I'll tell you a tale of the bottomless blue

[sassybird]

Mermaid AU Meme



Rules:
- Put down your character name and series in the subject header. Put down any preferences (romantic or if you're a mermaid/human) in the comment.
- Reply to other people! RNG a choice from the prompts below, or just come up with whatever on your own.
- This is not a strictly romance meme. Feel free to have whatever shenanigans you like.


Merfolk and Merfolk

1.
Little Mermaid it
♢ One of you is a merperson with something you want. (Power? Help figuring out what this weird human doodad is? Becoming human?) The other is a powerful sea mage of some sort... And for the first of you, you better hope they're the good sort as you venture forth to their lair...

2.
Exploration
♢ C'mon. What's the worst that could happen when checking out this enormous sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean? You're merpeople! What's the worst that could happen? (Besides sharks. Or giant squid. Or maybe worse.)

3.
New tides
♢ Hey... That person isn't from around these parts, are they...? Maybe one of you is from deep seas, or a swamp-mer way out of your territory, or just from simply a different ocean. Hopefully neither of you are particularly territorial...

4.
Hey there, Ariel
♢ So. Looks like one of you actually took up on some sea witch's deal and is living in some human settlement. The other? Is trying to help you deal with that. Whether it means puzzling out human culture and items with you, pleading with you to come back home, or even offering you a dagger just in case you need to stab your crush (what? it's a legitimate strategy), you two need to cope.

5.
Wildcard.


Merfolk and Humans

1.
For Science!
♢ You're a scientist, here to study a fascinating new creature. Although the 'creature' in question might take offense to you saying that... So are you searching them out for the first time in the open ocean? Keeping them in some sort of containment? It's up to you.

2.
Stranded
♢ There was a shipwreck, and you're the sole survivor... Although you very nearly weren't. Whether you've just woken up or have been trying to puzzle things out on this deserted island, well... It seems you're not alone, although they're not exactly on the island with you.

3.
Siren Song
♢ Merpeople aren't always good signs... Sometimes they lure sailors out onto rocks, or extinguish their stamina and drown them in the ocean's tumultuous waters. Is this another encounter that will end in tragedy?

4.
Chance Encounter
♢ You're nothing extraordinary, just a regular person in a beach town, and one way or another... You find something that's very much not regular. Maybe you just walked into the cove at the right time, or found something- someone- trapped or injured that needed your help. So now what?

5.
Wildcard

Comments

[showyouthesight]

"You never know until you try. Here, we can practice. Do you have anything around here that we could knock around?" Maybe there's some loose shells or some especially fragile coral that they could try smacking.

[nanaharu]

"I don't want to hit anything in my room," Haruka says, before peering out the seaweed-lined door. Will they have any space to get out of here unseen? Well, maybe it won't be so hard to speed away out of here. He isn't sure about this hunting thing... but if Rin is going to get out of here any time soon, they should leave before others start to come by.

"I know another place we can go."

[showyouthesight]

Rin looks more intrigued and tries to peer around the door himself. He's not really one for spending a lot of time inside so he's eager to get out again. "What did you have in mind?"

[nanaharu]

"It's a place I go, sometimes."

A place he usually goes to be alone. It's not as comfortable as his own room, which is why he'd brought Rin there, but no one else comes around. Despite Rin being larger than him, Haruka still tries his best to shield him from view as they speed away.

It's a rocky area with not much fish around, which is why it goes mostly ignored. In front of it is simply empty blue ocean for miles. But there are enough nooks and crannies to hide away in, with small, gravelly rocks and bits of shells strewn around.

[showyouthesight]

Rin is too amused by Haruka's strange protectiveness to bother jockeying for position. He follows Haruka with a few lengthy whips of his tail, peering around them when he notices the lack of fish or any other animals for that matter. What is this place? He swoops down to grab some larger shells.

"What do you usually come here for?" It seems oddly quiet and isolated, the exact opposite of a place Rin prefers.

[nanaharu]

Haruka shrugs.

"Time alone, I guess."

It does sometimes get too lonely, and he has to turn back. But as the prince of the merpeople, he looked for a place that no one else knew.

Scattered around the place are some sculptures of strange fish. He swims down onto a small nook and lays there for a moment, looking up at the distant surface of the ocean. Hardly any plants or debris float in the way-- it's completely clear. The feeling isn't the same with someone else here... yet strangely, not worse.

[showyouthesight]

"You're really into that solitude thing, aren't you? I get it. It's nice to have some time to yourself. Me, I don't think I could stand it for that long. I need to be around people."

Rin swims around, examining the sculptures and wondering where they came from. Did Haruka make them? Or did he find them? He said he wasn't much of an explorer.

"So what did you want to practice with around here? It doesn't have to be that heavy. We just need something that will let you work on your form."

[nanaharu]

"I'm around a lot of people, most of the time." Said with a tone that sounds like that that isn't all that pleasant.

He picks up a sculpture that appears lopsided, not through any intentional design. But it's a creature he'd seen around the surface before... something with wings. "This?"

[showyouthesight]

"Said like someone who'd rather be anywhere else."

He swims over to take the sculpture. He too has seen the oddly large creature soaring through the highest part of the surface world. Always by itself, strangely enough. Maybe that's why Haruka had been drawn to it.

"Sure, that should work. I'll just toss it toward you and you give it a whack, all right?"

[nanaharu]

Haruka straightens himself up, ready to swing his tail at the toss. But he looks a little questioning as he considers something...

"What if it goes back at you?"

[showyouthesight]

Rin flips backward and waves his own tail at him. "Did you forget? I've got one too. And I know how to use mine. So let's do this thing."

He lobs the sculpture toward Haruka with an easy toss, not wanting to accidentally hit the mer.

[nanaharu]

Haruka concentrates on the stone and its path, body tensing as he turns around and swings his tail with all his might-- it goes flying off to the side into the distance, until it begins to fall back down into a dark chasm as the edge of this sea cliff.

He rubs the spot where he'd hit the stone. "Ow..."

[showyouthesight]

Rin whistles at the hit. "Great shot! I told you you've got some power behind that thing."

Then he notices Haruka feeling at the spot the stone struck and swims over to assess the damage. "You just need to build up some callous there."

[nanaharu]

Haruka rubs it a bit more, but he tilts his head to look at Rin's tail.

"Do you feel anything if you hit your tail again something?"

He knows that it isn't the default way that sharks hunt. Still, sharks don't have the obvious scales that the merpeople do, and maybe he still uses it in a fight in case something attacks from behind? Does anything try to attack the sharks? He stares at Rin's tail curiously...

[showyouthesight]

"Oh definitely. But we just learn to ignore it. You can't let pain stop you during a hunt or you're likely to get even more messed up." Not that he uses his tail that often in hunting or even in his sparring matches. Sharks have their teeth and claws for that. But since Haruka has neither of those, he's going to need something to compensate.

"Maybe we could make you some sort of harder scale to protect it when you fight."

[nanaharu]

"Out of what?" Haruka looks around... he looks down, and sees a lot of thin, flat rocks collected like a rough beach. Each of them look like the size of their hands. That might work, if they could find something to bind them to him.

He would rather avoid pain, if he could. But he won't give up so easily if he feels it... is that a way to build up the threshold?

[showyouthesight]

Rin follows Haruka's gaze and sees the rocks for themselves. His eyes light up. Yes, those will work nicely! He swims over to start collecting them.

"Got any really thick seaweed around here? We might be able to bind some up around you tail. Then, you just need to practice hitting with that spot so you don't bump the unprotected parts."