There was a body on the beach. Face-down in the sand, its bare back washed by the rising sun, its striped shorts washed by the lazy tide.
Haru stood over it, eyes scanning the bruises spotting the body's tan skin. Its brown hair was still wet and full of sand and blood. It appeared to be breathing, though it was clear that its lungs were having a hard time of it. Who knew how long it had been there, but Haru had been staring at it for at least the past five minutes now, and still did not move to touch it yet.
He'd been taught to caution everything, most especially things that had washed up on shore without explanation — things that had no business being in the ocean in the first place.
He'd seen humans before. There were plenty of them that lived further inland, far, far away from him and the cottage, but he never made it a point to interact with them. He'd heard all kinds of nightmarish stories growing up, about the humans and how violent and greedy and utterly disgusting they were. It wasn't that the stories scared him necessarily, but they'd never made him at all eager to be in the presence of a human.
His grandmother was never bothered by them.
She'd always been a bit of an outcast in their world though, which was why he was not so much surprised that she'd elected to live the later years of her life out on land, "Breathing in the sun," she would say. "It's so much warmer up here, and I'm too old to freeze to death."
He wasn't sure at what point his coming up to visit had turned into him simply living above the surface with her, but somehow several years had passed, and now that she was gone, he couldn't find it in him to leave her little cottage behind.
It wasn't like he had much to go back to anyway. He'd become as much of an outcast as his grandmother had. It wasn't on purpose, but something had always told him he would never fit in with the rest of them anyway. Also, as much as he loved the sea, he didn't feel compelled to live in places where the sun couldn't reach, and maybe he was like his grandmother in that way.
As long as the water was always close enough that he could hear its steady breathing and smell the mist of ocean waves — as long as he could step out his door and wade out into the sea — he was happy.
But … He sighed, turning his gaze back down from where it had drifted off and gotten lost in the horizon. There was this thing to deal with now. This would have never happened where he came from — humans were quite buoyant. Even if they were dead, they stayed floating on the surface, so they never had to deal with a body appearing on their doorstep.
An energetic splash caught his attention and he lifted his gaze again, looking up to the bottlenose that poked his happy face up out of the water a distance away and chirped at him as though Haru should be excited. He frowned at him, head tipping exhaustingly to the side.
"You brought it here?"
The dolphin clicked, flopping happily to the side and resurfacing again.
"I don't find it funny," Haru responded. "These aren't toys you know."
The dolphin made an indignant noise and Haru sighed, propping a palm on his hip.
"Well, what am I supposed to do with it then?"
He listened to the series of chirps and whistles, and made a face of disgust by the end of it, looking down at the human as though it was an offensive pile of pollution that he'd been given the unwanted responsibility of cleaning up.
"You should have let it drown," he grumbled.
The dolphin kicked a splash toward him with his tail, but Haru was too far away for it to reach. He looked up to meet his gaze again, listening to more of the clicking, and before it could get too haughty he rolled his eyes and nodded.
"Alright, alright," he said, cutting off the argument. "I'll take care of it. Happy?"
The dolphin whistled and performed a joyous backflip.
"Yeah, don't seem so proud of yourself," Haru said, squatting and pressing his fingers to the human's neck to check its pulse.
It was weak.
He looked up again. "Go find out who it belongs to and let me know as soon as you get the answer."
The dolphin chirped curtly, and then dove under to disappear.
Haru huffed out another burdened breath, then took the human's shoulders and carefully turned it over on its back.
He paused for a moment, blinking dazedly at its face, caught off guard by the striking symmetry of it. The features were strong, and yet there was something about the relaxed lines of it all that made it look rather approachable and easy, and Haru could tell that wasn't just because it was unconscious. He'd seen a lot of faces in his lifetime, human and non-human alike, and it was easy to tell when certain faces had been worn down and crusted over by years of misery, by toil, by bitterness, by mirthless days. There was an edge to those faces — they aged much faster.
This face wasn't like that. This face was youthful and soft. This was the face of someone who was happy to live, who had been enjoying whatever life it had. Curious … Because there weren't a lot of those faces to come by, and … Well, he wondered what this face would start to look like once it woke up and realized it was far from where it was supposed to be.
Haru pulled in a breath to refocus himself and looked away, examining the human's chest. There was a shallow gash across its sternum, irritated around the edges by the invasion of saltwater and sand. The bone structure looked okay though. Nothing seemed to be broken, which was good technically.
Haru leaned over and pressed his ear to the human's chest, closing his eyes to listen. The heartbeat was faint, tired, holding on but by threads, and there was a struggle in the pull of air trying to move through its body. It was flooded.
Haru sat upright again, knees in the sand. He raised a palm over the human's body, hovering close to its skin and felt a present share of the sea swimming around in a place it did not have enough space to inhabit. He voiced a silent request, asking the water to surrender, and when he felt the magnetic tingle in his palm, he moved his hand slowly, guiding the water up the human's chest, through its throat, and out of its mouth.
The human instantly jerked awake with a cough, choking on air that it had forgotten how to breathe. Haru released the water back to the sea and found himself touching a gentle hand to the human's hot shoulder.
"Don't get up," he cautioned, nudging it back into the sand.
The human was struggling, chest heaving, voice weak, face pinched with pain. Its eyes didn't open, but it seemed unable to keep still and was trying to turn over in search of relief, but Haru was holding it down.
"Hurts," the human choked, groaning through its teeth. "It hurts, it hurts."
"It's going to," Haru informed. "You have to be still. I can make it better, but the more you move, the longer its going to take."
The human's eyelids fluttered, head just barely lifting before dropping back heavily and making it grimace even harder. A whimper of agony got caught in its throat.
"Please," it squeaked out, voice frail. Though it wasn't the kind of plea that was asking for Haru's help so much as it was a plea to the gods, as though begging for whatever anguish it was experiencing to be alleviated by whatever means necessary.
Haru felt a swell of pity for the creature, and actually found himself frowning as though with empathy. It was an odd thing to experience, though he didn't have the time to be staggered by it. He stood and stepped fully into the sea, never taking his eyes off of the human and its agonized features. He held his palms down and asked for the water's cooperation again, sweeping an arm out. The tide washed in, curling around the human without touching its face, and scooped it up gently, pulling it further out where Haru was already waist-deep in. He slipped one arm under the human's back and used the other to create a current around it, moving his palm in long meditative circles up, down, and across the human's body.
It was gradual, but the human's whimpering tapered off and its face relaxed again, falling back into unconsciousness, but with stronger breaths this time. Haru continued what he was doing, humming silent prayers, asking for healing and relief, showing the water where to go.
It was a rather long process. He knew this kind of thing took patience and he was very out of practice with it, but as it was, it seemed that the human's body had sustained more damage than he had realized upon just looking at it in the early rays of sunlight.
So he stood there, supporting the creature, free hand roaming in continuous circles, at some point closing his eyes so that he could concentrate in on what the water was feeling, what it was finding. And after what seemed like at least half an hour, the last of the tension finally lifted, and Haru blinked his eyes open again, hand pausing in a hovering state, palm down, listening. The swirling current stopped flowing, and the water rested, resuming the regular breathing pace of an unbothered push and pull.
Haru drew the human closer to his body and let its head tip forward onto his shoulder, reaching up to check the back of its hair, which was still speckled with sand, but now free of blood, and his fingers, though searching thoroughly, couldn't find anything amiss underneath the tangled brown strands. He glanced down at the human's body, eyes scanning its clear skin, free of gashes and splotches of color. He checked its pulse again. Much much stronger.
He thanked the sea with a sigh.