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]

[Naturally, Rin does the first thing he can think of when being handed something made of plastic. He nips at it with his teeth. They feel incredibly flimsy.]

They dig up things too? I thought they just liked dragging them out of the water.

[It's not like Rin has much experience with the land habits of two-legs.]

[naggysa]

[Nagisa might have scolded Rin for biting on his things, but with as much reverence as he treats oddities like this (such as with his reaction to tearing up the shirt from before), he's not that worried that he'll ruin them just because he can.]

Yup! I've watched 'em collect seashells, but most of the time they just dig the sand up, push it into piles...and then leave it like that for the tide to wash away. It's super weird, but then I tried it...and it's actually kinda fun?

[showyouthesight]

[Sharks bite things, Nagisa. It's what they do.

Rin pulls a confused face.]

Piles? Are they trying to make a trap?

[naggysa]

[In response, Nagisa just shrugs, deciding to just move up onto the rocks again as long as he's showing Rin his collection. He props his chin up in his hands, letting his elbows rest on the rock he's currently draped over.]

Dunno. I never found anything inside 'em. Rocks, shells sometimes...but if they were trying to catch anything, they were pretty lousy at it.

[showyouthesight]

[Rin glances at the weird item again, his gills flaring slowly as he considers it.]

You said you've built these piles before too? Show me what they look like. Maybe their shape will help me figure out what sort of trap they've supposed to be.

[naggysa]

[Giving a thoughtful noise, the selkie leans over the rocks as his eyes search the water until he finds where the sand bar starts again as it stretches out past the opening to the little cave they're in. He continues laying on his belly as he pulls himself over to the edge of the rock, using his hands to scoop the sand toward himself into piles mimicking what he saw on the shore.

It's not quite the same- his are pretty lumpy and a lot wetter than the ones he saw- but it's close enough.]

I think I heard one of the smaller ones call them..."sand castles". But they don't really look like castles at all, do they?

[showyouthesight]

[Rin does another of those confused head-tilts, his fins twitching.]

What's a castle? And you're right, they don't look like they can catch much of anything.

[naggysa]

You know, like uhh...those big coral formations?

[He doesn't actually know what castles are either, so don't feel bad, Rin.]

[showyouthesight]

Oh! Those things are pretty cool.

[Rin's cornered many a school of fish by them, just by hanging out during feeding time and pulling a sneak attack. It had the double bonus of just being a really pretty place. Which he didn't at all tell Sousuke repeatedly while they were waiting.

He peers at the "castle" again, trying to swim as close at he can to it.]

Too bad that doesn't look anything like them. Are you sure you did it right?

[naggysa]

It's not that bad!

[Yet, even as he says that, one whole side of his "castle" detaches and starts to slide down to rejoin the rest of the water-logged sand, proving that it's...kindof bad after all.]

I didn't even use those things to make it, so that's prolly why it doesn't look the same.

[showyouthesight]

[Rin snorts at that, dragging himself over enough to poke at the collapsed edifice.]

Totally sound structure right here.

What do you mean by "those things"?

[naggysa]

[He huffs, his tail slapping wetly against the rock he's lounging on.]

Yaknow, like the stuff I just showed you. Those are made for making these, or whatever.

[showyouthesight]

Oh! Let's try that!

[Rin brings up the shovel and starts to work with the wet sand himself. His sculpture is no more sound than Nagisa's, but it has more of an obvious shape to it since Rin is working with a tool. It also looks more like a coral since that's his only knowledge of a "castle" as Nagisa would put it.

The work takes Rin a considerable while longer since he has to keep pushing himself back into the water to wet his gills. He even tries to roll over onto his side and reach as far as he can with the shovel. Sharks aren't meant for land activities at all.]

[naggysa]

[It's insanely amusing to Nagisa just how into things this shark can get, even things as innocuous as building structures out of sand. Maybe he just wants to prove he can do it? Either way, he snickers and props his chin up in his hands as he watches him work.]

Not bad! ...still doesn't explain what they're used for, but that one's pretty close.

[showyouthesight]

[Rin beams proudly at his work and rolls back onto his front to peer at it, just barely peaking his upper half out of the water.]

Maybe they're trying to catch things that want to live in it. That's what corals are for. So it's their weird way of hunting.

[naggysa]

Maybe! That doesn't look like it would work though. A fish would have to be really dumb to mistake that for coral.

[Nagisa shakes his head, rolling over before slipping off the rock and back into the water. He pops back up a second later, shaking his head briskly.]

Anyways, that's pretty much the kind of stuff that washes up on the beach all the time. Pretty weird, but some of it is cool!

[showyouthesight]

What are you talking about? It looks just like it!

[Mostly. Maybe if the fish was coming from a distance and swimming so fast it wasn't paying attention...]

I want to see more of the cool variety.

[naggysa]

Well give me those back, then.

[He says, reaching for the tools that Rin had been using to make the sand "castle".]

I got one thing that's really cool. It's one of my most favorite things in my collection, but you gotta promise not to break it. Or steal it. Okay?

[showyouthesight]

[Rin looks reluctant to give up the newest treasures, but he eventually relents with a sore look. Nagisa did have to go all the way to the land to get them. He's earned them.]

Oi, I don't steal.

[Taking stuff from the ships totally doesn't count since it's not like those guys were going to come back for any of it. They probably don't even know where it went.]

[naggysa]

[Taking the toys back, Nagisa swims back over to his stash so he can carefully put them away on the rocky shelves again, his eyes searching for the aforementioned favorite treasure. It isn't long before he finds it, reaching in to a pretty deep crevice to pull out a glass bottle.

Inside the bottle are a lot of little loose pieces of wood, but if Rin looks closely, he'll be able to see that a lot of the wood looks exactly like the shipwreck they both met at.

...obviously, this was meant to be a pristine ship in a bottle at some point, but somehow being left to the elements and the sea itself, it's come apart inside. But Nagisa thinks that's just how it was supposed to be, and honestly it looks cooler that way.]

So? Isn't it cool?

[showyouthesight]

[Rin reaches for the bottle to see if he can figure out what's supposed to be inside it. He's seen bottles plenty of times in his explorations, but they usually have liquid or those hard flat circles stored in them, not wood. What would be the point of that? Though, some of the pieces do look a little familiar.]

It's like a craft piece? Of a... ship?

[naggysa]

I think so! A lot of it came out of the bottle when I found it, so I kinda just...stuck it back in? But it's still cool looking.

[The seawater has done a number on it, and the cracks in the bottle are to blame, but for the most part otherwise all of the pieces are there...just not entirely intact anymore.]

[showyouthesight]

I wonder what it looked like it when it was brand new and all together. And why put it in a bottle? To keep people from messing with it?

[Not that that did a lot of good, judging from its current condition.]

Hey, come to think of it! How did they get it in the bottle anyway when it was all in one piece? It wouldn't have been able to fit!

[naggysa]

[Nagisa just shrugs, lifting a clawed hand to scratch the side of his head.]

Beats me. Maybe they got some sorta magic that we don't know about. Figures, since they already got so much weird stuff.

[showyouthesight]

No way! They can't be magic. They're not that cool.

[But the ship inside the bottle is definitely a good trick. And then did come up with those things that can produce instant pictures of things happening. So they're at least really creative.]

They've just got a few ideas that are better than others.