#ww-no.3

[rhosavirgoart]

Day 3: Caught in a Net

@amonthofwhump promptlist

[whumpersketch]

Wow ok i was about to post this when my phone died so have my drawing!!

[my-whumpy-little-heart]

Llyr and the Pirates - Day 3

Day 3: Caught in a Net

For @amonthofwhump‘s Water Whump May, where I write a part of this story every day according to the prompt. Got done earlier today, woo!

Tag list: @spiffythespook and @castielamigos-whump-side-blog

Content Warnings: derogatory language and cursing, nonsexual nudity, unable to move/trapped

“Of course. Now let’s go get you cleaned up.” It offered its hand and, tentatively, Llyr took it.

He allowed the human--Ray, the other had said?--to pull him up but didn’t dare rely on its strength after that. Llyr loosened his grip on Ray’s hand and was relieved when it did the same in return. It was a small comfort in such an frightening situation.

They walked together, him with unsteady, shambling steps, the human with large, confident strides. As they passed the woman he shied away, putting Ray’s body between him and it. The harpoon still lay on the ground next to it, but he figured the human would have killed him on sight if it knew what he really was. 

Llyr wasn’t safe by any means, but he was still alive. He’d just use these humans for as long as he needed before he could repair his skin, and then he’d leave. 

As they walked, he felt the skin, now his makeshift cloak, shifting and rubbing foreignly against his skin, the edges of the torn hole wrapped around his shoulder. It was soaking wet like the rest of himself, but at least it felt warm. Though the warm sun beat down, the water was cooling against his skin. A light wind blew from across the water and he shivered.

As they approached the boat, there were other humans around talking and doing various tasks. One of them, whom Ray called out to, stood out from the others with pale, heavily freckled skin and a fiery red mop of hair. It turned around, looking first at Ray and then settling on him. “Oh, hello! Who are you?” It had a puzzled look on its face, and it looked much less intimidating than Ray. It was much thinner and less muscular, even if it was taller than him, and Llyr figured that even he could stand a chance against it in a fight.

He stayed silent instead of answering it, choosing instead to look the new human up and down for weapons. There was a sword strapped to his side, sheathed, but it didn’t seem to be armed otherwise. Llyr shuffled away from it, but he found himself doubting this human would even want to use it if given the chance.

“Floyd,” Ray said, realizing Llyr probably wasn’t going to speak, “could you go ahead and grab us some towels? I’m going to help him get settled in Hugh’s spare bed.” 

“Oh, sure! Got it.” It flashed a small smile before hurrying up the ladder on the side of the boat. 

Ray gestured for Llyr to go ahead of him and follow after Floyd, but just the sight of the ladder made dread settle in his gut. To any normal person it probably would have looked fine, but with his non-existent coordination and strength, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to haul himself up the rungs. Behind him, Ray seemed to notice his hesitation.

“Here, you seem really tired out, so let me help. I’ll lift you up, and you just have to grab onto the top, okay?” It placed calloused hands on either side of his waist after it spoke, obviously expecting him to accept. What other choice did he really have?

Llyr nodded, muscles tensing as the grip tightened and he was hoisted off the ground. He flailed helplessly for a second before he was high enough to grab the top rung, wrapping both hands around and clinging like his life depended on it. His feet quickly found rungs further down, and he swung them up over the side of the boat with a grunt.

He meant to hop down to the deck from there, but somewhere off the edge of the railing he slipped, falling hard on his side and rolling with the momentum. He shouted as ropes wrapped all around his body, constricting and stopping his frantic struggles and yelps as he rolled and tangled in them. A net of some kind wound around his body and he pulled blindly against it, whining and crying out wordlessly in a panic when it didn’t come loose.

Footsteps approached but he couldn’t see where they were coming from, or whose they were. He strained and raised his head, peering out through a hole with wide, pleading eyes, ready to beg for help from Ray, but saw a new pair of legs instead.

“The hell? What’re you doing on our ship, kid? Tryna steal? Huh?” A deep, gruff voice sounded above him, and a boot covered toe rolled him over further into the net until he was flat on his back, staring up at a leathery, tanned face framed by curling facial hair. 

He didn’t even try to correct the human, instead focusing on rolling back over to get the net off of his body. He managed to flip back on his stomach before a boot was on his back, heel pressed to the small of it and digging in hard.

“No you don’t, you lil’ shit. Dirty thieves like you deserve punishment. Can’t even have the decency to join a proper organization...” it growled, and Llyr cried out at the sharp pressure right on his spine. It restricted his breathing all over again, and he tried to take deep, smooth breaths through the panic and constriction.

