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Mermaids IN SPACE! -- drabbles
I still need a goddamn title for that goddamn universe. "A Mermaid, a Biologist and a Space Pirate Walk Into a Bar" gets a bit long. x_x
Themeset swiped from testdrive on dA. Also, they're very much not in chronological order -- hell, I don't know if half of them ever happened or will ever happen. It's just character building.
1. Introduction
His first meeting with the biologist is when he rolls over the man, who flops, half-unconscious, but tries to punch him anyway. Stubborn annoyance. Blue winds the tape on his ankles and wrists liberally. There, free hair wax.
And then he looks up, and sees the breasts first -- small, firm, perky. The tail only registers a couple of seconds later, but when it does, he forgets the topless girl it's attached to. It's a long coil of gray-pink, which ends in two bad-horror-movie spidery hands. Or feet, maybe.
"Night sky," she says softly.
She means his hair, he understands eventually.
He sneers at her, postures and growls; she nods and stays. She never does look afraid. He never does tie her up.
From the floor, the hogtied man sulks at them both.
+
8. Innocence
They reach for her when she resurfaces. She's bruised and scratched, her braids in disarray, a few trinkets ripped out.
"Lìadan!" "Are you okay?" "Where is he?"
She looks at them, grave and so innocent. "Down below," she says.
Arun knows her words better, but Blue gets it first anyway. "...Holy fuck. She drowned him."
Arun snarls at the pirate -- how dare he -- but, "What is 'drowned'?" she asks, predictably.
Blue rubs his temples and gives her a mildly sarcastic look. "When you make 'em breathe water until they die."
"Oh." A pause. "Yes."
Arun sits down a bit too heavily. She looks -- solemn, vaguely somber. But that's it. She doesn't look like she deliberately held down a trashing grown man until he stopped moving. "Shock'll set later," he tells himself.
Blue snorts, forcing away the loss of balance. Girl's alive, asshole with gun isn't. "You're in shock. She isn't."
"But she's not violent at all," Arun protests.
"She's a survivor." Blue turns away. "They all are, in this place. That or dead."
"Lìadan?" Arun pleads.
She pats his hand soothingly. "He died. Safe now." He can see in her eyes how much she doesn't understand his sorrow.
+
16. Questioning
"What's your name, again?"
"Blue."
"Your real name."
Blue scowls. "I never said."
"I need to know." Arun's fingers wriggle over the keyboard, impatiently.
Blue wants to say nothing, passport into Hindasia space be damned.
"Blue's name is not Blue?" Lìadan tilts her head, considering. "Like a war name? None as blue as you."
He sighs; talks to her, because it's easier than talking to him. "... It's Kem. Kem Sevag."
She repeats, slow, careful; he nods. She sounds slightly awkward, the end of his last name not quite curt enough, but he doesn't care. He doesn't use the name anymore, anyway.
"Planet of birth?"
Arun is detached; Lìadan is expectant.
Blue tells her about his homeworld, and if he happens to sneak in relevant information amidst the little tales of mother and neighbors, he doesn't watch Arun enter it.
+
21. Vacation
"Are you sure? It's not really next door. I mean, sure, Simin's team is only one sol-system away, but that's still at least five days of lag if anything happens, and then there's no one else for weeks."
"Aw, come on. You worry too much."
"You don't worry enough. Just wait for someone else to volunteer. I promise you won't die."
"I'm already dying! I waited two years before Neela was at a point in her life and doctorate where she could come with me. There was no one else before her, and there's no one else right now."
"You're kidding, I have seven kids who are going for their master's in marine exobiology this year."
"Half's gonna flunk out. Statistics! And betcha they want marine beasties or marine flowers, not marine-creepy-crawlies-that-happen-to-like-volcanoes. 'Sides, once I hit thirty, I can say goodbye to my scholarships. The University won't fund the whole trip. I'd sell my parents but they're already in debt, I wouldn't touch a dime. So either I go now, or I don't go at all. And then my pretty, pretty water world with its pretty, pretty tectonic tango will sit there, alone and miserable, for I don't know how many eons."
"That won't happen, that world is too interesting. Think about what the ecosystem must be like, with native and Earth-originated wildlife competing for resources for the latest centuries!"
"I am, thank you."
"... Heh, sorry. Anyway, Doctor Hùong was talking of setting up a team, I'm sure they'll have a place for you."
"As much as I love and revere Doctor Hùong, she always takes several geological ages to set up her trips. I'd like to get my doctorate before I'm fifty."
"... You're annoying, you know. You're the only guy I know who'd rather get into even more debt and risk his life than pass up work."
