fandomtownies | The Beach, Sunday Afternoon

Xanthippe had picked up on the fact that there was something weird happening on the island. She also did not want to deal with it. And lately, when she didn't want to deal with something, she'd ben finding herself coming to the beach to like, clear her head and things.

And so that ended up happening this afternoon as well.

Except this time, when she made it to the shoreline, she realized there was someone in the water. Goddammit.

She stopped and frowned.

"Bonjour," Hyacinthe, Master of the Straits, called to the figure on the beach. "//Do you wish to cross the straits to Alba, the way is clear and there are no Skaaldi on the water today.//"

Were you fluent in French, Xanthippe?

Not super fluent, no, but it was one of those things she'd put secret over-achiever effort into at her last school.

Didn't mean she wasn't taken aback at hearing it right now. Or have to try and play it back in her head to get what he'd said and also, she definitely didn't recognize all those words.

So it was curiosity that made her call back, "//What is 'Skaaldi'?//"

His tone was clearly surprised when he answered. Everyone knew who the Skaldi were! Even the Hellenes and the Caerdicci hired them as mercenaries from time to time. "The raiders from Skaldia!" he called back. "//Where are you from? Your accent sounds strange!"

Sorry, Xanthippe.

"//I'm American!//"

And had an embarrassing accent, yes, she knew, but she was still going to try and use that as her excuse, like it was a boast.

Anyway: "Look, I just wanted to come hang out on the beach for a while."

"Pray, let us speak Cruithne," Hyacinthe said with some measure of relief. Again, sorry Xanthippe. "Do you wish to spend time upon the beach, I can assure you, I shall keep you from all harm."

"There's potential harm?" Xanthippe asked though honestly, she was already beginning to suspect that this was yet more of the weirdness bullshit she'd been trying to get away from by coming here in the first place. "I thought the beach was safe, no one's said it's not."

"So say those that swim in my waters and even some few things that fly through the air," Hyacinthe intoned. "I have not seen it yet, but even the largest of creatures speak of blood in low tones."

Xanthippe... threw her hands up.

"That's it, I'm going back to the dorms. I hate this stupid island."

But she did not hate being dramatic.

Something was in her water.

SOMETHING WAS IN HER WATER.

She'd been the largest predator in this depths for a very long time, except for The Other One, whom she couldn't seem to find -- she didn't like that she couldn't find The Other One, it made her feel...something. She didn't like feeling things, not unless the feeling was Full. Or Rage, she liked rage, and right now there was something in her water and that was a challenge.

Silently. Watching. Waiting. For now.

Whose water exactly? The Master of the Straits controlled sea and sky and all the beasts that swam or flew in them. His power came straight from the pages of the book of Raziel, given dominion over them by God himself.

So nyah.

Another school of fish darted by, their bubbles the language of fear. He sent out a probing burst of power in the direction they'd come from, waiting to hear back.

[Somehow I missed your post, I'm sorry!]

HERS! By right of evolution!

And oh please, like she'd eat a fish. They weren't big enough to make her not-hungry.
...yes, fine, she'd probably eat a whole school of them if they were stupid enough to get in reach of her claws. But people were much tastier and filling, and less work.

If his power brushed against her, all it would find was hunger and rage, burying enough sorrow to drown the ocean.

Pfft, evolution. What was that compared to the power of heaven?

And that didn't mean the fish didn't recognize a giant, dangerous predator when they sensed one.

His power brushed over something strong and dangerous that he didn't recognize. Confused and concerned, he turned towards it, striding through the water. This was his strait and it was his to protect, his consciousness streaming along ahead of him.

His? Maybe in some other reality, chavo, but there wasn't enough of Ada left to have that realization. All she knew was hers and intruder.

She uncoiled to her full size, gills pumping and claws unsheathed, as she let loose a bellow loud enough to challenge any of the great whales.

That was...that was definitely something there, all right, but he did not recognize it. Was this, perhaps, the Leviathan, then?

No matter. Leviathan would bow to Raziel's power, so long as he stayed within the Straits. Hyacinthe was Master and slave both, forbidden from leaving but ruler of all therein. The water bore him up, like something out of a the tale of the Mashiach, and he wrapped lightning around his fists to ready himself.

Oh, it wanted to fight! She roared again, warning and challenge all in one, and the current obeyed her unconscious demand to churn and surge, propelling her forward and bursting out of the water in front of him.

Were Leviathans a girl-shaped ~~murderfish~~ mermaid the size of a medium whale? With sharp teeth, red eyes, and claws instead of fingers? If so, then she was a Leviathan.

Honestly, the name hadn't come with a description, but Hyacinthe was willing to go with yes. Did a name really matter when its reference point was planning to murder you in the most gruesome way possible?

First thing to do was stop the onrushing attack. Hyacinthe held out his wreathed hand and said a word that rang with power, directing it not at the Leviathan but at the current that propelled it. The word he said was stop, but the language was that of heaven.

She just wanted to rip out his heart and have it for a snack for trespassing into her territory! That was hardly the most gruesome way she'd killed anything! If she wanted gruesome, she'd share him with the Other One, and they'd play catch for a few days and enjoy the screams and sounds of bones breaking!

Look. Your idea of 'fun' tended to be slightly...odd when malevolent eldritch energies had twisted your mind and body.

There was...something. The Prey...something about it was giving her Feelings, and she screamed in rage and hunger, taking a swipe at his chest with her claws while her waves fought against his words.

But what if they didn't do that? Like, as a suggestion?