“Can’t even have the decency to put on some fuckin’ clothes to rob a bunch’a pirates, huh? Or you just that damn poor, huh? You want us to pity you so bad we send you out with a fuckin’ fortune?!” It drew back its foot and slammed it into his side, sending him rolling up further in the net with a yelp. Llyr’s head spun and he couldn’t tell which way was up, where he was, couldn’t move an inch in the thick ropes. 

Before he could steel himself, the boot came forward and kicked him hard in the head, sparks flying around his spinning world. Another kick flew into his side, hitting right over the sluggishly bleeding wound and he screamed when the white hot burst of pain rocketed up his torso.

“Hugh! What’s gotten into you?!” Ray’s voice sounded from far away and Llyr felt pounding feet against the deck, shaking it harder with each step. Thankfully, the kicks stopped

“Stupid kid was about to rob us,” it said casually, almost proudly.

“No, this kid was hurt and drowning at the shoreline and I’m bringing him in to help him. Why was this net out in the first place?!”

“Fishing,” Hugh grunted, “and he still looks like a dumbass brute to me.”

“Well, he’s gonna be staying with you for a few days at least, so please learn to like him.”

Hugh groaned in response, and Llyr questioned his decision to come with the pirates at all.

Next part

[thewhumperinwhite]

May 3: Caught in a Net

(Also includes May 2: Harpoon.) Written for day 3 of @amonthofwhump‘s WaterWhump2020 challenge.

Ongoing disclaimer that I don’t know anything about... well anything, but in particular, marine biology or Boats and their accoutrement.

TW for: Mild gore. Also reference to mermaids eating people; that doesn’t happen here but it’s a thing they do so let me know if that bothers you and what would be the most useful way of warning/tagging for it.

Previous: Anchor.

Opal follows the unmoored ship through half a day and into the night. After the sun sets she supposes she is still following, but she doesn’t come to the surface for the ship. She comes for the stars.

Forget the men and the occasional amusement of destroying them: Opal thinks she would give up the surface altogether if not for the stars, never brighter than on a cloudless night above the open sea. She surfaces, the air plastering her hair to her head in the irritating way it does, and tips her head back to look at them, moving her arms in slow circles and letting her tail spiral out in front of her and break the surface in places too. Opal’s tail is built for deeper water, but it likes the feel of starlight.

She is about to close her eyes when she hears a horrible noise, like animals she doesn’t remember, from the ship, a good ways above, and then the sound of bare feet running on boards; and a man’s voice, shaped so she can hear his clumsy blunt human teeth, yells, “Basta— stop him! He fucking bit me!”

Which is all the warning Opal has before a body tumbles off the ship and plummets into the water in front of her.

Opal blinks a few times, startled out of her cozy star-state, before she comes to her senses and dives below to see what might be sinking.

The human’s hands are bound behind it and its face makes a cloud of blood in the water.

Opal swims in a curious circle around it. It isn’t very big; Opal is bigger than any man now, counting the whole impressive length of her tail and the width of her fins, and she doesn’t remember how big a man is supposed to be, entirely; but she thinks this one too small, that it might not have finished growing. 

When she comes around to the front of it, it tips its head back to look at her, and then it jerks back, surprise stealing a big bubble of air from its lungs.

It is small, Opal thinks; not a baby, certainly, but not entirely a man, either. Which is reason number one not to eat it, or at least not yet.

Reason number two is its bound hands— Opal remembers the burn of rope around her wrists— and the bloody ruin of its face, red clouding out from his lips into the water even when they are pressed closed to hold in the air. One of its eyes is wide with surprise and fright as any man’s is, seeing her; the other is swollen halfway shut and cannot match its fellow.

Opal isn’t sure what to do with a man she doesn’t want to eat.

The little man—boy, Opal remembers suddenly, that is the word for a man that is still small, boy—apparently remembers that it needs air, and kicks its small legs, struggling upward without the use of its arms; it throws back its head when it breaks the surface and gasps, and Opal, curious before she is anything else, breaks the surface too, blinking at it— him— in the starlight.

The boy blinks back at her, panting, his undamaged eye very wide.

There is an ongoing commotion above on the ship— “little bastard” is shouted many times—but Opal is distracted by looking at a man—or something man-adjacent, anyway—and not knowing immediately what to do with it. It isn’t a bad feeling, but it isn’t one she’s used to.

Then she hears a noise she knows— a terrible thunking twang— and dives immediately.

The men above must have spotted her. Perhaps the little one was even bait, that sounds like something a man would do, drop in a little bleeding thing to distract her so they can shoot one of their dirty prickling spears at—

Above her, the small form of the bleeding boy jerks forward, twists in on itself terribly, and sinks a few feet.

Opal treads water, looking up at it. Trying to decide if she believes what she is seeing.

The spear guns are for shooting fish. She has Sisters with scars from them, too, and she’s avoided a few shots from them herself, when men have seen her tail. They don’t use them to shoot each other. Perhaps the little one is faking.

