Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Since he had been a little kid, he knew not to come too close to humans. And with them, the surface was off limits. Hunting was a girl’s job. A boy like him would just become the hunted.

‘Never venture even close to the surface. They’ll catch you with their barbed wire nets and shoot you through the tail with razor sharp harpoons. And if – by some miracle – you’re still alive afterwards, they’ll drag you off and you’ll never see the ocean ever again,’ his family would always tell him.

For most of his life, xB listened. But he was curious. Had always envied his older sister for her trips to the surface, returning with shining but ultimately useless treasure, soft fabrics, and if they had gotten lucky, food for the entire week.

And when he was eighteen, he had followed her to the surface for the first time.

In secret, of course. She had no idea he was following her. He’d gotten quite good at that, sneaking around where he wasn’t supposed to be.

He was just so curious. Wanted to see the sky for himself. Breathe air. Maybe see a living human or a ship from afar.

He fully intended on just having a short peek and then returning to their little settlement at the bottom of the sea. Not going back to the surface after that ever again. He valued his life and freedom, after all.

But his mom always said he was too curious for his own good.

The sky was captivating. Endless blue, but a different blue to the endless depths of the ocean. A clear, light blue, with wispy white streaks in them. Clouds, as his sister had told him. Apparently, sometimes they were grey and heavy and would drop water from the sky – sweet water. Rain, she had called it. And sometimes it would cause a storm, angering the sea to towering waves and electricity bolting across the sky in loud shattering booms.

But, the first time xB was taking a peek at the sky, it was clear and calm in a way the sea rarely was. And the bright orb in it, the sun, was warm and pleasant on his scales lake no sea lantern could ever be. It glowed yellow too. It was as if it had enchanted him, and despite being bright and hurting his eyes, making him tear up, he couldn’t help but stare at it.

And his sister got to see this whenever she wanted!

Air felt slightly weird to breathe. Too light and crips on his scales, but he didn’t find it uncomfortable once he got used to it.

The sea around him was swaying gently, splashing him with a new wave every once in a while, slowly making him drift in the middle of endless waves. The water was warmer here, close to the surface.

He found himself enjoying that warmth.

After a few minutes of letting himself drift in the waves, he spotted a dark spot on the ocean’s surface.

He took a quick peek at his sister and her friends over by his swarm’s hunting grounds – a rock formation poking over the surface – to spot them hiding behind the rocks.

So xB made himself as small as he could, just his eyes poking out of the water, too curious to leave just before a fight was about to start.

And that decision was his downfall.

Too captivated by his swarm-mates enchanting an entire ship full of humans just with their song, he missed the second ship pulling up to their territory.

The barbed wire nets, the harpoons. None of that were stories. And he was no girl; he had no enchanting voice to defend himself with. All he had was a tail and some spikes on his head and arms with a stunning effect. None of these were any help against the net he suddenly found himself in.

Before he knew what was happening, rough wire was cutting into his scales, making him cry out more in surprise than in pain.

But it didn’t take long at all for the pain to set in. People were pulling on the rope, the wire mercilessly digging into his tail, arms, torso, and hair, making him scream from the sudden biting and pulling of the barbed wire.

He was trying to wiggle free, which only made it worse. The hooks dug themselves deeper into him, into his delicate scales, tearing dozens of them out completely, and drawing blood where they just ripped into him.

Despite knowing that it was only getting worse if he tried to struggle, he couldn’t help himself from flinching and shaking because of the bounds, helplessly entangling himself in the painful cage his entire swarm had warned him plenty about.

Dreading a harpoon piercing his tail as well, he tried to suppress his cries and shaking, drawing his arms closer and over his chest as well as he could to make himself less of a target. Maybe they’d miss, or figure he wasn’t enough of a threat to warrant a harpoon.

He was curling up into a ball, hiding his face as well as he could behind his tail, the stubborn wire restricting his movement and only making him cry out in pain again.

Everything hurt. There was a burn racing up and down his entire body, and he could more feel than see himself getting hauled out of the water, when all the barbes on the net started to pierce him in the same direction.

He had never left the water before, and the realization made him sob hysterically.

His family had no idea where he was. He had no clue if his sister and her friends had even noticed him being captured.

Based on the fact that he was still being hauled out of the water – his home – cruelly ripped from his life, and the humans not enchanted yet, they probably hadn’t.

Another sharp tug made him scream again. The weird, light air carrying his pained scream so much more different than the water would have. So much weaker. The ocean would have carried his voice straight to his sister. The ocean would have saved him.

But no, he had to be so stupid and do the one thing everybody had always warned him about. He had let his curiosity get the better of him, and now he was paying the price. And what a cruel price it was.

His back slammed against something wooden, the side of the ship, the wire digging impossibly deeper into his skin. The painful scream he let out in response was weak, carrying none of the strength of his previous cries, the panic making his throat close up.

Hands, warm hands, were grabbing his shoulders and tail. XB could feel them grabbing the wire and his skin, only making him panic even more. He tried to struggle and squirm away, which only made the pain worse. He tried to lash out, only to be stopped by the offending metal digging into every inch of his body.

Then he was hauled on board, shoulders hitting the planks with force, driving the spikes beneath him even deeper.

With tears in his eyes and desperation forcing him to move despite the pain, he immediately tried to free at least one of his limbs. If he maybe got someone with the spikes growing from his elbows, he could maybe stun them just long enough to free himself and haul himself back into the water below. Or maybe he wouldn’t even have to do that, maybe he could drop back into the water with the net still clinging to him, as long as he got the rope tied to the net too.

He could drag himself back home and have his mom dote over his wounds, and never, ever, return to the surface ever again. He’d gladly hide at the bottom of the ocean for the rest of his life. The sky wasn’t worth any of this, no matter how pretty it was.

All the struggling didn’t help. On the contrary, the wire just twisted around him even tighter, driving even more tears in his eyes. Tears that didn’t get carried off by the waves as soon as he shed them, instead they ran down his face, making him feel sticky and gross and itchy.

Past his arms, he could see the humans crowding him. They were laughing, saying something in a language he didn’t understand. But it was still rather clear that they were mocking him.

Whenever he desperately hissed at them coming closer and tugged at his arms to try and free his hands it only seemed to make them more amused, clearly laughing about his predicament.

He had never wanted to kill more than in that moment. If he could just get his hands free it would be so easy to sink his claws into the humans’ squish throats.

But his arms and hands stayed trapped to his torso and the humans made quick work with him. Not even bothering to free him from his wire-cage, they hauled him up.

It took four of them to lift him off the deck, at least. He was doing his best to twist and lash out with his tail as forcefully as he could muster. When he managed to stun one of the humans with one of the spikes on his tail, he was filled with a smug satisfaction, watching the sailor groan and stumble to the floor, the other three sailors just about managing to stay upright with his weight.

It didn’t last long. The sailor was back on his feet a few seconds later, and the smug look on xB’s face fell just as quickly as it had come. Instead, the human was now staring at him with a haunting, mocking grin.

The warm hands all over his tail and torso made him squirm with discomfort. It was almost worse than the spikes of the net firmly lodged into every inch of his scales. Usually he liked touch. He hated this.

Despite his best efforts, they carried him below deck. Further from the sea. Further from the light of the sun. Further from his sister who could have saved him if only she had known he was here. Further from freedom and his home.

When the heavy wooden doors fell closed behind him and his captors, all the fight left his body. Instead, the frustrated tears of pain in his eyes morphed into ones of true despair.

That was the moment when he realized he was never going to see his swarm ever again.

The group of sailors dragged him through two sets of doors, and then they dropped him in the middle of a tiny empty room without much care. XB was once more hissing in pain at the wire digging into his skin even deeper, the wounds screaming at him in hot flaring pain.

Then the sailors left the cell with the wooden fence they had dropped him in, all while laughing about his predicament. They threw the door situated in the wall of wooden beams back closed, and somebody pulled out a ring with a bunch of chiming metal links on them and did something to the door.

Another pressed down the handle, only to notice with satisfaction that the door didn’t budge an inch. Which only made xB’s dread spike once more, realizing that he was utterly trapped with no chance of escaping.

After they exchanged more words in that weird, guttural language of theirs, three of the sailors left, the one with the chiming metal thing staying behind.

He plonked himself down on top of a wooden stool, situated at the wall opposite the wooden bars to his cell. He was staring at xB through the bars, and he had never felt so exposed, desperately wanting to hide.

But there was no cover whatsoever in his tiny, wooden cell. Even if there were, xB had no chance of moving around, other than just wiggling around like a fish on land. Pun intended.

There was absolutely nothing in the cell. Just wooden flooring, wooden bars on one side, and wooden walls on the other three. Not even a window, or anything to cushion the hard floor at least slightly.

And that damned barbed wire net was still digging into his skin.

Without any chance to really move from the middle of his uncomfortable cell, being restrained like he was, xB curled up into a ball as best as he could, hiding behind his arms and tail again. He would have preferred to turn his back to the human watching him, but there was no way his aching muscles would let him try.

Then he started to cry.

He didn’t really know how much time had passed.

But his skin was starting to feel weird. Dry. His skin had never felt dry before.

His scales were itching, and his hair felt scratchy on the back of his neck. His hair was never scratching him. It was supposed to idly float around his head, like a soft fluffy cloud. It wasn’t supposed to be this still and motionless.

His scales weren’t supposed to itch this terribly either. And why did his tail hurt so bad? Were the sailors planning to get him killed with the lack of water? As far as he knew, he should be fine without it. Not really able to move, but it shouldn’t kill him. His sister had told him plenty of times that they would hang out on top of the rocks waiting for ships to come close.

Lack of water wasn’t supposed to hurt this badly.

Feeling the pain creeping up his spine and all the way down to the tips of his tail, he couldn’t stay quiet much longer. A silent whimper escaped his throat, barely audible in the weird density of the air.

The sailor who was still in the room seemed to notice the sound anyways. There was wood scraping over wood as he got up from his stool, and footsteps leaving the room.

After that, it was quiet for a minute or two, which xB spent squirming on the floor in discomfort, desperately clawing at his shoulders because that was the only spot he could reach, trying to make the pain in his tail stop or to distract form it. The burning, the searing pain, the terribly itchy feeling all over his body, so itchy it hurt and made him tear up, it should just stop!

His fingertips turned slick, and he blearily realized that he had clawed the skin on his shoulder open. It still didn’t distract from the pain in his tail.

Then more footsteps returned and xB knew – without having to look – that his guard had brought more sailors back with him. To stare at him like he was some animal. That was the moment he realized that in their eyes, he probably was.

If he weren’t already crying from the pain clouding his brain, he would be crying out of frustration and humiliation.

Why did they have to show up and watch him in pain? What kind of sick satisfaction did they gain from this? Why couldn’t they just pour some water over him to stop the terrible itching, the terrible pain in his tale that was even overshadowing the barbed wire digging into his skin.

Without a warning, the pain spiked impossibly more. It was as if somebody had jammed a knife into his stomach and dragged it down the entire length of his tail, splitting him right in two.

A scream tore out of his throat, making him break down in pathetic sobbing, curling back into a tight ball again. His hand in his weirdly scratchy hair, smearing the blood from his shoulder in it, and pulling at it to try and distract from the searing hot pain bunching up in his stomach and spreading all the way to the fin tip of his tail, not lessening at all.

He was in agony, and his brain supplied him with the helpful information that he was about to die. With how he was feeling, he’d rather his body hurried up with the dying thing.

And just as sudden as the pain had spiked, it faded again. Creeping back into an uncomfortable itch all over the lower half of his body. Now the only pain left was that of the barbed wire net hooking stubbornly into his arms and hair and everywhere. And his stinging shoulder, blood slowly running down his back to the floor.

His sobs and screams slowly quieted down, and the steady murmur and laughter outside his cell slowly reached his ears again, having previously been completely overpowered by his wails of agony.

He tried to make himself even smaller again, less of a target. Tried pulling his tail closer to his torso, as much as the barbed wire would allow. But his tail moved all wrong.

In panic, his eyes shot open, and fell right onto two very pale and human looking legs, with scales dotted on the knees like freckles.

Very human looking legs, with scales in his own teal color, attached to his torso.

Another scream escaped his throat before he could stop himself, and he flinched away from the offending appendages. Which wasn’t very successful, considering he was attached to said legs.

His tail was gone. There were two legs in its place.

Before he even had the time to process what had happened and properly freak out over his body being human, the sailors opened the door and stepped into the small cell with him.

XB flinched back, cringing over the weird and wrong feeling in the lower half of his body.

With a wicked grin, one of the sailors dumped a huge bucket of water right over his head, his hair clinging back to his skin with how wet it was. The salt burned in his countless wounds and couldn’t stop the gasp leaving his mouth.

At first he was relieved when he felt his scales still dotting his body greedily soak up the moisture. Then the itching came back.

XB had a frightening realization that he knew what was about to happen again.

More tears joined the water already clinging to his lashes, making his vision turn blurry once again.

Then the itching picked up in intensity with full force, making him cling onto his shoulders once more, digging his nails right into the wound that was already there, next to the wire still firmly lodged below his skin and scales.

There was the same pain as before building in his stomach again, and a lot quicker than it had just mere minutes before. It spiked in intensity, making him scream aloud in desperation once more.

Pain dragged over his lower body like a dull knife splitting him open, and what felt like hundreds of old rusty needles were stitching his skin back together following the path of the knife.

All his remaining strength left his arms, and he went boneless on the wooden floor, another scream tearing out of his lungs at a volume it hurt to scream at.

After shaking and sobbing on the now drenched floor for what felt like an eternity, xB’s mind slowly came back to him, together with sensations other than just pain.

Tearing his eyes open with more effort that it should have taken, he was greeted with a collection of shimmering prismarine scales in all its pretty hues, including the angry red spots where the wire had ripped delicate scales from his beautiful tail.

At the sight, he began to sob in relief.

And then he slowly started to sob in desperation, because he knew exactly how the sailors were going to torture him now. Leave him to dry out until his tail forced itself to split into two legs – because apparently that was a thing – only to drench him right after and watch the legs fuse back together in even more agony.

And that over and over, all while tangled up in a net that hurt him every single tiny movement he’d make.

While he was mulling that horrible thought over in his brain, there were footsteps leaving the room again, and two sets of doors fell shut behind him.

With more effort than it should have taken, xB looked up. The stool on the opposite side was empty. And so was the rest of the room, with the exception of himself. But the chiming metal ring that would open his cell was nowhere in sight either.

He let his head fall back onto the wet wooden floorboards. At least he might not dry out as fast now, with the floor of his cell soaked like this. And the blood still flowing out of his self-inflicted wound on his shoulder, staining the water a muddy pink.

With exhaustion overtaking his body, he fell into a dreamless, uneasy sleep.

Chapter Text

XB was brutally awoken by searing pain in his abdomen. It only took him a few seconds to realize where he was, and that his hair was dry and scratchy. His scales itching, and the wooden floorboards below him only damp and not soaking anymore.

An agonizing scream tore out of his chest once more, voice hoarse from the screaming and crying before his unsatisfying nap.

There were tears in his eyes, and his throat hurt. The hundreds of tiny cuts on his skin ached, and the wound on his shoulder was crusted over and pulled uncomfortably, still hurting.

It didn’t take long for the doors to his cell to open, and a bunch of sailors to accumulate before the wooden bars. He could barely make them out through his tears, but he pretended like they weren’t there in the first place, trying to force his voice down.

It was a futile attempt. The pain spiked, and the now awfully familiar knife-like feeling started to drag down through the middle of his tail. His preciously clenched shut teeth opened to make room for another scream. He doubled over, eyes pressed shut and arms clutching to himself as well as he could.

He could feel how he accidentally tore up the wound on his shoulder again, but he didn’t even register it over the pain in his tail.

His brain felt foggy. Everything was distant as if he were looking at himself through the surface of the sea, far away from everything that was happening. All he could feel, and think, was pain.

After what felt like an eternity but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, the pain faded, and he found himself suddenly very aware of his environment again. Aware of the mocking voices getting a rise out of his suffering. Aware of the wire still firmly clinging to his scales. Aware of the angry red wounds feeling like they’re infected by the rusty metal. Aware of the blood running over his fingers still clutching his shoulder. Aware of his shaking legs.

His legs. He could move them. Just barely. It felt weird, having two things to move instead of one. He tried to wiggle his toes, similarly to how he would wiggle his fins. He almost gasped when it worked.

Ignoring the voices in front of his cell, he slowly sat up, trying to wrangle his thin, pale, spindly legs below himself. Wondering if he could manage to stand up with them firmly tangled together. Wondering if he could manage to stand up at all.

He didn’t get the chance to try, before another bucket was emptied over his head and the immediate pain rushing through his body made him collapse again.

He had no idea how many days passed. He had no idea how many days passed. He got food sometimes. Fish dumped out over his head, along with the water that made his legs fuse back together into a tail. He barely had the strength to eat them.

Not only was the constant shifting between tails and legs the most painful thing he ever had to go through, but it was also the most exhausting one. Most of the time, he passed out as soon as he had his tail back and woke up to the burning hot pain in his abdomen telling him he was about to shift again.

He had no way to tell the time. He had no idea how long he was passing out for, and the fish didn’t seem to be regular either. There was no sunlight in his cell, or any other way of telling if it was day or night when they emptied yet another bucket above his head.

With time – that he couldn’t determine other than it passes – he started to dread the water bucket.

Yes, splitting his tail hurt. But growing his legs back together hurt even worse, and it would be so easy to avoid if there just wasn’t this damned bucket.

Before he realized, xB, who had spent his entire life under the ocean’s surface, started to fear water.

Started to fear the way his wet air would hang into his eyes, the way the scales dotting his skin greedily soaked up the moisture, and the way it didn’t remind him of home anymore and just of pain.

After some time, he managed to keep his voice down when he was transforming.

He was a shaking and trembling mess with tears stinging in his eyes, and the tear on his shoulder wasn’t closing anymore because he kept clawing at it, but he kept his mouth firmly pressed shut for the entire time it had taken his tail to split apart. And only when the itching had faded and was basically gone did he dare to breathe again.

It didn’t work all the time, and only when he was left alone while he was unconscious, but it allowed for a few more moments of peace. Moments where he could actually eat and not spend passed out on the floor.

Moments where he could try to loosen the wire wrapped around his entire body, pulling the tiny hooks out of the dozens and dozens of red and inflamed gashes all over his skin everywhere he could reach, hoping to get it loose enough so it wouldn’t dig right back into the wounds as soon as a bucket with dirty saltwater was emptied out over his head again.

It was a slow and tedious process. Most of the time all the work he spent on it was undone as soon as the sailors showed up with another bucket and he writhed in agony at the transformation, unable to keep still.

The saltwater burned in his wounds. Most of them were probably infected, but the few that scabbed over were actually healing.

Saltwater in wounds wasn’t a feeling he was unfamiliar with, not at all. But for some reason, it felt worse than ever.

He was sure that he had been sporting a fever for at least a few days, but the sailors didn’t seem to care. If they even noticed in the first place, which xB doubted.

And xB failed to find it in him to care either. If he succumbed to a fever caused by infected wounds, it would at least end his suffering. And rob his captors of precious cargo. The thought managed to wring a weak smile from his lips. The movement made his dry lips crack, and his smile fell again.

He wasn’t stupid. Even if he didn’t understand their language, he was still well aware that he was being brought to some auction or something similar, being sold off to whoever had the shiniest treasures and was willing to spend them on a sick Mer.

To keep him as a pet.

The thought made his skin crawl, and his stomach throw a fit, so he tried not to think about it if he could.

Huddling in the corner of the cell he had dragged himself into, the one furthest from the door, he once more spent his few moments of peace on untangling the wire from his legs.

He had attempted to stand up more than once, but the wire tying his legs together had been too constricting, not enabling him to get up, even if he was clinging to a wall while fighting gravity.

Standing up and actually trying out his legs was a thing he really wanted to do. Just a few steps. He had spent way too much time huddling on the exact same spot on the floor, not moving at all, and he felt like he was about to go stir crazy.

His fever wasn’t helping in his attempts to stand either, every time he as much as got into a sitting position, his entire vision would rotate rapidly around him, making him feel dizzy.

But it was in one of those quiet moments – which xB spent on yanking at the same piece of wire he had for the past few days to get it out of a particularly painful gash over his collarbone – when he picked up noise.

The noise didn’t seem to come from up on the ship like usual, but from next to it.

And then the ship noticeably slowed down, and xB realized with rising dread what that meant.

They had reached their destination port.

He could hear shouting, and energetic footsteps on deck, and xB could do nothing but stare at the door leading into his cell-room. Waiting for someone to come and pick him up. For someone to auction him off to some rich person. Selling him like an animal.

