wait—wait until he tilts toward you, until the sea between you grows still, until his eyes flutter closed and yours follow.

And then—

Warm.

Softer than you imagined.

He kisses like he’s afraid you’ll vanish. Like if he moves too fast, it’ll all dissolve into foam and he’ll wake alone again. But when your fingers brush lightly against his, he leans in just enough for the sea to ripple between you.

It's clumsy in the way only first kisses can be. Salt on your lips, a little uneven from the rock’s height, your noses bump awkwardly—but none of that matters. Because it’s him. And he’s here. And this is real.

When you part, his face is redder than the sunset.

He ducks his head, curls of hair falling into his eyes.

“…That was nice,” he mumbles, almost sheepish.

You grin. “Yeah. It was.”

And for the first time in weeks, the sea feels like it’s breathing with you again.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

@amalythea 2025. | do not re-upload, copy, translate, etc. my works on any form of media.

[soleillunne]

since it's mermay i might write mermaid content specifically this month and tag ppl i know like the character but i need to see who'd enjoy that so

mermay content?

yes

no

Voting ended onMay 5, 2025

also if you choose yes can you tell me which characters you'd like to see as well? i don't have a specific limit on how many fics i can write yet but the goal is once for every day of the month (though since i'm already 4 days behind n i'll probably get busy i might take longer to write them - i will finish them though)

[amalythea]

Let no one say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Fonder is nowhere near the correct word. Pained is closer, and aching closer still, but none quite capture the feeling of a lover torn. It’s a simple truth that love, as fickle of an emotion as it was, cannot be cultivated through absence, unless the love was already there and out of sight. The phrase is nothing more than a bittersweet comfort, a feeble reassurance that would only placate someone who doesn’t know any better. And Kazuha knows better.

When the heart is isolated for far too long, the only thing the heart knows is to yearn. He feels it with every beat, the blood in his veins trickling endlessly slow, like molasses under his skin. Every function is slowed, as if the rest of his body itself is shutting down to keep his heart beating, leaving his mind sluggish and chest aching.

It’s poetic in a way, how he falls apart in the face of heartache. Love, that soft, delicate thing, could so easily sink its claws into his chest, poisoning him from the inside out. It was a double-edged sword, a beast with the sweetest kiss and sharpest teeth.

Kazuha loves you, with every waking thought, and it was killing him.

Of course, the pain was metaphorical, formed through his melancholy—melodrama, Beidou would call it—but it hurt just the same. He longed for those mornings, a month or two prior, where he woke up wrapped in your arms, with the warm feeling of your breath on his cheek. It felt like a distant memory, the edges rubbed and frayed from all the times he replayed it in his mind.

You both knew it was coming. A heart bound to their home could never stay tethered to a heart that longed to wander, as much as you adored each other. Loving each other meant waiting, waiting and hoping that love would last until the next time you see each other again. All you could do until then was just that: hope.

Kazuha never had to worry about his own love waning, as it only grew stronger and sharper with each passing day. He busied himself with handling the ship, writing letters in the moonlight and sending them back to you with vivid recounts of his adventures. Between the stories and affections, he would slip in a haiku or two, waxing poetic about the sky, the sea, your eyes, or whatever else came to mind.

Your returning letters were rarer, but he cherished them like each word was written with liquid gold. He read and reread them until he could recite them in his sleep, tracing the pad of his thumb over each line, and picturing your face as you wrote them. Did you smile as you thought of him, or did your face have that little frown? Were you thinking of him now, as he always was? Or have you forgotten what it was like to love him already?

Kazuha sighs softly, the sound lost in the cold, windy night air. 

“Two faint hearts; well-loved—” He murmurs, hoisting himself to the top of the crow’s nest on the ship. He looked up at the stars, the corners of his mouth flicking upwards. “Reunited, once again.”

It wasn’t long now; in a few days time, the boat would be stopping in Inazuma harbour. There, you would be waiting for him with arms outstretched. He would catch you as he jumped onto the dock, spinning you in his arms until you’re breathless.

It was only a matter of time, until he would be back to where he belonged: with you.

Kazuha smiles. “I’ll see you soon, love.”

- 🕸️

hi anon.

first of all you can actually find my initial response to the drabble here, but here's my thoughts now, exactly 50 days after you sent in this ask (this is long, i'm not sorry.)

❝ Let no one say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.❞

OH. OH WE'RE STARTING strong. No buildup, no warning—this sentence is basically ringing a bell to signal the emotional devastation that's about to occur—and that bell? Oh, it's for my funeral.