His body parted under her claws, but rather than hot blood spurting out, seawater did, and his flesh reformed mere centimetres after her claws passed through. "Back!" he yelled, still in heaven's tongue, gesturing with his arms to try and force the huge wave to drag her backwards.

Well, that was vexing.

She looked at her claws with a very human air of confusion and puzzlement, because they should be red. He should be bleeding -- and preferably screaming -- but that was not what had just happened.

Was this why its face was giving her Feelings?

She snarled again as the wave dragged her back a little bit, the water churning from conflicting commands, and gestured, sending a spray of salt at his face to try and make him Stop Talking.

She might as well been throwing flower petals to bother a hurricane. Hyacinthe was the Master of the Straits, with powers bestowed by the One God over the waters and all that dwelt within it. He would grow old and alone, twisted and broken by age, but his command would not lessen an iota.

The water stopped, inches from his face, sparkling in the sunlight before they fell, released by a shake of his head. "What are you?" he roared in a voice that encompassed the thunder of a seastorm and the crash of angry waves. "Begone from my desmesne!"

This time, he flung his hands apart, trying to part the waves and leave the creature stranded.

[UGH, Y U NO POST?!?]

RUDE! That was cheating and she did not like it!

She shrieked as the water rushed away and she suddenly dropped, though her own powers kicked in a moment later to keep her hovering in place. She wouldn't be able to hold it for long, but it was enough to keep her from falling splat on the ocean floor.

She answered the only way she could, with a scream of pure rage and defiance. Invader, it accused. Threat/competition. MY home. My island my beach my waters MINE MINE MINE!

The magics that had twisted her hadn't managed to break Ada's fondness -- or protectiveness -- of Fandom. If anything, it had encouraged it to bind her here. Even now, without it controlling her, she couldn't leave even if she wanted to.

Whereas Hyacinthe was convinced that they were still in the Straits. His Straits. The Straits he was literally a master of. The only thing about him that was Strait ~~rimshot~~.

He would have been happier if this wasn't his responsibility. If he was staring down to an aging eternity like Endymion in the Hellenic myths. But he had made his choice, his life for Phedre's, and he was going to live up to his responsibility. And that meant stopping whatever this creature was.

That shriek cut through the air and pierced his ears, reverberating in his head and making him wince. There was so much fury there, so much passion. There was no scream he could provide that would match hers and he knew it.

So he responded with water instead, a surge upwards of so much water that the tide backed out from the beach for a few inches, and all of it slamming into her.

Had she been any other creature, her ribs would have shattered from that blow, sending her broken body tumbling out to sea.

But she was finfolk, her armored carapace and scales absorbing the impact and letting the water slide right off her, no worse for the wear than being shoved back a few feet. She hated it. The swell of Feelings itching at the back of her brain, that this thing
was challenging her in her territory, that it dared to try and turn her ocean against her. Hated that it had stolen what little calm the Not-Food had lulled her into earlier.
Hated it so very much, that against all reason and sense, she dove through the blast, cutting a sharp path through the water directly at him.

Let him think he was pushing her back. She would rip off his arms, tear out his throat, shred him to pieces until his not-blood was flavoring everything in the water.

She could almost know what his blood should taste like. And if he refused to bleed for her, he was meat all the same. Whatever he was probably wouldn't be able to heal from his head being removed from his neck.

That was...possibly true? Hyacinthe didn't understand the fullness of the power that bound him. It was possible that his head would go flying off into the distance--and that he'd remain alive in it anyway.

Who could guess the way that heaven worked?

For a few moments, he let himself believe that he had successfully pushed her away, left her broken and battered by the water's might. But then she arced out of the water, launching herself towards him an avatar of hunger and fury and for the briefest of seconds, he was arrested by how beautiful she was, perfectly designed to be a predator of the seas.

And then she was in his face and he was calling down lightning with a scream of his own. It started defiant but turned to horror when he was close enough to see the blue, blue of her eyes.

Then the lightning struck them both.

It hurt. Everything was on fire and she hurt.

She cried out in pain, a surprisingly human sound, as she curled into a fetal position and dropped like a stone to the ocean floor. She panted, gills heaving, as she sucked in water and pushed it out again, desperately trying to get oxygen to her wounded cells and cool herself down at the same time.

The Deep. She needed to get to the freezing darkness of the deep waters. It would help put out the fire inside her body. But for the moment, all she could do was twitch and breathe while her physiology did its best to mitigate and heal the worst of the damage.

Lightning flashed again and thunder rumbled in an otherwise clear sky. But Hyacinthe didn't let in crack down again, instead, throwing his hand in the air to force it to dissipate.

Those eyes. Those had been Ada's eyes. He would have recognized them anywhere.

But at the same time, they weren't. They'd been empty of everything that had made her the girl he'd cared for, just filled with the cunning rage of a beast. He'd thought his heart was irreparably shattered already, but it found a way to crack anew.

Unwilling to face her again, Hyacinthe withdrew to mourn.

It became pretty clear to Summer after a while that she wasn't going to find anyone to battle her Mortys at the dormitory after all, so she and her Mortys went on the road again, drifting through the island, giving longing sighs heavenward toward the Headless skies. When they got closer to the beach, her Aqua Morty began to get really excited about jumping in and splashing around in his own element, but Summer stopped him by holding out a hand, her eye catching someone there already.

"Hello?" she called out. "Do you have any Mortys to battle?"

Hyacinthe, Master of the Straits, turned towards the beach again. "Cruithne?" he asked, taking in her language and her strange garb. "You do not wish to test your strength against me," he said, sounding not proud, but tired. "I no longer limit your people to your isle. There is no more need to fight."

The Beach, Sunday Afternoon

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