[012 ☿] Mer-cury

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

She's a mermaid, slipping through the water even faster than her normal body could do, darting beneath the waves and breathing her element. Her tail, shimmering blue and silver scales, flickers to speed her along. Sapphires adorn her ears and neck. When she surfaces, finally, she rests on a small rock outcropping, and plays her harp.

The music is clear and lovely. When her voice joins it, lilting and enticing, it becomes irresistible. Nothing like it belongs to this world. Ships divert their courses, heading straight for the rocks, heedless and helpless.

The inevitable wreckage causes chaos. Men shout and struggle to keep themselves afloat. A black-haired soldier determined to reach Mercury finally comes close, only for the mermaid to grab him with unnatural strength and drag him beneath the water with her in a grasping and clinging embrace. She laughs coldly, stirring up a cloud of bubbles that entangle themselves in her hair that wavers with the current. She likes luring them to her.

These sailors and soldiers are far from the first. In the background, the remains of several ships pile up against the misty horizon, notably one marked as the SS Senshi.

[ooc: join in the mer-cury's mischief, be drowned or wrecked (or spared if you're a friend!), just swim together, anything goes. can tell me what you'd prefer.]

Comments

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ what was that quote?

I walk on the wild side. I laugh in the face of danger.

yeah, that was it.

his clothes are weighing him down a ton, though--he ditches his shirt, boots and the sash around his waist, choosing instead to get out the knife he'd stashed in the leather and wrap it in a part of his now torn cloth. whatever is down there, he's ready, just in case.

he follows quickly, a natural swimmer. ]

thing = theme /sob

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She smiles quietly as he makes ready, and she only turns to glance over her shoulder once or twice the whole way down to the palace.

There is no walking here, of course, and she glides effortlessly through the tall doors and the beginning of the long corridor, marked out by gemstones and pearls.]

fff /pats

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ he can keep up.

surprisingly. though he's not as graceful as her, he shows more power and agility than grace. as images refract in the gemstones, in the pearls, the light objects glittering from the constant glisten of the waves above, he speaks. ]

I'm surprised.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She pauses, and this time she turns around. Her hair flows with the current like colorful strands of waving seaweed, and her body stays in near-constant motion, set free in three dimensions as she swims.]

What surprises you?

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

You.

Every time.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She's capricious.

She's contradictory. Playful and sly, malicious and cold, needy and giving. Most of all needy. Her lips quirk upward.]

Then why not wait 'til next time to draw conclusions about that?

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Because that's what I've been doing so far.

[ a revealing statement to say the least, especially as he swims before her, backwards, but easily back to looking where he's going and following her way. ]

stop making her feel feelings :|

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She freezes, just a second but a second can still be so noticeable.

He can't possibly know what those words mean to her. They mean someone interested, someone watching her, someone who intends to be a part of her dreams, who looks for their meetings.

Someone who wants to know her.

He wants to know the person she is beneath both the dutiful girl bound to everyone's expectations and the girl whose sarcasm and facetiousness are such empty shells.

Mercury recovers herself, but she never expected this to turn out this way. She wants to ask what he's seen so far, but she's been warned against using others as her mirror, whether good or bad.]

For the time being, I'm someone who didn't want you to drown. That's all.

nope :}

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ his long hair sways back and forth in the small bit of current that's followed them, wild but showing some sort of restraint as it curves around his sharp cheekbones and chin. he glances at her out of the corner of his eye and nods.

he caught that second.

he caught the flashes that appeared across her face. ]

I know.

She doesn't need feelings, ok? :|

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[It's so much easier to tell herself that's all it is. To pretend there's nothing to the choice and her acts but a momentary whim. Certainly nothing personal.

But even so, with that behind them, she seems to relax a little, and remember where they are and why they've come.]

The reality behind this palace is different from the myths. However, it was once a sacred place.

When it sank and became ruined, it was considered to be cursed instead.

:| he thinks differently. the hypocrite.

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Sacred is sacred, even if it's cursed. It's just sacred in a different way.

no being a hypocrite about emotions. said the pot.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She swims up towards what would be the ceiling if the word could be said to apply here at all. Mosaic tiles form intricate designs, and painted frescoes fill most of the rest of the space.]

Do you believe that? That holy and cursed can be the same?

he'll be a hypocrite if he wants to. said the kettle.

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ he follows dutifully, the edges of his fingers still grasping onto his dagger in case of danger. he knows she's powerful. he knows very well, but he would still like insurance. ]

They're two sides of one coin.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Two sides of one coin.

[She repeats the words thoughtfully, almost to herself, as though thinking out precisely what the metaphor can mean.]

If that's the case, they can't exist side by side. One is always covered by the other.

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Depends on how you look at it.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[Don't look for the holy in her anymore, Riku. She's well aware she's heading for Hell instead. She snatches for his hand anyway to drag him along; the dream makes her so much more comfortable with this type of thing, after those deadly embraces with the sunken sailors.]

Weren't you still deciding about that?

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ he pauses in effect as she takes his hand, not tensing, not flinching, but unsure about it. but after a minute, he falls into a place. and he lets his palm fit with hers as she guides them. ]

Past tense. I was still deciding. I have decided.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[It's a strange combination, that statement and the touch of his hand, unless he means precisely what she could never believe he means: He's almost calling her 'friend'.

He's a fool if he is; she knows that. Oh, she knows it after all that's happened in her waking life, the lives and worlds that were never the same after she met them and not in a way anyone would look for.]

You decided?

[She could be teasing him for that very idea, she could be asking what the decision was.]

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ he doesn't call anyone friend.

calling someone a friend is foolish. he is too dangerous for friends. allies, perhaps. acquaintances, maybe.

he keeps his eyes forward, before he floats to a stop. ]

Yes.

[ only then does he look at her. ]

It's classified.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She doesn't call anyone friend. Calling someone a friend is foolish. She's too smart to fall for the lies of 'friends'. Allies, perhaps. Acquaintances, maybe.

She hasn't called someone a friend in years, since she was the foolish and naive girl who thought she'd finally, for the first time, found people to call that and was proven so completely, thoroughly, wrong.

She swims away from him without answering, ever onward through the center of the hall, in and out among the tall columns and pillars.]

Hurry or be left behind!

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

I'm hurrying!

[ he hasn't called someone a friend in years, since he was unburdened with the sight of time, the sight of future, the sight of death.

he swims after her. ]

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She's being unfair, of course; how could a human swim quicker than her? But it amuses her to pretend he's being slow instead.]

What do you think is buried inside this place?

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Treasure?

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Of course. The sea is practically a vault for the jewels and gold humans have lost to their own foolishness in challenging the water.

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

History has a tendency to repeat itself.