KakaIru Themes #9 - Walking along the beach
January 2005

The combination of the last bit I tucked into the Birthday Presents fic (about Kakashi wanting to play another Icha Icha scenario) kind of morphed into the lead-in to a pseudolemon that can't really go anywhere (for reasons that will become apparent in a couple sentences). So that tied into me wanting to remind people about the LJ themes, so I scribbled this down.

Warnings: Er, none aside from the "make sure you don't have a mouthful of Coke to decorate your computer with" warning?

Once upon a time, there was a silver-haired sage in training named Hakuto'o, because his hair had been as fair as the moonlight even in his childhood. He lived in a sheltered cove near a lagoon on a little-noticed island off the shore of Fire Country.

He also wanted it to be known that he wasn't old enough to be a proper sage yet, but given his hair and his perverted tendencies, he'd been judged close enough to pass the entrance exams.

...Yes, he did tell me that. Now shush.

As he was walking back to his cove with a bucketful of fish he'd caught for dinner, he was caught by the sight of a beautiful maiden struggling on the shore, tangled in discarded fishing nets and crying for help in the plaintive voice of a gull. She was clearly on the edge of exhaustion, frightened, trapped, and alone; and he felt his heart moved by her plight -- as well as feeling other parts moved by her complete lack of clothing beyond the nets. So, from nothing but the purest and most noble of motives, he hurried to see how best he could help her out of the nets--

ouch. I'm just telling the story, love. Be a little patient...

In any case, the sage-in-training hurried to the maiden's aid, and was astonished to see that, though maiden she certainly was, human she was not. Her face and body seemed human enough, her skin sun-bronzed like that of the islanders with whom the sage traded; and perhaps she had modeled her human seeming on the island maidens, for her hair was long and dark and unbound after their fashion; and also after their fashion, her breasts were bare and full and ripe as sweet melons.

yes, dear, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that dress code had a great deal to do with why the sage-in-training settled in that area. May I finish telling the story?

... But from her waist down, she was more akin to the sea creatures than the islanders; there her skin was pale as the silvered-gray twilight; and in the place of legs, her tail, sturdy and rounded like a dolphin's rather than fish-fragile, thrashed fiercely at the sand.

'A mermaid,' Hakuto'o thought, struck dumb with his wonder and desire. 'I have heard the legends of the distant North, where a little mermaid wished to become mortal; and yet it ended tragically. Perhaps I can save this little mermaid from sharing such a tragic fate...'

and yet, as he drew closer, he saw...

ouch. I'm only being true to the story, love. It says to draw closer -- see, right there...

all right, all right, I suppose this is close enough...

...he saw that she was not such a little mermaid, after all; for certainly her figure was that of a grown woman...

aww. You have to go to bed RIGHT now? Yes, I know you have classes to teach tomorrow. But can't I finish telling the bedtime story first?

Well, all right. I can certainly think of enough interesting things to do with you and me and a bed...

...ouch.