Jace knew he wasn't one of the mad men in his family. So, why does he feel like he's being watched?
ft. jacaerys velaryon x siren!reader
genre/warnings: fix it fic, no smut, hotd s3 spoilers, mentions of grief and death, manipulation, no use of y/n (describes reader as having a green/olive toned skin but thats all rlly), p2 already in da works :D
wc: 2.3k.
not proofread.
Jace’s body felt numb.
His fingers clumsily struggled to unfasten himself from Vermax, desperate not to share his dearest friend’s tragic end.
His first breath scraped his throat raw; the next burned with smoke.
Thwip.
Heat burst through his shoulder, sudden and blinding.
Thwip. Thwip.
The sky glowed a murky orange, smothered by smog and fire. Or was it the water blurring his sight?
He was cold. His chest hurt. He felt like he was floating.
I think I'm dying.
—
A shadow passed over his fading vision.
A touch to his cheek.
—
Cold on his lips.
Men were sinking before you.
You had seen them before, from afar.
But this one was sinking.
Slower.
You could hear his heart beating sluggishly. Could smell his blood.
How could a man smell like fire even underwater?
You took him south.
Men needed warmth, yes?
Yes. And food. Fish would do.
Plenty of fish.
—
This man had strange spikes.
They bled red when you touched them.
That isn’t right, is it?
No. So you took them out.
This man’s blood tasted like ash.
Pain radiated through Jace as he sprawled across rough stone, the air thick with damp salt. A cough clawed up from his chest, pain blooming in his sternum and neck as he rolled, spitting seawater and blood. Time had slipped by—hours, maybe a whole night, lost since the chaos above. Then came the shaking, cold gnawing at his muscles as adrenaline faded.
He blinked. Grit stung the backs of his eyes, salt burning from the sea. Pain sharpened in his neck as he turned, forcing his breath to catch.
Too weak to rise, he curled on his side. Slowly, his vision cleared: rock walls bathed in the pool’s glow. Moonlight spilled through a small hole in the cave ceiling, trailing down with a gentle trickle of water. It might have been beautiful, if not for the pain that kept him tethered to the now.
His hand comes up to the sensitive skin just above his collarbone.
Something glittered in the water at the edge of his vision. The hairs on his neck bristled as it slipped past once more.
He waits a few seconds before shuffling forward—albeit awkwardly and incredibly painfully—to peer over the pool.
Nothing.
Maybe his battered mind was conjuring things in the haze of pain.
—
Jace isn’t sure exactly when he fell asleep, nor how he had moved to the back wall of the cave. It was peculiar, but he knew injuries brought on strange behaviour.
A sudden splash behind him made him jerk around, regret slicing through him as pain flared in every muscle.
Once the pain ebbed, he spotted a battered, half-dead fish on the stone, its fins trembling feebly.
Confusion is the first emotion Jace experiences in that moment. How does a creature in such a state have enough strength to fly itself ashore? Did it get those… strange injuries from doing that? How is—
There it was again. The same glimmer, only closer now.
He almost caught its shape, but it vanished, leaving only a fleeting shimmer behind.
Whatever it was that was bringing him food, Jace realised over the next few days. Which also meant it knew humans.
The thought made his stomach turn. Or, it was the raw fish.
—
Jace wakes to the sound of water trickling onto rock. His head is pounding. Body shivering.
His eyes flutter open for a mere second, exhaustion keeping him at the edge of his consciousness. Something, a soft, muted green colour, enters his view before he is gone again.
—
Green. Water. Vermax. Arrow. Cold.
Jace hurts. His body? Not so much anymore, but his chest. Vermax.
He could feel him—well, perhaps the lack of him. He had never known a life without Vermax; it was… cold. The sort of cold that sticks deep in your gut. He was alive. Vermax was dead. Somewhere in the Gullet. Dead.
Drowned.
Tears pricked in his eyes. First his brother, then his dragon. How much more suffering can a person take? His mother comes to mind. She must think I’m dead; a whisper echoes against the wall of the cave.
His voice doesn’t sound right. Cracked, raw, so not him.
