Title: Star
Author: Keeper of Tomes
Song: ...
Summary: 46 of the 100 Challenge. "One day, a fisherman will catch a mermaid. One day, the sky will fall and impale itself on the mountains, bleeding starlight. One day, she will fall in love."
Words: 1328
Pairing(s): F/P
Rating: K+
----
Finn is beginning to notice strange things about his friend.
He's known Piper for a long time. Longer than long. They played in the crib together, him stealing her dolls and drawing silly faces on his feet to make her laugh. He's always liked making her laugh.
You had to suspect, though. You had to think. It had to happen sooner or later.
As she leans over the table, smiling at him and rolling up the charts and tucking stray strands of hair behind her ears, he sees things he'd never really...seen before.
When did Piper get a waist? And hips? And...breasts? When did she begin to look less like a gangly, flat-chested teenager and more like a woman?
Finn, the kid who falls in love with every girl except the one right in front of him.
Well, until now.
--
Piper's grandmother used to tell them stories, beautiful tales about dragons and princesses in towers.
Finn liked the dragons.
Piper adored the princesses.
Aerrow didn't really seem to mind either way, as long as there was a brave hero of some sort who always did the right thing and saved the day.
In the end, everyone was somewhat satisfied.
Then one day, when the kids were a little older, the old woman decided it was time to twist things around a bit.
She sat the three of them around her feet and whispered a tale about the Ocean, a great expanse of rolling salt water, as far as the eye could see. Told them a tale of a man who caught a woman in his net, a woman with fins instead of legs, who leaned against the side of his boat and whispered tantalizing tales about underwater havens and sunlight coming in through the waves.
A mermaid who gave away her voice for love, a prince who was blind and turned to another, a sky which dripped beautiful maidens who beckoned a princess back to where she belonged...
Finn liked that story. Aerrow didn't really mind it. Piper despised it.
"I don't understand. The mermaid was so stupid. She gave up everything for this dude who didn't even like her that way."
The old woman smiled, wrinkles curling upwards into rainbows that touched the corners of her eyes and flew into her gray-white hair. "Someday, darling, when you love a man, you be careful you don't do what the mermaid did."
"Whadya mean?"
"Don't let him go, I mean. Don't let him turn away."
Piper scoffed and turned and shouted, "C'mon!" And the boys followed her, red and gold and blue heads bobbing as they sped away from mythos they could barely comprehend.
It would be many years before the net was cast and a mermaid tangled once more.
--
Finn is beginning to notice strange things about himself.
He keeps on wanting to stretch out and touch her. His fingers twitch when her hand is within reach, his entire body quivers when she grazes him in passing. Her smile sets him on fire.
He's never felt this way about a girl before.
Aerrow notices and asks what's up.
Finn can't bring himself to say anything except, "Erk...Well, ya know...Babes...Yeah. Nothing."
It troubles him at night when he realizes that she's in the room across the hall, two doors down, sleeping in her own bed. A girl. Across the hall. Two doors down.
A girl. With girl anatomy and girl voice and girl smile and girl everything and he wants to do something about something but can't, because she's not just any girl, she's Piper, who'd kill him soon as look at him, Piper, who hates him so much sometimes he worries for his limbs, Piper, who's his friend, and he loves her in a way that's not right for friends...
Suddenly he remembers the feeling of floor beneath his body and the breathing of an old woman.
The imagined smell of the Ocean.
Bluer than blue.
--
Piper's grandmother used to tell them stories, but later on she progressed to myths.
They had double digits for ages, now. They felt proud and warm inside. They were wise. They didn't huddle on the ground, they sat, tall and proud on the sofa, while grandma rocked in her chair and talked about Zeus and Pallas Athene and Titans.
About Thor's hammer and Loki's deceit.
There was Aido-Hwedo, the serpant who ate his own tail.
There was Isis and Osiris and the shifting ways of Set.
And there was Atlas, holding up the sky and the stars. The moon and the sun were his two glittering eyes.
The children would forget they weren't children and whisper, open-mouthed, "What happens if he lets go?"
"The world ends."
"And then?"
"...And then we start anew, dears."
Piper would remember first and pick her jaw up. She would straighten and say, "The day that happens is the day I kiss a boy."
"What kind of boy'd be stupid 'nough to kiss you? You're too ugly."
"Shut up, Finn!"
--
Finn is beginning to notice his own memories tangling darkly with Piper's.
The uncanny way they both say the same things at once, the way she grins and laughs when he recounts stories of when they were younger... Sometimes she even reaches out and finds his shoulder for support, all the while laughing.
She rarely ever giggles anymore, and if she does, she catches herself and smiles sheepishly.
"Why do you want to grow up so badly, Piper?"
Piper smirks and gives him a playful shove.
"We have to do it sometime or another, Finn."
He sighs and tries to understand. He doesn't want to lose her to time.
"Remember that story gramma told us? About the mermaid and the fisherman and the prince?"
"Yes."
"Think it'll ever happen?"
He doesn't answer, just says, "We've been friends for ages and ages."
She sighs and starts to realize what it is he's trying to say. Looks out the window at the passing stars and lets herself dream.
--
Piper's grandmother used to tell them stories.
But the old woman died.
And all the stories seemed to go with her.
--
They're both on the bridge and its midnight. The sky is so dark and fluid, it looks like water.
Water with stars sprinkled through it.
He reaches out and touches her; she leans towards him and they both smile.
--
One day, a fisherman will catch a mermaid. One day, the sky will fall and impale itself on the mountains, bleeding starlight. One day, she will fall in love.
It wasn't all that impossible, after all.
Later, Finn will walk around with Piper at his side and people will say, "That's quite a catch you got there," and he'll just know they're right.
--
She kisses him.
Somewhere in the universe, a man is widening his eyes as a woman surfaces beside him and leans on the hard wood of his boat. She's babbling about her palace and her sisters and the way the sun is filtered by the water come noon. She is beautiful and innocent and...strange. The man scratches his head, reels in his net, and decides to listen a little longer.
No one's going to believe this fishing tale for as long as he lives.
Somewhere in the universe, men are staring into the sky and acting befuddled. The heavens seem to be sagging. Dipping. Falling. Stars are streaking to the earth more often than usual and landing in fiery heaps of smoking, celestial material. Atlas is shrugging and saying, "Bugger this, I'm tired." He's letting go.
Somewhere in the universe, an old woman is smiling.
She always did know best.
O.O
...YAY?!
Yeah. Not my best. I'll probably end up dragging it down for major editing. But it stays for now, because my fairy-tale nostalgia is just. That. Strong.