❝ Fonder is nowhere near the correct word. Pained is closer, and aching closer still, but none quite capture the feeling of a lover torn.❞

You ever read a sentence and just feel it sink into your bones? This is that. Not just longing, not just sadness—no, we’re going straight for visceral pain. I already know this is going to wreck me.

❝ The phrase is nothing more than a bittersweet comfort, a feeble reassurance that would only placate someone who doesn’t know any better. And Kazuha knows better.❞

OW?? RIP MY HEART STRAIGHT OUT OF MY CHEST WHY DON'T YOU?? This went from poetic pain to blunt force emotional trauma in the span of a single paragraph. This isn’t even just "distance hurts"—this is "distance is suffering, and only fools believe otherwise." The sheer finality of "And Kazuha knows better." is the equivalent of a knife twisting.

❝ When the heart is isolated for far too long, the only thing the heart knows is to yearn. He feels it with every beat, the blood in his veins trickling endlessly slow, like molasses under his skin. Every function is slowed, as if the rest of his body itself is shutting down to keep his heart beating, leaving his mind sluggish and chest aching.❞

HELLO??? This is such a specific and agonizing way to describe time dragging on in loneliness. His body is fighting to keep up without love, like he’s decaying under the weight of his yearning. This is poetry. This is suffering. The physicality of the longing is so well-written, I can feel it and I am not okay.

❝ It’s poetic in a way, how he falls apart in the face of heartache. Love, that soft, delicate thing, could so easily sink its claws into his chest, poisoning him from the inside out. It was a double-edged sword, a beast with the sweetest kiss and sharpest teeth.❞

THIS IS A CRIME. "Soft, delicate thing" IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED BY "sinking claws" AND "poisoning"???? Love as something that destroys just as much as it nourishes??? This is evil. This is beautiful. This is EVERYTHING. I am in shambles.

❝ Kazuha loves you, with every waking thought, and it was killing him.❞

THAT IS A DEATH SENTENCE, ACTUALLY. I THINK I JUST DIED. The pace of this line, the brutality of it. You didn't even let me recover from the previous paragraph before swinging a hammer directly at my heart.

❝ Did you smile as you thought of him, or did your face have that little frown? Were you thinking of him now, as he always was? Or have you forgotten what it was like to love him already?❞

"Have you forgotten what it was like to love him already?" OKAY, FIRST OF ALL. HOW DARE YOU. THIS IS THE LITERARY EQUIVALENT OF A DAGGER STRAIGHT TO THE GUT. This sentence hit me like a truck at full speed. The way Kazuha knows you love him but still wonders. I am in ruins.

❝ Kazuha smiles. “I’ll see you soon, love.” ❞

I'm standing up. I'm pacing the room. I'm clutching my chest. This is absolute gold. This is the perfect way to end this. This one line alone was worth every ounce of suffering.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

i'm totally fine. this absolutely did not destroy me or anything. totally. In all seriousness though i am in love with this, i love the way you described his feelings and thoughts and made me actually feel what he feels. i'm cherishing this in a little box forever.

[soleillunne]

I'm going to open anon asks again. I want everyone to behave.

[soleillunne]

taking a little break from writing for a while, i'll finish requests when i'm back

[soleillunne]

Ieva making an indirect post made me want to make one so !! If you'd like one about yourself like this post maybe !!

[soleillunne]

limerence; valentines event !

limerence (n); an intense desire for someone, with intrusive thoughts and a desire for a relationship and reciprocation.

Hi! With Valentines Day approaching, I thought it’d be the perfect time to host an event. While there are some limitations on who can join, I hope everyone enjoys what I have in store!

❥ Who Can Join?

This is a mutuals-only event. However, if you're a mutual-in-law (a mutual of a mutual), I’d be happy to write drabbles for you as well!

If I’ve seen you around on the dash, I’ll probably recognize you, but I’d appreciate it if you included a name just in case! :')

❥ How to Join:

This is a drabble event! If you'd like to participate, send me an ask with details about your self-ship—this can be anything from voicelines to a general summary of your relationship. I need something to work with to bring your story to life!

If you have a specific scenario, setting, or AU in mind, feel free to include that as well. I’ll do my best to make it happen!

❥ What I’m Writing For:

I will only be writing for Genshin Impact. I’m open to most characters, but fair warning—I haven't played the Natlan Archon Quest yet, so I may struggle with Natlan characters.

(PS to my HSR mutuals: I’ve written for Blade, Jing Yuan, Dan Heng, Sunday, and Aventurine before and might be open to doing so again!)

❥ Additional Rules:

One character per ask to keep things manageable.

I'm willing to write almost any theme but smut, pregnancy, drug use etc. are not things i'm comfortable writing.

