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Once, they weren’t brothers. Back before the storm.
Tommy remembers the churning waves, the cut of salt on open wounds, pain in his hands where the rope had burnt him as it was wrenched from his grip. He remembered soaking clothes, the ice of the ocean, the crash of lightning and the screams of the passengers aboard the travel ship that had lurched against waves far too mighty, as if the ocean itself grew angry to their presence and sought to drown them.
Tommy remembers wood under his fingers, his clothes weighing him down, the hammering of rain on his skin as he watched the ship lurch on its bulkhead, hull pointed towards the heavens and beyond as the keel faced the sky and the sails dragged the boat backwards. The main mast snapped with the force of thunder, but it was nothing to the body of the ship snapping, twisting; torn in two by the power of the waves and sinking to the oceans depths.
Tommy remembered water all around him, and a weakened grip on what had once been the ship’s topmast, now winged by a topsail that churned the ocean currents. He remembered keeping his legs tucked to his chest so as not to become tangled, remembered feeling helpless, remembered tears that meant nothing to an ocean tempest.
Purpled remembers the lightning flashing far above him; the churn of the ocean surface; the power of the currents that lifted and dragged him through the water as the storm rose in power. It laughed as it churned the ocean into great curling waves with white horses racing with thunderous hooves that turned and rolled him and hurt as he tried to remember his way.
Purpled remembers swimming to the surface, remembers the tide turning and lifting him, batting him side to side until he was not alone and great shapes began to fall like stones to the ocean floor. Wooden shapes and rope like seaweed; great sails like the ghosts of jellyfish and glittering precious stone that the strange two-legs coveted.
Purpled remembers the two-legs as well, the warnings his brothers had repeated over and over, and yet the two-legs had been still and unmoving.
All save for one.
Tommy remembers Purpled grabbing hold of the driftwood.
Purpled remembers Tommy grabbing him in turn.
They were both scared; Tommy with his fear of the ocean clawing at him like his sodden clothes trying to drag him down, reaching out to hands just as cold as the waves rose and fell and crashed into them without remorse. Purpled remembers beating his tail, scared of the two-legs he hadn’t seen amongst the sails but second to the surprise that the two-legs looks like him; blond hair, bright eyes wide in fear; the way the ocean battered them both and how they’d held onto one another the entire time.
Neither remembers all of the storm.
They were exhausted, both struggling with the waves and the current; Tommy desperate to keep his head above water and his grip tight on the driftwood; Purpled fighting the pull of the tide, wrapping an arm around the rope of the sail, because the currents are wild and the storm is ill tempered and he would be dragged far from what was familiar if he wasn’t careful.
But the storm raged and the boys could only grapple with their consciousness for so long; hands gripping one another and their driftwood vessel as the winds blew and the waves crashed and the currents carried them far.
Tommy remembers feeling the island’s sands beneath his palm and cheek, and had felt joy and relief to feel solid ground beneath him, blinking exhausted and tired at the white-gold sands and emerald grass and palms bowing over the beach to beat back the heat of the sun.
Purpled remembers feeling it’s coarseness against his scales, felt the sting of sand in the cuts where the tide had crashed him into the reef, felt his own weight pressing in on him as he lay in the breakwater, too weak to move.
Then, they had been cautious of one another; Tommy weakened by exhaustion, stranded, caged by the ocean; Purpled trapped in the shallows by the wounds on his tail and the low tide, and an ocean foreign to him where the storm had carried them further than realised.
Now, the boys are brothers, no matter that one is two-legs and the other is mer. Tommy no longer fears the ocean and Purpled scoffs when his mind remembers him of his brother’s warnings; how humans were greedy and they would kill and hunt Mer for their flesh to be able to breathe and swim as they do.
Tommy doesn’t need any of that when it is that Purpled, a Mer, invites him beneath the waves. Tommy doesn’t need to breathe air when Purpled share’s his Ocean’s Blessing, enchanting him with ancient magic, teaching him how to swim, not as humans do, but as Mer. It had taken a while for the pair to trust one another as they do now, but their circumstance forced their hand; Purpled injured and trapped by the reef left him too weak to try for home, even if he had no clue what direction that would be. Tommy, stranded on the island, couldn’t leave either, but he could do more than Purpled who could hardly move his tail without the wounds paining him.
He foraged food for them both and learnt to hunt, spearing the fish Purpled herded into the shallows and digging through the reef rocks for crabs and clams.
Purpled’s wounds closed and healed; Tommy’s strength grew and the pair of them found friendship and trust.
