A Secret Language of Seashells and Glass

by lucidscreamer

Shipwrecked after his uncle tried to kill him, Yami finds himself alone on a deserted island. But he may not be as alone as he thinks, as mysterious messages appear on the beach along with gifts and food. Yami slowly falls in love with his secret admirer through the language they create together, a language of seashells and glass. Mermaid AU (Not a fusion or xover.)

5. Chapter 5

(5)

Listening to the susurration of the waves and watching his third sunset since he washed up on this apparently unpopulated atoll, Yami scratches a new tally mark on a palm rib.

Tide pools yield small fish and edible seaweed to supplement his abundance of coconuts. Bits of the yacht's wreckage wash onto the beach: strangely useful things, like canned food and an emergency kit from the lifeboat. Perhaps improbably, he finds a freshwater spring near the island's center.

For the first time, he appreciates all those years of summer camps and survival hikes, suffered less than gracefully in his youth.

o0o

In the tropics, sunset is quick, heavy and quiet, and on its heels night draws its cloak, quick and heavy and quiet, black as a crow's wings burdened with strange stars. What quick luck saved him, stranded him here on this forgotten island in a wilderness of water, and yet saves him, still, with daily gifts from the sea? In the late quiet hours, quick thoughts burn like lava in his veins (why, uncle? what did I do to make you hate me so?), while his ribs ache with the strain of containing his heavy heart. Uncertainty lies heavy on his mind, thoughts darting quick like silver fish, until sleep finally steals him away to restless dreams, mystic-finned and dissonant beneath the quiet march of the stars.