Drabbles will be short (usually between 400-700 words) unless inspiration strikes!

Requests will be open until 21.02.25, so be sure to send yours in before then!

I’ll be writing at my own pace, so please be patient.

Be kind and respectful with your requests! I reserve the right to decline anything that makes me uncomfortable.

❥ Tag for Easy Access:

Everything I write for this event will be tagged as limerence! so it’s easy to find.

I’m really excited to write for you all! Thank you for joining, and I hope you enjoy what I create!

PS: For anyone curious, I usually write over at @amalythea, so feel free to check it out for a glimpse of what your drabble will likely look like!

[soleillunne]

limerence; valentines event !

limerence (n); an intense desire for someone, with intrusive thoughts and a desire for a relationship and reciprocation.

Hi! With Valentines Day approaching, I thought it’d be the perfect time to host an event. While there are some limitations on who can join, I hope everyone enjoys what I have in store!

❥ Who Can Join?

This is a mutuals-only event. However, if you're a mutual-in-law (a mutual of a mutual), I’d be happy to write drabbles for you as well!

If I’ve seen you around on the dash, I’ll probably recognize you, but I’d appreciate it if you included a name just in case! :')

❥ How to Join:

This is a drabble event! If you'd like to participate, send me an ask with details about your self-ship—this can be anything from voicelines to a general summary of your relationship. I need something to work with to bring your story to life!

If you have a specific scenario, setting, or AU in mind, feel free to include that as well. I’ll do my best to make it happen!

❥ What I’m Writing For:

I will only be writing for Genshin Impact. I’m open to most characters, but fair warning—I haven't played the Natlan Archon Quest yet, so I may struggle with Natlan characters.

(PS to my HSR mutuals: I’ve written for Blade, Jing Yuan, Dan Heng, Sunday, and Aventurine before and might be open to doing so again!)

❥ Additional Rules:

One character per ask to keep things manageable.

I'm willing to write almost any theme but smut, pregnancy, drug use etc. are not things i'm comfortable writing.

Drabbles will be short (usually between 400-700 words) unless inspiration strikes!

Requests will be open until 21.02.25, so be sure to send yours in before then!

I’ll be writing at my own pace, so please be patient.

Be kind and respectful with your requests! I reserve the right to decline anything that makes me uncomfortable.

❥ Tag for Easy Access:

Everything I write for this event will be tagged as limerence! so it’s easy to find.

I’m really excited to write for you all! Thank you for joining, and I hope you enjoy what I create!

PS: For anyone curious, I usually write over at @amalythea, so feel free to check it out for a glimpse of what your drabble will likely look like!

[soleillunne]

Currently forcing myself to start the project I've been meaning to do for the last 2 months as a gift, pls drop any recipes you love so I can note them down (any and all culture's foods are welcome we're both open to trying new things and we love trying foods from other cultures)

[kopivie]

the past 24 hours have been a rollercoaster. i've been on such a high with this brand new start, but just as i'm planning to succeed, the universe hits me with a high bill that i have no means of paying. i've exhausted every option, asked every question, and played games of telephone with so many representatives.

so now i'm here, asking for help. again. i'm sorry. but my education and happiness are two things that i refuse to let slip through my fingers again.

i started a gofundme. anything and everything helps, from a donation to a reblog. i just don't want to let the future slip away from me again.

[amalythea]

<3

- 🕸️

i hope you're happy with yourself nonnie you made me cry /pos

[soleillunne]

i have a drabble in my inbox and im scared to read it. i saw other people react to web anons work before and. yeah 🧍‍♀️

[amalythea]

ANON

ANON WHAT THE FUCK WHY WOULD YOU DESTROY ME LIKE THAT

ANON. i mean this with the utmost respect i have for you. WHAT THE FUCK

ASUVDHGRB AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WDYM HES WAITING AHSDBFG SOBBIBFG

[amalythea]

hey aly. if you had to pick a favourite genshin impact and/or honkai star rail character, who would it be?

- 🕸️

hi!!

i'd say kazuha. but very close seconds are (in no particular order) xiao, lyney, albedo, childe, heizou, occasionally wanderer, venti, yoimiya, beidou, navia .... list goes on really

havent played hsr in a hot minute but... blade. kafka. jing yuan. dan heng.

how about you, nonnie?

[amalythea]

「 actor kazuha 」

⤷ info: kazuha x gn!reader || fluff, with a little comfort? || wc: 1879

⤷ warnings: modern au, reader and kazuha have to hide their relationship, near 2k words of me rambling tbh

⤷ extra: this is a little different than my usual formatting (and it's longer) because it was originally a gift for @milk-violet so everyone better thank her for convincing me to post this here

The entertainment industry is a world of glitz, glamour, and unrelenting scrutiny. You knew this the moment you stepped into it, but nothing quite prepared you for the secret-keeping. Or, more specifically, the secret you and Kazuha had been guarding for almost two years now.