So when the season turned, and he was strong enough, Purpled offered to teach Tommy to take him beneath the waves. And Tommy, trusting, allowed Purpled to take his wrist and lead him; to let the air empty from his lungs and let water replace it; to let the ocean show him it’s beauty and together they explored the shallows and the oceans and currents that surround their island; the reefs teaming with life and the currents that are gentle and playful.
As the weeks have passed, Tommy has gotten stronger. It no longer hurts to pass between land and ocean, and he has learnt to understand the waves and the tide and the world beneath the surface in a way no other human has before. He will never be as closely attuned to it as Purpled, who was born of the water and will always be stronger than him beneath the waves, and Tommy will never be able to dive down as far without the pressure crushing his ribs and dragging him into unconsciousness, but that doesn’t matter when they are brothers.
Tommy didn’t care for his life before the storm. He’d had no one; an orphan who snuck aboard a travellers ship in hopes of travelling to a new land and the promise of a better life. And it was given to him by the tempest that broke the bow and split the hull.
Purpled still missed his home and his pod, but Tommy was pod too and one night, when the moon was full and the ocean was calm and they lay in the shallows with the songs of whales in the distance, Purpled asked if Tommy would leave the island with him. His pod lived in the shelter of an archipelago untouched by humans, so there was land for Tommy who wasn’t accustomed to being underwater all the time and there would be more food than the fruit and berry bushes that he forages when he yearns for more than just fish to eat.
They would need to leave before the season changes and the northern winds brought more storms and ocean tempests, and with Tommy in agreement, they start to make plans. Tommy makes a raft that is more something for him to climb up onto and Purpled to hang off of should they get too tired; something to store food on and for three days Tommy gathers while Purpled hunts. They scour the reef together for sharp stone, because Tommy doesn’t have claws like Purpled and he’d rather be prepared with a stone knife; Tommy finding a collection that he think might be suitable, and he gathers them in his arms before heading to the surface.
Leaving the ocean doesn’t burn his lungs anymore, but there’s always a little awkwardness going from swimming to walking that Tommy hasn’t gotten over yet, and he laughs at himself as he stumbles on the shore, some of the stones falling out of his arms as he shuffles his way over to the raft, tied down and ready to set sail as soon as Purpled gives the clear that the currents are calm. He’s watching his feet, not looking at the beach, not wanting to stumble, so he doesn’t see that he’s not alone.
Not until he looks up and sees that the beach isn’t empty. There are men on the sand, men by his raft and Tommy only just manages to discard his arms of all but one stone clenched tight in his fist, hissing as Purpled as hissed to eels in the reef and sharks that come hunting too early for sunset.
But he is a boy and the men—larger, fiercer, armed with knives and swords and salt-weathered skin—are far stronger and Tommy can’t break the grip that anchors his right arm; hissing and shouting, driving his stone-knife into the nearest leg, feet stumbling beneath him and he goes down hard—
“Monster!” someone shouts and Tommy doesn’t think he’s yet to earn that kind of insult even if his teeth are as sharp as his rock-dagger, feeling flesh give beneath his jaw when another hiss rises in cacophony and suddenly the weight on his back is gone, replaced by caging arms that aren’t restraining but protective; Tommy snapping his head upright as he feels saltwater dripping down, the core of Purpled’s tail pressed against his side, fins flared out over his legs as if to hide him. Purpled hisses and snarls and swipes sharp claws towards the humans—hunters, Tommy thinks belatedly and that only adds more danger to their situation because Purpled is Mer and Mer hunters hunt for treasures, wonders and riches, and there is nothing in this world that sells for more.
“Purpled, go, back to the water—go!” Tommy yells, kicking out from underneath, but it’s hard when Purpled’s weight is pressing him down into the sand and the Mer hunters are moving in again, hungry now, greed shining in their eyes.
“We’ve got a live one boys!” someone yells ahead of them, all laughing when Purpled snarls, fierce, sharp, falling back on his tail to lunge forwards, racking his arms down the arm of the closest man. But it’s in the wrong direction, he’s taking himself further from the water and safety and Tommy is yelling at him and the strangers both, watching with wide eyes as one snaps a length of rope like a whip and Tommy can’t do anything as it loops around Purpled’s outstretched arm, the barbed hook at the end snagging scale and skin.
His other hand goes to swipe at it, but one of the men lunges, grabbing hold, wrestling him to the ground as more pile on as he shrieks and screams; anger growing, bleeding into panic; no words, only pure rage belted out in piercing noise.
“No, no, no!” Tommy yells, legs scrambling, upright, lunging with knife and teeth bared. “Get off of him! Get off of him!” he yells, drawing blood, but he’s still smaller and weaker than grown men, grabbed again, weapon knocked from his hand and a real knife, sharp and bloodthirsty, pressed to his throat.
“Struggle, beast, and he dies,” the man shouts, words cast to Purpled like a careless stone, but it strikes it’s mark and Purpled sees his brother in danger, too far to help. There is nothing he can do but give up, chest heaving rapidly, one arm still bound in coarse rope, the other gripped tight. The Mer hunters take no chance and there are three on him, pressing him down into the sound, ignoring the way Purpled thrashes against their weight, cursing and spitting, but his words are ignored. Tommy can hear his fear; his own churning inside him like torrent currents.
He can’t do anything as they’re both bound; Purpled with his arms and claws tied behind his back, Tommy grabbed by the scruff and dragged up along the beach, snarling as the men speak over their heads, rejoicing and congratulating one another, because Mer are deadly prey, but they were lucky to have found a juvenile, and one that had beached himself rather than fleeing into the water.
Purpled still struggles, and Tommy is held at bay with a knife to his throat each time he gnashes his teeth; threatened but not quite harmed because while the men are greedy and vicious, they’re not stupid to realise that Tommy is Purpled’s weakness—for some reason they don’t understand or bother trying to—and that should Tommy slip their grasp then they’ll have no power over the Mer, who is a threat even though he’s tied, because his claws and his teeth are still sharp, and there are stories that the Mer can summons storms.
It’s why Tommy is dragged to the ship and thrown on deck alongside Purpled rather than left on the island, gutted with a knife. It’s why Tommy’s ankle is clasped with a shackle, chained to a weight he can barely drag across the seawater-slick wood. If Purpled were to summon a storm, Tommy would sink and drown just as the rest of the crew.
The only thing keeping Purpled safe is the fact that the captain can barter a better price for an unharmed, alive Mer, while the only thing keeping Tommy alive is Purpled’s compliance. That only goes as far as snarling and hissing his threats rather than trying to bite their captors, but he does take a measure in pride when he slaps his tail against the spine of one of the men that had been attempting to lift him into the tank sunken into the deck of the ship, locked with wooden grate too heavy for Tommy to lift by himself.
He rages, just as Purpled does, fear like ice in his throat, anger like fire in his veins even though he’s unarmed and his teeth and nails are blunt, and for his troubles he gets shoved about, punched and kicked until the captain grows wary of the way Purpled shrieks in his cage. It isn’t kindness that sees Tommy hauled from the hands that hurt him, dumped unceremoniously by the grate in the floor, close enough that Purpled’s webbed hand could reach up between the lattice, gentle fingers brushing over the back of his hand, reaching up to hold his wrist as Tommy takes his in turn, like they used to when Purpled first used to pull him beneath the waves.
Tommy can feel Purpled’s blessing beneath his skin, but it isn’t water he’s trying to breathe through, but the pain of blunt fists. Still, it’s easier with his brother by his side, and that is where Tommy remains, even when the ship gets underway and the open ocean washes up onto the deck, teasing them mercilessly with freedom just below the ship.
There’s something ironically humorous when, later, under the cover of busy hands and a tough swell, Purpled tells Tommy that the hunters are taking them near enough the direction they were planning to travel. Tommy worries that the hunters know of the archipelago, and Purpled’s home, but he promises him otherwise, voice low, barely a whisper as Tommy lays on the deck, cheek on the grate, Purpled floating in the shallow tank, their hands still tightly grasping one another, daring any of the humans around them to try and separate them.
It's not like Tommy can beat their physical strength—Purpled unable to fight back where they have him trapped in a tank that barely allows him enough room to swim; so small that if he stretches his arms above his head that his fingers and tail will both be touching the edges of the tank in all directions—but that doesn’t means he’s given up or laying down; that all Tommy has to do is wait out the hunters and outsmart them.
And that’s what he does.
He overhears the captain and quartermaster talking about the four week journey back to their kingdom and the days they’ll have to travel upriver to the capital, all while having to keep word of the captured Mer a secret to keep the bounty for themselves, meaning Tommy has four weeks, but he’s not going to need that long.
That very night, when the lanterns are doused and Tommy has another chain wrapped around his ankle, now threaded through the bars that barricade Purpled’s tank—as if Tommy would leave when his brother was still trapped—Tommy tests the weight of the shackle, but no matter how much he tries to slip it over his ankle, it won’t give. Salt water gets under his skin where it chafes against the metal, and not even blood is enough lubrication. Tommy keeps his pain to himself even though Purpled must know he’s hurt, but it’s nothing to the fear and the danger they’re in because Purpled isn’t just to be some noble’s exotic pet, he will be killed and carved and his flesh will be consumed so humans can hold onto the Ocean’s Blessing for one turn of the moon.
It's what makes them so coveted.
It’s why the hunters make their wealth through hunting them, and why Purpled’s pod had moved far beyond storm swells and rock barriers, to the shelter of the archipelago.
When the sun rises with the dawn, and the crew with it, Tommy and Purpled are no closer to being free. The captain raises an eyebrow to Tommy’s bleeding ankle and then has men drag him down to the kitchen where he was told to help, and if he did so without complaint or backtalk then he’d be allowed to eat. As would Purpled.
Tommy played along, mainly because the old cook was lazy enough to hand their new hostage a bluntish knife to help peel potatoes. It’s more than what he had before, despite being blunt and after a boring day and a tasteless meal that hardly fills his hunger, he’s allowed back above deck with raw fish for Purpled. Maybe it is meant as an insult—to treat Purpled like a monster, or to enforce cannibalism on him—but it’s normal for Purpled who can’t exactly light a fire under the water, and he devours the fish clean of their skeleton; the pair of them spending the next half an hour flicking bones and guts at the crew before Tommy gets a swift kick for his antics.
When the lanterns are doused and the majority of the crews retires—plenty of them drunk, the rest of them tired from the day’s work—Tommy shows Purpled the knife that he snuck from beneath the cook’s eyes. It isn’t strong enough to cut through the wooden grate that traps Purpled, and it certainly isn’t enough to cut through the shackles, but Purpled has an idea to sharpen the blade at least, and he is the one that takes the blade and the links of the chain once again threaded around Tommy’s ankle, dragging the edge against the metal, honing the blade.
Purpled keeps the knife the next day, when Tommy is woken sudden and rough, his ankle-weight removed before he’s shoved to the forward deck and told to swab. He spits and curses, but works his hands while he keeps his eyes keen and his ears sharp.
He learns that the ship is carrying a supply of gunpowder from Sadavensal, and that a single spark will ignite it. Sink the ship. Give Purpled and Tommy their freedom.
Tommy learns that Antarcticire’s ships have been spotted roaming the water, and that to be spotted will mean a fight and Tommy can use the confusion to get Purpled out before the opposing ship thinks they can benefit from Mer flesh.
Tommy also leans that the crew are getting nervous with Purpled on board, discovering that Purpled’s winding them up and keeping on their toes by trying to attack them whenever they get close to his cage. So far Purpled has sliced the ankles of three crew, and when Tommy hears this, he can’t help but grin, smug and proud and unrepenting when it earns him a sharp slap across the face.
“Purpled will take pleasure in drowning you,” he snarls, held by his collar, looking up at the hunter, but down his nose at him, laughing when he gets a bloody nose for his troubles. It’s another that drags him away, not for any care, but because Purpled is shrieking his fury from the tank, thrashing back and forth, splashing the water up through the grate until Tommy is discarded beside him, and even then Purpled keeps going, swimming around in circles, darting back and forth from the sides of the tank, making the water slosh heavily, making the boat heave, although it’s not nearly enough to tip her.
It’s enough to panic the crew at least, and they leave Tommy sprawled out on deck, Purpled hissing and spitting, vowing in a near whisper that the pair of them were going to escape before the day was up. Tommy just smiled at him, letting his head pillow on the salt-weathered wood, hand reaching, Purpled’s hand cold but comfortable beneath blistered fingers. “As long as we escape this place together.”
“We’re going to,” Purpled promises, taking his hand, holding tight. “The tides are changing.”
Because Purpled is more finitely tuned to the oceans, the waves, the currents and the creatures that live beneath the surface, and while it may only be stories and folk tales that tell of Mer calling storms to them, it isn’t a lie that there is a storm on the horizon, and the ship that they sail is heading right towards it.
Tommy feels it before the crew, like a crisp wind against his skin; the smell of something sharp in the air; the shrieks of the seagulls calling a warning that the hunters don’t understand nor heed as they keep sailing into the head wind like it’s beckoning them into the growing storm clouds. Tommy sees it in the way the flags change direction atop the ship; sees it in the way the white foam splashes against the starboard bow, pushing with the tide and the wind and the pull of the deeper currents. He hears it in the creaking ropes, the gentle slap of Purpled’s tail and the call from the crow’s nest as one of the crew finally sees black clouds ahead and no time to veer the course.
“It’s the Mer,” one of the younger, naïve and superstitious hunters whisper between them. “We should’ve killed it back on the island. Might not sell for as much, but a pound of flesh is enough for each one of us to buy a ship and the crew to man her. The captain has doomed us.”
“Coward,” another spits, and shoves him towards the rigging, to haul the sails and secure them before the wind turns sharp. Another grabs Tommy’s ankle and rethreads the shackle through the cage’s wooden bars, nearly losing a hand when Purpled’s claws come darting through, blood thirsty and vicious as always. Tommy doesn’t fight, exhausted enough from the morning’s hard work and the beatings he endured because he didn’t see the point of keeping his mouth shut, but he’s not afraid, because the storm is coming and he still shares Purpled’s blessing. The ocean can’t hurt him.
But it will drown the hunters.
As the storm swells and the waves rise, Tommy braces himself against the deck, holding onto the bars of Purpled’s cage as he does the same, holding himself out of the water where the motion of rising the waves would otherwise bash him into the sides. Around them the slating ocean spray turns into torrential rain; cold pelting them both; the roars of the crew growing all the more panicked as the storm grows in power. White horses race cresting waves, crashing into hull and deck, and Tommy feels like he’s back in the storm once more; churning waves, salt cutting into the blisters of his ankle as the ship keels and bucks and speeds down waves that climb higher than the height of the top mast. The rain and ocean spray soaks into him, but he’s long-since grown used to water, laughter bubbling out of him instead of panicked screams as thunder cracks through the sky, lightning chasing and the roar of the wind snapping loose the top mast.
“Secure the bower,” the captain hollered from where he stood at the helm, holding the wheel against the pull of the swell; the crew scrambling for order around their captives, fall about the ship as they battle the storm to their posts. Hands grabble for lashing ropes, pulling on the lanyards that threatened to release the sail and rip the mainmast from its standing, creaking, groaning as the pressure built.
“It’s the Mer!” another of the crew yelled over the torrent wind. “Captain, he’ll be the death of us.”
“He’ll be the making of us once we sell him,” the captain roared back. “Now shut up and secure that sail before we lose her!”
Someone shouts a warning, just as a large wall of water lunges up from the port side, dark grey and hunger as its weight crashed down on the deck, rushing across the wood, slicking it’s surface and with its remaining power, knocks men off their feet and into the sides of the ship. Tommy and Purpled laughed in thunderous glee as they scrambled to right themselves before another wave came, ready to wash them up over the side and into the dark depths below. Maybe bodies had already been dragged off the side, unnoticed; the crew too busy keeping the ship to notice, and Tommy realised then that it was the perfect time to fight back.
Shackled by his ankle still gave him a length to move, and the crew weren’t thinking about the monster in the middle of their ship when the waves raged and crashed and soaked into their clothes; Tommy taking the sharpened knife that Purpled had kept hidden while he reaches through the cage bars, slicing at ankles and legs and anything within reach while Tommy battles his own earlier exhaustion and accumulated bruises, stabbing out, laughing when he feels the warm rush of blood, rewarded with pain and fear and curses.
The shackle keeps him pinned and the lurching deck made it hard to keep his feet, but Tommy was determined and angry; hatred burning for the humans that thought to hurt his brother and the ocean isn’t the only one that gets to take it’s revenge for trying to steal it’s children as Tommy lunges again, this time for the quartermaster. He misses, not by his own accord, but the ship turning, and suddenly the shackle that holds him back is keeping him from being sent overboard; the ship lurching and bodies dropping into the water;
The cry of “men overboard” is drowned out by a mountainous wave the looms at the front of the ship, and Tommy knows that it’s power will be too much for the storm-worn ship before Purpled even cries out to him, turning from bloodied hunter to find a hand hold to brace for the impact; fingers scrambling on wood, Purpled’s claws wrapping borderline-painful around his wrist, but Tommy doesn’t care when the ship beneath them creaks as the waves show its strength.
“Hold on,” Purpled shouts in symphony to the hunters, but his warning his for none but Tommy as the ship’s keel rises out of the water, nose pointed near skywards, the stern beneath the waves and steadily taking on water. The ship was done for, but the storm wasn’t finished just yet, battering the ship and her crew as the ocean grabbed tight and began to drag the ship down, into its depths.
