A Siren's Call

[ChibiMonkey]

Naomi was beyond irritated. She'd gotten into another fight with her father, which, honestly wasn't all that much of a surprise. She and her father did not see eye to eye, or get along. Her father, being the leader of the clan, was serious, strict, and rule bound, keeping to their laws. Whereas Naomi was more of a dreamer, wanting to just go with the flow - no pun intended, considering she lived in water. But in all honesty, Naomi wanted to be herself, do as she pleased. She loved the water, of course. She couldn't live without it - and not just because her body required it to live. But she also wanted to see the land. The most she's gotten were glimpses whenever she would surface near land. For which her father and others of the clan would scold her.


Having gotten into the fight with her father about land, and arguing it was surely safe enough to experience, Naomi had swam off, unable to stand arguing anymore at the moment. She didn't see what the others feared about land. The humans? They had horror stories of humans capturing and experimenting on the merpeople. However, those stories were from ancient ancestors. Ancestors long dead. So, no one alive had been to land, and experienced for themselves. Naomi believed they were exaggerated children stories, to scare them to learn not to be curious and go about land.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

Dante was fairly pleased with his current situation. He supposed his new house could use some fixing up, but that could wait until he had finished unpacking all of his belongings. And after all, the real selling point was the location. He gazed out the window, taking in the vast expanse of golden sand and endless miles of saphire sea. Home at last... He thought to himself. Reluctantly, he tore his gaze away from the amazing view and set to unpacking all of his things, mostly medical instruments, books, and a few non-essential commodities. It didn't take very long, however some of the furniture, such as the bed and couch, proved rather difficult to get inside the house. After everything was in it's proper place, Dante was exhausted despite the fact that the chore didn't even consume half an hour. He found it very convenient that he had just finished putting the bed together, because he spent the next eight hours and twenty-three minutes sleeping on it.

 

[ChibiMonkey]

Though Naomi had been longing to go to land, she hadn't exactly planned it at that moment. But when she had gotten into a fight with a great white shark, she was badly injured in her tail fin and having fallen unconscious, had ended up washing about shore of an unknown island, her body slowly drying out as she lay washed up in the sand. Sharks don't normally attack mermen and maids because of their size, as well as the fact that the merpeople usually stay in large groups near each other and they were much more advanced creatures than sharks, with a high intelligence equal to humans. However Naomi was farther than she should be from her family, and this was just one of those rare moments.


She ended up in the damp sand of a secluded island, her body drying out and covered in sand as well as a few patches of scales that had almost fully dried out, and a large gash in her thigh from where the shark had gotten a bit out of her. The island, uninhabited by tourists, had a small population, of which the people were more connected to the land where they had their stories about island and the seas surrounding it, such as mermaids. Though it was something often mythed around these waters, no one had ever really seen one before.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

Dante watched over the girl anxiously. It's been two days since he found her laying injured and unconscious on his beach. Being the only doctor on the island, Dante brought her back to his house. He put her in his bed and has been sleeping on the couch for the past two days, and since it was more than a little bit uncomfortable to have her laying there naked as he found her, he clothed her in a pair of pants and a t-shirt, both of which belonged to him. He was worried about her coma-like state, due to the amount of blood she lost. All he could do was clean and bandage the wound, administer some antibiotics to stave off infection, and hope for the best...

 

[ChibiMonkey]

Around noon the following day, the girl had finally started to wake up. She shifted a bit in the bed, feeling slowly coming back to her stuff body. She groaned slightly in pain, before her senses were first to come back to her before she could really move and wake up. First she could hear. She heard the echoing of waves in the distance, the way it sounded above the oceans surface. The second thing she noticed really quickly was the difference of breathing. Everything was so much lighter - like the air. Next was her smell, things different than what it smelled like below the waves. And then was her sense of touch. Flexing her hands, they grabbed onto something soft, and dry. This is what confused her. It was unlike anything she'd felt before. Slowly opening her bright golden eyes, used to seeing the dark depths of the ocean floor, she realized she was no longer in the sea. Slowly sitting up in confusion, she ran a hand through her long hair, noticing that was also dry. Silently, her eyes darted around the room as she moved to sit up, only to collapse back on the bed. She winced, frowning at her feeling of weakness. Why couldn't she get up? Rolling over, she tried to get up again, only to collapse with a thud off of the bed and to the floor, not used to the pull of gravity on her body towards the center of the earth.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

Dante rushed forward to help, scolding the girl to be more careful and to keep still. He picked the girl up and gently placed her back in the bed. "You're going to hurt yourself doing that." he chided. "I'm glad to see that you're awake though. " he smiles reassuringly at the girl after seeing the shocked and terrified look on her face. "Can you tell me your name?" He asks.

 

[ChibiMonkey]

Despite hitting the floor, Naomi was practically unfazed since she soon noticed her legs. Her eyes widened as they fell onto the two limbs, wiggling them curiously as if in disbelief that they were her own. She was soon distracted though by a male running up to her and helping her. She blinked as he seemed to pick her up with ease, when she could hardly lift herself. How could he do that? Was he really strong, she wondered? She stared at him as he spoke to her in a language she didn't fully recognize. She searched her brain, trying to find the words to understand. Because their great ancestors supposedly derived from humans, she was able to vaguely learn the language and understand him. She stared at him a moment, registering what he said, before her face lit up and she smiled "Naomi is my name" she spoke in a melodic, almost inhumane tone as she looked up and down the male curiously. So this was a human! She then turned her attention back to her legs, inspecting them again as she lifted one into the air, bending it separately than her other leg and she giggled in amusement.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

Dante sat back down in his chair, very relieved that she seemed to be alright. "That's a nice name, Naomi. I'm Dante." He smiled at her. "Do you know where you are or what happened before you got here? I'm afraid that there's been a chance of some neurological damage, but I could very well be mistaken." He takes a flashlight and approaches Naomi. "I'm going to need you to keep still, ok?" He shines the flashlight in both of her eyes. The pupils dilate normally when exposed to light. That's a good sign. He puts the flashlight down.


Dante couldn't help but notice that her eyes were exceptionably beautiful. So is everything else about her though... It just makes what I have to do a bit more awkward than normal... He starts unbuttoning the pants that he loaned her, and begins sliding them down.

 

[ChibiMonkey]

Naomi looked curiously at the man as he introduced himself, and she repeated his name softly, committing it to memory. As he asked her questions, she thought about it, but smiled "Well, of course. I'm on land!" she grinned with excitement. To her land was just land. All of it was the same to her. She watched him curiously as he approached her again, shining a light into her eyes which he instinctively flinched back, wincing her eyes shut in pain at the bright light. She wasn't used to such bright lights, her eyes accustomed to the darkness of the sea, where only dimmed light from the surface would shine through occasionally. "What is that?" she asked curiously as she opened her eyes again, blinking the temporary blindness away as she reached out for the light with her nimble fingers, inspecting it before she felt movement by her waist. She glanced down watching the male with curiosity, not even phased at all she would be naked in front of him. She was always naked in the sea, anyways. She didn't even know what clothes were. In fact, she was confused as to what was happening, and she tilted her head to the side "Are you taking my skin off??" she asked in bewilderment, having no idea what clothes were or that humans wore things over their bodies normally.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

He gives her a confused look and slides her pants down to her knees and checks her bandage. "I'm going to need to change this. Its soaked with blood..." He removed the bloodstained bandage and took a look at the wound. "It looks like it's healing well. Remarkably well... It's already closing up. This shouldn't happen for another week..." He looks up at her, confused. "This is remarkable..."

 

[ChibiMonkey]

She pouted a bit when he didn't answer he question about the object of light "Does it have a sun inside of it?" she tilted her head as she tried to find the answer, really curious about it. She pressed the button on it like he had, pointing it around and hitting the male in the eyes with the light. She wanted to know what it was, but was slowly lost interest as she saw the now bloodied cloth. She watched curiously as he moved to remove the bandage, her eyes following his every move with genuine interest like a toddler experiencing things for the first time - which was kind of true. She'd never experienced any of this before. When he mentioned her healing rate, she just smiled back at him, not knowing humans had a different healing rate than merpeople. She wiggled her legs uncomfortably as the pants hung half down her legs, constricting them. Not liking this, she just kicked the pants all the way off, liking the new sensation of having legs that moved separately from one another.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

"W-what are you doing?..." He jumped back at her sudden movement. She's acting pretty strange... Maybe she does have some brain damage that I missed. Or some mental disorder maybe? He slowly approached her and started to replace the bandage, wrapping the gauze around her thigh and taping it so it wouldn't come undone. "That should hold it. Just try not to move as much as possible, ok?"

 

[ChibiMonkey]

Watching the male tape the cloth around her, she smiled. This didn't make her too curious, since they did similar things in the ocean. Whenever one got a wound or anything like that, they would just use seaweed to wrap around it, using it very similarly to this material that the man was currently using. She smiled and moved her legs around excitedly "Hey, mister. Dante was it? Can you teach me how to walk?" she asked curiously, looking up at the male since she really had no idea how to get up. Before when she tried, she couldn't even stand under the weight to her legs, still not used to legs or gravity.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

He looked up again. "Um... You don't know how to walk?..." He asked. This girl is really confusing me... "I guess I could teach you... It would take a bit of time though." He pauses. "Are you sure you're ok?..."

 

[ChibiMonkey]

She shook her head when he asked her to clarify if she didn't know how to walk. she smiled a bit "I'm a fast learning, I promise" she said with a smiled as she moved over to sit on the edge of the bed 'Right now?? Will you teach me right now?" she asked eagerly, holding out her hands for him to help her up. She didn't even bother putting her pants back on. Not that she knew how to, exactly, but she didn't particularly care to wear them either, preferring the feeling before no pants or things around her likes. She was eager to learn how to walk, not caring about the wound in her leg "My leg will be fine. It was only a shark bite" she said as though it wasn't a big deal or anything like that.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

He took her hands and pulled her up to a standing position, wrapping an arm around her waist to support her. "Just let me know when you're ready, and I'll let go to see if your legs can support your weight. If they can, then I want you to lift one leg and place it in front of the other, just like you've seen me do it. If at any moment you feel like you're going to fall, let me know and I'll catch you. And don't push yourself too hard, ok? I don't want you getting hurt..."

 

[ChibiMonkey]

She smiled a bit as he took her hands and she grasped onto them, standing up slowly as he helped pull her to her feet. She smiled up at him as she held onto him, her legs shaking beneath her slightly as she leaned into him for support, trying to keep her legs from giving out beneath her "Okay..." she started, nodding slightly as she did what he said, moving her leg in front of her to bend her leg and take a step. She stumbled slightly when she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, holding onto him a bit tighter to keep from falling. As he instructed her to be careful and not wanting her to get hurt and push herself, she just nodded her head "I won't" she said though was really excited to learn to walk. She wanted to move around the land and experience more of land, and what it was like.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

"Alright, let's take a break for tonight. We'll try again tomorrow." He said with a smile as he picked her up and put her back in the bed gently. "You know, Naomi, not to be disrespectful, but meeting you has been so strange that I could find mermaid on the beach and not be fazed." He pulled the covers over her and turned to leave, but paused by the door and turned around to look at her. "Hey Naomi, you never did tell me where you're from..."

 

[ChibiMonkey]

She frowned a bit with a childish pout when he said they would take a break "But we just started" she whined, wanting to keep trying but he had picked her up and carried her back to the bed, setting her down on it. She looked up at him before she smiled a bit, tilting her head 'Am I really that strange?" she asked as she sat up on the bed, looking at him before smiling in amusement as he mentioned mermaids "Do you believe in mermaids, Dante?" she asked curiously tilting her head "What would you do if you did find a mermaid?" she asked curiously.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

"I'm not sure." He replied. "I guess I won't know unless I do." He replied with a chuckle and a wink. He shut the light off, told Nadia goodnight, and went to go sleep on the couch.

 

[ChibiMonkey]

She smiled bit, watching him as she just remained silent. She wasn't about to tell him that she was a mermaid. Though she wanted to trust him, she wasn't sure if she could yet. As he went to leave, she grabbed his hand "You sleep here, don't you?" she asked "This is your home, so you can sleep in the bed too" she offered, not minding at all.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

"I-I'm not sure if that's the best idea..." He replied, his face growing red, though he thought she couldn't see it in the dark. "You can go ahead and have the bed, it's fine..."

 

[ChibiMonkey]

She tilted her head as she looked at him, giggling a bit as she could clearly see his reddening face in the dark. "Oh, well then you can have the bed. I"ll sleep on the floor. Really, I always sleep on the ground anyways" she assured the male, since he wasn't a lie. They didn't have things like mattresses in the sea, though they did make their own sort of makeshift beds out of grass and seaweed and such things.

 

[Eratheros Aiseki]

"No, you take the bed. I wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that I'm on the bed and you're on the floor, even though you offered..." He touched her cheek. "Just go ahead and get some rest, alright?"

 

[ChibiMonkey]

She smiled a bit when he assured her to stay on the bed, and she lightly nodded her head "Alright, if you insist" She said with a smile as she watched him leave the room to go to sleep. Though she honestly wouldn't mind sleeping on the floor, she had to admit these human beds were very comfortable and interesting to lay on. She smiled, wrapping herself up in the covers as she fell asleep for the night. At some point however, she had woken up in the middle of the night. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she stared out the window curiously, looking out at the vast sea as she sung softly in a melodic, almost inhuman sounding voice.