"Work? Sunil, Sunil, Sunil. No partner to bug me, no kids to babysit, no other researchers to do the 'my field-of-study-is-bigger-than-yours' routine with. A whole world to explore. Water everywhere! It's like a vacation."
"Oh, fine! Just don't complain if you end up vacationing at the bottom of a whale's stomach, Jonas."
"...Arun Jonas Zlatanec. Got a kind of neat rhythm to it."
+
23. Cat
Lujayn reminds Blue of a cat. Goes where she pleases; doesn't take shit from anyone, size difference be damned; damn quick with a knife -- even quicker with a gun; and can ignore you loud enough to deafen.
She fucks like a cat, too. No sign of interest for months, and then she'll be in your bunk, twisting in your sheets and arching her back like there's nothing else in the world.
She yowls and claws too; he isn't surprised.
The morning after, it's like nothing happened. It's fine with him. He's never been much of a pet person.
+
31. Flowers
"What's this?"
"Motor, you won't be interested."
Blue thinks those words are the only ones she's honestly unable to understand.
"What does it do?"
"Makes objects move. Or it makes stuff move inside objects."
She crawls closer, tail coiling behind her, careful not to get between the lamp and his project. She's already fascinated. "Hard to explain?"
"Yeah," he says, and falls silent. He's busy.
She doesn't disturb him. But when he asks her to hold the screwdriver, she beams.
Blue rolls his eyes, throws his hands up. "Other girls, you get them flowers."
He smiles a tiny bit wider.
+
34. Stars
She still prays to the Matron and the Girl-Child and the Amazon. Even there, floating in front of the front bay like she leaped to touch the stars and the air forgot to let her go. She's dry and she breathes, even as she twists and flips upon herself; and Blue and Arun watch her like they think she's upside down. They're silly. "Down" is that planet she left behind, but it's so far away she will never find the bottom-of-the-sea again. They're in the Sea-Above now, and it's up all around.
They tell her that those stars are suns; "like the Father," Arun says, voice soft like he thinks he will hurt her. He's so silly. He thinks that because things are balls of gas burning brightly in the cold depths, that they cannot be gods as well. He doesn't realize that fire is a miracle.
The Father is not her Father anymore, though. She has drifted away from His pod -- his "system," as they say. There are many, many others Fathers around -- and lots of other pods. Blue says he'd never been to a world that had three moons quite like hers, though. She figures that other systems have other moons, other Mothers. Perhaps people born under them are different.
She is still very much the Matron's child; she's learning how to pilot the ship. And how to read and write. And speak Blue's language. Still the Amazon's, as well. The other day, she slapped Arun across the face. He deserved it. Still the Girl-Child's, sometimes -- like now, when she dances in zero-grav.
Her gods are so far away and she doesn't live under their gazes anymore, and she isn't even sure they can still answer her prayers; but she doesn't care. They shaped her, and here she is. Drifting farther than she ever imagined. And so she dances there, before the stars, and dreams about the worlds she still has left to see.
+
75. Mirror
She watches him from the small tub, topless and wet, coiled with the end of her tail flopping out. He pretends he didn't expect the scene to feel more intimate than it does. It's nothing personal; she's just waiting for the end of the daily gravity time. She could have spent it in the dolphins' water tubes; he isn't sure why she chose to hang out in the bathroom instead. Perhaps she ran out of time.
He stands by the sink without a word, pretends he doesn't see her in the mirror as he bends over. She watches, solemn, silent. She was confused when his brown roots grew back; but he has no money to have them gene-tweaked like Arun's.
"Oh. You're putting the sky back in."
He thinks about doing what Arun does -- correcting her, giving the real words, explaining the process of dyeing; but in the end it's true enough, and he doesn't say anything.
+
100. Relaxation
Arun slips in the hot, steaming pool cautiously. At the other end, Lìadan floats boneless like so much seaweed, a blissful smile on her too-stern face. Arun chuckles. Hundreds of bubbles run up his skin, his thighs, his back.
It would be better if that guy stopped lurking between two rocks, shotgun propped up on his shoulder. Arun can't tell if he's watching over them or just watching them.
"Just come in already. There's no one on this island, or the next, or the one after that."
"Sorry," Blue replies dryly. "Playing lobster isn't my idea of a relaxing time."
Themeset swiped from testdrive on dA. Also, they're very much not in chronological order -- hell, I don't know if half of them ever happened or will ever happen. It's just character building.
1. Introduction
His first meeting with the biologist is when he rolls over the man, who flops, half-unconscious, but tries to punch him anyway. Stubborn annoyance. Blue winds the tape on his ankles and wrists liberally. There, free hair wax.