Dating a co-star—especially one as universally adored as Kazuha—was a perilous game. The whispers of fans, the prying eyes of paparazzi, and the ironclad contracts that forbade any public display of affection were all things you had to navigate carefully. But no amount of restrictions could dim the warmth of Kazuha’s love, the way his eyes would soften when he looked at you or the quiet moments you stole together in between filming.

You were good at pretending. Both of you were. It was practically a requirement for your jobs. But when the announcement came that you and Kazuha had been cast as the leads in a new romantic drama, your heart nearly stopped.

“It’ll be fine,” Kazuha had said when you told him your concerns. The two of you were curled up on his couch, a rare evening off spent hidden away in his apartment. His hand rested on yours, fingers drawing lazy patterns on your skin. “We’re professionals. No one will suspect a thing.”

“You mean no one will suspect a thing if you stop looking at me like that during rehearsals,” you retorted, though the playful lilt in your voice couldn’t hide your nervousness.

He smiled, that soft, lopsided smile that always made your heart flutter. “I’ll do my best,” he teased.

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t help smiling back.

---

The first few weeks of filming went smoothly… mostly. The script was a classic love story with all the hallmarks of a hit: misunderstandings, longing glances, and a climactic confession scene that promised to leave audiences breathless. It was the kind of story that could make or break careers.

But for you, every take felt like walking a tightrope. Playing opposite Kazuha was both exhilarating and terrifying. When the cameras rolled, his every touch, every look, felt so achingly real that you had to remind yourself to stay in character. Worse still, the cast and crew were beginning to notice.

“You two have such natural chemistry,” the director said one day, after a particularly intense scene. “It’s like you’re not even acting.”

Kazuha’s hand brushed yours under the table during the script meeting that followed, a silent reassurance that he’d felt it too. The line between reality and fiction was blurring, and neither of you was doing a great job of hiding it.

It wasn’t just the director who was noticing, either. The makeup artist teased you about how easily Kazuha could make you laugh, while the wardrobe team joked about how effortlessly you complemented each other’s looks. Even the lighting crew started setting up shots with an unspoken understanding that the two of you simply fit.

“You know,” your co-star remarked one afternoon, a knowing glint in their eye, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think there was something going on between you two.”

You’d laughed it off, feigning confusion with a well-practiced air of innocence. Kazuha, ever the picture of calm, had simply smiled and quipped, “That’s just the magic of a good script.”

But behind closed doors, the pressure was mounting. Each whispered comment or lingering glance felt like a thread unraveling the careful tapestry you’d both woven to keep your relationship hidden. Still, the fleeting moments of stolen intimacy—when his hand would linger just a second too long on yours as he passed you a coffee, or when he’d quietly slip you a note during a break—were worth every risk.

It was a game of balancing acts, a performance within a performance. And as the days turned into weeks, you began to wonder how long you could keep the act going without the truth slipping through the cracks.

---

And then came the confession scene. The one the entire drama hinged on.

It was a quiet, tender moment set under a canopy of stars. Your character, heartbroken and hesitant, would finally admit their feelings. Kazuha’s character would take your hand, look into your eyes, and deliver a monologue so heartfelt it would make anyone believe in love.

You’d rehearsed the lines a hundred times, but as you stood there on set, with Kazuha’s eyes locked on yours, the words felt impossibly heavy.

“Action!” the director called.

Your character hesitated, voice trembling as you spoke. “I can’t keep this to myself anymore. I… I love you.”

Kazuha’s response was immediate, his voice rich with emotion. “And I… I’ve loved you all along.”

His hand cupped your cheek, thumb brushing against your skin with a tenderness that made your breath hitch. The kiss that followed was supposed to be carefully choreographed, a perfect balance of passion and restraint. But the moment his lips met yours, everything else faded away. The cameras, the crew, the carefully constructed facade—none of it mattered. It was just you and Kazuha, your emotions spilling over in a kiss that was as real as the love you shared.

When the director called “cut,” the set was silent. Then came the applause.

“That was incredible!” someone exclaimed. “You’d think they were really in love or something.”

You tried to ignore the knowing looks the crew exchanged as you and Kazuha stepped apart, faces flushed.

The applause and laughter carried on around you, but your heart pounded so loudly it drowned out the noise. Kazuha’s hand lingered on your arm for just a second longer than necessary, his thumb brushing against your sleeve as if silently grounding you. His expression was calm, unreadable to anyone else, but you caught the flicker of something more in his eyes—a mixture of pride and affection that sent a shiver through you.