Trill.
Jace stiffens. Something was here with him.
The noise comes again. It’s soft, almost familiar—close to the noises Vermax and Arrax would make as dragonlings, but wetter.
He turns slowly. Searches every corner of the cave as he propped himself up, with dull aches pulsing in his chest and shoulder.
Nothing.
Now, he knew he wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t one of those Targaryens who lost their minds. That was not him. Something was here, and now it was gone.
Trill.
No, it was still here. Where was it?
Something moves to his left.
Oh.
A frog. Gods, perhaps he was going insane.
—
He could hear you.
And that nasty little toad took credit for it.
You could hear it taunting you.
Disgusting.
The frog didn’t last long. After waking (he wasn’t even sure how he had slept upright like that), he saw a little leg in the water—just a leg.
Jace was for certain convinced there was something else here.
His fingers find the skin of his neck again. It still felt a little raw; the skin puckered to the touch, but it was better.
His clothes were tattered, doublet torn and half a trouser leg gone. How long had he been here? Days? Weeks? No, he hadn’t choked down that much raw fish.
No more than five days, he thinks, feeling the roughness of his stubble.
Lost in thought, Jace missed the green shape slipping just beyond his sight.
—
Was he truly a man?
Pretty enough to be a woman, yes.
But his chest was flat.
Shame.
Lookatmelookatmelookatmelookatmelook—
—
Jace cannot move. Your gaze has him pinned. He doesn’t even allow himself to look over you for fear you would lunge at him.
He thought back to stories his grandsire and father would tell him, of creatures in the sea. You were not a kelpie. Kelpies were half horse, and you had… Well, you were not half horse.
You tilted your head almost mechanically, and he could have sobbed.
You were going to eat him. You had been fattening him up with fish and you were going to—
“Are you a man?” Your lips hadn’t moved. Instead, the flaps on your neck– gills had moved.
“What?” He whimpers, swallowing his aforementioned sob.
You blink, inner eyelids swiping sideways. “You. Are you a man?”
Jace blinks back, tongue darting out to lick his lip. “A man? I… yes, I am a man.” He finally allows himself to look you over.
Your skin was human-like with an almost olive tinge, fading to green at your clawed and webbed fingers, as well as your tail. Fine scales shimmered there, catching stray glimmers of light and shifting like the surface of shallow water. Your movements were precise and strangely graceful, muscles flexing beneath that strange skin, every motion calculated, predatory, yet fluid—as if you were always half-melted into the water even when still.
When you spoke, your voice echoed with a low, melodic resonance, carrying hints of something unearthly beneath the words, and every so often, he caught the faint scent of salt and copper drifting from you, sharp and unfamiliar. He was sure you were something out of those books he used to read as a young boy, a beast made to kill; sharp talons and sleek body for hunting.
You bend at the waist unnaturally, catching his gaze again and making his breath hitch. “You look like a woman.” Your mouth opens, rows of teeth glowing in the light from the overhead fissure. “We eat men.”
The man in front of you pales. “Excuse me?” He knew it. He knew you were going to eat him. He had survived an arrow to the neck and this was what was going to kill him, Gods—
You close your mouth and sit back up, the corner of your lips curled slightly. “Joke.”
Jace exhales harshly, eyes still wide.
“Well. Not joke.” You hum, looking over him. “But not you.” You lean toward him, the vertical slit of your pupil widening. “You taste like ash.”
Oddly, that brought him no comfort.
After revealing yourself, you began to linger by the pool’s edge. Sometimes sitting beside him, your muscled tail coiling into the water, other times watching from just beneath the surface.
It gave Jace time to study you. Your speech was strange, as if several voices jostled for control. He learned your mouth was not required for words, though you sometimes used it. Maybe you were mimicking him? He still wasn’t sure.
“What are you doing?” Your voice was pitched higher than usual, arms and chin propped on the pool’s edge.
Jace hadn’t heard you surface, nor did he know how long you’d been watching. “I… am trying to start a fire.”
You push yourself up with a trill in the back of your throat, claws creaking against the rock. “Fire? Why?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the sound, still jumpy around you, and exhaled in relief to see you sitting still.
