middaeg | [Semi-closed] Welcome to my cage little lover

Entry tags:

[Semi-closed] Welcome to my cage little lover

Who: Connor and other Merrow!
When: March full moons
Where: The ocean
What: Merrow shenanigans~
Warnings: None yet!

[It’s the full moons, and Aefenglom’s Merrow population are stuck underwater. No better time to get to know each other better, right?

Connor, for his part, is eager to swim up to any fellow Merfolk and start circling them. The full moons always get him feeling playful, especially with his own kind. More violent urges are generally directed towards those with legs, but are also kept carefully under control for now. Other urges... well, those he cares about controlling less, but that’s an opportunity that has never come up.

He can also be found on the sea floor, finding pretty shells and pieces of sea glass to take home, or singing to himself with his eyes closed as he rests in the sand.]

((Merrow fun! Feel free to mingle amongst yourselves and make toplevels!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's a peculiar kind of—not relief, exactly, but a different feeling when she relents to the full moons this month after spending much of it playing with the glamour tiara that caster had crafted for her. She's spent so much of the past while looking at herself in the mirror as she was, not as she is; her father's daughter, soft and human-looking, warm-looking. It feels, bizarrely, less like losing control to relinquish that and slide into the water, tentacles and mantle spreading out milky-pale reflecting rainbows and her eyes huge again, her teeth sharp.

Not that she isn't still wearing jewelry. A glittering chain tangled around her waist, trailing gems, something to play with when she twists in the water, something that catches the light and draws the eye and makes it easier to seek out companionship.

[Connor spots the shimmering of the chain and is lured towards it, though he doesn’t intend to steal it from Gwen. Only admire it. He swims alongside her, his milky blue eyes focused on the gems.]

That’s a pretty piece of jewellery.

[Connor has his own adornments; a silver chain necklace with a ring hanging from it, and a cloth bag belted around his waist to store trinkets in.]

( her nearest tentacles reach out towards him—not touching, precisely, but approaching his tail and then withdrawing, circling. it looks independent of her, but presumably it is not; when she reaches for him, the peculiar folds of webbing between her fingers that on land look excessive and peculiarly thin billow in mimicry of the mantle over her tentacles, and finally make sense.

she tucks her hand in his elbow, like they're strolling the beach and not swimming beneath it. )

You should see my tiaras.

( fun fact, she was always like this. )

[He matches the steady pace she swims at, looking excited at the prospect of seeing such pretty jewellery. He had no interest in this sort of thing before, but... he’s helpless against those Merrow instincts. He wants to see shiny things. Sparkly things.]

I’d love to.

[Gwen herself makes a pretty sight too, very elegant in the water. The tentacles are fascinating to watch.]

I have quite a collection at home too, but I don’t have any tiaras, so it might not be as impressive as yours.

It's nothing like what I had at home— ( the slight emphasis placing it in that history, that unshared history, where she came from, ) —but, I mean, I always liked pretty things.

( and she is one. with legs or without, with glamour or without; the glass gems on her waist-chain set off beautifully the shine of her improbably smooth flesh. it's a simple piece, elegant, but it suits her. )

My godmother used to buy them for me. Constantly. It's a little—piece of home.

[Connor once again wonders what it’s like to be so many years old, to have so many memories of people and places from potentially decades past. Gwen is young, of course, but to someone like Connor who is barely pushing one year old, it’s strange to think about.]

I never had an interest back home, but then... I was only really me for a very short time before arriving here.

[So who knows, maybe he would have grown to enjoy things like this if given the chance?]

( she bumps her shoulder against his, a more sincere and less playfully play-acting thing than the way she'd taken his arm—then with a burst of movement that momentarily seems to surround him (tentacles are great), she flings out into the water ahead of him. )

Now you're going to be you for as long as there's a you to be.

( one of those tentacles pokes him in the chest. )

Longer than most people, probably. Maybe as long as me.

( she isn't sure if becoming merrow quashed her life expectancy; she doubts it did his, the artificial parts of him still prominent. )

The person you were is just a person on the way to the person you are now. I'm not the same as I was. But she was just becoming.

