shimmer down yonder.
shimmer down yonder.
f(x). ailee/amber. pg
mermaids’ reputations precede them and amber’s just being a good person.
Amber doesn’t know why she does it. Everything is telling her to turn away and head back towards the bustling beach town she calls home and ignore the creature against the rocks. After all, mermaids are dangerous; they use their voices to lure ships into the jagged cliffside and small children into the impossibly blue tide until they can’t come out, causing misfortune to fall onto those who try and interfere. If her sister were around, she’d most likely smack her across the back of the head and haul her home by her ear. Jackie isn’t around though, so Amber hitches up her pants and wades into the tide. The water is up to mid-thigh by the time she reaches the gathering of rocks the mermaid is currently clinging to.
Now that she’s closer, she wonders how no one else has taken notice of the creature, which upon closer inspection, is a lot larger than she had first thought. Amber can see the way their tail extends out into the ocean, heavy and covered in scales that manage to shimmer even through the murky water.
The scales cover a good portion of the mermaid’s body, the amount decreasing the higher up Amber looks, but there are still patches on otherwise bare skin. Their coloring is interesting too, bright and slightly metallic, in varying shades of orange and bronze that blend seamlessly into the mermaid’s tanned skin.
The mermaid finally stirs just as Amber’s close enough to actually touch them; heavily lidded eyes widening briefly before Amber’s met with sharp teeth and a husky, aggressive snarl. She holds her hands up in a placating gesture, feeling her heartrate pick up as she’s suddenly aware of just how amazingly stupid she’s being. Why the hell is she approaching a creature like this?
“I’m not trying to hurt you. I just want to help,” she says, trying to put as much sincerity in her voice as possible. “I promise,” she adds, carefully meeting the mermaid’s gold color eyes, the stare piercing enough that it sends a small shiver down her spine.
She’s not getting any kind of response; which Amber takes as a sign to continue approaching. It’s not until she’s carefully wrapping her fingers around the mermaid’s arm that she realizes it’s probably because they don’t understand her. Do mermaids even speak? And while Amber might have three languages under her belt, it’s still highly possible that the mermaid knows none of them or even how to comprehend human language at all.
“Can you understand me?” She asks, repeating the question in Mandarin and then Korean when she’s still met with silence.
“Guess not,” she mutters and continues carefully pulling at the mermaid to get them all the way back into the water. The area they’re currently in is shallow enough that she suspects the mermaid couldn’t get enough momentum to swim back out and probably grew tired from being out of water for so long. It doesn't help that the sun's so high overhead it could dry an entire rack of fish in moments.
It’s when she’s shifting her grip around the mermaid’s midsection, her legs brushing against her tail, that they release a bone chilling cry that has Amber releasing them quickly, flailing back and nearly toppling over into the water.
She blinks in surprise and automatically starts apologizing, wondering what she had done to cause such a reaction. The mermaid is looking at her now, pain apparent in her gaze and Amber feels absolutely terrible. She doesn’t know what to do, finally feeling out of her depth. The mermaid’s gaze flickers down and Amber follows it, staring at where her tail disappears in the water.
Now that she’s closer, she realizes that the murky quality of the water wasn’t caused by algae like she'd originally thought, but the slowly bleeding wound on the lower portion of the mermaid’s tail.
Amber really isn’t familiar with these kinds of things, but she knows that whether human or not, a wound like that isn’t only painful, but serious. The mermaid had probably chosen to stay against the rocks to keep from falling prey to another attack.
“You’re hurt pretty bad. I can’t imagine it’d heal on its own,” she says aloud, though by now she’s sure the mermaid doesn’t understand a word she’s saying.
She reaches out to carefully touch what she can reach of the mermaid’s fin. It’s smooth and cool to the touch, not unlike an actual fish, but there’s a different quality to it that she can’t really place.
“I’m sure you don’t have anything like a mermaid doctor, right?” she asks, meeting the mermaid’s gaze again. She’s met with a blank stare and nods to herself.
“Right, of course not.”
Amber’s read about what happens to sea creatures that get injured; they eventually die from either their wounds or because with them they can’t protect themselves. Even though mermaids are supposedly dangerous creatures, Amber’s conscious won’t let her turn away from them now.
“Well, I said I’ll help you, so I will.” The situation is quite a bit different than when she’d initially set out, but Amber’s always stood by her word. Even her word to a creature that couldn’t understand her.
She reaches out to clasp one of the mermaid’s hands, wary of the sharp nails on an otherwise human looking hand.
“Amber Liu, you’ve really got your work cut out for you this time.”
f(x). ailee/amber. pg
mermaids’ reputations precede them and amber’s just being a good person.
Amber doesn’t know why she does it. Everything is telling her to turn away and head back towards the bustling beach town she calls home and ignore the creature against the rocks. After all, mermaids are dangerous; they use their voices to lure ships into the jagged cliffside and small children into the impossibly blue tide until they can’t come out, causing misfortune to fall onto those who try and interfere. If her sister were around, she’d most likely smack her across the back of the head and haul her home by her ear. Jackie isn’t around though, so Amber hitches up her pants and wades into the tide. The water is up to mid-thigh by the time she reaches the gathering of rocks the mermaid is currently clinging to.
Now that she’s closer, she wonders how no one else has taken notice of the creature, which upon closer inspection, is a lot larger than she had first thought. Amber can see the way their tail extends out into the ocean, heavy and covered in scales that manage to shimmer even through the murky water.
The scales cover a good portion of the mermaid’s body, the amount decreasing the higher up Amber looks, but there are still patches on otherwise bare skin. Their coloring is interesting too, bright and slightly metallic, in varying shades of orange and bronze that blend seamlessly into the mermaid’s tanned skin.
The mermaid finally stirs just as Amber’s close enough to actually touch them; heavily lidded eyes widening briefly before Amber’s met with sharp teeth and a husky, aggressive snarl. She holds her hands up in a placating gesture, feeling her heartrate pick up as she’s suddenly aware of just how amazingly stupid she’s being. Why the hell is she approaching a creature like this?
“I’m not trying to hurt you. I just want to help,” she says, trying to put as much sincerity in her voice as possible. “I promise,” she adds, carefully meeting the mermaid’s gold color eyes, the stare piercing enough that it sends a small shiver down her spine.
She’s not getting any kind of response; which Amber takes as a sign to continue approaching. It’s not until she’s carefully wrapping her fingers around the mermaid’s arm that she realizes it’s probably because they don’t understand her. Do mermaids even speak? And while Amber might have three languages under her belt, it’s still highly possible that the mermaid knows none of them or even how to comprehend human language at all.
“Can you understand me?” She asks, repeating the question in Mandarin and then Korean when she’s still met with silence.
“Guess not,” she mutters and continues carefully pulling at the mermaid to get them all the way back into the water. The area they’re currently in is shallow enough that she suspects the mermaid couldn’t get enough momentum to swim back out and probably grew tired from being out of water for so long. It doesn't help that the sun's so high overhead it could dry an entire rack of fish in moments.
It’s when she’s shifting her grip around the mermaid’s midsection, her legs brushing against her tail, that they release a bone chilling cry that has Amber releasing them quickly, flailing back and nearly toppling over into the water.
She blinks in surprise and automatically starts apologizing, wondering what she had done to cause such a reaction. The mermaid is looking at her now, pain apparent in her gaze and Amber feels absolutely terrible. She doesn’t know what to do, finally feeling out of her depth. The mermaid’s gaze flickers down and Amber follows it, staring at where her tail disappears in the water.
Now that she’s closer, she realizes that the murky quality of the water wasn’t caused by algae like she'd originally thought, but the slowly bleeding wound on the lower portion of the mermaid’s tail.
Amber really isn’t familiar with these kinds of things, but she knows that whether human or not, a wound like that isn’t only painful, but serious. The mermaid had probably chosen to stay against the rocks to keep from falling prey to another attack.
“You’re hurt pretty bad. I can’t imagine it’d heal on its own,” she says aloud, though by now she’s sure the mermaid doesn’t understand a word she’s saying.
She reaches out to carefully touch what she can reach of the mermaid’s fin. It’s smooth and cool to the touch, not unlike an actual fish, but there’s a different quality to it that she can’t really place.
“I’m sure you don’t have anything like a mermaid doctor, right?” she asks, meeting the mermaid’s gaze again. She’s met with a blank stare and nods to herself.
“Right, of course not.”
Amber’s read about what happens to sea creatures that get injured; they eventually die from either their wounds or because with them they can’t protect themselves. Even though mermaids are supposedly dangerous creatures, Amber’s conscious won’t let her turn away from them now.
“Well, I said I’ll help you, so I will.” The situation is quite a bit different than when she’d initially set out, but Amber’s always stood by her word. Even her word to a creature that couldn’t understand her.
She reaches out to clasp one of the mermaid’s hands, wary of the sharp nails on an otherwise human looking hand.
“Amber Liu, you’ve really got your work cut out for you this time.”