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SEQUELS TO B/W HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED. NOT AN R/S/E REMAKE, BUT STILL DESERVES A HALLELUJAH
My Answer: Please?
Characters: May X Everyone, as requested. Gameverse.
Summary: This is my new favourite; I'm very proud of it.
Read This In Reverse
Some stories don't fit together at all.
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After her blood has turned to alcohol, May wanders back home to her white-sand beach. The ocean greets her the same way it always does, and the sound makes her eyes fill with seawater and turns the air in her lungs to sand. She gazes lovingly at the ocean, and the ocean gazes lovingly back, because only the ocean holds her heart.
Then she drowns herself. She throws herself into the waves and crushes seashells in her fists, fighting to keep her head underwater.
But as she knows, the ocean's love is fickle: it holds onto nothing but what was originally its own. So, despite her protests, it uses its seaweed-arms to place her gently back on shore, shaking and shuddering and alive.
And she thinks that maybe the ocean never loved her at all.
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She moves away, far away, just like she did when she was five and her first husband was claimed by the tides. And she pretends to be happy.
But she still reeks of salt. Her eyes still hold tropical waters. Her hair still waves like seaweed.
After all, May is an Aquarius. She was born in water. She is one with the waves.
And the ocean is always watching.
Sitting among her razors (they flash just like her stone-man's hair) and bourbon (the liquid that her forest-eyed boy would never drink), she picks up one of her shells (that she had picked up instead of listening to her diver) and presses it against her ear. The ocean whispers to her, almost like it has been waiting for her call, and she listens like the Aphrodite she is.
But, oh, the ocean's love is fickle: it holds onto nothing but what was originally its own. It answers her questions with questions, and tells her to come alone, at midnight, to talk.
And she thinks that maybe this is her chance to ensure that she won't be loved anymore.
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May is twenty-three when she is crowned champion. She holds the hand of the man she has defeated, and despite how he is a man of stone- skin like frosted-over earth, hair like steel, eyes like polished rock- she lets her lips crash against his, wearing them down like a roiling sea does to a cliff face.
She loves him.
They have been engaged for two months when he has to leave for a business trip, has to leave for somewhere across the ocean. She kisses him farewell, and he boards the ship with a smile in those stony eyes and waves at her until he's nothing but a silver smear in the distance.
Two days and two minutes later, the glass in her hand falls and shatters like seashells as she watches the news: the ocean and the Earth have cooperated this time, it looks like. A fierce storm has impaled Steven's ship on a rocky stake, and has killed everyone on board.
Everyone.
Running down to the beach, she screams, long and loud, for the ocean to hear and grieve and be guilty about.
But the ocean's love is still fickle: it holds onto nothing but what was originally its own. Lighting forks, white-hot, from the sky, and the waves rise to meet it- the dull screech of sea fighting sky throws all of her emotion back at her for her to hear and grieve and be guilty about.
And she thinks that the ocean's love is a curse for even those of the sea.
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She relaxes in the tub, the bubbles frothing around her bare skin like seafoam. She is Aphrodite, she knows- she is made of pearls and underwater air pockets.
Her phone rings. With a hand slick with suds, she picks it up.
"Hello?"
"May, it's Wally."
"Wally!" She straightens at the voice of the boy with the forest-eyes. "How've you been?"
"Not well." He coughs into the receiver, the sound as wet as a beach moistened by the tide. "Look, May, I'm…I'm scared. My heart's beating all funny, and-and-"
Despite the warmth of the water, her body goes cold as ice. "Wally, where are you?"
"Lilycove Beach, but-" There's a gasping, wheezing, hacking, and-
And-
"Wally?"
Silence.
Still clad in the bubble-dress of Aphrodite, she climbs out of the tub, and dresses in mortal clothes to Fly to the beach of Lilycove.
Two weeks later, she's back there again, garbed in black as loved ones carry the forest-eyed boy's casket down the seashore.