His throat closed up, and his hands still clutching the wire started to tremble.

He couldn’t breathe.

He would suffocate in his gloomy dirty little cell, and the sailors were going to drag his lifeless body under the sun. His scales would have lost all their vibrant teal color, and he would be covered in crusty blood from all his wounds, and he would be dead.  

There’s a stinging in his palm, from where he’s clutching the wire, but he continued to stare at the door in panic, gasping for air, and there wasn’t enough.

He was going to die, and it would be better than being someone’s pet, but he didn’t want to die.

There was fog clouding his thoughts, and he knew he wasn’t being rational, but he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t stop panicking.

His cell was suffocating him, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. This must be what drowning felt like.

In the middle of his episode, the doors did in fact open.

He couldn’t even react to the two sailors walking in, scoffing when they saw that he was awake, and laughing once they realized he was panicking.

Only when they got out the jingly thing that opened his cell did he manage to flinch back, bumping against the wooden wall more on instinct than anything else.

They didn’t have the bucket with them this time.

Instead, they grabbed him below his arms and hauled him up to his feet.

Still he could do nothing but hyperventilate, staring at the door with wide eyes, not managing even a single weak tug on the disgustingly warm hands holding onto him.

His feet slid over the blood stained wooden floor, and then he was out the cell. His heart was still beating up his throat and making him feel like he’ll suffocate, but leaving the dreadful room was enough to get his limbs to react to him again.

It doesn’t help much, his arms were still trapped tightly to his torso, but the sailors gripping him below his armpits but them close. Close enough to the spikes in his elbows.

With a newfound desperation, xB began to squirm and thrash in the hold of the two sailors. One of his feet managed to hook behind the ankle of the one to his right, and he immediately threw his entire body weight to the left.

The man to his right shouted in surprise and briefly let go of xB, stumbling and falling against the wall next to him.

Then xB used his momentum and newfound freedom to jab his elbow into the chest of the man next to him as roughly as he could.

He cursed loudly in that language xB didn’t understand, and his grip on xB’s arm briefly weakened.

He tugged, and suddenly he was free.

And then gravity caught up with him, and he crashed to the floor right next to the first guy he managed to trip up.

He was in trouble. But all his squirming and fighting had significantly loosened the net around his torso.

With a desperate attempt, he ripped it away from his body with his left hand and yanked his right arm away from his torso.

He couldn’t help himself but scream when the barbs ripped the length of his arm open, but against all odds, he managed to free his right arm from the net.

The two sailors, halfway back on their feet and recovered from his brief stun, started to shout loudly when the spotted that he had managed to free his arm.

XB bared his teeth and hissed at them as menacingly as he could. He hoped it looked more convincing than he felt. His heart wa still racing so fast it made him feel sick, and he was terribly exhausted from the struggling and lack of food and water recently.

The human that he had managed to stun flinched at his threat. Satisfied, xB hissed again, making sure they could see his sharp claws on his freed arm.

The other man just scoffed, taking a step towards him, hand going for the dagger strapped to his waist.

XB suppressed the urge to flinch, glaring at the approaching man. Frantically, he clawed against the net with his left again, hoping to free at least one of his legs. If he managed that, he could stand up and run away.

The nagging worry that he didn’t know how to run went ignored. He could figure it out once he got there. One problem after another.

The approaching man said something to his friend, and then the other one started to close in on him too, sword drawn from his belt.

Immediately, xB’s heart plummeted to his stomach. Panic threatened to close up his throat again, but he swallowed heavily, forcing it down again. He had no time for this. He had to fight.

The man with the dagger closed in on him, and immediately xB swiped, aiming for the arm holding the weapon.

His claws made contact, and the sticky hot feeling spilling out over his fingers left an odd satisfaction, as the sailor shouted loudly. He didn’t drop the weapon like xB had hoped for, but his grip was weak and probably pretty useless.

So xB threw himself forwards quickly, plunging his claws into the man’s stomach, and tore.

The man shouted again, and white hot searing pain bloomed in xB’s shoulder, making him cry out as well. Something had hit him in the wound on his shoulder, firmly lodging itself into his already inflamed flesh.

Tears were stinging the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t stop his attack on the man, pulling his claws downwards in his stomach, forcing him to his knees.

Then xB attacked his neck, biting into it as well as he could despite some of the wire net still being in the way.

It tasted gross and metallic, and the crunching sound below his teeth sounded sickening. But the hoarse scream the sailor let out was completely worth it.

Then something grabbed the knife still sticking out of his shoulder, and he had to let go of the mans throat to scream in pain when it got twisted around.

He had completely forgotten about the second sailor.

With another hiss, and what was undoubtedly a manic expression on his bloody face, he whirled around, swiping blindly in the direction of the other sailor.

He missed, and the sailor standing across from him grinned.

The man lying on the floor behind him wasn’t dead yet. XB could hear him groaning weakly, his voice sounding oddly wet. But he shouldn’t be a threat anymore.

The dagger was still stuck in his shoulder. And he knew he should leave it there to stop himself from bleeding out, but that dagger was probably his best shot at getting out of the cursed net.

So he reached for it and pulled before he could overthink it, and the wet squelching sound it made was almost worse than the agonizing pain.

Without much care, he stabbed at the net and tore it open, nicking his own skin, but successfully freeing his second arm in the process.

The grin fell from the sailors face, and he cursed loudly. As a response, xB grinned at him with as many bloody teeth as he could manage.

He stabbed the net entangling his legs without looking, and that finally got the man moving.

With a shout, he jumped forwards, drawing his sword back to strike him with it.

XB wrenched the dagger up, just about catching the blow with the blade. His shoulder was protesting under the strain.

The man howled, attacking him again, and xB let himself fall to the floor completely to avoid the sharp blade.

Then he used his semi-free legs to propel himself forwards.

With a dagger in one hand and his sharp claws on the other, he attacked the mans ankles, relishing in the delight of hearing him yowl in pain.

He stumbled, and xB immediately abused the mans instability and dragged him to the floor with him, throwing his body weight on top of the sailor.

At that point it was easy to wrap his blood stained hands around the man’s throat, ignoring the dagger he had let fall somewhere by his feet, and to dig his nails into the soft skin with cruel satisfaction. The sailor stared up at him with wide eyes, light brown glazed over in pain.

XB hissed in triumph, before ripping and hearing the sick crunching noise of a crushed windpipe. The man’s eyes rolled back in his skull, and a wet wheezing noise was the last thing to leave his mouth, before he went boneless below him.

Before xB got the chance to even register his own aching limbs, dull pain bloomed from the back of his head, making him feel like his skull got cracked open. His vision swam in black spots, and the hallway begun to spin. It wasn’t enough to knock him out, but he collapsed on top of the lifeless corpse anyways.

From far away, he registered footsteps, and something gripping the hair at the back of his head, pulling his limp body up with it.

He barely even noticed the pain, his thoughts sluggish and nonsensical. It felt like an entire swamp made its home in his brain, and he didn’t even notice how a coarse rope got slung around his torso before it was tightened so much it prevented him from breathing properly.

Still, his sluggish thoughts wouldn’t let him struggle.

When it got brighter around them, he just about managed to lift his eyes from where they were tracing the wooden floor.

Then they stepped onto the deck of the ship, and xB saw the sun again for the first time in weeks. It wasn’t this magical experience it had been when he had seen the bright warm orb for the first time. Now the light hurt his eyes, even though he wasn’t looking at it directly, and he immediately started to tear up.

By the time they dragged him across the deck, his mind didn’t feel as swampy anymore. But there was an uneasy feeling in his chest, making him feel like he was going to throw up at any moment.

They dragged him off the ship, and his still slowed mind provided him with the information that there were a lot of people. He had never seen so many humans at once, and they all stopped with whatever they had been doing to stare and point at him.

Suddenly he felt so small under this vast sky.

Chapter Text

The short stretch of street they dragged him down felt way too long. In the beginning, when they were still on the wooden docks, so close to the ocean and to freedom, he tried to struggle.

But his limbs felt so much weaker than just before, any little movement hurt, and his vision wouldn’t stop spinning circles around him. He knew the ocean would hurt him even more, but it would only be one last time. One last bit of pain and then he could hide at the bottom of the ocean and never show his face to the sun ever again.

He couldn’t believe he liked it up here at first.

The people on the street made way for the sailors dragging his weakly struggling body behind them, and xB stared at countless blurry faces. Some shielded their children’s eyes, others didn’t bother hiding their curiosity or disgust. If the disgust was for him or his wounds or his captors, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

Then the street made a bend, and with it the view of the ocean disappeared.

The little fight xB still had all but vanished, and his entire body went limp. All that was left was resignation and desperation.

Just a little while further down the dusty road, the sailors stopped.

XB willed his eyes to look up and analyze the place they had brought him to.

At the side of the road was a rundown wood and brick building, withered from age. It was open to the street and had a faded red cloth covering reaching halfway across the road.

Under the cloth and its meager shadow was the merchandise. Rows and rows of cages with animals xB had never before seen in his life. In one were tiny, feathered creatures, making a ton of noise with their tiny orange beaks. In another was a dusty looking cat, the first living one xB had ever seen, but with how still it was lying there, it could just as well be dead.

In the sun, tied to the post that was holding the sad excuse of a sunroof up, was a large, brown, four legged creature, slowly chewing on a bunch of grass hanging out its pink snout. On a metal rod above it sat a brightly colored bird, brilliant red and blue and yellow. On its foot was a metal cuff, connected to the rod so it wouldn’t fly away.

XB looked over to the apparent owner of the shop, a tiny man with a balding head and a massive moustache. He was talking with one of the sailors, gradually getting louder and more energetic, almost arguing.

The sailor’s tone stayed calm, but his expression seemed irritated. After a while of nonsensical back and forth, the shopkeeper handed over a small brown bag. It clinked when the sailor accepted it, then he turned over to the two that were still holding him barely upright and said something to them.

The shopkeeper gestured towards the other post holding up the sunroof, the one without the big four-legged animal, and the sailors dragged him towards it.

Apparently, he had just been sold.

The sailors forced him down in the dirt, and didn’t even flinch at his weak hiss he let out in response. They used the end of the rope to tie his arms and torso, then tied both to the post, and xB can do nothing but keep hissing and wiggling weakly.

When they stepped away, they finally removed the remains of the net, not bothering to be careful with the barbs, and xB whined when it ripped more of his delicate scales from his arms.

After exchanging some last words, the sailors left. The shopkeeper retreated into the shadow of his rundown house, and xB remained tied up in the sun, just out of reach of the shade of the tent.

Despite the countless people walking past the stand and eyeing him up and down, he felt utterly alone.

He doesn’t know how long he stayed sitting there, but the sun only became more relentless the longer he did. His dry scales itched even worse, his skin felt like it was boiling, and he swore the stares of the people looking at him all day just felt like scratches across his body.

Even if he didn’t understand what they were saying, he knew they were talking about him. He wanted to throw up. They looked at him like a pet that they could own if they just had the riches for him. To them, he was nothing more than an exotic animal.

But he knew that he would faint from hunger and dehydration if he did throw up. He couldn’t even remember the last time anyone bothered to give him something to eat, or even to drink. He felt dizzy, and like he might pass out either way.

XB debated if it was worth it to escape the stares and the constant scorching reminder of the sun.

Surely death would be more merciful than this?

Sometime later, he got stirred from an unsatisfactory nap with a harsh boot against his hip.

He immediately began to snarl into the direction of the offending boot but stopped as soon as he realized the shopkeeper was holding a fish. Then, he felt pathetic for his quick capitulation just because of food.

But his stomach gurgled, even at the stink of old fish, and saliva pooled in his dry mouth.

The shopkeeper scoffed, throwing the fish in the sand next to him, before turning around and walking away.

XB stared at the fish right next to him. His hands were tied behind his back, tightly to the post, and there was no way he could reach it like this.

Carefully he tried to bend down, wincing at the strain in his shoulder. He wa so close.

Just when he felt like he had to give up and try to reach the fish another way, he managed to snatch the corner of a fin with his teeth and triumphantly lifted the fish up with his mouth.

Eating without his hands was messy, but doable. His appearance was a disaster already anyways, the dried blood on his face and hands was just as itchy as his dry scales and refused to flake off too.

Once he’d eaten his fish, which had frankly tasted very gross, and yet he still wanted more, he looked back up at the sky.

The sun wasn’t beating down on him anymore, and he wasn’t feeling like he was boiling alive anymore. Instead, the sky was beautiful shades of pink and purple and orange.

XB stared at it until it turned purple and green, and eventually completely dark.

The heat of the day was gone, but the warmth still radiated from the dry dusty floor, and falling asleep like that wasn’t even all bad, even if it was uncomfortable to sleep sitting upright.

Waking up on the other hand, absolutely sucked.

It wasn’t the first time he had been startled awake by a bucket full of dirty water, but it sucked just as bad as the first time.

Before his sleep muddled brain could even catch up with what was happening, he was already screaming and sobbing in pain. He couldn’t get enough air, and unconsciousness sounded so blissfully sweet.

With tears in his eyes and a painful stinging in his newly formed tail, he hissed and snarled at the shopkeeper standing next to him, an empty bucket in hand and an amused grin on his face.

He knew he must be looking pathetic. Soaking wet, crying, wounded, and a dirty face, making the poorest intimidation attempt while tied up and unable to move.

Defeated, he curled his tail closer to his face and hid behind it to sob. He wasn’t going to give the shopkeeper, or all the people standing around them to gawk, the satisfaction to see that as well.

He got his legs back by midday. And a sand-caked fish by sunset. And another bucket full of musty smelling seawater by sunrise.

After another day of the same routine, he watched a wealthy-looking man talk to the shopkeeper, gesturing wildly, a smug expression on his face during the entire discussion. He left without exchanging anything with the shopkeeper, but with a look towards xB that gave him a full-body shiver and made his heart race in panic.

XB still stayed at the market that day.

The next morning didn’t bring a bucket, but a kick to his ribs and a lot of yelling and a painful slap to his cheek when he tried and failed to bite the shopkeeper for kicking him.

Only a little later did the fancy dressed man show back up, and after talking with the shopkeeper for a bit more, he handed over a tiny brown bag. It looked bigger and heavier than the one the shopkeeper had given the sailors.

The man gestured for some similarly dressed people that had been quietly waiting, and then for him.

They removed the rope around his torso, before slinging it around his wrists, and hauling him to his feet. Besides a single twitch, xB didn’t bother fighting them. He was too exhausted and weak from long days in the sun with no water and barely any food, and there was a massive headache pounding in his skull.

His shoulder ached, the wound that nobody bothered to treat most likely infected and festering.

He was being dragged along like a stubborn animal – and he knew in their eyes he was – and the thought made him feel sick enough that he did try to at least struggle a little, weakly tugging against the rope tying him up.

It didn’t help, and it only earned him another slap to his sore cheeks.

They dragged him out of the village (if it still qualified as a village. It was quite large, certainly bigger than any of the underwater villages xB was familiar with) and into a dense forest.

The humidity and heat in the forest made the air thick and uncomfortable to breathe, and xB couldn’t help but start to panic about the thought of it being humid enough to trigger his transformation, when his scales greedily soaked up the moisture.

But besides making his heart race uncomfortably, and his throat closing up enough to make it even more uncomfortable to breathe, nothing happened.

It didn’t take them long to reach a house built into a little clearing on top of a hill.

There was white stone walls encircling the hill, and they passed a massive iron gate when they followed the nicely paved way up to the giant house.

It was built out of even more white bricks, with pale green wooden frames around the glass windows, and yet another massive door in the middle of the building.

There was a wooden overhang, also painted green, and xB suspected it was freshly done because it looked immaculate and had no damage from the humid heat at all.

Off to the side was a smaller little building, open toward the front and with two gigantic black animals inside, even bigger than the one that had been at the market. Their long ears swiveled towards xB and his entourage, and black beady eyes watched them with an uncanny stare.

He shivered and focused his gaze elsewhere.

When he looked up to the windows on the second floor, he made eye contact with someone standing behind them, watching intently.

He was tall, xB could tell even from down here. His hair was brown and wavy, falling just to the top of his shoulders. His posture basically screamed importance, and so did the elegant clothes.

That must be the man owning this house. And him.

XB stubbornly kept the eye contact, even if the uncanny stare made goosebumps race down his arms. The man stared back until xB got dragged under the wooden covering in front of the house and they couldn’t see each other anymore.

Inside, he wasn’t given any time to look at the opulently decorated entrance hall, instead he was being dragged down a set of stairs hidden in the shadows of the main stairwell.

The men dragging him along didn’t bother stopping when xB stumbled over the steps, too unused to his limbs to figure out how to walk down the stairs.

They pushed him into a large stone room, finally letting go of his arms. He fell to the cold floor immediately, hissing at the men frustratedly. They just scoffed.

The room had a big table in it, and a lone window at the very end letting in some light from above. Along the walls there were more stone structures, with weird shapes that xB couldn’t figure out the purpose of. There was cupboards above the stone, and he suspected that he was probably in the kitchen.

One of the men finally untied him, and xB used his newfound freedom to immediately swipe into the man’s direction with his claws. He barely managed a scratch, not even drawing blood, but the man kicked him in the ribs as retaliation immediately.

So xB decided to do the next best thing to fighting – ignoring the men.

He curled up on the cold stone floor, hiding his face behind his arms, pulling his knees up to his chest and pretends that he is alone.

They didn’t seem to like that.

First, there was a boot nudging his shoulder, and then someone was saying things in an annoyed tone. Then it turned into shouting and a more forceful boot.

XB acted like nothing was happening.

He realized that it probably wasn’t the smartest idea he’s ever had, when he was kicked with more force, and he felt his wound on his shoulder rip back open yet again.

But he started it, and he wouldn’t back down now. In that moment, curled up on the cold kitchen floor, being kicked over and over again, he swore to resist every chance he would get. He would make them regret buying him, by being the most stubborn he could manage. They couldn’t kill him unless they wanted to waste their money.

And if they did, then it would be over at least.

When thinking about his own death, his mind wandered off to his mother and sister. They probably already thought he was dead, with him disappearing with no warning and not returning for weeks.

He allowed himself to cry silently over his family, while more kicks to his back and legs made bruises bloom on his skin.

It continued until he passed out.

Chapter Text

He woke up to the sound of metal clanging against metal.

He was disoriented, his vision was swimming, and his head was pounding when he attempted to sit up. Everything ached. He couldn’t even tell if it was from the cold hard stone floor he slept on, or the beating he had received yesterday.

Oh who was he kidding, it was definitely the beating.

He couldn’t stop himself from whimpering when he tried to put weight on his left arm. His shoulder burned from the pain.

The noises stopped, and xB forced his teary eyes open to see a young woman move around the kitchen. Her hair was long and wavy and dark, and for a short delirious moment he thought he saw his sister.

She carried something bundled up in her arms and approached him slowly.

He tried to hiss, to bare his teeth to make her back up, but the hiss immediately turned into another wince, and it was just in general the most pathetic hiss he’d ever done.

The woman didn’t seem intimidated by his weak display (he couldn’t blame her) and sank to her knees in front of him.

She put the things she was carrying on the floor, and xB didn’t have the strength to shrink away from her. But she hadn’t hurt him yet, so he didn’t try to scare her again.

Her face was round and soft, and her eyes just a little too blue. And her ears were just a little too pointy to be fully human.

A moment later, the woman showed him something out of the bundle she carried. It seemed to be a wet rag. And she slowly brought it closer to his face.

XB froze, staring at her with wide eyes.

Then she softly dabbed it on his temple, and it was only then that he realized that he had a bruise that had split open there. It stung, but the woman was careful while wiping the dried blood away, and he let her continue on the rest of his face, carefully rubbing the itchy feeling of dried tears and grime from his cheeks.

When she cleaned the rag in a bucket of water, that xB only noticed now and subtly inched away from, she began to speak in a soft tone.

It was all just nonsense to him, but it was the first time he heard the language be used with him in a friendly tone, so he listened to the soft lilts and harsh sounds it made. Some sounds were similar to his own language, so he tried to pay attention to which syllables or letters seemed to be the most common. If he kept being stuck here, he would like to know at least a little of the language they kept yelling at him.

The rag returned to his chest, wiping over bruises and cuts left from the net, and for a brief moment xB tensed, waiting for the itchy sting announcing a transformation. It never came. So he focused his attention on the way the woman’s brows furrowed in concentration, and how she stuck the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth.

Once she seemed satisfied, she cleaned the rug in her bucket again and scooched around him a little. She did stay in his field of vision, which xB appreciated.

When the rag touched his shoulder, it was like all breath was being punched out of him. It hurt. His eyes were stinging with fresh tears, and the soft murmuring of the woman sounded apologetic. He had to clench his fists, digging his nails into the palm of his hands so he wouldn’t flinch away from the woman helping him with his wounds.