And then he looks up, and sees the breasts first -- small, firm, perky. The tail only registers a couple of seconds later, but when it does, he forgets the topless girl it's attached to. It's a long coil of gray-pink, which ends in two bad-horror-movie spidery hands. Or feet, maybe.
"Night sky," she says softly.
She means his hair, he understands eventually.
He sneers at her, postures and growls; she nods and stays. She never does look afraid. He never does tie her up.
From the floor, the hogtied man sulks at them both.
+
8. Innocence
They reach for her when she resurfaces. She's bruised and scratched, her braids in disarray, a few trinkets ripped out.
"Lìadan!" "Are you okay?" "Where is he?"
She looks at them, grave and so innocent. "Down below," she says.
Arun knows her words better, but Blue gets it first anyway. "...Holy fuck. She drowned him."
Arun snarls at the pirate -- how dare he -- but, "What is 'drowned'?" she asks, predictably.
Blue rubs his temples and gives her a mildly sarcastic look. "When you make 'em breathe water until they die."
"Oh." A pause. "Yes."
Arun sits down a bit too heavily. She looks -- solemn, vaguely somber. But that's it. She doesn't look like she deliberately held down a trashing grown man until he stopped moving. "Shock'll set later," he tells himself.
Blue snorts, forcing away the loss of balance. Girl's alive, asshole with gun isn't. "You're in shock. She isn't."
"But she's not violent at all," Arun protests.
"She's a survivor." Blue turns away. "They all are, in this place. That or dead."
"Lìadan?" Arun pleads.
She pats his hand soothingly. "He died. Safe now." He can see in her eyes how much she doesn't understand his sorrow.
+
16. Questioning
"What's your name, again?"
"Blue."
"Your real name."
Blue scowls. "I never said."
"I need to know." Arun's fingers wriggle over the keyboard, impatiently.
Blue wants to say nothing, passport into Hindasia space be damned.
"Blue's name is not Blue?" Lìadan tilts her head, considering. "Like a war name? None as blue as you."
He sighs; talks to her, because it's easier than talking to him. "... It's Kem. Kem Sevag."
She repeats, slow, careful; he nods. She sounds slightly awkward, the end of his last name not quite curt enough, but he doesn't care. He doesn't use the name anymore, anyway.
"Planet of birth?"
Arun is detached; Lìadan is expectant.
Blue tells her about his homeworld, and if he happens to sneak in relevant information amidst the little tales of mother and neighbors, he doesn't watch Arun enter it.
+
21. Vacation
"Are you sure? It's not really next door. I mean, sure, Simin's team is only one sol-system away, but that's still at least five days of lag if anything happens, and then there's no one else for weeks."
"Aw, come on. You worry too much."
"You don't worry enough. Just wait for someone else to volunteer. I promise you won't die."
"I'm already dying! I waited two years before Neela was at a point in her life and doctorate where she could come with me. There was no one else before her, and there's no one else right now."
"You're kidding, I have seven kids who are going for their master's in marine exobiology this year."
"Half's gonna flunk out. Statistics! And betcha they want marine beasties or marine flowers, not marine-creepy-crawlies-that-happen-to-like-volcanoes. 'Sides, once I hit thirty, I can say goodbye to my scholarships. The University won't fund the whole trip. I'd sell my parents but they're already in debt, I wouldn't touch a dime. So either I go now, or I don't go at all. And then my pretty, pretty water world with its pretty, pretty tectonic tango will sit there, alone and miserable, for I don't know how many eons."
"That won't happen, that world is too interesting. Think about what the ecosystem must be like, with native and Earth-originated wildlife competing for resources for the latest centuries!"
"I am, thank you."
"... Heh, sorry. Anyway, Doctor Hùong was talking of setting up a team, I'm sure they'll have a place for you."
"As much as I love and revere Doctor Hùong, she always takes several geological ages to set up her trips. I'd like to get my doctorate before I'm fifty."
"... You're annoying, you know. You're the only guy I know who'd rather get into even more debt and risk his life than pass up work."
"Work? Sunil, Sunil, Sunil. No partner to bug me, no kids to babysit, no other researchers to do the 'my field-of-study-is-bigger-than-yours' routine with. A whole world to explore. Water everywhere! It's like a vacation."
"Oh, fine! Just don't complain if you end up vacationing at the bottom of a whale's stomach, Jonas."
"...Arun Jonas Zlatanec. Got a kind of neat rhythm to it."