“Because… I get cold. And I am tired of eating raw fish.”
An amber eye glimmered at the edge of Jace’s vision. The eyes unsettled him most—they shifted colour, never the same twice, and he hadn’t dared ask why. Not to mention your relentless need for eye contact.
“Cold?” When he turned, he caught the faint scrunch of your face. “But it is warm here.”
“It isn’t warm.”
“Yes it is. The water is warm. Warmer than everywhere else.”
“I don’t live in the water.”
Your pupils narrowed as you tried to make sense of his needs.
You don't understand men. Warmth?
How much more warmth could he need?
It was almost too warm.
You glanced down at the two stones in his hands. “Stones make fire?”
“They can,” Jace finds his voice softening, as if speaking to a child. “If they are the right stone. You need flint.” He had pinched an arrowhead that has been tossed aside of where he had awoken: one you had clearly pulled out of him.
“Fu-lint.” You echoed, pupils dilating as you locked eyes with him. In that moment, you almost seemed innocent. Jace knew you were clever, but there was so much you didn’t know about the world above water.
“Yes, flint.”
Blink. “I do not know this flint.”
He inhaled, glancing away to hide a smile. “It’s okay, I have flint.” Jace turned one of the stones in his hand, holding it up. “See? This is flint.”
You leaned in, neck stretching just a bit too far for any human. Something twisted in his gut. He was sharing space with a man-eater who could turn on him in an instant.
Jace’s hands stilled, dropping into his lap. “Where exactly are we?” When your eyes met his, he had to hold his breath. Deep amber, almost gold—a colour he’d never seen before.
“South.” It is the only word you speak, quiet and subtle enough that if it weren’t for the ripple of your gills, he wouldn't be sure if you had actually spoken.
His hand trembles ever so slightly, the pads of his thumb and forefinger white around one of the stones he holds. “Okay, how far south?”
Your irises darken. It makes his stomach fall, hair prickling on his nape. “I do not know. South.”
He decides to drop it.
—
You watched him make fire.
You then watched him cook your fish.
He let you try it. Yuck.
But they were quite resourceful. Men.
You watched him strike fire with an arrowhead,
Then use the same tool to clean his face.
Clever.
After he complained about the same meal, you started bringing him all sorts of fish. Sometimes they looked too strange for him to eat, but that was fine—you finished whatever he left behind.
His curiosity for you only grew each time you visited him.
You moved with deliberate care, never too fast, every motion calculated not to startle him. Watching you was mesmerising; so fluid, like water given form. It brought a strange calm, a welcome distraction from the life he’d lost. Without you, Jace would be dead. He can acknowledge that. And the more he watched you, the more your dreamy eyes lingered on him, the less he wanted to leave.
It was a scary thought.
—
“Do you have a name?” Jace finds himself asking on a quiet day, laid back on the cave floor and admiring the small crack.
Your head emerges from the water, inner eyelids blinking to reveal a soft pink. You stare, blinking again with a tilted head. “Name? No.”
He hummed, fingers tracing a pebble you’d brought him. “Why?”
A swoosh and splash, and suddenly you loomed above him, silky hair framing your face, droplets sliding down to land on his skin.
Jace swallowed, lips parting on a shaky breath. Beautiful. He bit the word back before it slipped out.
“Why?” You echoed, staring intently. Your eyes flickered from soft pink to lilac-grey before settling. “I do not need a name; we do not live with others. Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Have a name?”
He hesitated. Myths of sea creatures and forest spirits who stole people away flickered through his mind. Grandsire always warned: never give your real name to such beings. He met your gaze, then blinked, pulling himself back to the present.
“I do have a name.” He says gently. “My grandsire gave it to me.”
Your eyes seemed to glow as you lowered yourself until he could feel the chill of your skin. “Would you tell me? Please?” The look on your face was eerily like the one you wore at your first meeting.
He knows he shouldn’t. He can’t. He still isn’t even sure what you are, but it spills out of his mouth before he can stop it.
#the odyssey
#art
#ao3
#star wars
