Chapter Text
A twig snapped nearby and Yuuri broke off his singing, looking up to see the most beautiful creature he had ever seen walking toward the shoreline. Toward Yuuri. It was a boy, hardly older than Yuuri himself, with hair the color of foam and sea-glass eyes. Eyes that were heavy-lidded and dreamy with the lingering effects of Yuuri’s magic. The boy stopped at the water’s edge, the surf kissing his bare feet. He blinked, then seemed to register Yuuri’s presence. His mouth stretched into a grin, wide and innocent and almost heart-shaped.
Slowly, shyly, Yuuri returned the boy’s smile. And then his claw lashed out and he was diving, dragging the beautiful human by a single pale ankle past the deceptive shallows to the drop-off. To the depths.
It only took a few strokes of Yuuri’s powerful tail, and already the light from the surface was beginning to dim. He looked up at the glow. It wasn’t too far, he found himself thinking. If Yuuri let the boy go now, he might be able to make it back to the sand and the sky. He might be able to…
Yuuri did not let go.
Not that it seemed to matter much, as the boy wasn’t struggling at all. He must have already drowned during their dive.
“This is for Yuuko,” Yuuri informed the dead boy, and waited for the surge of triumph that always accompanied a kill.
It didn’t come.
With every other hunt, every other human corpse, Yuuri had been able to look upon his victim and see the evil there. See one of the monsters who had attacked his harmony. Murdered his family. But this human was a boy, just a child, and Yuuri had learned enough of humans to know that they were not born deadly like his own kind. They were helpless. Vulnerable.
It took time for them to grow into killers.
But what if this one wouldn’t have? What if his sea-foam hair had been a sign? What if Yuuri had angered the sea instead of appeasing it with his vengeance? What if—
“Who’s Yuuko?” The dead boy was looking curiously at Yuuri, a finger pressed against his pink lips. “And why do you look so sad? Is it because I can’t drown? We can go back up if you want and do it again, I can pretend to put up a fight this time, or—”
Yuuri had never backfinned so quickly in his life.