Prompt Post No. 6
* * * Round 6 is now closed to new prompts. * * *
Welcome to Round 6 of the Inception Kink Meme. This post will be closed to new prompts once it reaches three thousand comments. Also, please check our updated rules.
( Rules... )
Welcome to Round 6 of the Inception Kink Meme. This post will be closed to new prompts once it reaches three thousand comments. Also, please check our updated rules.
( Rules... )
“Oh, believe me, I've tried that. Being a mythical creature kind of fucks it up, though. Everyone just wants to capture me and sell me to the circus.”
“Oh. Why come up at all, then?”
Arthur shrugged. “I get lonely. Fish are no good for conversation, as I'm sure you've discovered.”
“Ah, no, they really aren't.”
“How old are you, Eames?”
“I'm thirty-three.”
“Hm, good, I'm thirty. How long have you been fishing?”
“By myself since I was seventeen, when my father died. I went out with him for the first time when I was eleven. Why do you ask?”
Arthur shrugged again. “I'm just curious. Do you have family left alive?”
“I have a sister, but she got married and moved to a city somewhere on the mainland. Do you?”
“I couldn't tell you,” Arthur grinned ruefully.
“Why's that?”
“Merpeople don't have any regard for familial relationships, or relationships in general. Once you can catch your own fish, your parents swim away.”
“How old were you when that happened?”
“I was five, but I've always been good at killing things. Normally it happens around six or seven.”
“Oh. Well, do you have, like, a school or anything?”
“You think I'd be talking to fishermen who only want to stuff me if I had anyone else to talk to?”
“I guess not. But you said parents, so do others live together?”
“No, not in general. When you meet someone appropriate for spawning, then you'll swim with them until you can ditch your kid. If you really like them, you might swim with them for longer, have more spawn, whatever. But mostly you'll move on to another or be by yourself again.”
“Have you had any children?”
“Nope. I don't plan to, either.”
“Why's that?”
“Hm, the reasons are manifold.”
“Oh.” Eames spared a sorrowful glance for his bobbers. None of them would be dancing with the top of the food chain hanging off the side of the boat. When he looked back at Arthur, he had crossed his forearms on the boat and put his chin on them. They stared at each other for a while before Arthur sighed.
“I'm scaring the fish away. You want me to leave, I'm sure.”
“You are,” Eames cocked his head as he looked at Arthur.
“I'll leave you to it, then. I imagine you'll be seeing a lot more of me then you'd like in the future if you keep not trying to kill me.” Arthur shoved off of Eames' boat and dived under the waves. Eames was temporarily mesmerized by the tall deep blue fin that ran from the nape of Arthur's neck all the way down his back to his tail fin.
“I just had a conversation with a merman,” Eames said to himself five minutes later. “I am going insane. It was bound to happen sooner or later, I suppose, living by myself on the sea.” Eames rowed a bit to straighten out his lines, which had gone crooked with the current while Eames talked to Arthur. “Well,” Eames squinted up at a frigate bird soaring in the sky, “I don't really mind going insane if it means I get to talk to pretty mermen.”
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