Transparent and light. Almost nothing. Kiara Sesshoin floated through dilated time at the moment of her ultimate victory in the black depths of the ocean.
There was another word for the feeling.
(Hollow.)
All humans had existed inside her. There had been a collective build-up into a mind-blowing explosion of pleasure. A bubble that was blown up and popped with the sweetest of sounds. But when it was all over, it was clear to her that it couldn't be. There was no point to the feeling if it was perceived only to be lost for all eternity. It wasn't what she wished for, and so she refused its reality.
And who was she if she was unable to reproduce the ecstasy? Beast III had conquered humanity, and they were to stay within her in an endless orgy.
And so they did.
Vaguely, she remembered the story of the Little Mermaid being read to her when she was little. How she felt now was somehow adjacent to how she felt back then. What was it called again?
Sick. She felt sick.
In the time it took for the moment of her victory to snap into the next, she felt just so sick.
At the end of the story, the Little Mermaid had turned into foam on the sea, and so some part of her had reached out to that idea and recreated humanity into something akin to it. She had made her own humanity that floated inside her, rubbing and building and popping in pleasure and-
(Hollow.)
the bubbles were so full of the feelings she desired and they gave her joy.
But why stop there? There was more to the bliss. There was more than just build-up into pop. There used to be conversation and connection. So why couldn't she have that? She deserved it. Deserved to be filled not with empty bubbles of air, but with more.
"Your name will be Hans."
The new human she had singled out looked no different from the others - a tiny part of the mass of foam. Just another fledgling bubble of the kind that she had designated as the new humanity. What made him stand out was the ideal she desperately impressed on him. With time slowed to a crawl as it was, she watched as he bloomed into a bigger size, unfolding the concept which she thought of as inherently Hans.
She wished for conversation and there was conversation.
"Couldn't let me rest in peace, could you? What does an old man have to do to get some rest around here?"
At first, there was anger. Then, there wasn't. This was Hans, and Hans was grumpy. If he wasn't grumpy, he wouldn't be Hans.
"Tell me a story."
Hans groaned in reply, but not unpleasantly.
"Tell me the story of the Little Mermaid."
And, because he was hers, he did. His voice rang through the rubbing and the popping without his having a mouth to produce it.
"Far out in the ocean the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass."
He sighed when he finished the sentence, and Kiara looked around at the ocean surrounding her. No. This one was deep and dark and filled with the writhing lump of her toys. Hans continued his story:
"But the Little Mermaid lived in a place much like this, and, like you, she had things to pass the time - pliant stalks of deep-sea plants, ready to do her bidding and all the fish she could wish for, willing to please."
She watched the little bubble called Hans grow as his life moved forward through the dilated stream of time.
"Even with a home that provided for all of the Little Mermaid's needs, she could never get enough, for she was insatiable."
A part of her recoiled at the story. This was not what the sick little girl had been told in another life.
"Do you disapprove of me?"
She had to ask. This was all wrong.
"I'm an ideal born from you. If I judge you, it is as you expect to be judged by me."
That's not what she wanted to hear.
"Keep telling the story."
"As you wish. The Mermaid grew older, hearing stories of a world outside the water, first from her grandmother, then from her older sisters and ohhh- oh, how the desire to explore the pleasures of this new and untouched realm burned inside her."
Hans ended the sentence with a hiss. He was round and swollen now, especially compared to the myriad of new, smaller bubbles that constantly formed around them.
"And as the Mermaid grew in age, so did her desire grow until it was a deep and permanent ache. Or.. is this mine?"
A groan whispered through the depth of the Mariana Trench, and Kiara saw just how thin and stretched the membrane of the bubble that she had named Hans was. He was about to go.
'It's fine,' she thought. After all, he was nothing but a creation of hers - one of her new humans that were a part of her, who was the true humanity in the first place. She could make another, although it annoyed her how he dared to act so differently from the Hans she knew. Her other Hans would tell the story properly, as it had been told to her when she was little.
No. He would have told it worse. After all, this new Hans was truly hers, and how could anything sprung from her loins be inferior to one of that race that she had extinguished with nothing but a wave of irresistible pleasure?
"What did the Little Mermaid find, when she was finally allowed to look outside her world?"
At this, Kiara had to think about the world contained within herself that had led humanity to an explosive end and about the universe where she had done her job as a Beast. And then her mind barely - just barely - touched upon the subject of her purpose, which had been fulfilled, and then her attention snapped back to Hans.
"She saw a world that offered her so many new and exciting things, but also one that would deny her entry, for it wasn't her world."
"But she found a way to enter that world and claim it as her own!"
Yes. She took on great pains, but in the end, she walked the earth as any human would - better even.
"Let's not kid ourselves."
This was her Hans again. It was an echo of the one she had known back before her victory.
"We both know how this story ends, and we may as well cut the heartbreak and futile struggles in between, because I'm tired of what you created me as and I fear that my senses have been waning since my start."
A part of her delighted in the knowledge that this insolent creature was about to go. Still, she listened to his words until the end.
"Well, after making some questionable choices, the Little Mermaid decides against murder," and here, she felt like the eyeless bubble gave her a stern look with its featureless surface. How could a creature without a face be so expressive?
"And she realized that her life was over, so she followed her fate at the end of her existence and turned into foam on the sea. I put in a bit about redemption and some stuff to throw at the naughty kids, but that isn't really part of the story, is it? The real story ends when the Mermaid is turned into foammmh. It's much mooore realistic that-"
Hans had gotten louder towards the end there, straining to speak and finish his thoughts, and then, without warning, there had been a pop, and he had found his release, and Kiara had felt it through her core, and even though he was just one of many bubbles around her, springing into existence, building up, and exploding into pleasure, she still felt that this one was a bit special.
And it was then that she noticed that there were no tears she could shed for his fate and that there was no relief to be felt because all feeling had left her, as she had become empty and without purpose like a bubble of sea foam, floating towards the surface where she would pop.
She was not going to fly through the air like the Little Mermaid had done in the ending that was made to console the children, for her work was finished, and no matter to what overwhelming heights the passion inside her swelled, deep down she knew that by fulfilling her purpose, she had also lost it forever.
Then, the ultimate moment was reached, and just as consciousness left her in a final burst of absolute pleasure, she dared to dream of another world, outside the ocean and outside this existence. Wasn't she herself made up of two of her - one from this place and one from another? Was it not possible then, that this end of hers was only the beginning, and that she would be reborn into a fresh world, filled with warm, writhing human bodies, so different from the ones she had created, so much not
(hollow.)
simply bubbles of foam, but actual organic beings filled with nerves and sensors and the ability to appreciate the lust she would bring?
She would burst into this new world, riding the high of her orgasmic victory, like the Little Mermaid had moved on into her life as a daughter of the air.
Yes, this thought was pleasing, and pleasure was all she ever wanted.
Too bad then, that it was nothing but a (hollow) fairy tale.