Opal swims up toward him. She is curious before she is anything else.

The real danger, Opal knows, is not the spear itself, though that can leave a nasty wound; the danger is the string on the end, which the men can wind to pull a Sister from the sea, and anyone would die before they let themselves be pulled thus.

Opal looks at the boy, clawing frantically at his shoulder—the spear has gone clean through and the water around him is more red than not—and she sees the moment the men pull on the rope, as the wrenching on his ruined shoulder empties his lungs in a cloud of red-tinted bubbles.

Opal looks at the boy, who is no longer looking back, his mouth open in an agonized ‘o’ that is certainly filling his lungs with water; there are no tears under water but Opal suddenly remembers what they were like— what it was like to weep— more clearly than she has since the day she sank.

The harpoon through the boy’s shoulder trails a single rope, far thinner than any respectable anchor-chord. Opal snips through it in one decisive bite.

She expects the boy to kick back up to the surface, but instead his face goes slack when the pain is no longer increasing and he sinks a foot lower. Opal, who knows how it is to sink, hoots her web-fingered hands under his armpits and pushes him up, breaking the surface in two easy flexes of her tail.

He comes back to life when the air touches his face, and stares at Opal, really definitely seeing her now— she can see him seeing her eyes and her teeth, the crystal shimmer of her skin and the thick seaweed mess of her hair. She isn’t sure she likes it. He isn’t a Sister; she is used to being seen only by her Sisters and, occasionally, her dinner. She cannot imagine eating now.

The commotion from above has not stopped, though the water mercifully cuts it off whenever she is under the surface. There is clear outrage at the breakage of their spear-string, which is good. Then there are whining voices that cry, “Not bloody worth it, little bugger’s probably dead anyway,” and a loud, roaring one over top that howls, “Pissing little bastard, show him to run away from me—”

The boy jerks in the water when he hears the roaring voice, pushes his small useless un-webbed hands against Opal’s shoulders, mutters in a small fast desperate voice, “let me go let me go let me sink let go—”

Opal is blinking at him in surprise when she sees the net in silhouette above her, and shoves backward, shooting a long way away with one whip of her tail, and she doesn’t— she doesn’t decide to drop him. Doesn’t decide to leave him behind.

That’s the problem, she thinks. If it were a decision— if she’d done it on purpose—she could forget the sound he makes when the net tangles around his legs and yanks on the spear stuck through his shoulder; the terrible wordless wail when they pull him up from the water and back to the world of men.

But she didn’t mean to. She just panicked, wasn’t thinking, didn’t help him sink like she sank once at the end of a life she hated and the beginning of one she loves. 

Opal looks hard at the stern of the ship before she dives down to enlist the help of her Sisters. She wants to make sure she will know it again, when it comes time for it to sink.

[susiequaz12]

Fish- Day 3, Caught in a Net

Alright day 3 here we go. This is for @amonthofwhump‘s water whump May challenge.

Content Warning: maybe slight strangulation? tangled in a net, threatened with a knife.

- - -

“Oh we definitely caught it.” Alik shouted, almost bouncing on his toes.

“Nice shot Sweeney.” Dion stated. “Alik, grab the net.” 

“Right captain.” 

Alik grabbed the net and threw it over the side of the boat, and the figure below drifted slowly into the net.

- - -

Just when he thought it was all over, the third object of the day came crashing on top of him. The coarse material caught around him and he found himself breathing air, but caught with a harpoon, and being pulled into some random fishing boat out in the middle of nowhere.

Before he was fully out of the water, he turned to his side and nudged the harpoon out of his leg, leaving it to hang limp in the net. He cleaned the salt up from the water near him and used the pure particles to stitch his leg back together. It was a bang-up job, and still hurt like nothing else, but at least it wasn’t bleeding anymore. It’d have to do. He tried to roll over onto his back, but his arm was twisted in some of the netting, and he could barely move his leg, in which his foot was caught in the heavy lengths of rope. He flopped over onto his stomach, his foot and arm dangling out of the net as it raised completely out of the water and into the boat. 

He rolled over several times as he flopped with the net into the boat, tangling himself even more. This net was meant for schools of fish, a small whale, not a single 6 foot boy. He felt a rope snag around his head, threatening to cut off his air and his limbs were pinned to his sides as he struggled about in the net.

“Cap’n it’s still moving.”  A voice called.

“Can you see what it is yet?” This voice was more gruff, drenched from years of speaking in salt water.

“Nah, there’s too much rope.” 

“It may be worth more if it’s alive.” The gruff voice spoke again.

A third, more comical voice spoke up this time. “But we can’t get it out of the net if it’s thrashing about like that. Here, I’ve got my knife.” 

Through the ropes the kid saw a glint of metal in the air above him, and through hoarse lungs, he screamed.

The knife clattered to the floor and all three men backed up.