A/N: This captures Nami's departure from the ocean in search for the moonstone from Nautilus' point of view. Inspired by the Deep Sea Nami skin. They are rapidly surfacing so that she can find the moonstone in exchange for the pearl.
4000 feet below sea level
"Promise me you'll return," he pleads. The midnight embrace of the sea slowly unravels as they drift upwards. It's too painful for Nautilus; he wants to throw down his anchor and pull both of them back into the familiar depths of the abyss. He wants to feel the security, the certainty that he won't be abandoned again, especially not by her. She makes him feel safe, in a way that his armor was never able to. Even when the dark tendril that plagues him rears its ugly head, she anchors his sanity and heals him.
And now, she's leaving.
Nami looks away and they both know that she can't make the promise.
400 feet below sea level
As the water pressure rapidly decreases, his joints creak and whine, the rusty hinges croaking pitiful cries of remorse. Remorse for diving into the murk. Remorse to surviving the backstabbings that should have bled him out. Remorse for helping her fight the monsters for the pearl that would ultimately cause her to leave him. He should have been long gone; he should have been long eaten by the ravenous beasts that roam the murk. He shouldn't have met her, only to watch her leave, suffering in this cruel joke his life has become.
They say that he who fights with monsters should see to it that he does become a monster.
He looks downwards into the darkness that the tide is propelling him away from. Soon, he'll be alone in the abyss again, loveless and lifeless, and suddenly he's afraid of the dark because she won't be there to bring him light.
The abyss gazes back.
40 feet below sea level
They're seconds away. He holds her, listening to the rhythm of her heart.
Hopefully not for the last time.
4 feet below sea level
They're surfacing under clouds streaked with crimson in plum purple skies. It's a beautiful cover for an ugly moment. The dusk's blackness begins to slither over the cold rays of the setting sun.
Sea level
Emerging from the tides, she floats ashore from the sea foam, the way Aphrodite arose from the sea.
He feels hateful and jealous at the way she seamlessly drifts on the land, as if she were made for this world and not his. It's effortless, the was she carries herself on land, and he wants to protest that no, she shouldn't belong in the humans' cruel world; she belongs in his abyss with him.
But for her sake, he shows none of his feelings and instead sinks back into the depths where the dawn is sunless and the dusk is starless without a reason to wake and sleep.
A/N:Happy birthday! Let's make it around the sun together this time ∞