[Connor is surprised when Gwen propels forward, but follows quickly. Her words are encouraging, and he smiles genuinely for once; the kind that reaches his eyes, and isn't just there to make socialising more pleasant.]

I will be.

[Cyberlife would never have him under their control again. He'd rather die.]

I only wish the person I was hadn't caused so much... pain.

[So many androids had died because of him. It feels wrong somehow, that he's here discovering himself when they never got a chance to. It makes his smile falter.]

( her longest tentacles elongate further, winding around the end of his tail, suckers exerting only momentary points of pressure in what feels more like exploration than anything else. she tips back in the water, as she might if she were sprawling on the grass beside a river, anchored to him by the way she is memorising his shape. )

What that makes you is "a person".

( it's affectionate. )

I mean, it's a sliding scale of guilt. Some people just wish they weren't arseholes in secondary, or didn't lie to that person they were fucking, or murdered a bus-load of nuns. And the nun thing is fairly significant, but the thing is, I don't know, the regret. Being an intricate system. We're intricate systems. We feel things.

[It's a strange sensation, but he enjoys the contact anyway. It's comforting, oddly enough.]

I didn't feel anything at first, though.

[And maybe the fact that he feels remorse now makes up for it, but it irks him that he watched an android being blown apart by snipers and felt nothing. He'd let another one self-destruct and didn't care for that, either. And he knows, realistically, that he can't be blamed for his nature as an obedient, emotionless machine at first. It doesn't help, though.]

Those androids died and nobody cared.

[And that's just sad, to him.]

( it doesn't help. lots of things—aren't anyone's fault. aren't the fault of the person who still feels those things reverberating up their arms, the shock of the strike delivered as if or perhaps indeed by their own hands.

but, she says, )

You care.

( not then, but now, sure. it still matters. )

My ancestor's name is Aelfraed des Wassers and he is older than the Roman empire. He's probably going to outlive most things, if he's lasted this long. I exist because he loved a woman once, and I know her through the shape of how much he loves her now. She's been dead longer than my grandfather has been alive. She killed herself. Drowned herself, actually, just to really turn the knife.

( one last fuck you. )

He still sees her in things. In me. In my uncle, in my grandmother. He didn't do enough, maybe. I think he thinks that. I don't know if it's true. But he remembers her. He will until—everything that she ever touched in the world is dust. He's going to carry her for centuries.

( a nod, then. decisive. )

You can do that as well.

[Connor listens quietly, and then gives Gwen a sad frown.]

That’s... sad, actually.

[He gets what Gwen means, though. And in a way, it is beautiful. It’s just a little overshadowed by how tragic it is.]

But I suppose I understand. And at least someone mourns them now, even if it’s a little late.

[He swims up to bump shoulders with her again, seeking more of the comfort he finds in touch.]

Thanks. I’ll remember your story.

( the fae are terrific; the fae are terrifying.

the saddest parts of gwen come from camilla (of all their children, she reminds him of her the most), but her bottomless capacity to love came from aelfraed (and he is sorry for it, sometimes). mind you, so, of course, did the feline callousness towards those who are not invited into that warmth. )

Tragedy is part of the lived experience. You can't be happy without ever having been sad; you don't know the difference.

I don’t like that you’re right.

[He says it softly, with a small smile.]

What’s the happiest you’ve ever been?

[He wants to talk about that more than he wants to talk about sadness and death.]

( here is a sad thing—

that it takes her a while to find an answer. she can remember being sad, and afraid, and angry, but happiness slips through her fingers more often than it doesn't and she wants to find him an answer, doesn't want him to see how difficult it is. that she leans her head on his shoulder under the water is as much to disguise it as it is to offer tactile comfort. )

When I lived in Paris, ( she says, eventually, and she sounds a little bit surprised at herself. like maybe she's never thought about it in so many words, and didn't know this was going to be the answer. ) My stepfather used to mind me a lot, and I remember this one day—he did it all the time, apparently, but I was really young, so it blurs together. I remember riding on his shoulders while he was walking, and I would point things out, and he would tell me about them. Like he had all the time in the world to do it. Like there wasn't anything that he would rather have been doing, except telling me why that building was tall or that man had short hair or why I couldn't have my own bicycle yet.