It took torturously long for her to be done with his shoulder, and when she was, she took one look at his clenched fists, before she snatched his wrist and pried them open.

She looked disappointed when she cleaned his hands. xB didn’t look at her for the amount of time it took her to clean the rest of his body.

Once she was done, she got up with the rag and bucket and gestured for him to stay.

It didn’t take long for her to return with more things in her arms. A tiny metal tub, cloth, and bandages.

She settled back in her spot, before screwing the lid off the tub, showing him a light greenish paste. After gathering some up with her fingers, she spread it on the wound on his shoulder.

At first it stung, and xB couldn’t help but flinch, but then it started to feel wonderfully cooling, and his tense muscles began to relax.

Once she was done applying salve to his worst wounds, she started wrapping them with the bandages. His shoulder felt stiff and still stung, but it was a lot better already.

Once she used up all the bandages, she unfolded the cloth and held it out to him. He stared at it confused. It looked like a tube of fabric with holes in it?

At his confused expression, the woman began to chuckle.

Then she made him lift his arms, and guided them and his head through the fabric, until it fell past his hips to the floor. Ah, so it was clothing.

It was itchy and weird around his arms, but he tried to ignore the odd sensation as a thank you for the woman’s help.

Then she gave him another fabric piece – this one with two tubes. When he looked at her confused again, she giggled, before pointing at his legs.

Was this meant for the lower half of the body? Now that he was thinking about it, most humans he’d seen so far were wearing something similar. But then he looked over to the woman, and how her upper clothing reached all the way to her ankles, and how his own upper clothing almost reached his knees. Was this not okay?

The woman gestured again, more insistent.

So he caved, and after a moment of confusion and struggling, he was wearing the fabric in a way the woman approved of.

The word she kept repeating sounded positive, so he tried to remember it. It was short and ended in a sound that sounded almost sizzling. When she said it again, he carefully tried to repeat it back at her.

She looked surprised, before smiling at him, nodding, and repeating the word.

So xB repeated it back, more confidently.

She nodded again, saying the word simultaneously. Then she shook her head and said something else. It was just as short, and the ending of this word was soft.

XB tried to repeat that word as well, frowning when sounding it out.

She nodded, saying the sharp word, then shook her head, saying the soft word.

Oh! She was teaching him yes and no!

He nodded himself, trying to show her that he had understood, and she smiled. Absently, xB noticed how her teeth looked just a little too pointy too.

Then she got up, gathered her things, and got back to the task she had abandoned in the kitchen a while ago to take care of him instead.

For a few more minutes, xB stayed seated on the floor. And when he got bored of just sitting there, he tentatively tried to bring his legs below his body.

Carefully trying to push himself up on his own, without anyone yanking him around too fast for his feet to follow.

He was only mildly successful, but he managed to stand and take a few steps to the table in the middle of the room.

The woman in the kitchen glanced his way every once in a while, smiling brightly once he figured out how to cross the room without stumbling during every step. He gave her a hesitant smile back.

His practice session didn’t last long, when the men that had tossed him down here in the first place showed back up.

They scowled when they saw him standing and shouted some things at him and the woman watching the pots on the stove. It didn’t sound happy, and the woman barely replied, her answers short and timid.

Then the men focused their attention on him, standing next to a wall and clinging to the windowsill so he wouldn’t topple over. Immediately he felt a cold chill rolling down his spine when he saw their hateful eyes.

They walked towards him, their steps so much heavier and more stable than his own, and so much faster too.

One of them caught his wrist when he tried to swipe at them so they would stay away as if he had seen it coming. Which he probably had.

And then another one shoved him back against the wall, his unstable legs immediately capitulated and made him slump into the guys grip.

He laughed, and xB snarled, but it lacked all the threat.

A thin metal thing was looped around his neck, and his heart stopped when he heard the faint click.

All the fight left him, and he slumped even further in the guys hold, sinking to the floor once he let go.

The two of them were laughing when they trudged back up the stairs, and xB desperately felt like crying, while he clawed at the metal collar that wasn’t budging a smidge.

He didn’t know how long he stayed in the corner of the kitchen he had dragged himself into, curled up into a pathetic little heap, all tears long since dried into itchy tacky tracks on his cheeks.

The kitchen woman had tried to talk to him, but he had ignored her until she had left the kitchen.

The windows high up on the wall weren’t letting any light in anymore, and the mansion was quiet. It was probably in the middle of the night. And he was alone.

XB lifted his head from his arms, listening out for any sounds.

He couldn’t hear anything.

So he fought himself back onto his unstable legs and crept up the stairs as quietly as he could.

The room at the other end was just as empty as the kitchen had been.

And just across the hall was the big wooden door that led outside.

Hurriedly, and trying to keep as quiet as he could, he crossed the room, feet sinking into the odd soft colored wool covering the floor, noticing with delight how it dampened the noise of his steps further.

His heart was beating up to his throat, ringing in his ears. He could be caught any moment now, and freedom was so close.

His fingers touched the cool wood of the door, bracing his unstable weight against it. Then he pushed.

A cool burst of air hit his cheeks, and he couldn’t help but grin upon seeing the dark night sky.

His grin vanished the second he took a step over the threshold of the door.

Sparkling hot pain rushed over every inch of his body, coming from the little unassuming metal ring around his neck, and all his muscles seemed to lock up in tandem.

With a painful scream, he fell to the ground, but the searing hot pain didn’t stop sparkling across his skin, didn’t stop burning him from the inside out.

Someone next to him was laughing and then fingers buried themselves in his hair at the back of his neck, yanking him back.

As soon as he was back inside, with the night air so tantalizingly close, the searing pain stopped.

There were tears spilling from his eyes, and his muscles were still spasming without his command, and the only thing holding him up was the iron grip in his hair, burning painfully where it pulled at the back of his neck.

The man that was looking at him with disdain was the one that had watched him arrive from the window. The one that xB believed was the man that had bought him.

That it was him who owned him like a pet. And how xB hated the cold grey eyes looking at him. Looking down at him.

The man said something, and the hand that wasn’t actively holding him up by his hair tugged at the metal collar around his neck. When it dug into his neck, pressing down on his windpipe, xB instinctively had to cough.

The man smirked, then he let go of the collar again. Just to toss xB out of the door again, like he was nothing more than a toy to play with.

He hadn’t even hit the floor yet when the burning pain raced over his skin again, and his muscles seized up once again.

It hurt to scream, but he couldn’t bite it down. It was too painful.

It was almost as bad as having a water bucket dumped out over his head, only with the added misfortune of him being unable to move a single limb, locked down by the burning pain pulsing out from the collar around his neck.

It danced on his skin, and raced through him in his veins, and it felt like the blood inside him might just boil.

And he couldn’t move.

There were hands on him again, and he couldn’t even try to fight them this time.

He was dragged inside the door again, and the sparkling pain stopped just as suddenly as it had begun.

Then he was dragged in the door again, and the sparkling pain stopped just as suddenly as it had begun.

But it still lingered inside his body. Inside his limbs that felt stiff, rushing through his muscles, making them twitch and shudder in a way he didn’t command them to.

He felt utterly powerless, unable to even clench his hand into a fist. His fingers just shook and refused to bend all the way, twitching back to being straight every few seconds.

Someone was talking but he wasn’t paying attention. He couldn’t understand them anyways; he had no clue how their language even worked.

All he knew were ‘yes’ and ‘no’. He tried to will his tongue to form the sounds that he had learned in the kitchen just this afternoon, but it didn’t follow his command.

The odd pain had even locked his voice.

Chapter Text

The next day, after spending the night in a pathetic heap on the floor right in front of the door where the man had left him, he reluctantly tried to do what was asked of him. Maybe they would give him something to eat if he did, since they hadn’t bothered to do so since he’d arrived at the mansion.

The kitchen woman had fetched him in the morning and brought him downstairs.

She had given him a glass of water and gestured for him to drink it, so he did.

Then she had prepared a tray with an arrangement of food on it, and although he hoped it would be for him, he wasn’t so delusional as to assume.

Once she was done, she pointed at him and then picked up the tray.

She set it back down and looked at him expectantly. XB assumed that she wanted him to pick it up, so he did.

She nodded in approval, before saying “yes.”

Then she gestured for him to follow her, walking towards the stairs.

He followed after her, careful not to trip over his own feet that still felt so foreign to him.

The smell that was rising from the tray was tantalizing, and although it didn’t smell like anything he’d ever eaten before, it made his stomach rumble in protest.

So he forced himself to look away from the tray, fixing his gaze on the back of the woman leading him up the stairs, and focused on his steps.

She led him through the entrance hall, past the stairs leading up to another level, and approached one of the doors leading out the room to the side.

Once she reached the door, she waited for him to catch up.

When he did, she opened the door, letting him step inside before her.

There was a big wooden table in the room, and an unlit fireplace right across the door.

And at the end of the table sat the man with the cold grey stare. The guy that owned him.

He glanced back at the woman, and she pointed at the try, then nodded over to the man at the table.

The food was for him. And he had made xB bring it to him.

XB was quietly seething while he made his way across the wooden floor, his fingers clutching the tray on either side so hard it made the dishes on top clink against each other softly.

But he didn’t make it far. He truly hadn’t meant to, but only a few steps into the room he stumbled over his own two feet, and the short bout of satisfaction he felt while falling almost made the ache in his knees worth it.

The man started to yell, but xB couldn’t get up. His vision was spotty from hunger, and the spilled food on the ground only taunted him, making him feel ill.

He wondered if he could have it, now that he had accidentally spilled it.

Then someone kicked him in his side, again and again, ignoring his weak cried of protest.

His vision was still spotty, and he hated himself for the tears that sprang to his eyes once again, but he could still make out the looming figure of the rich guy above him, kicking him over and over while yelling things at him that stung even though he didn’t understand them.

The woman that had held the door open for him was now crouching on the floor, cleaning up the spilled and cracked dishes, piling them back up on the tray.

She didn’t look at him, her eyes downcast and a pained expression on her face.

She still didn’t look in his direction when a guard entered the room and grabbed the back of his cursed collar to drag him out of the room with, choking him in the process.

XB could see her flinch when he made a garbled plea for air, then the door fell shut between them.

“No, no, no,” he repeated, wheezing, while clawing at the metal constricting his airflow. But the guard who was dragging him through the entrance hall ignored him.

He was dragged through another door, through a dimly lit hallway with no windows, and just when he was on the verge of passing out, he was being shoved into a little room, and he gasped as soon as the pressure on his neck released.

The room was empty besides a sad excuse for a blanket, and it was barely two steps wide.

The guard that had thrown him inside said something vaguely taunting, then he threw the door closed and left him alone.

XB still felt dizzy, his stomach was rumbling pitifully, but he gladly took the moment of silence to curl into a ball, pulling the thin blanket over his shoulders.

The stone floor below him was cold, but he lacked the energy to move, to get warmth back into his limbs.

He was shaking. From hunger and exhaustion and cold.

But it was quiet here. No one was shoving him or kicking him or hurting him in any other way. No one wanted him to bring food for someone else while he went hungry. So it was better than everything else he had experienced at the mansion so far, besides the woman from the kitchen patching up his wounds on the first day.

She brought him something to eat later that day, and some more ointment for his wounds. She helped him eat the salty warm broth and the weirdly chewy, oddly tasteless thing. It tasted weird and made his stomach upset, but he forced himself to keep it down.

Then she helped him rewrap his wounds, all while softly talking to him.

Afterwards, she took him to the kitchen again, and there was a tray with steaming food waiting, and he knew where to bring it without having to be prompted.

This time, he didn’t stumble over his feet. He didn’t look at the man with the cold grey eyes and fled back to the kitchen as soon as he could.

With much gesturing, xB learned that the woman’s name was Maline. He told her his name. She was the only one that ever used it to get his attention.

He picked up some basic commands over the next few weeks. Maline taught him to address the rich guy with the grey eyes as ‘Lord’, and he did his best to never use it out loud. He brought him food three times a day, brought tea upstairs late at night, lit the fire in the dining room once the sun went down, and helped Maline clean the entire mansion. Every once in a while, the Lord or the guards of the mansion used him as a punching bag, and Maline used her quickly dwindling ointment on his numerous wounds.

After about a month at the manor, running around as a sad excuse of a servant that doubled as stress relief, xB figured out why the Lord had really bothered to purchase him.

There was a big glass aquarium in the entrance hall, sitting between the set of stairs leading to the upper floor. There were colorful fish in it, familiar as well as exotic. They sparkled in the light, some resembling the night sky, others shimmering in all the colors imaginable. They were gorgeous, and too painful to look at, because they reminded him so much of home.

After a few merciful days where no one had done more than yell at him – allowing his numerous wounds to heal up – they dragged him out of the little room he had been sleeping in before the sun had even risen.

They forced him to hold still while someone shaved the stubble from his chin, and someone else forced a comb through his helplessly knotted hair, making tears form in the corners of his eyes.

Then they made him take off his clothes, before they gave him something else with flimsy straps over the shoulders instead of sleeves, and so short it wasn’t even reaching his waist.

And then they dragged him into the entrance hall, and up the stairs, where the covering of the aquarium had been removed, and he realized what was about to happen.

Immediately, he stared to thrash, swipe at the guards dragging him with his claws, and shout “NO!” at them, but it didn’t help. There was three of them, and they barely even struggled to pick him up, and threw him into the aquarium.

The pain was immediate. Like a thousand needles stitching his legs back together, big and clunky and fiery hot.

He curled into a ball made out of scales and fins, and the first few breaths he drew over his gills hurt.

XB couldn’t even be happy over seeing his vibrant blue scales back, looking a lot healthier than he had seen them the last time back at the market stall.

Once the pain was over, he glanced up at the top of the aquarium, where the covering was back in place.

Then he looked through the glass to the entrance hall, and he saw the Lord standing there, sipping on a drink, his eyes clearly looking his body up and down.

And despite wearing more than he ever had while still living in the ocean, he suddenly felt so exposed.

He darted into the corner the furthest from the man, before curling into a ball, hiding his face behinds his arms and tail.

Like this, he could almost pretend he was back home. Like he had just woken up from a nightmare and had curled up in bed to banish it from his mind.

Like any moment now his mother would come into his room and ask him what he wanted for breakfast.

The thin metal collar around his neck was a constant reminder that all of it was real.

There was guests over only a little later, and they all stood in the entrance hall for way too long, ogling him shamelessly and twirling their wineglasses. He couldn’t hear them from behind the glass, but he knew they were talking about him anyways.

He kept hiding in his corner, curled up and refusing to look their way.

The Lord banged his fist against the glass at one point to try and get him to move, but he ignored him.

He knew that he would go to sleep beaten bloody again tonight, but for the moment he allowed himself to defy the asshole and embarrass him in front of his guests.

XB was in the kitchen when he spotted the thing on the counter. Dark metal, with two long pieces that looked like they could move independently from each other, a little like scissors.

But instead of a sharp edge running parallel to each other, the thing had sharp edges that meet head on.

It looked strong.

Like it might be able to cut through metal.

He listened for any noises, but he couldn’t even hear anyone walking around upstairs. So he picked up the tool.

It was heavy and the metal was cool to the touch. He moved it experimentally, and the two blades did indeed move towards each other.

XB realized he might be holding the tool to his freedom in his hands.

So he lifted it up to his neck, positioning it in a way so that one blade was on either side of his collar.

Then he wrapped both his hands around the long end, closed his eyes, and squeezed with all his might.

The pain was immediate.

Sparkling hot, it raced across his skin and through his veins, and his fingers immediately locked themselves into a straight position, dropping the heavy tool on the floor.

He fell right with it, screaming pathetically while he collapsed to the stone floor.

As soon as his arm listened to his command again, he brought his twitching fingers up to his collar, feeling along the spot where he had tried to break it.

There was a dent on either side. Barely there, but the tool had managed to dent his collar in the split second he had managed to push it closed. This could work if he hurried.

His twitching fingers scrambled for the metal tool again.

 It was a lot harder to pick it up this time, with hands that barely obeyed his command and tears blurring his vision, but he maneuvered the teeth of the tool back into the little dents it had already made, squeezing the ends together with as much force as he could muster, and not allowing himself to hesitate.

Somehow the pain felt worse the second time.

Before he knew it, the tool clattered to the ground again, the sound swallowed up by his agonizing scream.

They must know something was up by now, he didn’t have much time left.

His hands were still twitching when he forced them to pick the tool back up again.

His arms were spasming in directions he didn’t want, and it took him way too long to find the dent on his collar again.

His heart was racing. He couldn’t tell if it was from pain or adrenaline.

With trembling arms, he managed to get the tool into position again, and this time he was screaming before he even felt any of the pain rushing across his skin.

His limbs locked up again, but he willed his fingers to lock inwards instead of straightening back out, and for an additional second it worked, until his arms twitched so violently the tool tugged at his collar when it followed his arms away from his neck.

His neck felt like it was on fire. There were sparks cruising through his entire body, melting him from the inside out.

But he clenched his teeth together and reached for the dropped tool again.

His trembling fingers wrapped around the handle when he heard heavy steps stomp down the stairs to the kitchen.

His time was up. But he was so close!

Desperately he tried to pick the tool up from the floor, but his hands refused to close tightly enough, and all he succeeded in was to scooch it over on the floor by a few inches.

By the time he finally managed to lift it from the floor again, the heavy footsteps had made their way into the kitchen, and the guard storming his way was yelling menacing sounding words in his direction.

He ignored him, making the tool snap on his collar again, pressing down just a moment before the guard reached him.

This time he didn’t even have time to try and hold onto the tool for as long as possible through the pain, before it was wrenched from his numb fingers.

The guy was still yelling at him, gesturing wildly with the tool, but xB lacked the strength to react.

He stayed where he was, slumped to the floor, following the tool with his eyes.

The guard snarled, then he kicked him in the stomach with his boot, stealing all the air from his lungs at the same time.

XB wheezed, his twitching muscles not even allowing him to curl into himself. He coughed.

The man threw more verbal things at his head he assumed to be insults, then he threw an actual object at his head in form of a boot to the chin.

His teeth slammed shut on each other, piercing his own tongue, and a dull pain radiated out from where the guy had kicked him. He didn’t manage more than a whimper in response.

He tasted iron on his tongue before passing out.

Chapter Text

The wounds on his neck made him feverish and delirious for a week. And sitting beneath the barely dented collar, permanently etched into his skin, where pale zigzagging scars now. Starkly visible against his skin, sneaking up towards his jaw, and some jagged tendrils reaching his collarbone. It kind of looked like someone had lopped off his head and carelessly sewn it back on.

XB wondered if he should hate the scar. Be angry about it. Or maybe even be proud of it.

Instead, he just felt nothing when he stared at it in his reflection. His face was as empty and devoid of emotion as he felt.

The feeling scared him.

The next time two guards dragged him out of bed before the sun had risen, he knew what was going to happen before he was even properly awake.

But all the kicking and screaming and biting and thrashing didn’t help.

They held him still again, staving his stubbly chin without caring that they nicked him thrice. Briefly, xB wondered if they were going to chop his hair short this time too.

It had grown quite considerably, just shy of reaching his shoulders. But to his relief, they left it alone. Just forced a brush through it that hurt so much it brought tears to his eyes.

Then they made him change into that weird tiny top again, and he suddenly realized why they were doing all of this in the first place.

They wanted him to look more feminine. More desirable for the gross old men that were most likely going to visit. Suddenly, he felt like he was going to throw up.

At least that meant they would probably leave his hair alone. The relief he felt at the thought was almost enough to ignore the ick he felt about his previous thoughts.

It was tradition for merfolk to grow out their hair once their family deemed them ready to become an adult. Technically, his family hadn’t done that, but it usually happened sometime between eighteen and twenty, and he felt like he deserved it with everything he had been going through the past few weeks he’d been here.

XB wondered how long it had been since he had been fished out of the ocean and ripped from his life. It was kind of hard to keep track of all the time he had spent unconscious. But it must have been at least two or three months by now.

He was still turning numbers and days over in his head when the guards dragged him up to the tank, and he barely even bothered fighting back when they threw him into the water. Why waste energy if he lacked the strength to change his situation anyways?

As soon as he hit the water with a splash and his fringe drifted into his eyes, the pain started again. It built in his stomach, fiery hot despite the icy sting of the water on his skin. It itched where his scales greedily soaked up the moisture, and it burned where his legs fused back together into one.

He just clutched his head, hiding behind his arms until the pain ebbed again, and his cloudy vision adapted to the water. The colorful fish in the tank with him regained their sharp outlines again, and xB stared at them transfixed, watching them zip through the clear water with nowhere to hide.