Crying, she lets her grief join with the ocean.
But she hates how the ocean's love is fickle: it holds onto nothing but what was originally its own. The tide spits her tears back onto her black satin shoes, and the sobs aren't stopping.
And she thinks that maybe the ocean's love isn't something to be desired.
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When she is in Hoenn, she falls in love with the ocean all over again: the white-sand beach caresses the bottoms of her feet, and the waves roar their greeting.
"So many pokemon live in the ocean," says Brendan, his fingers loosely twined with hers. She nods, and lets his words wash over her as she bends to collect seashells. "I'd love to go scuba-diving down there someday. Wanna come with?"
"Sure," she says, barely listening. He smiles at her with love, and she smiles back with friendship, and the ocean is always watching, stupid girl, don't you know that?
Two days later, Brendan goes scuba-diving. May doesn't go with him, for some reason lost in the stereo of future tsunamis.
He dies.
"He got the bends," her mother says, sounding as if seaweed was wrapped around her neck and was strangling her. "Honey, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
Saltwater leaks from her sea-blue eyes, and she chokes, gibberish dribbling from her mouth like sand. Going upstairs, she logs onto her computer, and finds out four key things:
The bends is another name for decompression sickness, A.K.A The Divers' Disease. It describes a condition arising from dissolved gasses coming out of solution into bubbles inside the body. Its effects vary from joint pain, paralysis, rashes and death.
Your lungs implode when you drown.
When you are drowning, the lack of oxygen slows your brain, makes you stupid. You could think that you are swimming up to the surface, but, in actuality, are swimming down, down, where no air lurks.
The ocean is a jealous lover.
Marching down to the white-sand beach, she hurls curses into the tide.
But she has forgotten that the ocean's love is fickle: it holds onto nothing but what was originally its own. The oysters pop their mouths open, and out bubble her hateful words, rising to the surface and floating back to her once again.
And she thinks that maybe she wants a divorce.
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May is an Aquarius. She was born in water. She is one with the waves.
"I'm a mermaid," she tells her husband, Gold. They're five, and have been married for two happy minutes- they exchanged persim rings on the dock of Newbark Town, with Gold's little brother, Ethan, and their friend Lyra as witnesses.
"Yeah, right," he scoffs, tan legs dipping into the ocean. She thinks that she maybe wants a divorce.
"I am," she insists. To prove it, she jumps off the dock, still in her clothes: the ocean catches her, lifting her up in its arms so that she can smirk at Gold.
"Just because you can swim doesn't mean you're a mermaid," Gold says, matter-of-fact. "To be a mermaid, you have to be able to breathe underwater." His chest puffs out. "Like I can."
Now it's her turn to be cynical. "Yeah, right."
"I can," he says. To prove it, he jumps off the dock- but the hem of his shorts snags on the post, and he trips, smashing his head into the wooden boards before slumping into the water.
May laughs, because Gold is so silly like that- he's always tripping and falling and bruising, just like every other boy her age. Waiting for him to recover, she paddles in place beside him, waiting for him to raise his head and stop floating face-down like that.
He never does.
And because he doesn't, the parents wail and the water darkens and May gets interrogated until she cries. Ripping free of her mother's grasp, she runs to the beach, and tears the ring off her finger to throw it into the ocean.
But she finds out that the ocean's love is fickle: it holds onto nothing but what was originally its own. A lone wave carries the persim ring back to her, and gives her toes a cold kiss before dropping it at her feet.
She gazes lovingly at the ocean, and the ocean gazes lovingly back. It knew she wanted a divorce. It knew she was a mermaid.
She decides that only the ocean holds her heart.
So later, much later, when her home is packed into boxes and her and her mother are riding to some faraway town away from Newbark and its persim rings, the perfume of mermaids' still clings to her skin, scentless as seafoam. Her pores still stink of salt.
And she thinks that maybe she is in love.
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Because not all stories fit together the way they should.