“You two absolutely nailed that,” the director said, beaming as he walked over. “It’s the kind of chemistry you can’t fake. Keep it up.”

You forced a laugh, nodding in agreement as Kazuha gave a humble shrug. “We’re just following your direction,” he said smoothly, his voice steady and professional. The perfect answer.

Still, the knowing glances didn’t stop. The cast whispered, the crew exchanged smirks, and you could feel the invisible thread tightening around the secret you and Kazuha had worked so hard to protect. Every interaction was now under the microscope, every laugh, every glance, every moment that felt too genuine for comfort.

Later, as you retreated to the quiet sanctuary of your dressing room, Kazuha slipped in after you. He closed the door softly behind him, leaning against it with a small smile that melted some of the tension in your chest.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice low, meant just for you.

You nodded, though your hands were still trembling slightly. “I think we might’ve been a little too convincing.”

Kazuha chuckled, stepping closer to take your hands in his. “Good,” he murmured, his thumbs brushing soothing circles on your skin. “That just means we’re doing our jobs.”

You gave him a half-hearted glare. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“Maybe,” he admitted, his voice dipping into something softer, more intimate. “But it’s worth it. As long as you’re by my side.”

The words, simple and earnest, made your heart ache in the best way. For a moment, the walls around your secret didn’t feel like a cage, but a shared refuge. And even if the world came dangerously close to uncovering the truth, you knew that, with Kazuha, you could face whatever came next.

---

You could not face what came next.

The weeks that followed were a whirlwind of filming and speculation. Fans dissected every trailer, every behind-the-scenes clip, noting the undeniable chemistry between you and Kazuha. Gossip columns ran headlines like “Are They or Aren’t They?” and “On-Screen Lovers or Something More?”

Through it all, you and Kazuha maintained your careful act, deflecting questions with practiced ease. But behind closed doors, you laughed about the irony of it all.

“We’re not very good at this, are we?” you said one night, as the two of you reviewed the latest batch of fan theories.

“On the contrary,” Kazuha replied, pulling you into his arms. “I think we’re doing exactly what we set out to do.”

You looked up at him, confused.

“Convincing the world we’re madly in love,” he explained, a playful glint in his eyes. “Because we are.”

You laughed, burying your face in his chest. It was a secret you’d keep as long as you had to, but in moments like this, you didn’t mind.

But the world had a way of testing your resolve.

The tension reached a breaking point during a promotional event for the drama. The room was buzzing with energy, a sea of cameras flashing and reporters clamoring for the best soundbite. You and Kazuha sat side by side on the panel, answering questions with the kind of polished charm that came from months of media training.

“I have to ask,” one reporter began, her tone light but her intent razor-sharp, “the chemistry between you two is… extraordinary. It’s not often we see something this authentic. What’s your secret?”

The question hung in the air like a challenge. You felt your pulse quicken, a bead of sweat forming at your temple. Kazuha, ever the master of composure, leaned forward with a small smile.

“We’ve spent a lot of time together, both on and off set,” he said smoothly. “Getting to know each other’s quirks and nuances is key to creating that kind of connection on screen.”

It was a perfect answer, one that drew a chorus of approving murmurs from the room. But you weren’t sure how much longer you could keep this up.

Later, as the event wound down, you slipped away to catch a moment of peace. You found yourself on the balcony, the cool evening air a welcome reprieve from the stifling heat of the spotlight.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Kazuha’s voice came from behind you.

You turned to see him leaning casually against the doorway, his expression soft but laced with concern.

“I’m fine,” you said quickly, though the tremor in your voice betrayed you.

Kazuha stepped closer, his presence steady and reassuring. “You don’t have to be,” he murmured, reaching for your hand. “Not with me.”

His words broke through the wall you’d been holding up all night. The weight of the charade, the constant scrutiny, the fear of being exposed—it all came rushing to the surface.

“Kazuha,” you whispered, your voice trembling. “What if they find out? What if this all falls apart?”

He cupped your face gently, his eyes locking with yours in that way that always made the world feel like it was spinning just a little slower.

“Then we’ll face it together,” he said, his voice a quiet promise. “No matter what happens, I’m not letting go of us.”

The resolve in his gaze, the steadiness of his touch, was enough to anchor you. In that moment, the world and its prying eyes didn’t matter. It was just you and Kazuha, holding on to the truth you shared, ready to weather whatever storm came your way.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

@amalythea 2025. | do not re-upload, copy, translate, etc. my works on any form of media.