Aw man, all of those Bagley and Obermann AU ideas sound super interesting! Part of me wants to be like “yes please tell me more about A L L of them”—but I’m especially a sucker for merms. Would you be willing to share more about how those two meet in the orca AU? :0c
hehehe thank you! and of course! i really love this au—but then again i love them all, haha.
for their first meeting, bagley’s spotted a beached whale wrapped in fishing lines and rope on this little rocky strip of beach. a storm is coming in and both his radio is broken and his phone dead, but he’s put all this aside to try to help this whale before the storm hits. there’s no time to get back up—he has to act now to do what he can. it’s a lone humpback calf, so he starts cutting through the lines when a spout breaks the surface—announcing the arrival of a mother whale—and the guardian she brought with her.
obermann rises from the water in all her terrifying glory—at least a hundred and fifty feet long with a towering dorsal fin and sleek black and white tail. speechless, bagley freezes at the sight of her, dropping his knife. they lock eyes and bagley, who had been staring in amazement, is filled with terror as a clawed hand reaches—but it’s not for him.
she shushes the whale calf, so big he nearly fits into a single hand as she gently lowers him into the water. but she seems far more concerned with the whale than bagley, so he swallows his fear and grabs his knife again, wading into the water to help cut away the lines. his fear is replaced with adrenaline—the need to save this calf overwhelming, heart pounding in his ears as thunder rumbles. he can feel those dark eyes briefly drift to his back as obermann keeps the calf calm, using the occasional finger to pull the rope for him to cut. she begins to make a high pitched, vibrational sound he’d recognize anywhere—she’s communicating with the calf, through whale song. head spinning with questions, this incredible realization makes bagley cut the rope even faster.
once the calf is free and reunited with his mother, bagley breaks out into a wide grin—until obermann turns her full attention to him. immediately the swell of victory dissolves into terror and dread. he stumbles back into waist deep water, straining to look up at her. motionless, she regards him with an indecipherable stare—not particularly cold or warm, but as a being of strange, incredible power taking in this curious creature—evaluating his face, his motive—his very soul, even.
finally, obermann seems to come to a conclusion, eyes settling on gratefulness. she regards him with a look of genuine, almost child-like curiosity, and then she speaks: it’s a low, odd sound, requiring a few tries to formulate anything that sounds like english, addressing him in a thick accent unlike any he has ever heard:
