towerofanimus | I've heard the mermaids singing each to each

Entry tags:

I've heard the mermaids singing each to each

Characters: Kariya Matou and YOU
Setting: Floor ninety (the lagoon)
Format: Prose to start, but I'll match you!
Summary: Kariya is turned into a mermaid. Merman. Merperson. A dangerous merperson. His choice is to drown others or die himself.
Warnings: Blood, possible violence, definite death (for Kariya). And worms. Always worms.

When he'd first found his way to the lagoon floor, Kariya had thought it might be a new peaceful floor where he could rest, like his favorite floor: the meadow. The sound of the falling water was soft and soothing, the water brilliantly clear. The banks were green and dotted with bright flowers. He sat down at the water's edge with a sigh. The effort of making it to this floor had taxed his strength. He was tired. He leaned forward to look into the blue water, reaching out to trail his fingers through the cool liquid.

That was when they struck. Without any warning. His wrist was gripped by a hand, strong as a vise. It hurt, but before he had time to voice a protest, he was dragged down into the water.

He should have died at once. It was the worms inside him that kept him alive. His lungs were aching, but when he opened his mouth in panic and fear, the worms, protecting their host, shot out and fought off the attackers, stinging and striking with their sharp wings and teeth. He managed to struggle to the surface. He was aware of flashing fins, fierce faces, hands pulling him back down. The worms in his lungs felt like they were choking him, but they were sustaining him with prana, life energy. He didn't drown, but his body was wracked with incredible pain. He was used to pain, but this kind was different. It felt like it was twisting his very skin and bones. He gasped, coughing up more worms into the water, along with dark blood.

It felt like it took hours, but it was probably only minutes. When the pain grew less, Kariya finally made his way back to the bank, his gasping and choking easing. He glanced down at his hands. His fingers were cool and had a greenish tinge. His legs felt strange, or rather, they were no longer legs at all. He turned to find himself changed from the torso down: he had a long, scaled greenish length of body ending in a broad, fishlike tail. He looked up. Then he saw the other mermaids clearly, watching him with their dark eyes. They seemed to be smiling at him, swimming in circles nearby but not drawing too near.

He tried to climb up out of the water, but he realized he wouldn't get far without legs. The air felt so dry on his skin. Was he trapped here? He hurt so badly, he only wanted to go back to safer, more familiar floors, and maybe find Ishtar to heal him. He couldn't. He had no way of calling for help. He was alone here, except for the mermaids with their laughing faces and cruel smiles.

Option A: (possible drowning)
There's a new merman swimming in the lagoon, one with the left side of his body veined and scarred, looking for someone, anyone, who can help him. Now and again, he calls out. "Is anyone there? I need your help."

Option B: (after beaching)
Unable to bear his existence as a mermaid, in pain and with the inescapable impulse to drown others, Kariya has made his way up onto the shore. He's lying there, breathing slowly, as his skin dries and cracks. This pain... he'll just have to endure it as he's endured everything else. He hopes it doesn't take too much longer.

[ooc: Kariya is going to be mercy-killed by Diarmuid, but feel free to encounter him before or after he's beached.]

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"If someone doesn't do something, that's their fault. If someone lets children suffer and die when they can do something to stop it, then they're to blame. I don't want to believe that someone like that created the world." His family is bad enough. He doesn't need another uncaring father figure. "I'd rather believe nobody did." His mind may be affected by his current form, but he means what he says about God.

"Heal me more, then, please. I'm ill." He wants the man to step closer to the water, closer to him. It's so hard to resist that instinct. "I've been ill for a long time." His flesh may be healed, but the worms inside him are already gnawing away at him again.

Raphael sighed as he spoke.

"I realize that this is difficult to understand..and cope with. But..the pain that comes toward humans isn't due to malice or ill will..it simply..is. Healthy children, hurting children, they all make up the world."

Raphael thought for a moment..and then scooted forward and tried putting his hand on the man's head again.

"Alright then. I shall heal you again. But..do not drag me under. I cannot help anyone if I become..whatever you have."

Raphael would then proceed to heal the man again.

"Do you know what they've done to her?" His voice rose. "My niece. I can't forgive anyone who would let that happen to her. So I can't forgive your God." He can't forgive himself, for that same reason. He blames himself for what's happened to her.

Kariya did need healing, but his strange new instinct drove him to use his need for deceit, something he would ordinarily never do. It was just that the need, to pull and to drown, was so strong, he couldn't overcome it.

He hated himself as he did it, but when Raphael reached out, when he started to heal Kariya, Kariya's hand snaked up to grab Raphael's wrist. He didn't want to. It simply seemed to happen, his grip firming on the other's arm as he pulled.

"Sadly, I do not. As I have said before, we do not interfere with Earth and Humans unless they need interference. If we interfered, we would be spoiling their free will. And..you do not need to forgive someone who had not done any harm at all. God has not harmed your daughter Himself, as far as I am aware."

Raphael sighed as the man grabbed his wrist and started to pull him in the water. He was more cautious now, thanks to KOS-MOS. Instead of turning into a swan, he quickly changed into his spirit body. The man's hand would simply pass through it.

"..I did tell you not to try and drag me under."

"Helping someone isn't taking away their free will. She's suffering! If he made the people that harmed her and he knows she's in pain but won't help, then it's the same thing. She needs help." But apparently, he's the only one willing to provide it. The only one who cares.

Kariya's tail rose and hit the water in frustration as Raphael shifted into spirit form and he lost his grip. He looked irritated one moment–

–then contrite the next, even sorrowful. His eyes were wet not only with the water of the lagoon. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. It's this body makes me want to... I can't help it. I don't really want to hurt you." Not that he thinks he's capable of harming someone who can do what Raphael just did.

"She may need help, and He may have created a humanity that could harm..but He also created a humanity that could heal. It is up to you, and other humans, to help her. I am sorry..this is painful and confusing..but it is how it is."

Raphael watched as the man splashed the water, and, after going through several emotions..cried. Even if the man had tried to hurt him, it was not normal for him. He himself was stating this. If he wasn't in spirit form, he would have been able to feel Raphael's hand on his head.

"It is alright. I understand. You do not have to cry. It's alright."

"Then why didn't he make me stronger?" asked Kariya, who blamed himself for his own weakness. If he really believed in God, he would have blamed him, but as it was, he didn't truly believe, so the brunt of the blame fell upon himself. For not being strong enough, for not doing the right things. "I'll never accept it. If God is real, I'll always hate him."

Maybe he means these words sincerely, and maybe he's just angry, angry as well as sad.

"It's not all right. I'm trapped like this. They've made me a monster." He hates the predatory ideas that even now are permeating his ordinary thoughts. He would still try to pull Raphael under if he could get a hold of him. "I don't want to hurt anyone." Well, no one here, at least.

"Because that would be interfering. Humanity has to get stronger on their own merits, and when they are at their limit, then Heaven helps. If God did not interfere, then Humanity was not at it's own limit."

He said nothing about the second part. He wasn't sure if the man actually meant it or if emotion was moving his tongue.

"..You are not a monster..but it is terrible that they are distorting your free will and wishes. I wish there was something more I could do to help.."

"I don't care about humanity." Well, he does, but that's not what he's talking about now. "I want to save one family. That's all. I want them to be happy. I don't see why that's too much to ask for." He couldn't understand why someone as powerful as God was supposed to be couldn't help. It would be so easy for him. No effort at all. "But like I said, I don't believe in all that." He'd rather not believe in a God who would hold back like that.

"It feels like being a monster. If you try to help me, I'll only try to hurt you," said Kariya, mournfully. "Even though I don't want to."

"I do not understand why you don't..but one family's suffering could turn to one family's joy if they were to all work together. It does not require God's interference..I know it sounds cruel..but it is the way of things. I am sorry."

Raphael then sighed. It was always hard for Humans to understand these things..not that Raphael could blame them. It was not like they could see everything..and Enoch had showed them that their gift could easily hurt them as well as help.

"Then..if we could restrain your arms while I am healing you, then I could heal you and you would not harm me."

"People are important to me, but now it's only one girl I want to save." He knows can't save all humanity. He's not the kind of person to have a goal like that. "Then you don't understand my family. They're remorseless and vicious. They've always been that way." He was too stubborn to unbend on this point: if there was a God, he was the one who had allowed these things to begin and to continue.

He gazed up at Raphael, considering his offer. "How can you restrain me? This body won't allow it." It makes him want to kill, the instincts stronger than his conscience. He lashes his tail, sending a fine spray of water toward the shore.

This man sounded a lot like Enoch, if Enoch had been brought up in a cruel house and had lost most of his faith in humanity..and everything else.

"..While that is an admirable goal, only focusing on one person will lead to destruction for all. And I can restrain you with some rope. I shall leave, get some, and hurry back, if you will allow me."

It was good that Raphael was still in his spirit body. The water just went through him.

"But you don't understand. I have to save her. No one else will." His goal is one thing he won't allow to be contradicted. It means more than anything, to him.

"You'd help me after what I tried to do?" (What he would still do, if given a chance.) He does want to be healed. He's still suffering a great deal, even with the efforts Ishtar has made.

"I– you can't heal me all the way. I have something living inside me. Familiars. I have to keep them." With the worms inside him, he'd always keep getting worse, but at least he could further check the progression of his deterioration.

Raphael smiled at that. He looked..rather calming.

"Then do so. Such is part of your free will. You are allowed to use it in that way. And I will try to heal you as much as I can. I am Raphael."

..As if this man would know what that meant.

"..If you do not wish me to get rid of those worms, then I shall not. However, I shall heal the deterioration that they are causing, if you will allow me to get a rope so that you will not drown me."

"I will save her." He was sure of it, but the thought that there was some all powerful being just watching didn't sit well with him. "No god has done anything for me yet, so why would I expect help? I don't want the help of someone like that." In another state of mind, Kariya might have been more willing to listen, but he was agitated, not himself.

The healing was a tempting offer, but his new instincts were rebelling at the idea of being tied up. He lashed his tail, sending more water flying. "I don't know... I don't want to be tied up. How do I know you'll set me free again?"

"He has not helped you because..he is expecting you, along with these other humans, to use your own free will and help each other. Unnecessary interference would only hurt humanity. I realize that this is difficult and painful to grasp..but it simply is. It is not due to malice or cruelty."

More water went through his spirit body as Kariya sent more water flying towards him.

"I shall promise to set you free. It is..hard for Angels to ignore things like this, and I would not ignore yours, especially when you are in pain."

"But there's no one to help me. I have to do this all alone. Most humans don't use their free will to help," he says bitterly.

Kariya pauses to take in this new information. This is an actual angel? He doesn't--didn't--believe in them, of course, but he's heard of them.

"An angel? Is that what you are?" He can't say he isn't impressed, but he's not in the best frame of mind to deal with this revelation. "Isn't healing with me 'interfering with humanity'?"

"Some do not..but others do. I am sure that there might have been someone back in your world who would have helped you."

Raphael then nodded.

"That is what I am. And I am Raphael. My name is my job, and since my name translates to 'God heals', I am a healer."

..Raphael then..sighed. It was a small one, but one nonetheless.

"..And since there is no God here to tell me who I should heal, I shall just have to heal every person that I can."

"No. There was no one. I had to help myself." He's stubborn in insisting as he does, whether he's right or not. And helping himself hadn't turned out very well so far, though he was still hopeful that he was going to win the war.

Something about this man– this angel– seemed trustworthy.

"All right. You can heal me. As long as you promise to leave the worms where they are." He wishes them all dead, but without them, he'd be lost in battle. They would always worsen the damage again, but at least this way, he would live longer than the week or two he'd been expected to live back home.

"..I cannot say whether there was someone or not..but sometimes, humans do have to help themselves. One man fighting for the rest. It has happened before."

This man reminded him of Enoch, at least, in tenacity. Piety, not so much.

"Do not worry, I will. I shall return in a moment."

Still in his spirit body, Raphael walked out of the room, turned into a swan, and started to travel down the steps, flying when he could, walking when he could not, and avoiding any monsters he came across.

Eventually, he came back to the lagoon with a long piece of rope and a good stick. He walked back to the man and stuck the stick into the ground.

"Now, we simply have to tie up your hands for a moment. I am sorry about this..but will you be fine with it?"

"If there is a God, he should have helped. She's just a child." Kariya continued to insist, but he was a stubborn man. "But I don't mind being the one to do it, if there was no one else, if it means she's saved. That's what matters most."

While the angel was gone, he waited for Raphael to return, swimming through the water of the lagoon, still ignored by the other mermaids. It was frustrating and frightening, to be trapped there like that, to have no control over himself.

When Raphael returned, he was all but ready to be tied up. He didn't trust himself anymore. "I'll allow it." He still felt the urge to lunge at Raphael and drag him down. He even made a half-hearted effort to do so, but backed down, lashing his tail.

Those words definatly sounded like something Enoch might have said, if someone asked him about Nanna. It would be nice if his piety was better..but it was good to see someone so willing to help others.

"Thank you. I am going to turn into my human body now. Please, restrain yourself until I can get your hands tied."

Raphael then turned into his human form and reached out for the man's right hand.

Kariya couldn't help himself. It was an uncontrollable instinct, an unbearable complusion, one that horrified him even as he acted on it. As Raphael reached out, he lunged forward and made a grab for his wrist with unusual (for him) strength and speed, trying to pull him into the water.

At first, Kariya managed to grab his wrist and would have pulled Raphael into the water, had he not switched back into his spirit body.

"If your other half is too strong, we shall need a different approach. You can still touch the rope. Tie your hands together."

Raphael put the rope near the bank of the lagoon and waited.

"All right. I don't want to hurt you. I will."

Kariya could do that at least. It wasn't as if he wanted to kill Raphael, it was only the impulses he couldn't control. He took the rope and awkwardly tied his own wrists. His actions showed that he wasn't very good with that kind of thing: ropes and knots, that is. But he did his best and at last managed to restrain himself somewhat.

I've heard the mermaids singing each to each

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