They were scared of him, he could tell.

His stomach grumbled. They didn’t give him anything to eat for breakfast.

The tank was tiny. There was nowhere to hide. All the fish were right there.

It was laughably easy to snatch the first fish out of the water; its vibrant red scales made it an easy target.

A small giggle escaped his throat when he dug his sharp nails into the fish, the flesh soft and pliant below his fingers. The water around the red fish turned a rust color, and the little twitchy thing turned still.

It tasted delightful to his hungry taste buds. Almost like home, but a little sweeter than he remembered. He didn’t mind the taste at all; it was better than anything he had to eat above the surface so far.

The fish was devoured way too fast, and his stomach still rumbled.

He picked his next target, a sleek long green fish, moving lazily through the water. Unaware of what had just happened to his red friend.

The squelching sound the fish made when he ripped into its still twitching body was music to his ears.

Someone hit the glass of the aquarium, and all the fish shot away from it, but xB ignored it. He wasn’t going to stop until he killed every last one of the shiny exotic little creatures, and he was going to have fun while doing it.

He could deal with the consequences later.

He was eating his fourth little treat when there was dim shouting on the other side of the glass. This time he looked up, and he could see the Lord standing there, face pulled into a furious grimace.

XB made sure to show all his bloodied sharp teeth when he grimaced back. Then he turned his back on the human and kept eating.

Hours later, once the guests had left again, they threw a net into the empty fish tank to haul xB out of it. It sucked even more than last time, because this time they didn’t have to be careful to haul any exotic fish right up with him. He had taken care of that.

It also sucked because he felt slightly nauseous, having eaten way too much after weeks of eating way too little.

And it also sucked because the Lord was standing there, and he looked even more pissed than he had when xB had been taunting him from behind the glass. Which might not have been a smart decision in hindsight. But he refused to regret it.

He stood there, fingers white around the decorative stick he carried around. He was tapping it against the floorboards repeatedly, a sound just irregular enough it made xBs scales on his back rise.

Once he was out of the water, they didn’t even bother removing the net from his body. They just tossed him to the floorboards right there in front of the angry human, still tapping the stick to the floor in irritation.

XB braced himself for the kick he knew was coming, but he refused to cower. He just stared the Lord right in the eyes, trying not to let any emotion show on his face.

It only seemed to irritate him further.

And it wasn’t a kick that followed, but the tapping stopped, and the Lord raised his stick for a blow.

It was too fast for xB to react, and the hard polished wood struck him across the temple, making his vision black out briefly.

The man was shouting at him. Not like it helped, xB couldn’t understand him anyways. But he understood enough to know he was angry. More than furious.

Good.

His resolve crumpled when the wooden stick struck his shoulder, and then his waist, and then his cheekbone, narrowly missing his eye he pressed shut in panic. He curled into a ball to protect his stomach and face, but it barely helped with the blows raining down on his back instead.

It was painful, knocking the air out of his lungs, making him feel like he was drowning on dry land, and if that wasn’t a scary thought.

And it didn’t stop.

Still, xB clung to the thought that it had been worth it. That he finally had enough to eat to feel full for the first time in weeks. But it was a weak comfort when the cracking sounds of wood on bone filled the air, and he knew that it was his bones that were creaking.

He started crying without even realizing it.

They had to bring in a doctor to treat his wounds, that had been so bad it had turned him feverish for days.

Breathing still hurt days later, from his lungs pressing against his cracked ribs.

They replaced the fish in the tank before xBs countless dark bruises healed.

He didn’t go without those anymore. The still furious Lord had barely left xB alone for two weeks after he recovered from his fever, hitting him with his stick – the cane, as he had learned – at least once whenever they crossed paths.

And xB was the one that brought him his food. Unfortunately, they crossed paths quite frequently.

It didn’t take long for his spirit to be beaten. To do what he was told, in vague gestures and simple words he began to pick up over time. With his head held low, trying not to mess up, or he will be beaten again.

Maline, the maid, was the only one friendly with him. She patched up his wounds whenever he was unfortunate enough to cross paths with a furious Lord and gently scolded him whenever the wounds were his own fault.

She smuggled him extra slices of bread frequently and made sure he got warm food whenever he was hurt.

More than once, she hid him in her kitchen when the guards were looking for him to relieve some stress and then lied to their faces that she hadn’t seen him.

It was only because of her frequent chatting with him that he slowly picked up her language, even when he wasn’t really putting any effort into learning it. Why bother, when the only one that used nice words with him was Maline? Everyone else only ever shouted commands and insults at him, and he understood those without needing to understand the words.

Before he knew it, his hair grew past his collarbones, winter bled into spring, and he absently wondered if he was nineteen yet.

Once it turned well and truly summer, he realized that it had been at least a year since he had been fished out of the ocean and sold to this disgusting human being.

Realized how he hadn’t fought back in months.

When they fetched him to throw him into the fish tank once again, he bit one of the guards just to prove to himself that he could still defend himself if he wanted to.

But he doesn’t touch the fish in the tank anymore. Just watched them move lazily through the water. Manages one of his rare smiles when the fish started bumping into him or hiding in his hair as if it was seagrass once he was sitting unmoving in the tank for long enough to get the fish used to his presence.

But just because he didn’t kill the fish didn’t mean he wasn’t thinking about it when his stomach grumbled from hunger.

He was cold more often than not, even in summer and despite being used to cold ocean temperatures. He was pretty sure his ribs weren’t supposed to be this pronounced against his skin.

The fish continued to flaunt their colorful scales, looking more vibrant than ever compared to his dull blue ones.

The hot temperatures made way for increasingly cold ones, and Maline boiled him water for hot tea or even soup more frequently.

He put in a little more effort to try and talk to her as thanks.

Seeing her smile over his clumsy efforts of small talk while they shared a mug of tea in the dimly lit kitchen at night was the only thing that almost managed to lift his own mood.

It was spring again when it happened for the first time. XB knew that he was twenty now, and his hair reached down to his chest. His face was shaved clean, a habit he’d started to pick up after the third time the guards had nicked his chin with the razor blades deep enough to leave scars.

It happened on a day that was no different than any other day, when xB was bringing the Lord his dinner with downcast eyes and quiet feet, aiming to be in and out of the room as quickly as he could.

It was then that the man grabbed his hair just as he was turning around and yanked on it hard enough so that xB stumbled backwards into the side of the table.

A loud crash and clanging filled the otherwise quiet room; the goblet of red wine spilled on the carpet floor.

XB winced, waiting for punishment for knocking the goblet off the table with closed eyes and pulled up shoulders.

It never came.

There was still a fist in his hair, and the pull stung, but there was no yelling or punching or smacking him with the cane.

“Look at me,” the Lord said instead.

XB forced himself to open his eyes, hesitantly raising his gaze up to the man’s face. He wasn’t making eye contact. Never eye contact, it never ended well.

“I told you to look at me!” the Lord shouted, forcing xB to tilt his head upward when he pulled on his hair.

So xB made eye contact. Every fiber of his body was screaming about the wrongness of looking the Lord into the pale blue eyes.

The Lords eyes flitted down to his neck, where the thin metal collar sat on top of a ring of raised, jagged, reddish scar tissue.

XB really, desperately wanted to look somewhere else, but forced his eyes to stay on the pale blue ones. Despite not actually getting hurt right now, he was deeply uncomfortable. Something was so very wrong about the way the man was looking at him.

Then the Lord scoffed, a mean grin forming on his lips.

He got up from his chair without letting go of xBs hair. It felt like he was looming over him, and xB couldn’t help himself, he broke eye contact, dropping his gaze as far down as it would go with his head still being forcibly tilted up by the fist in his hair.

Basically immediately, the Lord yanked on his hair, the sting driving tears to the corners of xBs eyes.

“What was so hard to understand about looking at me?” the Lord hissed, tilting xBs chin up with his other hand.

And while xB was still debating if he was expected to apologize or not, the Lord leaned down and forced his lips upon xBs.

He immediately froze in shock, his eyes blown wide. There was a wild panic rising in him, and he felt like he might just become ill.

Before he could force his limbs to listen to him to fight back and shove the Lord away, he was released.

The entire thing couldn’t have taken more than a second, but xB felt like he had been caught in the moment for ages.

He still felt the pressure on his lips, and the phantom pain of his hair being pulled, even though the Lord was already sitting back down in his chair and not touching him anymore.

XB used the moment and fled from the room as quickly as he could, shock giving way to hot tears running down his cheeks.

Chapter Text

Roughly six years after his abduction from the ocean, the entire staff of the mansion descended into a flurry of activity.

They were moving, Maline had explained. Something to do with there being more riches in new lands.

XB wasn’t really sure what that meant, but he did know that the people of the mansion had less time to kick him whenever they were bored, and he wouldn’t have to get into the aquarium for the foreseeable future, so he welcomed the development.

He wasn’t exactly able to help with loading the entire possessions of the Lord – and there were many – onto the carriages, since he was still stuck to the inside of the mansion because of his stupid collar, but sooner or later they would have to take the thing off of him if they wanted to bring him along.

Which, unfortunately, they did.

But xB was looking forward to the day he could stand beneath the blue sky again and didn’t have to stare at it from behind a window anymore.

It was less of a relief than he thought it would be when they finally removed his stupid collar.

From the moment they did, there were always at least two people having an eye on him. As if he would suddenly try something again, after not really fighting back for years.

He was tempted, of course, but there was nowhere he could go. He didn’t even really know which direction the village was, and if he could find his way to the ocean from there. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to go back.

The ocean was terrifying, now.

When they finally left the mansion and boarded a ship, the homesickness got overwhelming.

He kind of knew they would have to take a boat to those new lands, but he hadn’t expected to feel so empty about it.

He had never felt so far from home as he did on that ship, staring at the ocean any chance he got. But even despite the two guards that were constantly watching him even now, and Maline being with him whenever she could in a not so subtle attempt to protect him, he doubted he could try to make a break for the water.

It was uncomfortable on the ship. Being below deck reminded him too much of his damp and musty cell from six years ago, and being above deck meant he had to look at the ocean.

There was no metal ring around his neck anymore, but he felt it more than ever.

It was after about two weeks on their journey that it happened.

He was below deck with Maline and his two shadows, finishing up the dinner preparations, when the shouting on deck started.

Someone yelled for all hands on deck, and then one of the soldiers grabbed xB by his hair to drag him up behind him.

He was quietly seething at the humiliation, but he let himself be dragged. There was no use fighting it, and if he came along willingly it didn’t hurt as badly, and to avoid even more bruises. His two guards were already annoyed that they had to play his babysitter, so they used him as a punching bag whenever their frustrations rose.

And on a ship as small as theirs, they were frustrated quite often.

Maline trailed up behind them, and xB could see how she was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

What was going on?

Once they were just shy of reaching the open deck, a loud booming noise rang out throughout the vessel, the ship shaking in its core.

Maline screamed, getting thrown into him from the shaking, and the two of them fell against the wall together. His scalp smarted from the sudden change of direction; the soldier having let go of his hair too late.

XB caught Maline to prevent her from falling to the ground, and the two guards with them cursed. The one that had previously been dragging him around reached for the sword hanging from his belt.

“Get back to the kitchen,” he bellowed at xB and Maline, before shoving them back the way they had come from.

Ther was another loud booming sound, which made xB and Maline both flinch, the maid burying her hands in his shirt.

Then the two guards ran out the door, swaying on their feet a little when the vessel shook again.

Up on deck, coming from the open doorway so tantalizing close, xB could hear more shouting and screams.

Another loud bang, and the loud noise of splintering and crashing wood. The floor below them vibrated.

Maline screamed, hiding her face in his shirt, and xB dazedly held onto her, trying to offer some semblance of comfort.

The open deck was so close. There were no guards, and no shocking collar. He could swear that he could hear the ocean past the frantic screaming of too many people.

The steady booming noises stopped, and so did the violent shaking of the ship.

XB stepped away from where he had been bracing his and Maline’s body against the wall. She looked up at him with a frightened expression but was too dazed to pay attention.

He let go of Maline and started walking towards the bright daylight coming from the door. Faintly he could hear her saying his name, but he ignored her in favor of running the last few steps.

Then he was outside, and the wind immediately picked up his hair to play with the long tangled strands, whipping them into his face.

He could faintly feel the cold sting of the wind and could see the second ship pulling up next to theirs, but he couldn’t force his eyes away from the grey-blue waves of the ocean, beckoning him closer.

The ocean was right there.

But he didn’t move.

The threat of pain made him freeze right where he stood.

Unable to tear his eyes away from the surface of the sea.

He stayed standing there when the pirates stormed the deck of the ship.

He stayed there while his tormentors went down in bloody red puddles.

He stayed there when Maline tugged on his arms, screaming at him to get to safety and back below deck.

He stayed there when he saw the guard that had dragged him by the hair mere minutes ago get stabbed and shoved overboard by a pirate with big colorful bird wings.

He stayed there as the pirate shouted something and charged another soldier, ignoring him standing in the middle of the deck, and xB couldn’t even turn his head to follow him with his gaze.

The ocean kept calling him, and his legs kept refusing to move.

He was still frozen to his spot when the Lord somehow made his way next to them. He was screaming at him, but his ears were ringing from all the clashing swords and shouts and the distant waves, and he couldn’t make out any of the words.

Maline was talking back at the Lord, one arm protectively held out in front of him.

And although he still couldn’t hear any of the words being said, he realized that she was defending him. And he still couldn’t move a single muscle. Couldn’t even look in their direction, just stared wide eyed at the freedom that was so close to him.

And then he heard Maline scream next to him, and his eyes finally snapped over.

The Lord had stabbed her.

Had stabbed her because she had been protecting him.

He was still shouting words at her when she collapsed, holding the bloodied knife in his hand, blood splatters on his white shirt.

And the sight of Maline crumpled up on the floor, weakly wheezing for air, crimson blossoming from her chest, and looking up at him with tears in her too blue eyes, was what finally tore him out of his stupor.

Although he hadn’t dared to call her his friend, too dangerous for both of them to show such blatant favoritism, she had been one. The only one to look out for him in the entire six years he had been at the manor, and now she had died to protect him.

With a snarl, he launched himself at the Lord.

He wasn’t quick enough to react before xB had plunged his claws into his neck and squeezed with all his might.

They toppled to the ground, and the Lord managed to stab him in the stomach while they were falling, but it was weak and xB instinctively knew that it wouldn’t be a dangerous wound for him. He barely even felt the pain, too used to it.

So he applied even more pressure, and he knew there was a manic grin on his face, finally satisfied.

Based on the Lord’s expression, and how he was weakly grabbing at xBs wrists, he must be looking outright terrifying.

He felt pleased with himself.

But he could be so much more frightening. The hate that had been quietly simmering inside of him had reached another boil. He wanted – needed – the Lord to suffer during the last pathetic minutes of his life and simply choking him out wasn’t enough.

His nails pierced skin on either side of the Lords windpipe, and xB reveled in the image of simply tearing it out with his teeth, like he had done to the sailor all those years ago. But he could do better.

He was hungry.

His right hand found the dagger the Lord had dropped, still coated red in Maline’s blood. And he plunged it right into the abdomen of the pathetic human being below him.

The Lord let out a pitiful wheeze, and his blunt nails scratched the skin on xBs wrist bloody, but he didn’t even feel it. He was in a blood rush, and he enjoyed it like he hadn’t enjoyed anything in years.

He threw the dagger aside, sending it skidding over the blood soaked wooden planks of the ship.

Then he plunged his hand into the wound he had just inflicted.

It was warm and sticky and smelled oddly sweet next to the heavy iron scent hanging in the air. It smelled divine.

A fresh body always tasted best, after all.

His claws tore through the soft insides of the human clinging to the last threads of his life with ease. Up, below the ribcage, past the barely inflating lungs, where he felt the weak beating of his rotten heart.

His hand wrapped around the beating organ, and the panicked and agonized expression on the Lord’s white face told him that he could feel it all.

“I hate you,” he hissed in his face, then he squeezed and tore at his heart and watched the last shreds of life leave the Lord’s eyes.

Veins were surprisingly fragile. It was almost laughably easy to rip the human’s heart right from his chest.

Everything was covered in sticky red. The deck, the body below him, his clothes, his entire arm. The still warm heart in his hand.

It tasted like victory.

The blood made a terrible mess, still dripping from the heart, getting all over his face and in his hair and running down his neck below his shirt collar, but he couldn’t care less. He hadn’t eaten this well in years, and never had a meal tasted this satisfying.

Vaguely, he registered that the noise around him had quieted down. There was no more shouting, no more clashing of blades.

He didn’t know who had won. He didn’t care.

No one would approach him now anyways, not as blood covered and eating his treat like he was. He must look terrifying. And that thought made him feel powerful.

He calmly finished his meal, then he turned around to Maline’s body. Her head was tilted in his direction, and her expression was surprisingly calm. Not as twisted in pain as it had been when she had just been stabbed.

All life had left her, there was no beat humming below her skin anymore, and her too blue eyes were glossed over. But he liked to think that she had witnessed the Lord’s death at his hands in her last moments and knew that she had been avenged.

He carefully closed her eyes, leaving read streaks on her eyelids. It almost made her look peaceful.

XB lowered his head to her chest in respect, forehead toughing her collarbone.

His long hair fell past his face, bloodied strands shielding him from any gaze. He allowed himself to cry now. Cry for the loss of his only friend in a short moment of stolen privacy, hidden behind his dirty hair.

He stayed there for a few more minutes, ignoring the hushed voices talking around them. He knew he was being watched. Whoever had won was waiting for him to lift his head, not interrupting him.

Judging by the fact that they were respecting his ritual, and his stolen moment of mourning, it couldn’t be the Lord’s staff. He wondered if the pirates would let him go, or if they would stuff him in a cell again to sell him off at the next port again.

After he felt like he had sufficiently honored Maline’s spirit, and the tears stopped flowing down his cheeks, he lifted his head again. He took her significantly cooler hands in his stained red ones, squeezing them gently. Then he folded her hands on her chest, covering the stab wound.

Only then did he look up fully and focus his attention on the people still milling around the ship.

To his surprise, he was mostly alone.

Two people were talking to each other some distance away by the railing, voices low and clearly trying to leave him some space.

One of them had blonde hair poking out of a dark bandana and was wearing a dark coat over his white shirt, the top few buttons popped open to reveal a pendant on a gold chain glinting on his chest.

The other had long ashy brown hair tumbling over the scarf concealing the lower half of his scarred face and was wearing a green shirt tucked haphazardly into a pair of black linen pants.

Both of them looked human, and immediately xBs guard was up.

He could hear footsteps on the deck behind him, and a quick glance back showed him another man carrying a box from below deck over to the pirate ship.

The man noticed his gaze and nodded in acknowledgement, then he kept walking and made his way across the gangplank connecting the two ships.

He had white hair that looked too perfect for someone that had just taken part in a battle, and was wearing a dark vest on top of a white shirt with poofy sleeves, and a mask covering the lower half of his face. His clothes looked way too neat too, and when he hopped off the gangplank, xB could have sworn he saw a pair of white tails glinting in the sunlight, before they disappeared again.

Probably not human, then. Then he also remembered the pirate with the bright colorful wings, who hadn’t been human either.

He felt a little less on edge immediately.

The low talking from the pair of humans in front of him had stopped, so xB turned back around again.

Sure enough, the two of them were looking at him with expressions he couldn’t judge.

The man with the scarf said something to the one with the bandana, then he made his way back to the pirate ship, keeping his distance to xB. But he did give him a nod when he passed. He didn’t know if it was out of respect or fear, but he didn’t care. He’d gladly take either.

The blond guy tentatively approached him, but stopped still a good distance away from xB, who was still kneeling on the floor.

“Hi. Hypno, I am,” he said, and xB felt his eyes go wide.

That had been merspeak. The human knew his language. His eyes flickered to the man’s ears just to confirm he was really human. No fins. No visible scales either.

He didn’t know if he should laugh or be angry. How did this human know merspeak?

“How do you know my language,” he growled, covertly preparing himself to murder another man if necessary.

“Father teach me. Like you, he is.”

It was broken and the order of his words wasn’t quite right, but it was pronounced with an accent xB faintly recognized. It sounded more southern than his own, similar to how his cousin’s tribe was speaking. It helped in soothing his murderous spirit a little.

“Like me?” He asked for clarification.

The man nodded. “Half mer, I am.”

“Not human?” XB asked.

“Half.”

XB nodded, lowering his hands he’d unconsciously raised before. Half human was alright. Maline had been partially human too. Although there wasn’t anything optically marking the man as not quite human, the fact that he knew his language made him willing to believe him.

“Hypno, I am,” he repeated. “Who you?”

“My name is xB,” he replied, an answer and a subtle correction of the man’s – Hypno’s – grammar.

“Nice meet you. She is friend?” He nodded his head in the direction of Maline’s body.

XB nodded. “She was a friend.”

“I apologize.”

It was a little formal, but xB got the message. He didn’t reply.

“We burn ship, you want pirate ship?” He asked.

It took him a while to understand what Hypno had meant, but when the pirate pointed to the gunpowder lines crisscrossing the deck, he understood.

He slowly got up from the bloody puddle he was still kneeling in, looking down at Maline’s body.

“You want bring her?” Hypno asked.

XB shook his head. There was no way he could give her a proper seafloor burial, so having her body burned to ashes and scattered in the freedom of the wind sounded a lot more respectful.

“She would prefer this, I think.”

Now that he was standing upright, he felt the stab wound in his abdomen, pulsing steadily with a dull pain radiating out from it.

It made his legs feel weak, and the way his adrenaline and blood rush had depleted didn’t help his balance.

The first step he took was unstable and wobbly, and Hypno was next to him offering him a hand in an instant.

But he wasn’t touching him yet, leaving the choice of accepting the help up to him.

XB ignored the hand and followed Hypno to the pirate ship with unsteady legs, desperately hoping it had been the right decision, instead of choosing to jump over the railing into the ocean.

He left the hollow body of the Lord behind, and with it hopefully the worst chapter of his life.

Chapter Text

After just a few steps over onto the other ship, xB felt his knees buckle beneath him, and gave up on trying to walk on his own. He sank to the planks, pressing his hand onto his wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

“XB?” Hypno asked, crouching to the floor beside him.

“Hurts,” he mumbled.

“I bring to Doctor, okay?” Hypno said.

XB nodded.

“Can you stand?”

“Need help,” he replied.

Hypno nodded, before slinging one of xBs arms over his shoulder and helping him back up.

A bolt of pain zapped through his abdomen, and xB had to bite down a groan. It was already pathetic enough that he needed help to walk.

Hypno guided him across the ship and to a door leading below deck, and xB stubbornly kept his gaze straight ahead or onto the floor, ignoring the curious glances of the other pirates being cast his way.

It was a little like ignoring the stares of the old men through the glass of his aquarium, he thought bitterly.

Hypno led him down a hallway, and then around a corner into a room fairly close to the exit. XB made a mental note of the way out, just in case.

Inside the room, the pirate carrying him switched languages back to English.

“Doc, got a minute? He’s been stabbed.”

“Put him on the bed,” a gruff voice replied. “I’ll be right with you.”

XB looked up to identify the source of the voice. It was a tall man, with oddly green fuzzy skin and horns sprouting from his head. He had a funny accent. It made xB wonder if he had a weird accent too when he spoke English.

In the corner of his eye, he could see Hypno nod. It wasn’t like the doctor could see, with his back turned to the two of them and rummaging around in some cabinet.

There was a cot in the room, and Hypno guided him towards it, before helping him sit down. XB didn’t remove his gaze from the tall doctor.

He seemed to have found what he had been looking for and turned around with a tray of medical supplies in his hand. He only had one of them, the other arm ended somewhere within his tied off sleeve.

The doctor nodded at xB, setting down the tray on a little table by the bed. There was an eyepatch over his eye, the end of a scar poking out from under the black fabric. XB wondered if this guy was any good at his job with multiple missing limbs.

He gestured for the area in his abdomen where xB was still pressing down on the wound.

“Can I get a look?” he asked.

XB narrowed his eyes at him. In the corner of his eye, he could see Hypno smile encouragingly. So he peeled his hands off the aching wound, lifting the tail end of his blood soaked shirt to reveal the wound.

The doctor got down on his knees in front of the bed to get on eye level with the wound and turned his head this and that way to inspect it.

“Not very deep, you’re lucky,” he said, grabbing a little bottle from his tray of assorted items. He popped the stopper off with his teeth and poured some of the contents on a cloth, then he looked up at xB.

“This will sting.” That was all the warning he got, and then he was cleaning his wound with the cloth. It did in fact sting, and xB had to bite his own lip to stop from shouting out loud. His fingers clenched around the dirty shirt he was still holding up, his claws probably poking even more holes in it than it already had.

Hypno seemed to notice his sorry state, so he spoke up: “I’m getting you a change of clothes.”

He didn’t even wait for an answer before he was darting out the door.

Immediately, xB felt even tenser than before. At least Hypno had given him the slightest bit of a safe feeling. Now he was in a room with a total stranger, wounded and at their mercy, holding up his shirt.

Shortly after, the doctor was done cleaning his wound.

“I’m going to sew it closed, alright?” he said, holding up a needle and thread.

XB couldn’t muster up the courage to react in any way at all. He couldn’t even nod. Now that all the adrenaline had left him, he was just aching and tense and scared. He really wanted to cover up his exposed stomach again, but his fingers refused his command to open and let go of his shirt.

“You do understand me, yes?” the doctor asked.

He opened his mouth to try and speak, but not a sound escaped his lips.

“Ah shit,” the doctor mumbled, and xBs mouth snapped back shut.

“Sprichst du Deutsch?” the man asked, and when xB proceeded not to react, he sighed. “Yeah didn’t think so.”

He held up needle and thread again and then gestured with it to xBs wound. “I’m going to patch you up.” He mimicked a sewing motion with his hand. “I’m sorry I have no idea how to warn you that it might sting a little.”

He flashed him an apologetic smile, and then he carefully started to patch up xBs wound.

Compared to whatever he had used earlier, this one barely hurt. He was surprisingly efficient, even though he only had one hand. Sometimes the thread pulled on his skin in an uncomfortable way, but mostly xB couldn’t even feel it. He wondered if the thing in the bottle had helped numb the area.

After a few minutes of tense silence, the doctor tied off the thread with a hum and a “done!”

Then he turned to put his tools away.

XBs muscles still refused to listen to him, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe from all the tension in his body.

The doctor turned back around to face him, and frowned when he saw that xB was still holding up his shirt.

“I’m done,” he repeated, pointing at his shirt. “You can put it down again.” He mimicked the motion of putting down a shirt on his own body.

Internally, xB was screaming. But he couldn’t do anything.

With a sigh, the doctor came back, reaching for his hands still clutching his shirt.

That finally kicked xBs body into gear.

Before he could touch him, xB jumped up from the bed and bolted a step towards the door. A strained “don’t!” came past his lips, and the doctor froze, holding his hand up in front of his body, as if he were trying to calm a spooked animal.

Somehow that was kind of exactly what he was doing.

They were staring at each other like that for a few moments, standing across each other in a weird silent standoff.

Hypno picked that exact moment to come back.

“I got you some of my old clothes, I hope they… fit…” he trailed off.

XB refused to look at Hypno, his eyes fixed on the doctor.

“I think I spooked him,” the man explained, slowly lowering his hand.

“XB?” Hypno asked. “Are you alright?”

A bit of the tension was leaving his body, but he definitely wouldn’t call himself alright.

“Better,” he said instead, still staring at the doctor.

“I’m gonna step outside,” the green man said. “So you can change. There’s some water and a cloth by the table so you can wash the blood off. Be careful with your stitches. Shout if you need me.”

And then he whisked past xB and Hypno in the door, leaving the two of them alone. Immediately, his stiff muscles relaxed.

“Here,” Hypno said, holding out the bundle of cloth he had been carrying. “I’ll be outside as well, alright?”

XB took the clothes and nodded. They felt surprisingly soft below his fingers.

Hypno smiled at him, then he also ducked out the door. He caught a brief fragment of low voices talking before the door fell shut again, and xB was left alone in the room.

With a sigh of relief, he pulled off his tattered and blood soaked shirt, exchanging it for one out of soft dark fabric Hypno had given him. It felt luxurious, soft and not at all chafing his scales on his back.

He ignored the waterbucket, even if the dried blood in his hair felt all kinds of gross. If he used too much water to clean himself, he would only transform again, and he didn’t want to risk it right now.

The pants were a similar soft material and actually reached all the way down to his ankles. They were a little wide around his hip, but there were strings affixed to it he could use to pull them tighter.

As soon as he’d changed, xB immediately felt a lot better.

He took a quick moment to snoop around the infirmary, and when he found a drawer with a bunch of metal sticks with tiny blades at the end, he picked one up and made it disappear in one of his pockets.

Then he accidentally looked at the bucket in the corner and could feel himself freezing up again.

With an annoyed sigh, he closed his eyes and focused on what he could feel. The rough wood beneath his feet, the soft cloth on his scales, the pounding of the wound in his side, and the dried blood flaking from his face.

He should probably get rid of that at least.

Clenching his teeth, he carefully dipped the end of the cloth the bucket, keeping his hands far away from the water. Then he shook the cloth to get most of the droplets out, before taking a deep breath and wringing it out.

His hands felt a little itchy, but he was fine.

XB brushed his hair out of his face with one hand, and then quickly wiped his face with the cloth while holding his breath.

Now he had an itchy face, but this was still fine. He wiped his face a second time, then he dropped the cloth into the bucket and took a few steps away from it immediately. That would have to do.

He used his fingers to comb through his hair, detangling the worst of it, and brushing out the crusted blood. He wasn’t very successful. Maybe the pirates could lend him a comb?

With a sigh, he gave up on the rest of his hair, before making his way to the door.

Before he opened it, he pressed his ear up to try and catch any of their conversation, but he couldn’t make out anything besides muffled voices, so instead he just opened the door.

Outside, Hypno and the doctor were talking to someone else. It was the human with the scarf that he’d already seen talking to Hypno back on the other ship.

When he noticed him, his eyes crinkled in a way xB assumed meant that he was smiling behind his scarf.

“Hi!” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Xisuma, the captain of this ship. It’s nice to meet you!”

XB ignored the hand and didn’t reply either. It didn’t seem to discourage the captain though, he just dropped his hand and kept smiling.

“Doc told me you’ll need some rest, so I’ll leave you alone now. But if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

He gave a short wave and then left down the corridor.

Hypno and the doctor gave him a court nod when he left, then the green man took back the word.

“You should make sure you rest for a few days to regain your strength from the blood loss, just don’t start running around or anything and you should be fine. Don’t get the stitches wet and come find me if they turn red or start to hurt. They might itch a little, so try not to touch them. We should be able to take them out in two weeks,” he explained. “Any questions?”

XB shook his head.

“In that case you’re free to leave.” The doctor nodded towards the two of them, then he disappeared back into the infirmary as if he was fleeing from something.

Hypno sighed at the court goodbye.  “He’s sorry for startling you, by the way.”

“What?”

“He feels bad for scaring you so now he’s like. That,” he gestured towards the door. “Doc tried to keep the time you have to interact with him as short as possible, so he doesn’t scare you again.”

“Oh.”

Hypno sighed again, then he gestured down the corridor. “Are you hungry? I can show you the mess hall.”

XB hesitated. There were probably gonna be a lot of people there. But he was hungry. He was basically always hungry.

Once again, Hypno seemed to pick up on his discomfort as if xB had been thinking out loud.

“There won’t be a lot of people there, dinner time isn’t for another two hours.”

At that reassurance, xB nodded.

“I could eat.”

Hypno brings him straight to the kitchen, skipping the mess hall after poking his head inside and noticing a big group playing cards at one of the tables.

The kitchen was a lot calmer – only two people where there preparing the ingredients for a big meal.

“I brought a guest,” Hypno announced when he waltzed in the door, xB behind him. “Could you make him a bite to eat, Beef?”

The tall man chopping carrots at a breakneck speed stops at the question and looks up from his task.

“Sure!” he beams, a warm smile on his bearded face. “Vegetable soup sound good?”

It sounded delightful. XB nodded, only realizing he was smiling back at the cook a moment later.

“I’m making mutton stew for tonight but that needs another two hours I’m afraid,” he explained while putting a small pot on the stove, right next to a bigger one already simmering away.

While the cook – whose name was Beef in an odd turn of events – prepared a portion of soup, Hypno chatted away about how life on board of the Hermits crafted – the name of the pirate ship they were on – worked, and that there was always another crew member helping Beef out in the kitchen.

Today it was Jevin, a man with bright blue hair matching the sky, and just as blue fingertips. He showed them to xB before putting his gloves back on. He explained how he leaves stains everywhere, so he was basically constantly wearing them. It was how he got his hair the color it was, though.

Beef himself had two stunning bull horns, and his hooves clacked on the floor whenever he walked.

XB himself didn’t talk much, he just ate his soup, and the fresh bread Beef handed him, and listened to the three pirates bicker.

Maybe these people weren’t that bad.

Chapter Text

XB spent the next few days resting in whatever quiet corner of the ship he could find, since the big room all the pirates slept him made him feel uneasy and uncomfortable.

The captain had offered him the bed in his room, but since that would mean he’d have to share with one of the few humans on board, he had declined. Instead, he napped in storage rooms and the empty kitchen, hiding away whenever he could.

It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he was used to it.

On the third day, someone woke him up from his nap in a supply closet, which he had deemed to be too out of the way to be disturbed in.

“That can’t be comfortable,” a voice said, startling him awake.

It was a tall woman; her long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were an intense amber color, not necessarily natural, but not necessarily inhuman either. XB didn’t know her name, and he had tried to keep his distance, just in case.

“I’m used to it,” he mumbled, hoping she’d leave him alone.

“The crew quarters too crowded?”

XB didn’t respond.

She sighed, leaning against the doorframe to the little room he was hiding in. XB subtly reached for his boot, where he had tucked the little knife on a stick he’d pocketed at the infirmary a few days ago. Just in case.

“We have spare beds in the women’s quarters, if you want to stay there? It’s just me and Cleo in there right now.”

He did know who Cleo was. She was insanely stunning, with striking orange hair and discolored patches of skin littering her entire body. Someone had told him that she’d died and came back. He didn’t question how that worked, but she was safe in his books.

XB hesitated for a while, before saying: “I don’t think I feel comfortable sharing a room with a human.”

He glared at her, daring her to say something. Daring her to prove him right.

She blinked, stunned.

“Oh,” she said. “Is that why you turned down Xisumas offer?”

He nodded.

To his surprise, the woman started to laugh.

“This is hilarious, oh gosh. I can’t wait to tell him!”

XB glared at her before getting up and shoving his way past the woman. She had proven him right. And even though he had been waiting for it, it didn’t feel satisfying at all.

“I’m leaving.”

“No, wait, sorry, that’s not what I meant!” She called out to him.

Against his better judgement, he stopped in the hallway and turned back around to face her.

Only to make a double take when she started to take her shirt off.

“What,” he averted his gaze. He had learned that humans didn’t like it if you looked at them if they were undressed.

“You can look, I wanted to show you something,” she said.

So he hesitantly looked back up from his boots.

She was showing him her back. There, growing out from her shoulder blades, was something dark.

Something dark, feathered, and scarred. Two matching stumps.

“Oh,” he said, once he realized what he was looking at.

“Poachers cut off my wings when I was twelve. Most of us winged folks don’t make it to adulthood with them still attached to our backs. They kind of did me a favor, it’s a lot easier to hide amongst humans if you look like them.”

“I’m sorry,” xB said, feeling very ashamed.

“It’s fine, it’s been so long I don’t really remember what it felt like to fly.” She pulled her shirt back on and turned back around to him.

“Just. Don’t assume anyone on this ship to be human, unless they say so. Most of us aren’t.”

XB nodded, staring back at the floor.

“Offer still stands, you know.”

“You’re not mad?” To his surprise, she was smiling at him.

“I don’t know what happened to you, but if it was anything like my past, I fully understand your rage. You’re in the right place now.”

“Thank you,” he said, managing a weak smile back.

“In that case, I would love to accept your offer.” He held out his hand. “My name is xB.”

She grinned, taking his hand to shake.

“I’m False, it’s nice to meet you.”

It had been two weeks since xB boarded the Hermits crafted. His stitches were due. So after breakfast – eaten as early as possible to avoid a big crowd – he made his way to Doc’s infirmary to see if the man was already there.

He knocked, and a gruff voice called out to open the door.

Doc was sitting at the little table in the room, a feathered pen in his hand, carefully labeling a little bottle that was doing it’s best to roll away from him with the motions of the ship.

He looked up after finishing his task and nodded in acknowledgement.

“The stitches give you any trouble?” He asked, motioning for the little cot in the room.

XB shook his head, sitting down where Doc had indicated.

“I’m gonna remove them and then I would like to do a general medical check, if that’s alright? I do that with every new Hermit just to make sure everything is as it should be.”

“Okay,” xB said. Not like he could protest, if he did those checks with everyone.

“Awesome,” Doc hummed, before joining him by the bed with a pair of tiny little scissors and some tweezers. “Can you hold your shirt up like last time?”

XB did as he was told, lifting the shirt as much as necessary for Doc to work.

After a quick inspection, the wound was deemed in appropriate condition, before Doc snipped the thread apart and pulled it out with the tiny tweezers.

Besides tugging a little on his skin, xB didn’t feel it at all.

Doc put the supplies away, throwing the thread snippets in a bin next to the table, before returning with even more, different, supplies.

“Anything about your body I should know about? Anything you can’t handle because of your species, or allergies or anything like that?” he asked, while expertly lighting a candle with just one hand. XB wondered what he needed that for.

“Not as far as I know,” he replied. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added: “Water makes me transform, so I avoid it.”

“Like Hypno, got it,” Doc hummed, picking up the candle. “I’m gonna make a few basic tests first, you tell me if anything makes you uncomfortable and you want me to stop, alright? Nothing of this should hurt either, so if it does, speak up.”

XB nodded again, curiously eyeing the candle.

“Okay, I’m going to start with your light perception,” he explained, noticing his confusion over the candle.  “Could you look me in the eyes?”

XB froze.

Suddenly he wasn’t in a dimly lit medical office anymore. He was in a big dining room, sunlight falling in the big ornate windows, heat radiating from the fireplace crackling in the corner, making the entire room a stuffy, uncomfortable, nightmare.

He couldn’t feel the small cot below him anymore, didn’t feel the soft rocking of the ship anymore. Instead he felt cold stone walls against his back and uncomfortable hot hands on his body.

No longer was a doctor holding a candle in front of him anymore, saying his name with a concerned expression. Instead he saw the cold eyes of the Lord, looking at him like he was an object to possess, never once even bothering to learn his name.

He needed to look up. He needed to look up or else he was going to get punished for disobeying. But his entire body was trembling, and he felt useless and locked in his mind, and he couldn’t obey.

He was going to get in so much trouble. He was going to get beaten and forced to look up, or worse, get shoved out a window so his cursed collar triggered, and then there would be uncomfortable hot hands on his chin, forcing his face upwards anyways.

He needed to look up. His mind was screaming at him to move, but he just couldn’t, and he couldn’t breathe, he knew he was panicking but he couldn’t stop and think.

There was distant talking reaching him through the buzzing in his ears, but he still couldn’t look up and he was shaking, and his body wouldn’t listen to him he was useless and not following orders and he was going to get punished but he couldn’t move!

Then there was a hand on his knee, and a flinch flung him out of his panic, as far away as he could go, back pressed to a wooden wall and snarling at whoever just put their hands on him.

Doc was still kneeling on the ground where he had tried to get through to xB, his one single hand raised in the air like the standoff from two weeks ago.

He could feel himself hyperventilating, his ribcage burning from all the air he was forcing into his lungs, and his shoulder was starting to hurt because he had thrown himself against the wall with such force.

“XB?” Doc asked, cautiously. “Are you back with me?”

Not trusting himself to speak, xB nodded. He didn’t lower his hands, still holding them up in front of his body defensively, showing off his claws.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trigger a panic attack,” Doc said, meekly.

“A what?” He croaked out, voice feeling oddly strained.

“You haven’t heard the term before? Panic attack?”

XB shook his head.

“It’s when something makes you start to panic so much you kind of start to spiral. It just happened to you, didn’t it?”

XB nodded.

“Do you know what it was? Was it something I did or said?”

XB nodded again.

“Do you want to talk about it, or would you rather have some space? I can also go and get Hypno if you want?”

XB hesitated. And then, without looking at Doc, he said: “The Lord would tell me to look at him before…” He couldn’t get the last bit out, instead he just hugged himself tightly, still shaking.

“Oh,” Doc said.

It was quiet for a few moments, the only thing xB could hear were the distant voices of Hermits talking and laughing with each other on deck. Doc was clearly searching for the right thing to say.

“I’m really sorry,” Doc said after a moment of silence, his voice low and careful.

Then it was silent again, Doc still kneeling in the middle of the room, xB pressed against a wall, hugging himself and shivering.

“I’m not the right person to handle this,” Doc sighed. “I know who might be, though.”

XB tore his gaze from the wall opposite to his, looking at Doc.

“If you want, I can go and get Etho. I think he was in a similar situation to yours, and it might help if you can talk about it?”

“I don’t know if I can,” xB whispered, staring back at the wall. His pulse was still racing, and his chest hurt.

“You don’t have to,” Doc reassured him. “It might just help to know you’re not alone?”

He hesitated for another silent moment, then he nodded.

“If you change your mind, just tell him. He, of all people, will understand.”

XB nodded again.

Doc got up from the floor and made his way over to the door. “I’ll make sure no one else comes in here for the rest of the day. If it gets too much, you are welcome to hide here,” he said. “I’m getting Etho now.”

Then he was out the door.

After a few moments, xB had calmed down enough to get the thin blanket from the cot and sling it around his shoulders. Then he returned to his corner, sinking down on the floor.

It didn’t take long at all before there was a knock on the door, and Etho poked his head in.

“Hi!” he said once he spotted him sitting on the floor. “Can I come in?”

XB nodded.

Etho slipped through the door, shutting it softly behind him.

His white hair and shirt were as pristine as always, and his steps were silent on the wooden floorboards, as if he weren’t wearing any boots at all.

Then he sat down on the floor at the opposite wall of xB’s corner and pulled his knees up to rest his arms on them, mimicking xB’s curled up position.

“Doc asked me if I could talk about my past with you. He didn’t elaborate on why, but I have my guesses,” he explained, a heaviness in his voice.

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, I know it’s hard to talk about. But it helped me personally. It gets easier the more often you say it out loud.”

XB nodded, but didn’t reply.

“I wasn’t very good at hiding these as a kid,” he said, pointing to his pair of fox ears. “Sometimes I’d lose control without noticing, and it was only a matter of time before it happened in a bad situation.”

XB nodded again, encouraging Etho to keep going.

“I was seventeen when they snatched me up and sold me at a market,” he said.

“I was eighteen,” xB said quietly. “They caught me with a net the very first time I saw the sky.”

They both sat in silence. No amount of ‘I’m sorry’,s was gonna change what had happened to both of them.

“I was sold to a brothel. Do you know what that is?”

XB shook his head.

“They call them pleasure houses as well. Usually it’s mostly girls working there. Some voluntarily, some forced like me. Selling their company to customers, serving tea and snacks. Or selling their bodies to anyone willing to pay the price.”

“Oh.”

“I was nineteen the first time someone paid my price,” Etho said, looking at his hands. “I never saw any of that money.”

“How did you get out?” xB asked.

“I got Beef to thank for that, actually,” Etho said, his voice sounding a little cheerier when he said the cook’s name. “He used to be a thief together with our friend Pause. The two of them were targeting any big institution profiting from people like us, without giving us any of the money. Robbed the brothel and freed all the workers that weren’t there of their own free will.”

XB grinned. “That sounds awesome.”

“I had nowhere to go, so I joined them. It was pretty awesome. Beef and I joined the Hermits a few years later when it got a little too dangerous for us on land.”

He hadn’t mentioned what had happened to their friend Pause. XB decided not to ask.

“I was sold to this rich guy, and he would show me off in an aquarium like I was some exotic animal whenever there were guests over,” xB said, looking down at his hands. “I was twenty when he kissed me the first time.”

His nails were scratching over his knuckles, picking at the skin there.

“He never did anything more than that, I think he just liked to pretend I was a girl. Made me dress up and shave whenever he put me in the aquarium too.”

He stopped picking at his hands, instead he touched his skin, feeling relieved to find the beginnings of an actual beard there.

“That's the guy you killed?” Etho asked.

XB nodded, the corners of his mouth pulling up.

“Good.”

XB chuckled. “It felt very satisfying. Made me feel powerful, too.”

“Once Doc gives you the okay, I’ll teach you how to fight with knives,” Etho promised.

“That would be great. I kind of interrupted my check up.”

“Do you want me to send him back in? I can stay here during the checkup if that helps?”

“I think I’m better now,” xB said. “Thank you, Etho.”

“You’re welcome.” He looked up at the ceiling, seemingly contemplating what to say next.

“I’m sorry for bringing it back up, but I think I need to say this: None of the Hermits are ever going to touch you in that way, I can promise you that much. They’re a great bunch, every single one of them.”

“I appreciate you telling me. And Etho?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Chapter Text

After Doc had given his okay, xB was slowly being introduced into the chore rotation of the Hermits crafted. Mostly, that just meant he was following someone around for a day, learning how to tie specific knots and which terms meant what, should they come across another ship or end up in a storm.

It was surprisingly fun to learn, and easier than when he had to figure out what people wanted from him before he understood English. Some of the terms still gave him trouble, but whenever someone noticed him struggling, they would take the time to explain the term in depth, and sometimes even write it out for him.

Joe – a man with a pair of hands floating disconnected from his body – in particular was adamant to teach him how to read and write, once he realized that xB couldn’t even spell his own name.

Although Joe was someone easy to talk to, he wasn’t someone easily understood. He had a habit of using words that xB had never heard before, and the explanations he gave him tended to only confuse him more. Often, Cleo was tagging along, translating Joe’s vocabulary into words he actually understood.

But he did appreciate the writing lessons, practicing whenever he came across any written words, slowly spelling them out to himself.

A month after boarding the pirate ship, xB was in the kitchen with Beef and Hypno, helping out with dinner preparations. This was something he was familiar with; he had often helped out Maline in the kitchen.

Seeing Beef and his immaculate beard made him a bit self-conscious of his own. It had never been as long as it was now, and it wasn’t very even. He would have to ask someone how to properly trim it and bring it into shape.

For now, he was just glad to have it at all. It helped to remind him that he wasn’t there anymore.

He decided to bring up the topic later, and tried to focus back on the conversation.

Despite the fact that he usually found Beef and Hypno easy to chat with, he stayed quiet. His brain was struggling to catch up to the speed the two were joking with each other, sentences not processing until the topic had already moved on.

It was frustrating, but nothing xB wasn’t used to. His English had already improved a lot this past month, and he’d never been the most talkative person anyways.

But Hypno noticed him being quieter than usual, and in a lull in their conversation, he attempted to swap to merspeak.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a little fast for me today.”

“Too fast?” he asked, seemingly clarifying if he had understood him correctly.

XB nodded.

“You know, I am thinking,” Hypno said, clearly struggling for the words. “Can teach Merspeak to Hermits if helps?”

“No,” xB snapped.

Hypno looked at him startled.

Beef looked up from his task at the harsh word, curiously eyeing the two of them, but he stayed quiet.

“Did I say something wrong?” Hypno asked, switching back to English.

“It’s just,” he sighed, trailing off. “Merspeak was the only thing that was ever really mine, you know? Up on the surface, I mean. It sounds selfish but I don’t want anyone to take that away from me.”

“I think I understand,” Hypno said. “I didn’t mean to upset you, I’m sorry.”

XB shook his head. “It’s fine.”

Using merspeak lately had left a sour taste on his tongue anyways.

He bolted upright with a silent gasp for air, his heart racing and blood rushing in his ears. His sharp fingernails dug into his arms, until he slowly returned back to the present and calmed down from his nightmare.

In the beds on the other side of the room, the shadowed figures of Cleo and False continued to sleep, oblivious to his rushing pulse.

Still feeling the adrenaline thrumming below his skin, he got up as silently as he could and slipped out the door, leaving his boots behind.

The cold night air felt like a blessing on his scales, the wind crisp and salty as it played with the strands of his hair.

He made his way over to the railing, sitting down to stare at the stars.

Behind him, he could hear the ocean, soft and familiar to his ears. Above him was the night sky, vast and foreign.

It was beautiful.

He sat there for a long time, before the door to the deck creaked open, and soft steps made their way towards him.

XB tore his gaze away from the countless lights above and looked at the approaching pirate.

It was Xisuma, his hair loose and falling into his eyes.

“Can I join you?” He asked. Quietly to not destroy the odd serenity of the night.

It wasn’t like xB could say no, so he gave a court nod.

Xisuma sat down at the railing next to him, leaving a gap that was somehow not big enough but still just big enough to not make xB bolt.

They sat in silence for a while, but xB couldn’t really look at the stars anymore. Instead he was sneaking glances at the pirate captain, trying to figure out what his deal was, or if he really just wanted to stargaze next to him.

After a few tense minutes, Xisuma broke the silence.

“False told me that you thought I’m human,” he said, meeting one of xBs glances.

Caught, he couldn’t help but blush. Then the words registered.

“You aren’t?”

Xisuma chuckled, shaking his head. Then he tugged down his scarf, and xB could see an odd dark substance on his chin.

It looked like it was oozing out of his mouth, and nose.

“I’m just used to hiding it. A lot of us are,” Xisuma explained. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize that was why you were avoiding me.”

XB flushed bright red, and he was sure it was visible even in the dim light of the moon.

“I’m sorry for assuming,” he mumbled.

Xisuma shook his head.

“I don’t know what happened to you, and I’m not going to ask. It’s good that you’re cautious, and I know it’s hard to trust in the good of people if you’ve never seen them actually be good. But not every human is like the ones you’ve met,” Xisuma said. “All that just to say, don’t step down on their level. Don’t hate all of them like some of them hate all of us.”

XB nodded.

“I’ll try. No promises.”

Xisuma chuckled again. “I’ll take it.”

Then he looked back up at the stars.

This time, xB joined him in stargazing.

“Uh, hi.”

XB looked up from his dinner, eating early to avoid the big rush. Although he had talked and warmed up to most of the Hermits, he still didn’t even know the names of a bunch of them, and big groups still made him nervous.

In front of him was one of the Hermits he hadn’t properly met yet. A man with scruffy stubble, brown hair, and a comically large pair of glasses on his nose.

“Hello,” he replied cautiously, setting down his fork but not letting go of it yet.

“I’m Keralis!” he introduced himself, grinning brightly. The big glasses made him look oddly bug-like. “I wanted to properly introduce myself to your sweet face!”

“What?”

“You’re a Sweetface!”

Confused, xB touched his skin. Was there any food on it? Was this a saying or figure of speech he wasn’t aware of? English had an awful lot of those.

The guy in front of him beamed, seemingly unaware of his confusion.

“There’s actually another reason I wanted to talk with you, but I had to compliment your pretty face!”

XB’s grip on his fork tightened. “Don’t call me that,” he hissed, memories of steel grey eyes flashing through his mind.

Keralis’ smile dropped. “Sorry.”

“What did you want?” he couldn’t help the way his tone dripped with hostility, the situation just a little too close to his unwanted memories.

“I’m just- It’s- Uh,” he stammered, before collecting his thoughts. “Sorry, it’s just. Shashwammy told me that you told him that you don’t like humans, and I didn’t ask why but I can imagine why and I don’t blame you, but anyways he told me I should tell you that I’m the only human on board right now, and I’m very sorry for whatever happened, but I promise I’m not like them and if there’s any way I can prove it I would love to, because I really want to be your friend too.”

As soon as xB had processed the sheer amount of words the man had just blurted out, he felt his blood turn ice cold.

Suddenly there was a pair of grey eyes behind those big glasses, and the scars on his neck began to itch, and he felt phantom hands on his body.

He knew he was about to have a panic attack, and the middle of the empty mess hall in front of the only human on board was not the place where he wanted to have one.

So he stood up without a word and fled to have his panic attack in peace.

Etho had fulfilled his promise, teaching xB the basics of fighting with a dagger, explaining the technique with the patience of a parent teaching their toddler. XB appreciated it, even if he felt clumsy and like he was making no progress at all.

So when the Hermits above deck started shouting about an approaching ship, he was asked if he wanted to try and fight, or if he’d rather stay below deck in relative safety.

Etho had been the one with him asking, and although xB was itching to fight and give way to the simmering anger below his skin, it was also raining.

“Water makes me transform,” he said quietly. “I won’t be of any help.”

“Oh,” Etho said, eyes lighting up in understanding.

“I didn’t know that rain also does it, I kind of assumed it would only be salt water like it is for Hypno. Sorry I should have asked.”

“I don’t know if rain does it, I’ve never been outside during it. I’d rather not try,” xB confessed.

“Oh, okay!” Etho turned, his hand on the knife hanging from his belt. “No one’s forcing you to! I gotta go now, stay safe!”

XB felt like he had disappointed him, watching him hurry down the corridor.

Keralis found him again two days later, no matter how hard xB was trying to avoid him.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, when xB whirled as soon as he spotted him to flee the other direction.

“I don’t know what I said but I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry,” he repeated, and xB felt like an asshole for trying to run away.

So he turned to face the human, fighting the urge to look anywhere but his eyes.

They were brown, and behind ridiculously huge glasses. He didn’t look anything like the lord. He had promised Xisuma to at least give humans the benefit of doubt.

So he took a deep breath and forced the quiver out of his voice.

“Don’t call me pretty ever again. Don’t call me beautiful or cute or feminine or anything like that either,” he demanded.

Keralis nodded feverishly.

“I won’t, I promise! I am sorry, truly,” he winced, wringing his hands. “Should I stop saying sweet face too?”

XB stared at him for a while. He still didn’t understand that one, so it didn’t make him want to run away.

“That one’s fine.”

Keralis beamed. XB felt like he had agreed to something he was going to regret. 

“Hey, xB!” someone called his name from the crow’s nest.

He looked up just in time to see Grian swoop down from it to land next to him, perching on the ship's railing.

“I have an offer, now that Doc said you’re better again,” he started.

XB nodded, prompting him to continue.

“Well, I was thinking how you can get down to the water with a ladder, but you can’t really climb up again once you’ve transformed, you know? So if you want to go take a swim I can carry you back up on deck afterwards,” he explained, a smile on his face, spreading his wings as if making a point.

XB’s hand itched for the little knife on a stick stolen from Doc’s office that he was still carrying around in his pocket.

They wanted him to suffer after all, they were going to make him transform and then they’d realize how valuable he actually was and were going to sell him off at the next town.

As soon as they reached land again they would chain him up and drag him off their ship and to a market.

How had he been so foolish to start feeling comfortable around them? How could he have let his guard down just because most of them weren’t human?

In front of him, Grian’s smile started to falter.

“XB? Did I say something wrong?”

He couldn’t let him notice how much his threat scared him. He had to pretend that he wasn’t terrified, maybe then he wouldn’t follow through with it.

So he forced himself to shake his head. “Everything’s alright. Thank you for the offer but I don’t want to swim right now.” His voice felt small and shaky, carrying none of the confidence he willed himself to have.

“No problem!” Grian beamed. “Just let me know if you change your mind!”

Then he took off from the railing, swooping a circle around the ship before flying back up to the crow’s nest.

XB fled below the deck as soon as he couldn’t see the winged pirate anymore.

Chapter Text

XB was engrossed in practicing his knots and distracted, so he didn’t notice the heavy dark clouds pulling up.

The Hermits were getting the ship ready for a storm, and by the time xB finally realized the force with which the wind had picked up, it was too late.

Heavy raindrops were hitting his head, and he dropped his half-finished knot from his fingers. It fell on the wooden deck of the ship, which rapidly darkened from the sudden falling rain.

He managed two staggering steps towards the safety of shelter when his legs gave out from under him.

His heart was racing in his ears, and the only thing he could hear was the blood rushing in his veins and the rain peltering the ship.

It was too late. He had fucked up. He was already soaking wet, and he was going to transform any second now. Any moment he would be in painful agony, and the Hermits would realize what a valuable passenger they actually had, and without the mobility of his legs he was helpless on land.

They were going to tie him up and throw him into some dark dingy room and then sell him off for a nice hefty fortune at the next port. He had gone and ruined his brief stint of freedom just because he had been too stupid to notice that it was about to rain. Why had he been above deck at all? Why had he left the safety of a shelter? Why was he this stupid?

His chest hurt, his ears were ringing, and he was such a pathetic fuckup.

He was clutching his hair above his head so tightly it hurt, but he barely felt it. All he felt were the raindrops soaking through his shirt and dripping down his face into his beard.

They were gonna make him chop it off again, so he would be easier to sell. Maybe put him in a dress too. Or in one of those stupid cropped shirts the Lord had made him wear. Would they put a big collar on him too to cover up the ring of scars on his neck? Make him wear make up to cover the countless little cuts on his body?

He wasn’t getting any air. There were tears streaming down his face and merging with the rain.

All he heard was water. The rain hitting the deck, his own wet sobs, the raging waves that were shaking the ship violently.

Hands grabbed his shoulders firmly and it was what finally got him moving.

He screamed, lashing out with his sharp fingernails in the direction of the person holding on to him, trying to push away with his useless tail.

He was panicking, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself.

They finally realized. They were going to tie him up so he couldn’t move anymore. He had to stop them.

“Let go, don’t touch me!” he sobbed, even though there weren’t even any hands on him anymore.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, not touching anymore!” A voice said.

XB scooted further back, away from the voice. He wasn’t going to let them capture him again, he needed to run.

But the tears and the rain were blurring his vision, and he couldn’t even tell up from down anymore the ship was shaking so badly.

“XB! Listen to me!” the voice continued. XB shook his head. He should never have told them his name. They were trying to get under his skin to get his defenses down. They were going to tie him up and sell him at the next port.

“XB please, whatever you think is happening is only in your head! I need you to snap out of it!”

His head? Of course it was in his head that’s where his thoughts happened.

He scooted further away from the voice. Where was the railing? He had his tail back, if he could just get back in the ocean he could run away. He could flee to the bottom of the sea and never come back up. There was no cursed rain down there either.

It still roared in his ears, blood and rain and waves alike.

“Please, xB, focus! We need to get you below deck!”

That was the last place he wanted to go. They were going to throw him in a cell and no amount of nice asking was going to make him go there of his own accord.

He shook his head again, scooting further from the voice. Where was that stupid railing? He had to get off this ship.

“XB! I need you to stand up and follow me below deck, it’s dangerous out here with the storm!” the voice urged him.

Stand? How the hell was he supposed to stand? And of course it was dangerous up here, there was water here. Water was dangerous, it hurt and made him transform and that made him helpless on land.

“Please, xB! Open your eyes!”

Oh, had they been shut the entire time? That seemed like a reasonable request, at least. It would be nice to know who he was trying to fend off.

He forced his eyes open and blinked the rain away from his lashes.

The first thing he saw was Keralis kneeling just in front of him, bracing his hands against the deck of the ship. Behind him were Hermits running back and forth, tying down cannons and cargo, and shouting instructions at each other over the rush of the wind.

Xisuma was at the wheel, clearly straining in the effort of getting the ship to listen to his command, but he still managed to spare a concerned glance at him and Keralis who was kneeling in the middle of the deck.

Then he saw his legs.

There was no tail. The pain had never come. He had panicked so much he never even realized that the rain had not made him transform at all.

His breathing suddenly felt too fast, and his racing thoughts swiveled to an abrupt stop.

“Oh,” he breathed, chest aching from his previous hyperventilating.

“Are you back with me?” Keralis asked, tentatively holding out a hand.

XB nodded, but didn’t take the hand yet. His fingers were still clenched around nothing, and he didn’t trust himself to not hurt Keralis with his claws should he touch him.

“We have to get below deck, it’s too dangerous up here during a storm if you don’t know what you’re doing yet,” Keralis explained. “We need to hurry. Can you stand?”

XB nodded again, unclenching his stiff fingers.

The ship suddenly lurched to the side, and xB immediately launched himself at Keralis. The two of them were clutching each other’s arms, doing their best to stay on board the ship.

With sudden dread, xB realized that although the rain hadn’t made him transform, the ocean very much would. And there were waves towering as high as their ship.

Filled with a different kind of frantic panic, xB fought himself upright, stabilizing his weight with Keralis’ help.

“Go!” Keralis shouted over the raging of the storm, and xB started staggering towards shelter.

Below his feet, the wood was groaning.

Behind him, he could hear Xisuma scream some instructions, but he was lacking the vocabulary to actually understand what he had said. Keralis had understood though, and his iron grip on xBs arm seemed to get even stronger, and he took a step towards the mast of the ship to cling onto the rope that was slung around the base of it.

As soon as he had a hold of it, the bow of the ship dipped down, and xB felt his heart drop down into his stomach. Next to him he watched the sea tower over the ship for a brief moment, and then as fast as the drop had happened it stopped again, the bow crashing against the wild sea, and with it his stomach lurched back in place.

XBs legs capitulated a second time, and he was thrown onto the rain soaked floorboards, his knees complaining over the rough treatment. With his fall, he felt Keralis’ iron grip on his arm slacken, not strong enough to hold onto xBs weight, but not yet letting go.

Realizing that it was probably too late to still make it below deck safely, xB scooched over the deck towards the mast to grab a hold of the rope there himself, but just before he reached it, another wave hit the side of the ship.

