Merfolk Courting Rituals Are Confusing
Giorno’s heart thudded a hammering rhythm in his ears — Mista stared back at him from some tail lengths away, panting and coughing up great swathes of blood. The red liquid clouds the waters around him, his arms flexing with barely withheld tension, colour rapidly shifting between his enraged darker blue and oranges, and pain induced pale yellows. Trish curls over his flexing arms, her fluttering fins swaying in the currents. The long pink and yellow fins are a beautiful, flowing sight, the curve and line of her long pelvic fins a smooth yet striking contrast against the deep blue around them… Had the situation been any other, Giorno would have pressed a kiss to the back of her hand, and murmured a gentle praise into the soft skin there, drawing her close to press another, more chaste kiss to her temple as she cooed and giggled back at him.
For now, his eyes shift; movement draws both dark and emerald eyes towards the depths of the Whale’s Maw below. Fear wells up, fins flaring as they faintly catch sight of the massive magenta, red and white tail slither out of sight, the white of its tattered and ruined caudal fin swallowed by the deep blue of the abyss. As it vanishes, the waters ripple with a shriek, the squall loud enough to make the scales along the ridge of Giorno’s spine flare.
Mista snarls, his arms flexing in a tight squeeze and Trish echos his aggression with a harsh hiss, her long fins flaring up.
The call fades into echoing silence.
His ears ring, the sun at his back slowly starting to light the waters around him in a warm golden glow. His chest feels heavy, lungs struggling under each breath — the golden sunlight feels blinding, the world around him almost feels fake.
Laughter, burbling and trembling with emotion, pulls his attention around, makes Giorno turn his head at a sharp angle to take in his podmates; Trish and Mista are slumped against one another, the smaller of the two tucked beneath Mista’s arms and chin. They’re both bloody, tattered and exhausted, their shared warm colours reflecting a rainbow into the surroundings. They’re laughing — cheek to cheek, hip to hip, fin to fin, the two have burst into hysterical laughter, curled around one another.
Turning to him, Trish’s face splits into a broad and eager grin — Giorno’s scales flare and settle when her fins fluff out to their maximum size, fluttering and waving and Mista’s look at her back is so heartachingly tender that even Giorno feels his throat close with something romantic.. “We did it!” She gasps, swimming close enough to clasp both of his palms between her hands — green to green, viridian against emerald, her pupils large and excited. “We… he’s gone, we did it, we did it Giorno!”
Swimming back from him with an eager flip of her tail, spinning eagerly — Trish throws her arms out wide and cries out. Her song is loud and rich, ringing from the deepest pits of her chest and echoing through the water in a piercing song of victory. Mista joins her after a moment of brilliant laughter, sweeping her close to his chest in a playful spiral. They’re a blur of dark orange and hot pink, spinning and spinning and laughing and singing and a bubble of tension forms behind Giorno’s eyes.
Deep song calls out behind him; a raspy, bellowing song of greeting and the spinning ball of excitement before him breaks apart in a rush of fins and arms and wild eyed stares.
The mer — the don now, rightfully so considering that he’d fought and killed for this position — turns and that bubble behind his eyes bursts. Bloodied, slumped against each other but alive, he watches in numb disbelief as Narancia swims towards them, Abbacchio and a barely conscious Bruno close behind. Narancia chokes out his greeting song once more, coughs out a cloud of blood and Mista launches over Giorno’s shoulder, past their new don to slam his full weight into their second youngest member, rolling with the momentum. The dark black-purple of Narancia’s tail is striking when compared to the rich orange of Mista’s lower body as they intertwine, whining greeting barks and chirps back and forth, fins flaring out all over the place. When the ball of excitement spins a little too close, jostles some of Bruno’s longer fins and irritates their torn edges, Bruno whines.
Immediately Abbacchio reprimands them, a short gruff bark.
The reprimand is met with an outstretched tongue by both mers, and playfully snapped teeth and Abbacchio’s snarling, and Bruno’s head lifts and Trish trills…
And Giorno finds himself approaching their eldest with a sweep of his tail.
Abbacchio’s face contorts into a deeper sort of snarl, sunset eyes narrowing into thin slits as all of his fins flare at the same time — his dislike of the other mer had been razor sharp and hotter than a magma vent since day one, cemented by the other mer’s refusal to submit to him. Abbacchio was their occiano, their “Ocean’s Eye”; Abbachio was supposed to have a final say in everything, was supposed to be the one deferred to.
And yet, from the moment he’d joined their pod, Giorno had spit in the face of this.
Giorno had pushed for them to oust the don, Giorno had been the one to realize that both their pod and the Assassin’s Pod had the same enemy, Giorno had been the one to plan everything — Abbacchio hated Giorno for that, yet begrudgingly admired him as well.
Emerald green meets sharp yellow-purple; soft, relaxed and rounded pupils against sharp, tense and slitted ones.
After just a moment, Giorno’s eyes shift to the side. Abbacchio is only faintly aware of the way his own eyes go wide, only faintly aware of the gasps and chitters of the others, of the soft huff of a laugh that Bruno emits as the new don slumps into his chest. His short, feathery fins go flat to his body, hands curled against the muscles of his chest in the first submission he’s ever given to Abbacchio — to really cement it, his head tilts to the side, gills exposed as his body vibrates with a soft purr.
The sound is rusty, and stuttered, pushed out between deep breaths — like Giorno hasn’t purred for a very long time and for just a moment, Abbacchio stays still. The others are silent, staring at them in a mix of apprehension and concern; if Abbacchio rejected him now, it wouldn’t nesscarily mean that they needed to eject him from the pod, but Giorno’s presence would cause a sharp rift in the group nonetheless.
After a long moment in which the ocean herself seemed to hold her breath… Abbacchio’s chin nestles down amid silken golden locks.
His acceptance of Giorno’s submission — his agreement to finally be Pod, to be theirs — rings in the air. The water fills with eager trills and chirps, Trish’s rolling purr echoed by the rough burbling growl both Narancia and Mista release in unison.
Their excitement is broken apart by the weak gasp-cough of Bruno; swift as an undertow, they break apart as one, turning to check on their second most senior member — Giorno’s throat flexes around a Song, his hands hesitantly reaching past Abbacchio. Their occiano lets him, though there is a tense moment where his teeth click, his dark fins flaring in a halo of dark and shimmering purple. Giorno pacifies him with a submissive sound, a gentle humming purr that soothes the older mer into backing off a distance.
Now free floating, Bruno starts up a pained purr, drowned out by the deep thrum of Giorno’s voice — there’s a quiet hush of awe over the pod as his Song coaxes torn skin and rent muscle to sew back together, blood reversing its flow to re-fill the wounds, and replenish what was lost. His song pitches low, thrumming through Bruno’s muscles to urge the bones beneath to mend, cracks and factures steadily filling back in. At his back, Abbacchio’s iridescent hide ripples with colour, shimmering with anxious energy, but his fins signal trust even with how tense they were, so Giorno keeps his mind on merely singing.
It’s only when he’s getting visibly dull, his speckles and rich pink colouration fading out, does Abbacchio shoulder his way back between them — Giorno chirps in affront, snaps his teeth and reaches for Bruno, his Song was so close to finishing that heal, just let him-
Abbacchio snarls, snaps his teeth at Giorno’s encroaching hand and he reels back. “Enough, Giovanna.” Mista clicks in disapproval at the name, echoed by both Trish and Narancia; Abbacchio mostly ignores their chorus, though his ear does flick in acknowledgement of the admonishment. “That’s enough — the rest still need to be healed.”
Giorno blinks, small and tired, yet turns his eyes towards the rest of the hovering pod.
Almost immediately, Mista makes a point to look uninjured, his many arms flushing out the dull green-blue of pain and replacing it with a healthy dose of an uninjured orange-red. Like clockwork, both Narancia and Trish follow his lead, fluffing out their fins and casting bored looks around the area — Giorno is tempted to remind them that his nose is hypersensitive to the scent of blood, just to watch them grin guiltily at him.
Nonetheless, he turns his amused gaze onto Abbacchio; he’s already started swimming away, Bruno laid over his back like a carcass.
Giorno sighs, fluffs out his gills and approaches Mista with a Song on his tongue.
