You stroke his hair, his cheek, with your soft grey fingers. His chest is rising slowly, then falling with a shudder.
He's crying, shore enough.
The wind is brushing and blowing his hair around, a bit of dried gel barely keeping the hard swoop of purple back off his face. Storm clouds rumble off in the distance, lightning leading the sound.
You sigh, whisper 'It's going to be okay' as the wind picks up.
You do not like being on the beach.
The salt dries and makes your skin sticky. Your wild and beautiful mane becomes a tangled, soppy mess. But it is for his sake,
as usual.
What he is blubbering about is a mystery. But yet, you are here. You sing to him songs that your lusus taught you in hopes it will calm him down. Little raindrops plop! down on his cape, on your goggles, on the sand below you. The droplets are cold, like a storm. There is something calming about being in a storm beneath the waves. Beneath the waves you are safe, beneath the waves you are Queen.
Eridan shifts, and sits up. His eyes are puffy and the skin around them is flushed violet. His tears are his blood and your blood is the sea, churning up as the wind kicks the salty surface around.
He looks you dead in the eyes, you can't break the contact.
"Eridan..." your whisper is barely heard over the boom of thunder.
He looks at you, through you. He is pleading with his eyes. The same plea you have heard for weeks. months. sweeps. You shake your head.
"Please, fef..." there is no thunder and his words are loud as lightning. The tide is pushing in and lapping at your feet. The touch of water make your gills flare, your fins twitch.
Lightning cracks and illuminates the both of you. The grey of your skin is turned white and your freckles seem black. The electricity sneaks up on you, and raises the hair on both of your necks.
Ah, to be a young heiress
not
in love.
You stand up, yet you still feel small compared to him. Your skirt trails behind you, rolling over seashells, as you stomp back to the ocean.
Your stomps are like feathers hitting the sand. Seadwellers do not know how to walk heavily.
He calls out for you, apologizing. Swearing his advances werent such. He can change. He can bluh bluh bluh bluh. His shouting is drowned out by thunder and then by the swell of ocean in your ears. You swim to the depths as quickly as you can. There is no splash after you like usual.
Lightning cracks the surface skies and illuminates your the most peculiar shade of violet.