His fingers brushed past the rope, and when he started to skid across the deck, his weight and hold on Keralis’ arm dragged him right along. XB felt his heart drop, and for a short moment, both of them stared at each other with wide eyes.

Then the wave swallowed both of them up.

The pain was immediate, and xB screamed into the salty water. His back crashed against the wooden railing, making him see stars from the force, and knocking the remaining air from his lungs.

Then the last bits of the wave washed over them, and xB watched how the ocean dragged Keralis right overboard.

He heard the gut churning scream from Xisuma behind him all too clearly, voice dripping with despair and agony.

His legs were burning and already locking stiffly into place, but it wasn’t too late yet.

He owed Keralis for talking him out of his panic just moments before, calming him down and putting his own life in danger. Keralis had tried to protect him until the very last moment. And he was about to transform anyway.

XB fought himself upright on stiff legs, then hauled himself over the railing. There was another faint scream behind him, and he thought it might have been his name.

Another shock of pain ran through his body when he hit the surface, hot and burning in his stomach.

He suppressed his screams more by instinct than anything else. With clammy fingers, he undid his shoelaces, while his eyes scanned the stormy sea for any trace of Keralis.

His trousers were a lost cause when the familiar stitching burning sensations tells him that his legs had fused back into a tail, and he faintly heard the fabric ripping over the angry screams of the waves.

A few seconds later, he regained control of his body, twisting around in the water to try and find Keralis.

He could see the keel of the Hermitcraft still stubbornly holding on, dancing on the waves like a toy boat, and his boots whirling around towards the depths of the ocean. Then he finally spotted a human shaped figure being thrown around in the waves like a doll.

Even though there was quite a distance between them, xB was quick to close it now that he had his tail. There was no time to enjoy the swim, and all the space at his disposal, so much bigger than his tiny aquarium back at the mansion.

As soon as he reached Keralis, he wrapped his arms around Keralis’ torso and shot back up to the surface to bring the man’s head above water.

It only took a split second after they breached the ocean’s surface for Keralis to take a raspy breath in and to start coughing, letting xB know he was still alive.

“Idiot,” he mumbled, while draping Keralis’ arms over his shoulders to carry him more easily on his back.

Keralis chuckled weakly, before coughing more water out of his lungs.

XB couldn’t do more but hold him over water, trying to spot the Hermitcraft past the towering waves.

“S’rry,” Keralis mumbled back, slurring the letters together. “Head hur’s.”

“Try to stay awake,” xB answered. “You might have a concussion.”

His own back was aching from how he had been slammed against the railing, and he was sure he would have significant bruises tomorrow. But that was a problem for tomorrow, for now he had to get Keralis back to the Hermitcraft.

It took him another spin in the water to find the ship, already quite a significant distance away, but nothing xB couldn’t catch up with. It would just take him a little longer, having to stick to the surface due to his passenger.

His arms and tail were starting to burn from exhaustion, not used to this much physical strain anymore, but the storm started to die down while he closed the distance to the ship at least. Through it all, he periodically checked up on Keralis to make sure he stayed awake, and his responses kept coming back clearer and clearer.

Once he got closer to the ship, he could make out figures at the railing, scanning the waters surface. They were looking for them. They fully expected xB to return. And they had been right. He didn’t know how to feel about this. Maybe he could just drop off Keralis and disappear to the ocean floor?

But something deep in him stirred at the thought of leaving. He banished it to the back of his mind to deal with later and kept swimming closer.

It only took a few more minutes for the Hermits to spot him in the waves, and xB could see the way their shoulders sagged in relief.

A colorful blur against the sky swooped down to them, and xB was suddenly very glad Grian could fly to bring them back up on deck.

“I’ll be right back,” Grian shoued, picking Keralis from his back. Then he flew back up to the ship, and xB was left in the water. On his own.

This was his chance.

He could leave, dive down to the ocean floor and stay there. Swim until he found a Merfolk settlement, and from there he could get directions back home.

Instead, he stayed at the surface and watched as Grian dropped off Keralis into Doc’s and Xisuma’s waiting arms.

He watched him fly back for him. And he stayed, unable to bear the thought of staying on the dark ocean floor anymore, now that he’s had a taste of freedom and friendship.

He let Grian pick him up.

As soon as Grian lowered xB down on the deck, Keralis and Xisuma both were falling around his neck, squeezing him in the tightest hug he’d experienced in years.

He only hesitated for a moment, before melting into their touch, and carefully hugging them back.

They were both shaking, all three of them were soaking wet, and the rain was still steadily hitting their shoulders, but xB felt oddly warm in their embrace.

Xisuma’s voice was hoarse and barely a whisper, shaky and raw with emotion, when he said, “thank you, xB,” and xB didn’t know how to feel.

“I’m so glad both of you are alive, thank you so much, thank you,” he repeats, and xB lacked the words to reply.

Quietly he wondered if Xisuma was glad he was alive because he truly cared about him, or if he was just glad because he’d seen him with his tail now and realized how much he was actually worth? His heart hoped for the first, but his brain warned him of the second.

Despite every fiber in his body longing for it to never end, eventually Xisuma had to let go of their three-way hug. After all, he was still their captain, and he couldn’t abandon his post for so long, especially not right after a storm.

Instead, Keralis helped xB to sit against the railing, and once the rain died down completely, Doc brought the two blankets to warm up with.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and xB found himself shivering again. Keralis scooched closer wordlessly, letting their shoulders touch, and the body heat radiating off of him despite almost drowning just an hour before, slowly stopped the chill in xBs bones.

“Thank you,” Keralis eventually broke the silence between them. “You had no reason to save me, and I know you dislike humans. So, thank you.”

XB fiddled with the edge of his blanket.

“I was going to transform anyway,” he mumbled. There was a loose thread on the edge of the blanket, so he started to pull at it.

“I wouldn’t have jumped in after you if I hadn’t been hit by that wave as well,” he elaborated, painfully honest. “Sorry,” he added after a moment of consideration.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Keralis shake his head.

“You had no obligation to save me. No one would have blamed you if you didn’t.”

XB doubted the accuracy of that statement, but he hummed in response.

“Thank you for stopping my panic attack before all this,” he said, changing the topic.

“Of course,” Keralis replied.

After a few moments of silence, he asked: “Why were you so scared in the first place?”

XB flinched at the question, and Keralis immediately backtracked.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer! I was just wondering if I said anything wrong, or if it was anything specific we have to avoid?”

XB interrupted his spiraling by shaking his head.

“It wasn’t you.”

“Oh. I’m glad.”

“That was the first time I was out in rain. I thought I would transform.”

“Oh.” Keralis fell silent again. XB didn’t pick the conversation back up either.

There was a painful hot burning starting in his stomach, his tail prickling uncomfortably. He only had a few more minutes before the agony.

“Does transforming scare you?” Keralis asked quietly.

And wasn’t that a loaded question.

“It terrifies me,” he found himself answering without his brain's consent. They could use this against him. Why was he speaking? But still, he didn’t stop. “It hurts.”

“Oh,” Keralis said again. Then: “I’m sorry. We didn’t know.”

XB shook his head. “I didn’t say.”

Before Keralis could pick their awkward personal conversation back up, the slowly building pain in xB’s core spiked, and he flinched, curling himself into a tighter ball.

“XB?” Keralis asked, clearly concerned.

“Sorry,” he bit out through clenched teeth. “Transforming.”

And then he had to scream, digging his own claws into his arms, with enough force to draw blood. Faintly he feels a warm hand on his shoulder, trying in vain to soothe him. Tears prickled in the corners of his eyes, black spots danced across his vision, and multiple voices saying his name reached him through the noise in his ears.

The rushing of blood in his ears faded together with the pain in his reacquired legs. Panting, he uncurled himself, lifting his blurry gaze up at the few people around him.

Keralis was at his side, with a hand on his shoulder. Xisuma and Doc kneeled in front of him, the relief clear on their faces when they saw that he was doing better again. False, Hypno and Etho were hovering a short distance away, clearly not wanting to crowd him any further, but also not willing to leave until they were sure he was fine.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice raspy and strained from all the screaming. “Give me two minutes and I’ll be fine.”

An emotion xB couldn’t name flickered over Xisuma’s face, but it was gone as fast as it had come. He reached out to him, and xB couldn’t help but flinch backwards against the railing, away from the captain’s hands.

“Sorry,” he mumbled again. Then he brushed Keralis’ hand from his shoulder, suddenly feeling burning hot and uncomfortable in his skin. He pulled the blanket tighter around body and fought himself on shaking feet. Multiple pairs of hands were hovering close by, as if they wanted to support him but didn’t dare to touch him. He was glad they didn’t.

“I need a moment,” he mumbled, and basically fled below deck.

Chapter Text

After the storm, it felt like the Hermis were walking on eggshells around him. At first, he was glad they didn’t crowd him or ask him about the storm, but after a few days, it started making him feel left out.

It was weird, going from not trusting the pirates to suddenly feeling like he was missing out.

So, when he found himself regretting not having left for the seafloor, he took his courage together and requested to move into the men’s quarters.

It was as if the invisible wall around him broke at the request, and the Hermits began to talk freely with him again. A day later, he was also back on the chore chart. He was oddly relieved about it.

It took him two months to realize that he considered the Hermits his friends now. Even if a small part of his brain was still waiting for them to betray him. Waiting for the day they decided to chain him up and drop him off at the nearest port for some quick money, no matter how many ports they had already stopped at since he had boarded the ship.

But now he could tell that his fear was irrational. It had been months since they had seen his tail, and their behavior towards him hadn’t changed. If anything, they had grown friendlier with him.

They still avoided touching him, and he could tell they were doing it out of consideration for him, but he was also craving the way the other Hermits would jug and clap each other’s backs jovially.

He didn’t know how to bring it up, so he didn’t.

It had taken the other Hermits a while to convince him, but xB had agreed to accompany a group of them to shore leave to go to a bar and ‘experience the proper pirate life’, as Jevin had put it.

And after telling the group – that had consisted of only Hermits that could pass as human – that he didn’t want to hide, Doc had perked up and requested to tag along as well.

So here they were, nine of them crammed into a booth intended for six, because the tavern had already been full when they had entered, and it had only gotten worse since.

The poor serving staff could barely navigate around the room and had even less of a chance with keeping up with the demand. XB had watched a lot of people take matters into their own hands and order drinks for the table right at the bar, carrying them back themselves.

It seemed to be standard practice here, and none of the staff seemed offended by the customers by passing the servers.

It was loud in the bar, and xB had no chance of following the conversation at the other end of the table, so he flip flopped with his attention between the conversation next to him and right across. Doc was easy to hear above the noise, and he was sitting right across from him, teasing Etho about something he had no context on.

The way Bdubs next to Etho was flushing red, trying to hide between his pulled up shoulders, it must be the most obscene gossip, so he wasn’t exactly trying to decipher the conversation either.

Next to him were Jevin and Hypno, focused intently on a discussion of why their favorite colors (teal and yellow respectively) were clearly the best color to ever exist. They were a few drinks deep, so their arguments had been looping for the past ten minutes.

His own glass was empty, none of the service staff in sight, so he decided to just take matters into his own hands, like he had been seeing all the other tables do.

“I’m getting drinks, does anyone want another one?” he asked the table, getting up from his seat at the edge of the booth.

After counting the hands shooting into the air with demands for more ale and accepting a few gold coins from Joe to pay for the entire order, he made his way past the overfilled chairs and drunken dancers cluttering the tavern, successfully arriving at the bar.

The bartender was busy talking to someone at the other end of the long table, so he curiously studied the labels on all the bottles behind the counter, trying to decipher the swirly letters to mostly no avail.

He would have to ask Joe to practice those fancy twirly letters with him next. Was that an S or a B? Neither made sense.

Someone stepped up to the counter next to him, at least a head taller than him.

He was standing uncomfortably close. XB took a step to the left, trying to make a little room. The guy mimicked him. XB felt the tension in his body rise.

At that moment, the bartender came over to take his order. XB rattled it off, handing over the coins Joe had given him. The bartender nodded and turned back to get the appropriate bottles off the shelf.

“Hey,” the guy next to him said. “I’ve never seen you around here, you new in town?”

XB decided to ignore him. The guy leaned in, draping an arm over his shoulder. Immediately, his entire body froze up, his skin crawling.

“Come on, don’t play shy with me,” he drawled, the stink of alcohol hot on his breath. “You’re a pretty one, don’t you wanna have a little fun while you’re in town?”

It took all his willpower to not elbow the guy into the stomach at the word ‘pretty’. Or over the way he wasn’t letting up, despite xB clearly not showing any interest.

XB stole a glance towards the Hermits table. It was turned away from the bar, he couldn’t see a single one of them. Which meant they couldn’t see him. They were not going to come and help him. He had to take care of this himself.

Through gritted teeth, he hissed: “Get your arm off me.”

The man just laughed, the grip on his shoulder tightening. “Oh come on, don’t be like that. I promise I’ll take good care of you, pet.”

Before xB could plunge his claws into the creep's stomach, the bartender returned with his drinks, reminding him where he was. He couldn’t make a scene in the middle of the tavern, no matter how badly he wanted to. He was already lucky they had let him and the other Hermits in here, if he fucked this up they were gonna throw them out and it would all be his fault.

The bartender glanced at the guy still hanging onto his shoulder, but didn’t comment on it. He clearly wasn’t gonna help xB either.

“Anything else?” he asked, gaze flickering from xB to the guy at his side.

“That’s everything, thank you,” the man next to him drawled. The bartender nodded and left. XB felt betrayed, even though he hadn’t been expecting any help.

Then, another guy stepped up to xBs side, flanking him.

“Found a cute little toy for us?” he asked the taller guy, and xB fought the urge to claw his eyes out.

“He’s being shy. But don’t worry, I’ll convince you no matter how long it takes, Sweetheart.”

He clearly wasn’t going to accept no for an answer. But he couldn’t make a scene here either, especially now that there were two of them. Who knew how many more there were. So he would have to play along to get outside, and then he could rip their throats out.

So he made a show of exhaling in a loud sigh, as if their grossness had somehow convinced him.

He looked up at the tall guy, looking up at him through his lashes. He had shortly cropped blonde hair and sharp cheekbones, probably considered conventionally attractive.

It took all his control not to let the venom drop from his voice when he said: “Fine. But someone has to take these drinks to my friends so they’re not going to look for me.”

“Of course,” the guy grinned, his teeth sharp and shaped like fangs, similar to his own. XB tried not to let the shock show on his face. The creep wasn’t human.

“There’s another good friend of ours, he can take care of that,” he waved down a portly guy with red hair, sitting a little way down at the bar. XBs hope – that only one of these guys would come outside with him – was shattered that very moment.

That would make it trickier. Not impossible, but not easy either.

The two guys flanking him explained the situation to the third, and then they not so subtly steered him towards the door. The first guy’s hand was still clinging to his shoulder, as if he knew that xB had no intention at all of doing any of what they were thinking of.

He wondered if the Hermits would come outside looking for him if a stranger showed up with their drinks, or if they thought that he went voluntarily and left them behind without a word.

The door fell shut behind him and the noise of the tavern immediately gave way to the quiet of nighttime. There weren’t any stragglers on the road besides xB and the two men flanking him. But still, he didn’t exactly want to murder in the open road in front of the tavern, that would probably get him banned as well.

So after a few steps down the road he located an alley, and an idea popped into his head.

He looked back up at the first guy still guiding him and attempted to bat his eyelashes. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded, but the sharp grin it earned him was probably a good reaction.

“Say, why don’t we duck into that alley there? I know a little something I’m sure you guys would like,” the words left a sour taste on his tongue, but it did the trick.

“Oh, an adventurous one, are we? Of course, sugar!”

He wondered how these guys could be so stupid and believe he actually meant a word he was saying right now, with how cold he had behaved towards their advances just mere minutes ago.

They didn’t seem drunk, but maybe they were just good at hiding it?

They blindly followed him into the alley, and when xB stopped to turn around to the first guy with a smile, the idiot let go of his shoulder.

It was all the opportunity he needed.

XB darted forwards, aiming his claws right at the blonde guy's neck, driving his nails upwards into the underside of his chin, while simultaneously throwing his entire bodyweight against him, slamming him into the alley wall.

A startled gasp left the guy, and xB felt his claws drag against bone. In one swift motion, he dragged his hand downwards, across the guy's throat, while his left hand went for the dagger hanging from his belt.

He didn’t bother finishing the man off, before twirling around and attacking the second guy with his knife.

That man had clearly been too intoxicated to react in time, his hand still resting on his sword hilt at his belt, when xB plunged his knife right into his stomach, driving it downwards with as much force he could muster to make the wound as deep and fatal as he could.

The guy just gasped, his wide eyed stare dropping from xBs feral grin down to the gaping hole in his stomach. He wheezed again when xB dragged the knife out and collapsed to his feet.

XB bolted around to focus his attention back on the first guy, who was pressing a hand to his windpipe, a furious expression on his handsome face.

In his other hand he held a dagger, ready to take him on.

“You bitch,” he snarled, his voice sounding strained.

“Should have listened to me when I told you to fuck off,” xB hissed back, licking the blood from his knife.

“Your friend tastes like crap,” xB said, because he did. “Maybe you’ll be tastier.”

The guy shivered, then he yelled and attacked xB with the knife.

XB just sidestepped his clumsy attempt, swiping for the arm holding his knife.

The guy grunted before trying again.

XB sidestepped the second attack as well, making another nick into the guy's shoulder.

“You know, my mom always told me not to play with my food, but this is just way too fun,” he taunted, relishing the way the guy's face turned bright red in anger. He couldn’t believe that he had been intimidated by that joke of a man earlier.

“FUCKIN SLUT!” he shouted, wildly slashing his direction again.

XB ignored the insult, instead he ducked underneath the attack, stabbing upwards and driving his knife down to the hilt into the guy's stomach.

At that, the guy yelled in pain, before kicking xB into the side, throwing him backwards onto the cobbled street, his knife still stuck and no longer in his hands.

XB just giggled, clambering back onto his feet.

“If you ask me, you asked for it,” he chuckled, licking some of the blood from his hands. Still gross, but it clearly scared the guy, so it was worth it.

“Hey, your other friend gonna show up here as well? I could show him how fun it was to murder you two for a midnight snack. Maybe I’ll even still be hungry by the time he gets here, there’s definitely more fat on him than on you” he taunted, pointedly looking over at the corpse bleeding out a few steps to the side.

“Go to hell,” the guy hissed, before raising his knife and running at him again.

XB caught his attack by knocking his arm aside and closing in, ramming his knee up into the guy's stomach, driving the knife sticking there even deeper.

“Already been there,” he hissed back, while digging his claws back into the guy's neck.

The man stared at him with wide eyes. XB ripped.

He let the second corpse fall on top of the first, before pulling out his knife and wiping the blood off the blade with his trousers.

It wasn’t very successful, considering that he was completely covered in blood already, but it was the thought that counts. They were never gonna let him go back into the tavern looking like this.

Then he turned around to make his way out of the alleyway, only to spot the Hermits standing there.

“That,” Jevin said. “Was really fucking cool.”

XB could feel himself blushing a bright red.

“Are you injured?” Doc asked next, slowly making his way towards him. “Did they touch you?”

XB shook his head. “Not my blood. And I dealt with it.”

“We can see that,” Etho said, stepping next to Doc. “You sure you’re okay?”

XB nodded. “I think so. But I think I might have to crash in the women’s quarters again for the night.”

Etho nodded, before offering a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Let’s get you home, yeah?”

XB nodded, strangely finding the hand on his shoulder comforting this time around.

When he looked up to the other Hermits still waiting on the main street, he made eye contact with Keralis.

As if caught staring, the human looked away.

XB couldn’t help the feeling of bitter betrayal bubbling up, before averting his gaze himself.

Chapter Text

XB was standing by the railing of the Hermits Crafted, eyes fixed on the ship currently trying to outrun them. His heartbeat was racing from a mixture of excitement and nerves, but his hands were steady.

Next to him, Keralis gave him a reassuring smile. He grinned back.

This wasn’t the first battle the Hermits had ended up in since xB had joined them, but it was the first one he was actively participating in, since the previous few ships had all given up as soon as the Hermits had released a warning shot. This time, the crew was stubborn and kept trying to run.

They had been tailing the ship for a good thirty minutes already, and it was only a question of a few more minutes until they would catch up and get back into firing range. Xisuma had explained how it fitted their usual target profile, a merchant ship, but not one that flew the flag of a big nation. A private company, or the ship of someone wealthy at least.

Now that they had drawn closer and could make out more of the details of the ship, xB couldn’t help but think that the ship looked oddly familiar. Maybe he had seen it in a port somewhere before?