+
23. Cat
Lujayn reminds Blue of a cat. Goes where she pleases; doesn't take shit from anyone, size difference be damned; damn quick with a knife -- even quicker with a gun; and can ignore you loud enough to deafen.
She fucks like a cat, too. No sign of interest for months, and then she'll be in your bunk, twisting in your sheets and arching her back like there's nothing else in the world.
She yowls and claws too; he isn't surprised.
The morning after, it's like nothing happened. It's fine with him. He's never been much of a pet person.
+
31. Flowers
"What's this?"
"Motor, you won't be interested."
Blue thinks those words are the only ones she's honestly unable to understand.
"What does it do?"
"Makes objects move. Or it makes stuff move inside objects."
She crawls closer, tail coiling behind her, careful not to get between the lamp and his project. She's already fascinated. "Hard to explain?"
"Yeah," he says, and falls silent. He's busy.
She doesn't disturb him. But when he asks her to hold the screwdriver, she beams.
Blue rolls his eyes, throws his hands up. "Other girls, you get them flowers."
He smiles a tiny bit wider.
+
34. Stars
She still prays to the Matron and the Girl-Child and the Amazon. Even there, floating in front of the front bay like she leaped to touch the stars and the air forgot to let her go. She's dry and she breathes, even as she twists and flips upon herself; and Blue and Arun watch her like they think she's upside down. They're silly. "Down" is that planet she left behind, but it's so far away she will never find the bottom-of-the-sea again. They're in the Sea-Above now, and it's up all around.
They tell her that those stars are suns; "like the Father," Arun says, voice soft like he thinks he will hurt her. He's so silly. He thinks that because things are balls of gas burning brightly in the cold depths, that they cannot be gods as well. He doesn't realize that fire is a miracle.
The Father is not her Father anymore, though. She has drifted away from His pod -- his "system," as they say. There are many, many others Fathers around -- and lots of other pods. Blue says he'd never been to a world that had three moons quite like hers, though. She figures that other systems have other moons, other Mothers. Perhaps people born under them are different.
She is still very much the Matron's child; she's learning how to pilot the ship. And how to read and write. And speak Blue's language. Still the Amazon's, as well. The other day, she slapped Arun across the face. He deserved it. Still the Girl-Child's, sometimes -- like now, when she dances in zero-grav.
Her gods are so far away and she doesn't live under their gazes anymore, and she isn't even sure they can still answer her prayers; but she doesn't care. They shaped her, and here she is. Drifting farther than she ever imagined. And so she dances there, before the stars, and dreams about the worlds she still has left to see.
+
75. Mirror
She watches him from the small tub, topless and wet, coiled with the end of her tail flopping out. He pretends he didn't expect the scene to feel more intimate than it does. It's nothing personal; she's just waiting for the end of the daily gravity time. She could have spent it in the dolphins' water tubes; he isn't sure why she chose to hang out in the bathroom instead. Perhaps she ran out of time.
He stands by the sink without a word, pretends he doesn't see her in the mirror as he bends over. She watches, solemn, silent. She was confused when his brown roots grew back; but he has no money to have them gene-tweaked like Arun's.
"Oh. You're putting the sky back in."
He thinks about doing what Arun does -- correcting her, giving the real words, explaining the process of dyeing; but in the end it's true enough, and he doesn't say anything.
+
100. Relaxation
Arun slips in the hot, steaming pool cautiously. At the other end, Lìadan floats boneless like so much seaweed, a blissful smile on her too-stern face. Arun chuckles. Hundreds of bubbles run up his skin, his thighs, his back.
It would be better if that guy stopped lurking between two rocks, shotgun propped up on his shoulder. Arun can't tell if he's watching over them or just watching them.
"Just come in already. There's no one on this island, or the next, or the one after that."
"Sorry," Blue replies dryly. "Playing lobster isn't my idea of a relaxing time."
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They're gorgeous ::grins:: I'm really liking your characters.
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When the story if finished are you going to try publishing it?
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Hee. Maybe, if it's good enough.
... the only problem is that it's in english. I'm not sure how I'll manage. D:
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After about six years of shopping his novels around the big publishers here in the states my housemate finally said "fuck it" and is self publishing with Lulu.com. *checks their FAQ* Looks like you could publish with them if you liked the idea, they seem to have production and shipping in Europe (somewhere) as well as the US.
Which reminds me to get my butt in gear and finish up his website so we can pimp it out all over the internet.