As the ship sank, the water battered Tommy side to side, but Purpled held his grip and so did the shackle around his ankle, holding in fast to the wooden bars. He let Purpled hold him as he turned attention and knife to the wood; Purpled beating at the weight of the grate with his tail and superior strength, but it was still difficult in the cramped space; the pair of them far more focused on the victory well within their grasp to worry as Tommy drove the knife in the gap and pulled hard.
Purpled’s Blessing filled Tommy’s lungs and he felt no pain shifting from breathing air to breathing water, grinning to himself, ignoring the shadows of the wreck around them and the storm churning the ocean waves far above; the lightning splintering through the crowds, giving sharp light to the ocean below.
It was different, out here, in the middle of the open ocean. Tommy wasn’t used to not seeing the shore or the sand banks or the reef nearby, and he couldn’t help but tuck his feet closer to the boat, pushing his mind to focus solely on the task at hand, frowning as Purpled shoved at the wood that remained resolute to keep him trapped.
And still the ship continued to sink; columns of bubbles trailing upwards as the ship lost more air and began to sink faster. Tommy’s chest began to tighten, not just for the thick of shadows beneath him, but the pressure of the ocean as they fell deeper, faster. Keep going, we’re almost there, Purpled said in his mind, barging the wood with his shoulder, practically spring-boarding off the base of the cage as the wood started to shift slowly. He could see Tommy’s discomfort, just as Tommy could see his own growing fear because Tommy was protected by his Blessing, but blessed or not, Tommy is not Mer and he can’t bear the weight of the deep.
Keep going, Tommy says, when the wood shifts again, the pair of them focusing on nothing else until finally, the cage door shifts enough to unpin it and it opens wide enough for Purpled to slip out, tail snapping to dart forward before the door could swing back, hands grabbing Tommy’s arm and swimming back towards the surface, not to the surface, but enough so that the deep wouldn’t hurt him anymore and—
They stop dead, pain resonating through their bond when Tommy’s ankle jerks, the shackle still firmly in place.
That’s when panic sets in.
The weight of the ocean is painful now, but Tommy can’t panic, folding himself down, tugging fruitlessly on the metal links. Purpled places his hands over Tommy’s and yanks, driving the force of his tail behind it, a sound that is both terrified and desperate, but no matter how much strength he puts behind it, the chain stays firm. Purpled shouts again, but there are no words, only something determined and he snaps his tail, the muscles in his body straining, but not even he is strong enough to haul the weight of the hunter’s ship from the grip of the deep.
Come on, come on, we got out, Purpled hisses, spurred on as Tommy begins to choke, and it frightens him because he’s not drowning but he can’t breathe.
His efforts to loosen the chain are just as fruitless, but still they both try as the ghosts of the wreck sink around them; shadows sinking to join the depth’s darkness; wood and sails and bodies and—
Something distant hovers on the edge of Tommy’s mind, beyond the panic and fear. Purpled hears it too, because he freezes suddenly, eyes wide, and then turning to face the open ocean shrieks, high-pitched and echoing, calling the voices closer to him and it’s enough for Tommy to ignore the pain of being crushed as he watches lightning flash above and the snap of a tail; frost-blue compared to Purpled’s lilac sheen and suddenly there is another Mer, taller, faster, rushing forward.
Another and another come racing from the expanse of open ocean and Purpled’s elation burns like fire because his pod is here, and although Punz has warned him many times about the two-legs and staying away from them, they can see Tommy is enchanted, sharing Purpled’s blessing and they can feel the faint touch of their bond.
The largest of them, green scales rich as seaweed, doesn’t even hesitate as he stabs his trident with deadly accuracy and splits the links of the chains that had trapped Tommy fast. He kicks his legs, but the weight of the deep holds him and he can’t rise. A red koi-patterned Mer takes one arm, while a black-scaled Mer takes the other, almost lazily flicking their tails as they push away from the wreck of the ship, towards the churning surface, towards the arching lightning and storm that still rages even though all of the hunters are dead.
Tommy watches the storm from beneath the waves, feeling his chest expand easier the longer they rise, Purpled hovering at the edge of his vision and his mind; elation, relief and something warm shared between them. They were safe. Purpled had found his pod, and with them they’d return to Purpled’s home and the archipelago and the safety of the shallow seas and tropical storms that surround it.
They were safe. That was all that filled Tommy’s mind as his eyes drifted shut, exhausted, but excited for the future.