#sunlit plateu | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ftb-writes · 5 years

Text

So, the two-week fill is here!

Sorry again about last Sunday! But I didn't forget this week! Now, before you get into it, I will warn you, this one does have two warnings I should put out there. One of the characters gets mildly strangled (and not the fun fun sexy time way) and then later almost suffocates. So if you don't like any of that, you might want to skip this one.

"This is as far as far as I can lead you," the shark sighs. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," the young merman accompanying her assures. "I think I can guess the way from here."

"Be careful, Mr. Triton," the shark warns. "There's a sea witch out there."

"Yes, I'm aware," Triton says. The dead zone is littered with plastic trash the humans have abandoned; corals, long passed, are beginning to crumble. The sun has just set, bathing the desolated landscape in surreal greyish moonlight.

Triton takes in the petrified trees, covered with algae that barely survives the harsh environment, and shudders. A plastic bag catches, for a moment, on a branch, before getting dislodged by a bottle and continuing it's slow journey. So this is where a sea witch lives? He supposes only a sea witch and any lackeys they may have would willingly live in such pollution.

"Thank--" he starts to tell the shark, but when he turns back he finds she has already swum off.

He is very alone now.

Triton swallows; he takes a moment to steel himself before going further into the forest.

As he goes, the trees grow taller and more gnarled. Occasionally, a disfigured corpse juts out of the sea floor. The landscape used to be beautiful, from what the older merfolk told him; the humans had forgotten about it. When they rediscovered it, it had not taken long for this track of coastline to become as decimated as humans could make it.

Everyone had moved out. And the sea witch had moved in.

Triton ducks under a plastic mat and waves away a set of strange, interwoven rings. "Hello?" he calls. Silence is the only response he receives. He swims further, and feels something in him breaking as a massive, dead reef juts up toward the surface in front of him. This coral, at least, appears a bit more solid than the rest so far, and he settles delicately on an outcrop to stare around him in despair.

This was to be the entire ocean's fate if the humans were not stopped.

Something moves behind him, the scrape of an aluminum can startlingly jarring in the quiet. Triton whirls to find no one.

"Hello? I'm looking for the sea witch?"

Slowly, a crawling tentacle, black as ink, slithers from a crevice. "And what," a deep voice rumbles, like shifting tides, "do you want with the witch?"

Triton swallows his fear and is proud that his voice only shakes a bit. "I am Triton, son of Poseidon. The seas grow sick from the humans' filth. My father and people lie dying, choking around plastics, as do so many suffering creatures, from the deepest depths to the sunlit surface. I would save them all, if I can."

"A grave quest, little merman, that you've undertaken. Foolish of you to think you alone could save so many."

"I know I can't." Triton settles back on the coral and sets a careful hand on a crab's empty shell. "Which is why I need a sea witch. With that kind of power, the humans might be brought down."

The unseen being chuckles, and the sound is so dark it sends a shiver up his spine. "Look around you, boy. To live in a place like this, the bones of distant cousins strewn around, what do you believe the sea witch would demand as payment?"

Triton did look. The only life he could see at all was a few small jellyfish, and they could live anywhere.

"Something close to my life," Triton says honestly, "and for my home, I freely give it."

The being grumbles, and the tentacle withdraws. "You are selfless, that much I will give you. You want the humans chased back to their planes and mountains, their plateus and gullies? Surviving on little more than the melt off from glaciers? They're pollution runs deeper than trash. The water runs slick with oil, suffocating all it touches. The oceans warm a little more each year, and Gaia melts a little herself with each degree. What do you intend to do, when the humans retreat inland and wait?"

"I want the humans reminded of why they feared the deep." Triton gazes up, through the trash, toward the rising moon. "I want them to learn respect. I want them to turn back the clocks on all the destruction they've wrought."

"Now that," the being rumbles, "is a worthy goal indeed." Out of the crevice shoots a hulking cecaelia, his tentacles wrapping around Triton in a vice-like grip before the mer has time to flee.

"Well, little merman," he purrs. "You have found your sea witch." He smiles, and Triton balks at the rows of jagged teeth lining the cecaelia's jaws. "Now what do you intend to offer?"

"Anything," Triton wheezes as a tentacle constricts around his throat, "if it will save us."

"Your life?"

"If that's what you wish."

As quickly as he'd been seized, the cecaelia releases him. "And if I demand you live out your days far from your father's side, as little more than a slave to me? Will you give up your freedom for whole oceans that would never miss you as much as they'd miss your father?"

Triton looks him in the eye and nods.

The cecaelia leans back on the coral and regards him with mild curiosity. "Come back in four nights' time," it finally rumbles. "Then you will have your answer, and whatever payment I might see fit." He retreats into the crevice once more.

Triton shivers and looks around at the wasteland around him. "I don't have anywhere else to go," he tells the cecaelia. "So if you want me, I'll be--" he casts around for a safe place to sleep.

The cecaelia huffs and jabs a finger out toward the center of the reef. "There's a space over there that's sheltered from pollution. Your gills won't be shredded there."

"Thank you," Triton stutters, and heads off. "I'll just be over there, if you need anything while you decide."

He finds the spot well enough, a cave-like structure grown out of the coral, and is relieved that no trash is inside. He settles on the rock and immediately begins shaking, the adrenaline spike he'd been holding off from the attack rolling through him he collapses onto the bottom, gasping as he reaches up to trace the bruises forming around his neck.

If that is the way the cecaelia will treat him, Triton hopes it only asks for his death.

The next few days and nights pass far too slowly for Triton's liking on the reef, and the few times he goes out looking for food, he ends up empty handed with plastic near choking him.

On the final day, Triton goes out for one final bid for something to quiet his roaring stomach and winds up swimming face-first into a plastic bag. It clings to his face and gills, and Triton writhes as he attempts to rip it from him. It only serves to entangle him further in the bag, and in the trash surrounding him. A net catches on his tail, and Triton realizes, with horrifying clarity, that he is going to die as his already obstructed vision begins to blur and darken.

Fingers brush his neck, and slide up under the bag to peel it far enough off that his gills can circulate once more.

"Stop your thrashing," the cecaelia's voice hisses, and Triton goes deathly still. Careful tentacles untangle his tail and arms as the cecaelia pulls at the bag to stretch it until it's loose enough to come off.

In the daylight, Triton can see it is not black as he'd thought, but a deep brown.

"Idiot mer," it growls, but the insult lacks heat. "You will not survive if this corruption continues."

"Thank you," Triton whispers, his throat burning from the lack of oxygen.

"It seems I have no choice after all," the cecaelia grumbles. "I will help you fight the humans, in return for your life, to do with as I see fit."

Triton thinks about those tentacles around his neck and feels faint all over again.

0 notes