Scavengers of the Sea

Part 3

"Dude, I can't decide if this is the awesomest thing I've ever seen or the grossest thing ever."

"I am going to go with disgusting, mon ami. I'm almost entirely certain that it's still wriggling."

"Aw, man, it totally is! Yo! Ludwig! Come over here and watch this!"

Ludwig wished he were home right now. He could be sitting on his porch, enjoying a cold beer while the sea-breeze swept over him and fireflies danced under a full moon. If he closed his eyes, he could almost picture the scene. Tranquil, idyllic...

But then his brother had to open his mouth, again.

"Come on!" Ludwig opened his eyes and turned his head toward the dock where Gilbert was standing and waving his arms toward his brother like an overenthusiastic windmill. "Hurry up, old man!" he shouted.

Ludwig should point out that his brother was older than him by three years, but it wouldn't make any difference. Gilbert didn't believe in things like logic.

He sighed, but pulled himself out of his comfortable folding chair and began to cross the sand to join his annoying older brother. "What is it?"

Gilbert turned toward the sea, pointing. "Look!"

Ludwig looked, Ludwig saw a mermaid, Ludwig wished the world would go back to making the quasi-sense it used to make. Because, in his current reality, he found himself completely unsurprised to see a mermaid floating on her back a few yards away from the dock he was standing on.

"Look!" Gilbert grabbed his arm and shook it wildly. "Did you see?! She bit that fish's head right off! With her teeth!"

No, because Ludwig was avoiding looking too closely at her. While her bottom half was fish-like, her top half was definitely human and, also, entirely uncovered. It was indecent to stare at any girl-like creature's chest.

He knew that Gilbert wasn't going to let him return to his chair until he looked, though, so he steadied himself mentally and turned toward her.

Thankfully, she was ignoring them, her attention instead focused on the rather large fish that she was tearing apart with razor-sharp, piranha-like teeth. It wasn't the most appealing thing to watch.

"Oi, Tonio! Did you see?"

"I know, isn't Lovi so cool?"

Ludwig turned his head away from the girl to see Antonio walking up the dock, dressed in a pair of swim trunks and googles, with a pair of flippers under his arm and a large, duck floaty around his waist.

Francis snickered from where he was sitting on the dock. "I like your floaty, mon cher!"

Antonio smiled cheerfully and made his way to the end of the dock, where he sat down and began to slide the flippers onto his feet.

Ludwig wondered what he was planning. He knew that Antonio couldn't swim very well, hence the floaty.

The mermaid's attention had been captured by their new arrival. She stopped eating and flipped over onto her stomach, watching them with only her head poking above water.

Antonio waved, one flipper securely on his foot. "Hi, Lovi!"

"Are you going to try to swim with her?" Francis and Gilbert had both joined them. Francis sat down beside his friend, while Gilbert chose to remain standing and stared out to sea with the look of an arrogant captain.

"Sí!" He pulled the other flipper onto his foot and began adjusting the straps. "I'm going to see Lovi in the water!"

"But," there were so many ways this could go wrong. For one thing, while Antonio trusted the girl implicitly, Ludwig's own feelings were a bit more complicated. While 'Lovina' had never tried to actually hurt them, she was obviously a predator. They couldn't communicate with her clearly, although Antonio was slowly teaching her more and more words in English. And while Ludwig had felt that it was safe enough to get into the water with the girl after first meeting her, only a month or so ago, he was also the strongest swimmer in their group. Antonio was the weakest.

Lovina was swimming toward them now. She stopped a few yards away and stared at the flippers on Antonio's feet with an expression of bewilderment.

Antonio kicked his feet, showing her how they moved in the water. "They're like your tail!" he explained.

Ludwig wasn't sure if she understood his words or not. She sent the flippers a look of obvious distaste, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

"Are you sure about this?" Francis asked, looking slightly worried. Although, apparently not worried enough to stop him.

"Of course!" Antonio continued smiling, as if to reassure everyone that he knew exactly what he was doing. "It'll be fun!"

Gilbert cut in. "If you drown, can I have your Pokemon cards?"

"I guess so!" Antonio scooted over to where he could use the dock's posts to help him into the water. "I'm not going to drown, though."

He'd better not. Ludwig really wasn't sure how he would even begin to explain this situation to the police.

~.~.~

Lovina had no idea what the fuck her stupid human, Antonio, was trying to do.

Yes, he was obviously getting into the water, but what the fuck had he put on his feet? They reminded her a bit of a sea turtle's feet, but obviously his hadn't been attached already. He was also wearing some sort of bright yellow thing around his waist, which she vaguely remembered seeing before, when watching baby humans wade in the shallow water.

Was he pretending to be a baby human?

That was the stupidest thing she ever heard.

He was now floating in the water, the yellow thing having moved up to his chest. He was using his arms like paddles as he talked to the stupid humans who were still on the dock. She remained a safe distance away, waiting to see what he was going to do.

She assumed that the attached feet were meant to help him swim better, but what in the world was the yellow thing? That would just make you slow and clumsy.

"Lovi!" Now he turned toward her, waving an arm like she wasn't right in front of him. He used his arms again to move toward her. She considered swimming away, but he was so slow and obviously not meant for the ocean that she took pity on him and swam slightly closer.

"Hi, Lovi! I wanted to come and swim with you!"

She recognized most of those words, enough to get the gist, at least. 'Swim' was the human word for moving through the water.

"Bad swim," she pointed out.

He blinked, then laughed. "Sí, I am pretty bad at swimming."

He agreed with her, at least. The other human—the stupid Ludwig one—was slow, but at least he understood how to move his arms and legs effectively in the water. Antonio obviously had no idea what he was doing.

She hesitated for another moment, then moved closer and reached out to touch the yellow thing. It floated on the surface... So, it was a device for baby humans, probably to keep them from sinking underwater, since humans had a tendency to do that.

"Stupid."

He laughed again. "That isn't nice, Lovi!"

She wasn't trying to be nice. 'Nice' wasn't an intelligent trait for a future-queen to have, after all, especially when you had a little sister who was so kind and innocent that you needed somebody in the family to be an asshole, just to keep everything from going bottoms' up.

The human didn't really seem to mind, anyway. He laughed and kicked his feet. She could feel him affecting the water around her in a way that made her feel...a bit strange.

"It's really warm out here." He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, obviously soaking in the rays of the sun.

Lovi loved sunbathing, although it was difficult now to find places where the sun was warm, but humans were unlikely to find them.

She watched him, eyes fixated on the dark lashes that rested against his cheek and the slightly upturned tilt to his lips that revealed his contentment. She felt the incredible urge to suddenly reach out and touch him.

She kept her hands to herself, though. She had her pride, after all, and admitting that something in her was attracted to this clumsy, incredibly delicate creature was something she would never be able to live down.

Besides, she had no idea how these things even worked. In the past few weeks, her mind kept running wild, imagining impossible situations where she could have this human as her mate. She imagined that he could have a little house right by the water, like the ones on stilts that she saw when her Nonno took her and her sister to visit other important mermaid kingdoms.

Lovi knew that there were stories about mermaids who mated with humans, but those generally ended rather...terribly for the human. She had no desire to drag him down into the sea with her, even if she wouldn't perhaps mind doing so to the stupid Ludwig one.

"Hmm, Lovi? What're you thinking about?"

She didn't know what those words meant, but she could guess from his tone that he was wondering why she wasn't saying anything. She could feel her skin warm, as she was brought back to reality.

But then, he suddenly did something incredibly unexpected. He reached out toward her and, before she had a chance to respond, he brushed his hand against her forehead.

It was only for a single moment, but Lovi felt all of the blood in her body rush down to her tail, leaving her feeling dizzy and unable to move. He hurriedly jerked his hand back, as if suddenly realizing what he did, but the damage was already done.

"Ah, sorry, Lovi! You got all red, so I wondered if you were getting sunsick. Lo siento. I'm sorry. I shouldn't touch you without asking."

She just stared at him. She should be yelling at him; the rather large portion of her brain that enjoyed being a bitch was very clear on that, but...

Lovi was able to settle a frown on her lips. Antonio's eyes lowered, as if he knew he was about to get scolded. Instead, however, she reached out and brushed her own fingertips against his cheek.

It was rough, which surprised her. She had been expecting his skin to be smooth and soft, but she could feel that it was much rougher and there were little tiny hairs that scratched at her fingers in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant.

Antonio looked surprised, but then she felt his muscles twitch underneath her touch as he smiled.

"Okay, so now we're even." She didn't understand those words, but the next she did. "Do you like it, Lovi?"

The tone in his voice was odd. He was still smiling, but now his eyes were focused on her own with an intensity that was new. He reached out again and mimicked her movements, settling his own hand on her cheek before it brushed down toward her lips.

She shivered. Now she really should be yelling at him.

Instead, she floated closer, feeling more than a slight hint of annoyance when she felt the stupid yellow thing halt her progress. Antonio chuckled, voice sounding deeper than before. She lifted her head to glare at him.

"Sorry, Lovi."

He'd better be sorry. She was really despising the stupid yellow thing right now.

"Antonio..." She knew that the human liked when she said his name. When he was with his friends, he would always burst into a bright smile and turn to yell at them and then point toward her.

His response now was slightly different, as his focus on her grew even more intense and she saw him swallow. His fingers began to move downwards, slowly cupping around the back of her neck. One of his legs moved, maybe without him realizing, to wrap around her tail.

Right now, a very small percentage of her thoughts were running along familiar rage routes. How dare this human touch her? He did have the excuse that he had no idea who she was, since Lovi didn't really know how to explain to the human how her family and world worked, but still... She was going to be the next queen; she shouldn't be letting some human touch her like this.

Most of her thoughts, however, were running along very different lines of 'okay, so let's just make him our mate right here and we can worry about the consequences later.'

"Lovi, I don't know how to say..." He stopped. He swallowed again, eyes still intent on hers. He moved his hand slightly and tangled his fingers in her hair.

Lovina was pretty sure she understood what he wanted to say; she wasn't a total idiot, after all. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him, and that made her feel incredibly pleased with herself right now.

She wasn't entirely sure how that would actually work, but she was sure she could figure it out.

Except, he suddenly released her entirely and, before she could respond, kicked himself a few feet backwards.

"No, no. Sorry, Lovi. I shouldn't..."

What the fuck did he think he was doing?

The expression on her face must have revealed her intense amazement and irritation, because he hurriedly waved his hands in the air between them and began babbling something in his stupid, ugly language. She couldn't understand a word and she didn't care, because all she could focus on right now was the intense feeling of hurt.

Why?

She pushed the feeling down as soon as she identified it. Fuck, why was she feeling hurt? Stupid, fucking human. He wasn't good enough to be her mate anyway.

"No, Lovi, it's not... I just can't when you don't even know..."

She wasn't going to stay here and listen to this. Lovi glared at him and then dove under the water. Stupid. This was what she got for interacting with stupid humans. She should have known better. It had just been her own stupidity...

Well, never again. She was never ever going to let anything like this happen again.

A/N: Welp...

That happened.

I got a lot of reviews asking for a continuation of this and giving some really interesting of possible ways to go, so I was like "Hmm, maybe I can do another bonus chapter, just going into a 'after they've been interacting for a while' storyline."

But shit, I think I'm gonna need to do at least another one or two chapters, because this didn't go the way I was expecting and I assume I'd get lynched if I left this as is... Probably.

GODDAMNIT, COMMUNICATION ISSUES. IN THIS CASE IT'S ACTUALLY JUSTIFIED BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE, BUT STILL.