It took another thirty minutes before xB could finally board the other ship and join in the battle himself. He’d been itching for another fight.

As soon as he had jumped the railing, a sailor caught sight of him and gasped in surprise.

“Captain!” the sailor yelled, turning around and trying to run away from him. XB didn’t let him – neither running away nor finishing whatever he had been trying to tell his captain.

He just flung his knife forwards like Etho had taught him, hitting the running sailor square between the shoulder blades.

He wheezed and stumbled to his knees, and before he could get back up, xB had caught up and used his second knife to slit the sailors throat in one swift motion.

Then he pulled out his first knife and focused his attention onto his next target with a grin.

Most of the sailors were already injured, with their ship in splinters from the repeated cannon shots the Hermits had fired under Scar’s instructions.

The next two sailors xB targeted went down basically almost as quickly as the first one, even if the second one of them had landed a good kick in xBs ribs, which was sure to turn a deep purple bruise soon.

But as soon as he’d felled the man in retaliation, he attacked the next sailor in his periphery. It had been one that had teamed up with a second guy against Hypno, giving his friend a hard time.

XB jumped him from behind, managing to slit the sailors throat after a brief struggle, while Hypno used the moment of surprise to knock the other guy to the ground with a well placed boot to the knee.

“Thanks!” Hypno shouted, before bringing his sword down onto the sailor he’d forced to the floor.

“No worries,” xB said, already running for his next target.

That sailor put up a little more of a fight, managing to land a punch to his jaw that made xBs eyes water, and a subsequent cut in his thigh, that xB had been too slow to properly dodge since he hadn’t been able to see it properly.

He growled at the pain, before he knocked the man's sword away with his dagger – which only worked since the man had already been wounded and heavily bleeding – and closing the distance for a well-aimed stab into the sailors windpipe.

The moment the sailor collapsed to the ground, he made eye contact with Keralis, whose eyes widened in surprise. But not at him. Something behind him.

“XB, behind you!” Keralis shouted a warning.

He whirled around, barely avoiding the blade that had come for his back. It nicked his shoulder, and he hissed in pain and anger at the sailor wielding the saber.

For having been on the losing side of a prolonged battle, the sailor still looked relatively healthy. He only had a few nicks and bruises, like xB himself. He looked like a worthy challenge.

XB grinned, and the sailor grimaced back.

“Freak,” he hissed, and immediately xBs grin fell.

“This freak will be what kills you,” he growled, before darting forwards.

The sailor parried his knife with his blade, interrupting xBs attempt at closing the distance between them.

Then he attacked, slashing with a frankly frightening speed for the size of the blade. XB got his knife up just in time and barely avoided getting stabbed through the chest by jumping backwards reflexively. He heard the tearing of fabric, but it thankfully hadn’t been his skin.

The sailor’s face lit up triumphantly, clearly thinking he’d already won.

He jabbed forwards with his saber again, trying for speed over form. But this time, xB was ready for his freakishly fast attack, and let himself drop to the floor to avoid the blade.

And now, low and past the blade, he could dart forwards himself, stabbing the sailor into the stomach with his knife in a flash, before immediately sprinting past him, avoiding the blade that came after xB just a split second after.

The sailor whirled around before xB could attack his back, but he was sporting a fresh gaping wound in the stomach now, and it was only a question of time before he would be too weak to continue fighting. As long as he didn’t mess up now, xB had already won.

“Fucking fish,” he cursed, and at the insult, xBs manic grin came back.

“Told you I’d kill you”, he taunted. “I think I’ll eat your liver for dinner; think you taste good?”

The sailor growled and attacked again. In his rage, his form was terrible. Exactly what xB had wanted to achieve.

He kicked the sailors hand, knocking the blade straight from his grip, then he used the momentum from the kick to whirl around and punch him in the face. Hard.

The sailor shouted in pain when he collapsed to the ground, and xB was on him immediately.

XB stabbed his dagger through his hand right into the floorboards and cackled at the screams when he twisted the blade.

He threw a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t about to be ambushed again, but the Hermits clearly had the upper hand and were taking down the last few remaining sailors that very moment. He could take his time with this guy.

“Maybe I should take a bite as an appetizer?” he taunted, twisting the knife the other way. The sailor just shouted, tears streaming down his face, teeth grinding to bite back more screams.

“You even get to pick, aren’t you lucky?” XB said, gripping the sailors face with his claws. He watched blood quell from the pinpricks he made. “Arm our thigh?”

“Freak of nature,” the sailor cursed, instead of answering his question.

“Wrong,” xB hissed, pulling his dagger out of the guy's hand. He screamed again. XB dug his nails deeper.

“Arm or thigh?”

“Screw you.”

“Fine.” xB stabbed his dagger into the man’s shoulder, more ripping than cutting out a chunk of flesh. It thudded to the wooden deck with a wet squelch. The sailor screamed even louder than before. “I’ll try both.”

He stabbed the dagger back into the guy's stomach and left it there to free his hand, then he picked up the meat from the blood stained wooden planks and took a bite.

“Hm,” he said, before swallowing his mouthful. “A little chewy, but still tasty.” He could feel the blood run down from the corner of his mouth into his beard and grinned at the horrified expression the sailor made at the sight.

“Oh, want the rest?” he asked.

The sailor's face turned green, and he immediately shut his mouth. XB cackled.

“Too bad, it’s all mine.” Then he ate the rest. The sailor looked absolutely miserable. XB had the time of his life.

“Thigh is usually my favorite, you know,” he said cheerily, while licking blood from his fingers. “Big fan of heart and liver as well. But the liver is tricky because it tastes bad after alcohol poisoning.”

The sailor stared at him, face ashen grey. There were sweat and tears running down his face. XB kept chatting away.

“Fresh always tastes best as well. And it doesn’t get fresher than alive, don’t you think?”

He pulled the knife back out of the guy's stomach, and he didn’t manage much more than a strained wheeze.

“Not like you’ll be alive for much longer,” he giggled, stabbing the blade into the guy's thigh. He earned a choked off and hoarse scream as a response.

“Come on, hang on a little bit longer, I gotta tell you if your arm or thigh was better!”

“Just kill me,” the sailor wheezed, forcing the words out.

XB grinned. “No.”

Then he took a bite without breaking eye contact. The sailor gagged.

“Yup!” xB told him happily, “Definitely better than arm.”

He took another bite.

Behind him, someone familiar laughed.

“Just kill the poor guy,” Hypno said.

XB looked up, swallowing before answering.

“Want some?” he asked, offering the piece of thigh he still held in his blood stained hand.

Hypno shook his head. “No thank you, I don't like the taste much.”

XB shrugged. “More for me.” He popped the last bit in his mouth, then he stood up, ignoring the pained whimpers coming from the sailor. He could bleed out for all he cared.

“Wanna help me look inside for supplies?” Hypno asked.

XB nodded, wiping his blood soaked hands on his equally blood soaked trousers. That was his second ruined pair in just as many weeks. Maybe he should switch to wearing black?

He and Hypno walked across the deck, and xB took the lead.

When he opened the door to the belly of the ship with Hypno right behind him, the uncanny feeling of familiarity came back with full force. He knew this hallway.

With his heart beating all the way up his throat, he entered into the dimly lit hallway. His feet carried him past the first few doors without his consent, rounding the corner.

Right there on the floor where his eyes flitted to first was a faint, faded, rusty stain on the floorboards. An old bloodstain that had clearly been attempted to wash away multiple times, but the efforts had never quite succeeded.

It was the exact same location he had taken a life for the first time by ripping out a sailors throat.

He knew this boat. It had haunted his nightmares for years.

“XB?” Hypno asked behind him, seemingly confused about him stopping in the middle of the hallway.

XB ignored him. This ship had torn him from his home. It had probably continued to do so to many other people in the years since. 

He took off running, leaving Hypno behind.

He still knew the way. It too had been haunting his dreams for years.

It wasn’t far, and he could feel the panic rising in his bones. He ignored it, coming to a sliding stop in front of the door that contained the cell.

XB didn’t allow himself to stop and think, he had to check first. Throwing his entire weight against the door, he slammed it open.

The cell was empty. There was no one inside.

Only faded blood and water stains on the wooden floor. Morbidly, he wondered if any of the blood stains were his own.

At that point, the panic caught up with him. He dropped to the floor, his knees protesting the rough treatment. XB didn’t care. He just wrapped his arms around his torso and began to laugh.

He barely registered the footsteps coming up behind him, didn’t react to the Hermits concernedly asking him if he was alright.

Someone stepped in front of him, and when they sank to their knees he recognized them as Xisuma. The worry was clear on his face, but xB couldn’t stop laughing, his nails digging into his arms with enough force to draw blood.

“Oh, xB,” he said, his voice soft like a warm comforting blanket. He reached out to brush salty tears from his cheeks, and only by then did xB realize that he’d been crying. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Gentle hands helped him up to his feet, soft but firmly guiding him away from the room of his nightmares, back under the sun.

Xisuma led him back over to the Hermits Crafted, xB shaking from sobs and hysterical laughter the entire way. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t stop.

He allowed himself to be led below deck, to Xisuma’s office. His captain closed the door behind the two of them and let his hand fall from xB’s shoulder.

Immediately, he craved the contact again. Craved the safety and warmth from his touch. There was an odd sting in his chest, now that Xisuma had let go.

Trying not to overthink, he turned around to lean his head against Xisuma’s chest, face half buried in his scarf, seeking out the contact again. After a moment of hesitation, Xisuma looped his arms back around his torso in a comforting hug.

And only then did xB allow himself to fall apart.

Chapter Text

When xB woke up the next morning, it was in an unfamiliar location. He was lying in an actual bed, and he was alone in the small cabin.

It took him a few confused moments until the sleepiness wore off before he recognized it as Xisuma’s office. He must have fallen asleep, exhausted and drained from his mental breakdown the day before.

He sat up, the soft blanket falling from his shoulders and letting in the slight morning chill.

That was when he noticed he wasn’t alone after all.

Xisuma was sitting on the floor by the foot end of the bed, leaning against the frame. His head was tilted awkwardly, resting on the edge of the mattress. It looked far from comfortable, especially without a blanket, but xB couldn’t help but smile fondly.

He silently got up from bed, noticing how his boots had been carefully placed next to the bed, and apparently also been cleaned of the blood that had been staining them. But his trousers were stiff from dried blood.

Judging by the dim, red light coming from the little window in the room, it was only just dawn.

XB knew that Xisuma was always up early, and despite it looking uncomfortable and the man probably having neck pain when he finally did wake up, he didn’t want to interrupt his rest. So instead, he took the blanket from the bed and carefully draped it over Xisuma.

Then he picked up his shoes and silently left the cabin.

He made a quick and quiet stop in the men’s cabin to swap his clothes for some clean ones and put on his boots, then he made his way to the kitchen. He could bring Xisuma some tea as a thank you.

It was still early, the Hermitcraft was eerily silent and still empty. Being a notorious early riser himself, he was used to it. He relished the tranquil quiet of early morning.

When he entered the kitchen, only Wels was there. He offered a silent wave in greeting, his silver dragon scales catching the morning sun falling in the window. XB waved back, before setting a pot with water on the stove to boil.

While he looked through the cabinets in search of a tea Xisuma might enjoy, Beef showed up as well.

“Morning,” he greeted, unfazed by xB being up so early. He was here before Beef quite frequently, after all.

“Morning, Beef,” he replied. Then, with a helpless look over the frankly huge collection of teas, he elected to ask instead. “Say, what kind of tea does Xisuma like?”

“Hmm,” Beef said, joining him by the cupboard. “I’m not quite sure if he has a favorite, he drinks everything I set up in the morning. But I do think he prefers black tea.”

After a bit of rummaging, he held out a small tin can to xB.

“With milk!”

“Thank you,” xB smiled, before grabbing two mugs and preparing the tea.

He felt oddly cheerful this morning. Like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. In a sense, it had been.

“Say, yesterday's ship,” he started. “Did we burn it?”

Beef looked up from his breakfast preparations. Then he nodded.

“Good.”

Beef's expression clearly told him that he had questions, but was too nice to ask them out loud.

“You seem oddly happy today,” he said instead. Asking a question without outright asking a question.

“I got my revenge,” xB said. An answer without outright answering.

Beef nodded, apparently satisfied with his not-answer.

“Thank you for the tea,” xB said, then he left the kitchen.

He didn’t meet anyone else on his way back to Xisuma's cabin, and when he carefully pushed the door open with his shoulder, his captain was still asleep in the exact same position he had left him in.

The light falling in through the curtains wasn’t quite as red anymore, so xB put down the two mugs on the desk and opened the curtains.

Xisuma didn’t stir.

So xB crouched down on the floor in front of him and gently shook him by the shoulder to wake him up.

Like a man used to being woken up during emergencies only, Xisuma jolted upright in a flash. XB couldn’t help but giggle at the sight.

“Wha- xB?” he said, before grimacing and rubbing the side of his neck.

“Morning, Xisuma,” he greeted him, before standing up and getting the two mugs from the desk. “I brought tea.”

“Oh, you’re an angel,” Xisuma sighed, accepting the mug xB held out for him.

Since he made no move to get up, xB just sat back on the floor next to him, leaning against the bed frame as well.

“You didn’t have to sleep on the floor,” he said.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Xisuma blush. He blushed oddly purple. It looked pretty.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he said, mumbling into his mug. “But I didn’t want to leave you alone like that.”

“I appreciate it,” xB said, staring at his own steaming tea. “I’m doing a lot better now. Thank you.”

Xisuma stayed quiet. XB didn’t mind; he just took a sip of his tea. Not bad, but a little too bitter for his taste. Maybe he needed more milk?

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Xisuma asked hesitantly.

“That was the ship that abducted me,” xB replied quietly. “I thought it looked familiar, but I only realized by the time I went inside. I got revenge without even knowing it.”

“Ah,” Xisuma said.

“I walked that hallway in my nightmares over and over. Maybe now they’ll finally stop.”

“I’m sorry,” Xisuma said, leaning a little closer so their upper arms touched. XB leaned into the touch.

XB shook his head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You and the rest of the Hermits are the best thing to have happened to me my entire life.”

Xisuma seemed to blush even harder, then he started to chuckle awkwardly, staring into his mug intently.

XB just smiled, taking another sip of his tea. The taste was starting to grow on him.

That night, the Hermits celebrated their victory. Usually, they partied the night of every successful battle, but they had postponed it, Xisuma had explained. For his sake. So that he could join in.

When he heard those words, said with an implicitness that made his heart ache for more, he almost teared up again. As if it was normal to do things for xB just because. Just to be nice.

A quiet part of him was still screaming at him that all of this was a trap. That eventually the second shoe would drop. But it had gotten quieter and smaller these past few weeks, and it was so easy to ignore it now. He wanted to believe in his friends. He wouldn’t let that part of him dictate his life anymore.

So when Xisuma asked him to participate in the feast, not like all the other ones where he had hidden below deck and listened to their cheer and laughter from afar, he didn’t hesitate to say yes.

When he entered the deck with Xisuma in tow, Keralis was the first to spot them, letting out an excited cheer. The hermits already up on deck were quick to follow, some even jumping up enthusiastically from where they had been sitting.

Keralis was the first to reach them, falling around xBs neck in a tight hug. To his surprise, he didn’t mind. He didn’t even flinch at the contact. In fact, he quite enjoyed the tight squeeze, and his body relaxed into the embrace by itself.

“It’s great to see you join us!” he grinned broadly, and xB returned the smile reflexively.

“I kind of had to, with you guys postponing the party for me!” he found himself giggling, making it obvious that he was kidding.

Keralis released him at that, but the hugs didn’t end. Seemingly every Hermit wanted a turn, even Etho who usually avoided touch. XB found himself beaming during every single embrace.

Someone handed him a mug filled to the brim with ale, and Jevin pulled him towards the middle of the ship to start an impromptu dance battle.

Most of his ale was lost to the wooden deck when he accidentally spilled it, but xB found he didn’t care, just let himself be dragged along by his friend, laughing genuinely and wholeheartedly for the first time in years.

Some hermits had brought instruments, playing a catchy tune, one that was fast paced and easy to dance to, even if one had never danced before.

Other hermits began to sing, and quickly more people joined in, having memorized the lyrics of the sailor song.

It made him feel oddly melancholic. Even if the customs were clearly different here than they had been at home.

Sometimes, Maline had quietly hummed to herself when she worked. It was never when any of the other staff of the manor could have heard her, only ever if xB was her company.

He hadn’t known the words, so he couldn’t join in, but it had always filled him with immense homesickness.

Song was important for merfolk. Women would only ever hum, and the men would sing the lyrics of the songs. A woman’s song was meant for the hunt. For things she claimed. The only time a woman would sing words in the presence of other merfolk, was during courtship and marriage. To lay claim to the person of her choosing.

So they would hum, and drum the beat of the music on shells and stones, and the men would sing their songs for them.

He had been under the impression humans did the same, since Maline only ever hummed. But right now he was listening to False and Cleo belt the lyrics at full volume, and was watching Xisuma play a wooden instrument he had called a guitar to accompany them.

He had stopped dancing as soon as the singing had started, and Jevin had noticed his distraction almost immediately, letting go of his hand and gently guiding him to the railing and out of the way by the shoulder.

Distantly, xB noticed that there were tears on his cheeks, making his scales itch.

He wiped them off, then turned to Jevin.

“Can you teach me the lyrics of this song?” He asked.

“Of course! We can get Xisuma to play it again afterwards, if you want?”

XB nodded, smiling gratefully.

Jevin grinned back, then started to teach him the words.

They weren’t terribly hard, and xB memorized the song quickly. Things like this had always come easy to him.

So after the next song had finished (a jaunty little tune about a boat by the name of the shadow, accompanied by flute), Jevin called out across the noise of the party.

“Suma! Do ‘Ship in a Bottle’ again!”

Xisuma laughed, making a mock salute, then he started to play again. Next to him, Impulse had set up some barrels and found some sticks to drum an accompanying beat with.

Jevin gave him a sign on when to start and was quietly singing along with him so he could get the lyrics on time.

“You can fit everything you know, in a bottle for you to show. Pick your brain apart and put it in and build it again with needles and pins. Everything you have earned is a ship, with blue waves crashing into it,” xB sang, and around him the rest of the Hermits fell silent.

The only things xB still heard were Xisuma’s guitar and Impulse’s quiet drumming, along with Jevin whispering the words along by his side.

“Sailing on a ship in a bottle, water’s leaking through holes in the bottom. Flying flags of ships that have long since sat at the floor of the sea, but in defense. You set sail alone, there is no crew, no one on the deck who can help you. This is all your own battle to win, this is your ship, and you are the captain.”

He found himself smiling, closed his eyes and pretended to be back home. Younger and less traumatized, but not happier.

No one was humming, but it didn’t matter. This felt right.

“Oh, captain, let’s make a deal, where we both say the things that we both really feel. I feel scared and I’m starting to sink, and I only sink deeper the deeper I think. Oh, captain, make up your mind. Before the salt burns your eyes and you run out of time. ‘Cause you’re popping the cork, you get lost in your brain, and you lose touch with all the things that made you feel sane.”

Around him, voices joined in on the next lines, singing and humming soft “Oh’s”, and xB couldn’t help himself but open his eyes again, grinning at all his crewmates.

By the point the chorus rolled around again, all the Hermits had joined back into the song, nearly drowning out their accompanying instruments.

“Oh, captain, oh, captain, deal. Oh, captain, deal, oh, captain, deal, oh-o.”

XB stopped humming the last few notes, instead listening to his crew fade out, until only Xisuma’s guitar remained, beautifully closing out the melody.

It was quiet for a moment, letting the last notes fade into the air. And then everyone began to cheer.

“That was beautiful!” Keralis shouted, basically jumping over to him with another mug of ale, pushing it into his hands. “Here, drink!”

“You didn’t tell us you could sing!” False laughed, a lighthearted accusation.

“I am merfolk, of course I can sing,” xB giggled.

“Hypno can’t!” Jevin said.

“Hey!”

Laughter broke out around them, and xB could pick out Xisuma’s chuckle among them.

He turned to see his captain step up to him, holding his guitar in his hands.

“Are there any songs you want to sing? If you can hum the melody, I can try and figure out how to accompany you,” he asked softly, holding up his guitar.

Just like merfolk women didn’t sing, merfolk men didn’t hum. Only to accompany a woman’s courtship song. It clearly didn’t work the same here on the surface, but still, xB preferred to stick to his traditions.

“I won’t hum, merfolk tradition. But I can sing,” he said, taking the offer.

Xisuma smiled big enough for xB to see the corners of his void stained mouth peek from behind the scarf. “That would be perfect!”