He'd lean forward when it was time to get down and I'd let myself fall and he'd catch me.

[Connor has no experience with being a child, but he supposes it does count. But he does note how long it took Gwen to reply, and he wonders if she had to work backwards from most recent memories to older ones. He rests his head on hers, an attempt to comfort her in turn whether she really needs it or not.]

That must have been a long time ago. What makes you happy now?

( she could give a flip answer, and she thinks about doing so. )

I'm glad Putin is here with me, ( she says, after a while. which isn't exactly what he asked. ) Hasibe gave him to me a few years ago. When he was a puppy. She's, uh—she was married to my father for a while, but she's not really my "ex-stepmother" because it was annulled. We're close. He gave me her engagement ring, actually, but it's not here.

He's come almost everywhere with me since then.

[Connor nods. Dogs are an infinite source of joy, he's found.]

I'm glad he's with you, too. My partner, Hank, had his dog arrive with him here as well. Sumo. He was the first dog I ever got to pet.

[Which is clearly an important milestone.]

Can I meet Putin some time?

( there is a fleeting moment where she wonders at the definition of partner; business partner? police partner? sexual partner? and then she lets it go without asking, half-smiling. )

I think I've talked to him. Hank.

( it twigs a memory, although that had been a fuck of a day and she isn't sure. after a moment, warmer: )

You can meet Putin any time. He's Putinka, to friends.

[ like connor, lance, too, is drawn to the light. he swims closer to get a better look at whatever it may be, and not only does he find a pretty piece of jewelry, but a pretty lady, too. he keeps a respectable distance between them, but he's glad to be in the company of another merrow.

he grins, sharp teeth visible under the moonlight. ]

Don't mind me, I'm just staring at that pretty chain you got there!

( he's the first she's seen other than connor, particularly, which makes him immediately interesting even if what he leads with makes her spread her mantle out between her two largest tentacles, the shimmering spread of webbing akin to a cat puffing itself up at the approach of a stranger.

the petite shape of the woman-half of her suggests she is probably, ordinarily, a diminutive thing; the swirl of strong tentacles and shimmering mantle of webbing are rather more formidable. )

Keep looking with your eyes, ( is the droll answer he gets, her own starry, prism pupils blown so wide the blue-black of her eyes is only a thin line at the edge, and the teeth that flash when she speaks needle-thin and sharp. ) Who're you?

[ oh, he wasn't expecting her to "puff up" like that. then again, he did mention the shiny object that's rightfully hers, and being a merrow, he too understands the importance of keeping one's findings to themselves. he's surprised by the tentacles and backs up a little before he holds his hands up to suggest he's not planning on doing anything. ]

It's all yours, promise. [ he doesn't have any shiny objects on his person, unfortunately -- and there is a part of him that does want to snatch that chain away from her. he's well-aware that it's a bad idea, though, and keeps his hands to himself. ]

I'm Lance. Just got here around a month ago or so? Time flies, can't remember when exactly. [ he gives her a toothy grin. ] And yourself?

( she shimmers rainbows when she moves, and she does keep moving, restless in the water; tentacles that creep towards him like she's going to poke him or maybe snag the end of him and turn him upside down to see what falls out...but they don't touch, jerking back under her mantle when she's conscious of being within grabbing distance. )

A while, ( she says, vaguely, which is not her name but probably more an echoing answer of how long she's been here. and an unhelpful one that could mean fucking anything, but that's: ) I'm Gwen. It's short for Gwenaëlle and long for G.

( most people struggle with the extremely french pronunciation of her full name; her assortment of nickname alternatives includes gioia, which is a pretty little piece of irony. )

You were human before here?

[ it's beautiful to see the rainbow underneath the moonlight, but he starts slowly backing away when the tentacles start creeping towards him -- they move faster than he does, though, so she does manage to get within grabbing distance before he strays too far away from her.

but they pull back, and lance lets out a quiet breath. the last thing he wants to do is get into a tussle with a fellow merrow. ]

Gwen. Nice to meet you! And yep, one hundred-percent human. This is all pretty new to me.

[ the shark tail and fin and all. ]

What about you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Semi-closed] Welcome to my cage little lover

gwen | here 2 make merrow frands

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: suicide.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject