31 Days of Flash Fiction Repository
Summary: There will be 31 days of mayhem, but I'm not sure there will be 31 actual stories. That would require more brain than Corvus has.
Beta Love: Dragon and the Cold Water Bottle Torture, Dutchgirl01 the Busiest Bee that Ever Buzzed, Commander Shepard the Winter Soldier
A/N: Each story will be a separate chapter to feed my laziness and desire not to post that many new stories for the same event.
Born of Hatred and the Sea
When I was a kid, monsters made me feel that I could fit somewhere, even if it was… an imaginary place where the grotesque and the abnormal were celebrated and accepted.
Guillermo del Toro
Prompt: She went to the sea to catch a monster and came back with a son.
My mother was a monster hunter.
She went to the ocean to kill the monster that had been plaguing the fishermen—
She came back with me—growing inside of her.
She married one of those fishermen when the monster stopped tormenting them—a salty older man named Tobias. They might have even been happy—until I did something as a child that no child he'd ever heard of had done.
I had cast magic.
I had made something out of seemingly nothing.
So, on one day when my mum had left for shopping, my father was strangely home, and that was the day I was snatched up by the neck, a sack thrown over my head, taken from the place of my birth, and cast into the sea.
The last thing I knew was the sensation of choking as water covered me—my hands and legs bound and weighted as I sank—and drowned.
And in that moment, I learned fear.
And I learned hatred.
And I learned about impotence.
I learned all the things I never wanted to know—
I raged against fate—against death—against a world that hated me enough that my own father would slay me, or people in general.
And then, suddenly, I felt the softest brush of fur against my skin, the bonds that restricted me were gone.
I struggled to the surface.
I gasped as I broke through, coughing and sputtering.
My lungs burned, but at least I could breathe.
I clung to a rock surface that miraculously happened to be there, catching my breath—regaining my sanity.
And only as that sanity trickled back into my brain and body, I realised I was clinging to something alive—
The body of a whale—like the orcas of my picture books. Killer whales.
Only where the front end was, the head was that of a great wolf, its face twisted in a half-snarl as—a smaller baby wolf-whale bonked their head into what I could only assume was mum?
They exchanged whistles and clicks as a greater—and bloody hell huge—beast rose next to them, a greater than huge creature that made my concept of whale rearrange itself in my brain.
"Someone threw him into the drink, father!"
"Why would they throw one of their own into the deep water?"
"I saw it too—they threw him off the boat with a bag over his head."
The great beast rumbled. "Come, we will travel home before more ships cause trouble."
"But father, what of him?"
Shore, I noted, wasn't even visible. I had no idea where I was.
"Bring him with us. Hopefully he knows not to squirm," the huge male rumbled.
It was then, the giant mouth of the sea wolf mum clacked around me and the world went black.
I grew up in the ocean amongst a pod of seawolf whales.
That's what they called themselves.
The whale that had rescued me was Hermione. Named after a character in a play Hermione's mum had heard while listening to people in and around the ocean.
They were peaceful, mostly.
But every so often, when the seas grew stormy, Hermione and I would be nestled together with the younger "babysitters" of the pod, and the larger adults would go to "work."
The work of Poseidon was what they called it.
Bringing humility to the arrogant of the ocean.
They "played" with ships. Sometimes quite roughly. The more arrogant the ship, the harder they played with it, their bodies turning to what seemed harder than steel—like quicksilver with fangs and jaws that could hold a ship and tear it to pieces.
To most, however, they simply reminded seafarers why the ocean was not tame. And sometimes, much like Hermione had done for me, they played rescue, seemingly looking like normal orcas to people as they pushed lift rafts closer to rescue points, or carried castaways on their noses toward shallower seas or where they knew other ships would come.
They'd be gone the moment people came within range of rescue, making a large splash to garner their attention before disappearing completely.
They were reminders of the hand of the unfathomable.
The divine.
They were monsters and nurturers.
They were—a family.
I learned to live my life atop Hermione's back or rather her snout. Or sometimes by her blowhole. Sometimes, I would cling to her fin, and she would carry me along with her.
I would get a portion of the kills they made, and I had to learn to eat things—raw.
Strangely, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been anticipating.
Filling, too.
The more I stayed with them, the easier it became. I stopped thinking about how weird it was. It was just—how things were.
The hate I had for the family that tried to eradicate me was replaced with something I'd never had before.
I couldn't name it.
But it was special.
And while my mum might not have shoved me into the drink herself—she hadn't warned me that I was different or that I should be wary. She'd simply turned a blind eye and left me with my father.
I was, however, undecided.
When I had been drowning—I wanted to see everyone suffer.
But after travelling with the seawolves, I had begun to realise that the cycle was not always kind—and things usually happened for a reason. Even if that reason was—difficult to understand.
It wasn't until years later—after years of travelling with the seawolf whales that I got a hint of why my life had gone the way it had.
The adults had left us in the eye of the storm, as usual, so they could patrol the storm for ships. The younger whales that watched us were occupied with keeping the worst of the storm from jostling our "nursery". The place where we waited together for the storm to ease and the parents to return.
I had become very strong—able to cling securely to Hermione's dorsal fin or her pectoral fins. I could hold my breath longer than I ever had as a child. The stormy seas did not abuse my skin as it once had. My lungs were strong. My body strong—
All I lacked was the form of my adopted family to prove that I belonged to the sea.
I patted Hermione on the nose, and I ran my hand over her tongue to reassure her. Having the family leave us was always stressful. No matter how much she knew it was necessary. She was bigger now. Less vulnerable—but not yet truly embraced by the blessings of Poseidon.
I wasn't sure what that meant.
Perhaps, there was a coming of age—something accepted by seawolf culture but not spoken of because it was so well known. Only to me—it wasn't.
And asking made me feel—awkward.
It was in the crack of lightning that I saw it—
A ship.
It crackled with an energy of its own—not like the ships we normally saw.
Magic.
It was being propelled by magic.
"We have to go!" I told Hermione.
Hermione gave a questioning whistle and click. I knew what she was thinking. We always stayed where the adults left us.
But the chaperones were busy.
The adults were off doing—adult things.
That's when I heard it—and I knew Hermione heard it too. Excited voices yelling out over the storm.
"We got it, Pads!"
"We're going to be rich, Wormy!"
"The young whale oil is going to make us among the richest wizards in Britain!"
"Wouldn't the larger whales give us even more?" piped up another voice.
"But not the kind witches want for cosmetics, Wormy! We have to sell to the witches, yeah? They want the very best! And there it is!"
"You have to go now!" I yelled at Hermione, pushing her snout, frantically pounding on her to move. "GO!"
Hermione let out a whistle. She nosed him.
"GO ON!" I cried, tears going down my eyes. "They'll kill you!"
Hermione nudged him, crooning worriedly.
"No, there's no time! I can't come with! GO! GO!" I shoved at her. "Please! GO!"
But she didn't want to lose me anymore than she did her family—
She lingered.
She lingered because that was what young whales did—stay where the adults left them until the parents came back. That was what instinct demanded. That was what whale logic demanded. If she wandered off, she could get lost—her song too small against the storm to alert them.
But I knew humans—
Humans didn't care about the life of a whale.
They only cared about what they could get from a whale—even if it took their life.
"GO!" I screamed, my voice a piercing whistle through the raging storm. My magic—the same I had accidentally used as a child to alert my father that I was different—blasted her away from me into the far water.
She landed with a startled squeak and splash, and then I felt it—
Betrayal.
"GO!" I sobbed into the storm.
She swam away from me with a flick of her tail, and I closed my eyes in anguish.
The storm dragged me into the water, beating on me.
I had never been far from the pod, and now I was alone.
And I'd hurt her—
To save her life, but it didn't matter.
I would die out here in the middle of the ocean—but if she survived, then that was okay by me. It'd be worth it.
But as I saw that boat speed up—making a beeline toward her like it was the harpoon—a grief like nothing I had ever felt before screamed out from within.
I felt the release of the harpoon without seeing it.
In my very soul.
I felt her scream.
Her terrible agony.
I saw her blood staining the water crimson.
Lord Poseidon. Ruler of the Seas. The storms. The quakes.
I am but a small thing, struggling against the current of a life I did not choose—a fate I do not know.
I did not know what living was.
What family was.
What the value of life was—
Until her.
I beg you.
Do not let her shining light fade from this world.
All she did was follow the rules.
All she did was value life—my life.
Even if I cannot be with her—please save her.
My life is nothing.
Her life is everything.
If my life can be the price to even the scales—
Please. Do not let her compassion be what brings her death.
I heard the distinct chink of chain and steel, and I heard Hermione's screams of pain and terror.
And all I knew was absolute rage.
My body was burning hot—so hot.
My mind was on fire.
My rage poured from every pore.
My body—was molten, and then it was like steel.
With an immense roar, my body hit the water, my body propelling itself forward faster than I had ever known. Water flowed across my head and away as my ears flattened against my head.
What?!
My tail beat the water so fast, muscles working on a level I couldn't hope to understand.
All I knew was that I had to stop that boat.
My body was glowing, but I barely even noticed. Runes swirled under my skin, painted in light. Magic flared within my body, over it—
I saw magic in everything.
I saw those bloody whale hunters cheering as they were pulling Hermione in even as her struggles grew steadily weaker.
I saw the magic draining from her—
Because of them.
For her OIL.
For COSMETICS!
I slammed into that boat with all my might, and my body was no longer flesh—it was molten. It was harder than steel. It was rage.
My dorsal fin sliced the whaling boat in half from the bottom, scuttling it with surgical malice. My body rose up, prying the hole bigger, and I heard them screaming.
And I liked it.
I grasped the anchor off the side of the boat, and I yanked it between my teeth, ripping the two sides of the boat apart. Then, I took the stern between my jaws and crushed it, and crunched it, and turned it to shrapnel. I breached, and my body smashed into the remains of the bow and the screaming humans on board, burying the offending vessel in the depths of the ocean.
I saw their magical bodies floating in the water—sputtering—screaming, and my jaws opened with malevolent anticipation.
But it was at that moment, I heard Hermione's soft whistle-clicks as her body was sinking into the ocean—the harpoon still embedded deep in her skin.
No.
NO!
I swam towards her furiously, and I wedged myself under her body and forced my muzzle up to lift her toward the surface.
"Hermione!" I sang her name like it was the only thing that mattered.
And she was.
She was the only thing that mattered.
My runes and magic flared on my body, known to me but vaguely.
I cried.
I sobbed.
I begged.
Hermione.
HERMIONE.
HERMIONE!
Her body slid off my head and into the deep.
Limp.
My body glowed with magic, and I slammed into her, forcing her up.
Breathe.
BREATHE!
My strength from my rage was dwindling.
No.
Please.
I struggled to hoist her back up, but the chain on the harpoon was, to my horror, still connected to the half of the bow that was rapidly sinking to the great fathoms.
And Hermione's body was being pulled down along with it.
I dove under the water and beat a path to the sinking bow, and I tore into it, releasing the harpoon's launcher from the boat. I grabbed the launcher between my teeth and crushed it to pieces, and bits of metal sank into the ocean.
I grabbed the remains of the chain and swam up, ploughing into Hermione with a desperate song amidst the storm, the chain clamped in my mouth, Hermione lying against my head as I struggled with every bit of strength I had to keep her up.
My body burned.
My soul ached.
My grief spread like a layer of foam across the ocean.
I felt my body give out.
I felt her body slide against mine as it continued downward.
I struggled to stop it, but I had nothing left.
Nothing left at all.
Nnnnnnnnghhh.
BzzzzWIIIAAHH. Click. Bzzz.
Whiiaaaah! Whiaaa!
CHirrrrrr. Whia. Eah!
Chii-ahh!
Warmth surrounded me, nudging.
Whale sounds filled my head.
Magic filled me up like a cup running over.
"We're just in time," I heard Hermione's father say. "Help me get them free."
"They harpooned our baby!"
"Steady now, love, lift them up so they can breathe."
"The seas are calming, dad," I heard another voice say.
"We're sorry, mum! There were other ships around! We thought they would be safe!"
"Don't worry about that right now," a deeper voice said—Hermione's grandfather. He was old enough to have notches in both his dorsal fin and his voice.
"Help them up so they can feel Poseidon's blessing," Hermione's grandmother's voice encouraged.
She sounded like a grandmother—or what I would have imagined my own to be like, had I known them.
"His Blessing? But—" I heard the protest in the other voices. Disbelief. Confusion.
"We are all tested differently," Hermione's father said. "We all must earn His approval with different tests and different answers. What worked for me will not work for you. He tests you on what you can do when the need is greatest."
"But, they needed our help!" the other voices protested.
"Seeking out or needing help is not weakness," Hermione's mother said. "Knowing when to do so is a strength."
The other young whales mumbled, whistled, and clicked together, but they did as they were told.
I felt—a strange flood of warmth as the sun touched my skin, and the tingle of magic across my body.
And then I heard the most beautiful sound I would ever hear in my life: then, now, and ever.
Hermione's song rang out in whistles and clicks as her familiar warmth rubbed up against me.
My eyes shot open as I took a huge breath.
Hermione's body had changed. She was huge, her body bigger than the ships—her skin covered in runes that formed chains like the very chains that had nearly dragged her under.
They shimmered with magic.
They shimmered with life.
Her teeth were shining. Her eyes were bright. Her fur was wet and glossy.
She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life
"Severus," she sang.
"Hermione," I sang. "I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you wanted."
"I think I love you," I confessed, my heart full of anxiety.
Hermione rubbed up against me, her pectoral fin brushing against mine. "I love you too."
Suddenly, I was breaching.
My joy, overflowing.
We sang together and we breached together in a wave of magic and water as the glowing trident of Poseidon formed on our tails, marking us as His.
And our skin glowed with the same runes, marking us as each other's.
"My baby has grown up," Hermione's mother sobbed-sang with happiness as her father crooned and whistled a celebratory song, their hides glowing the magic I had never realised was there until then.
The Mark of Poseidon's approval.
And we nuzzled and rubbed against each other, reaffirming the bonds that tied us together—as family.
We set off amidst the deep ocean, and I realised that Hermione had passed her own test in a way none had ever expected.
We swam past the bobbing bodies of four extremely disoriented-looking baby whales tangled up in the flotsam of what had once been their whaling ship. As we moved into the deep sea where even whalers did not dare follow, we heard the sounds of another ship heading their way.
Our family was not there to greet them.
We had other far more pressing concerns at the moment.
Like bringing the next generation of baby whales into being.
And they lived cetacean-ically ever after.
(well, except for those four (censored)s)
(Post-Credits: Insert scene of 4 terrified baby whales trying desperately to escape the whaling ship. The scene pulls back to see Poseidon watching a crystal ball from his deep sea throne.)
"Enjoy your new 'lives' mortals," Poseidon said with a dark scowl as he gently patted the sea-horse beside him. "Let's see how clever you really are."