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Have my babies eeeee!<3<3<3I missed this story, still not sure who some of the other characters are other than Kem, Arun, and Lidian but the drabbles are so very yummeh. Personally I like the catlike lady. >.>;;
And dawwwe for learning the language but still misunderstandings and gasp she killed a bad guy! :O
Btw, there gonna be any pairings in this story? ;P
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Liadan Liadan Liadan *continues muttering to self in an attempt to memorize*
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Lujayn is one of Blue's teammates from their pirate ship, she's the weapons specialist/sharpshooter. Sunil is Arun's friend and a teacher at the university Arun does his doctorate at, he's the one Arun sends the email to. (the people they mention really don't matter to the story. XD)
As for the pairings, HMMM. I still don't know. I'd like at least a setup for OT3, even if it stays technically platonic. I gotta see if any chemistry happens on its own, first. But oh my, the pretty, pretty hangups. XD
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Mmmm, weapons you say? <-wants to pet her even more now
She sounds like she'd bite me though. :<
Ah, the person Arun emails in the beginning is a guy... For some reason I had it in my head that the person on the other side was female. .-.
They might not really matter to the story directly but they give depth to the main character's backgrounds and it's interesting to learn more about people they've known/spent a great amount of time with. :3
Ooooooh shineys! *waves small OT3 flags enthusiastically* :D
Well they can do stuff short of actual intercourse...
Unless Arun and Blue go at it and Liadan gets off from watching?... *hopes*I kinda see Blue going, "augh sexual tension lets just do this and pretend it never happened" while Arun's just clueless and all "wtf?". I'm sure Liadan would be very composed and logical about the whole thing, seeing as she has mentioned that she's old enough to have had a mate had she not chosen to wander. Mmmm the possibilities. x3
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Yeah, but i'm wasting my prettynames on them. ;_; I don't have that many names appropriate for Arun's people on my list. *sadness*
-- now that you tell me, yeah, there was no real sign that it was a guy. XD;;
*snerk!* They could have intercourse too, just not with Liadan in the middle. XD; Physically at least.
alas, no, she'd be hella confused. At first, at least.XD Blue is very casual about sex, but not very sex-crazed either. Sex is nice, but if there's no sex, he has his hand and he knows how to use it. He's been with men before, too. He works hard on not letting people bother him, though, and Arun bothers him quite a lot. XD He'd so kiss Arun or make passes at him just to bother him.
He finds Liadan cute and sweet and wayyyy too trusting, and that makes him a bit confused as to the way to handle her because he's not used to that kind of people. Problem with Blue is that he's got trustworthy inclinations, but he doesn't like it. XD He's very self-reliant and he doesn't trust easily, but once he trusts it's all the way, so... He really has no idea what to do with her. XDDDD;;;
Arun... sexual tension what? He's just -- that guy -- ARGH! so infuriating. XD And he likes Liadan a lot and wants to cuddlepet and protect her (and okay, she's got boobs). He's going to be pretty horrified when he realizes that she's 16-17, though. (the age difference won't bother her, though she'll be surprised. Arun looks like a 20 year old merman would, but he's almost 30. Very confusing. He should have a pod and children of his own already! XD)
Liadan finds it somewhat logical that one of them might claim her eventually, but both of them is just not something she'd think about on her own. That's not how pods work; there's supposed to be the father-lead male, his subordinate males who don't touch the girls, and the leader's females, and if another guy tries it with the leader's girls, there's got to be a death at some point. She likes them both, she'd be content if either one chose to -- well, eventually. Right now she's still "they're very nice boys but I DO NOT WANT MY BABIES TO BE DEFORMED THNX". For her sex = "marriage" = reproduction.
She doesn't really have romantic feelings for either one, because romance isn't all that important for merpeople. She wants to mother Arun, and she loves that they have so much in common and they can talk and talk for hours, but Blue behaves more like a pod leader than Arun does so she instinctively does what Blue tells her to do, because by taking control he also implied that he'd keep her safe. But then Arun refuses Blue's control, and she's still confused as to why they're not trying to kill each other all that hard. XD; But yes, she'd approach this with all due seriousness. u.u
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No. 34 is great, too. It's nice to see such a sensible approach to things, compared to the usual insanity religion seems to bring out in people. Myself included.
And, because the bandwagon does indeed need jumped on, I <3 Liadan.
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She socute. ;_; How did I create something so cute. And killy.
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It's incredible how you manage to put so much characterization into so few words. I feel almost like I know them already.
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I second the opinions of the person immediately above me. These snippets are like little gems, compact and shiny. I could fall in love with your characters, the way you write them. And it's deep in a way that's subtle and poetic, without waxing overly philosophical and taking away from the concrete parts of the story. Lìadan's worldview, too, is just fascinating.