Sea Warden

The tent flaps close again behind her, except for down at the bottom where her tail continues to glide through. The mermaid bows, settling down on the soft ocean floor and bending at the waist. “Captain Maeve, scouts report it’ll pass over the gully in five minutes.”

Lissandra looks up at the immense hulk of muscle and scale, saluting, a heavy sense of awe and respect in her eyes. Maeve is practically born to warfare, a little under twice as long as any other mermaid and far better built. There are many unique blessings the sea pantheon could grace their devout followers with. Some bear an imposing and regal crown of fins on their head that would extend down their back partway, some bear a head of sea serpents, akin to the Echidnae that dwell on land. Some are blessed with a preternatural grace and beauty, with long delicate fins that flow about them in the waves like holy regalia, or some have extraordinarily long tails that make them more akin to sea serpents, visually. Some are blessed with an extra pair of arms and some bear immense power over the tides and waters. A rare few even boast power over the ‘land’ of their sandy domain and it is only through these few that mermaid kingdoms have any foundation to speak of.

Maeve is one of these blessed. Though despite its longer than usual length, the blessing isn’t in her tail. It is long enough to allow her slithering movement on land, though it isn’t the most comfortable. A mermaid’s tail is far more complex than a fish’s and though it manages, it’s not designed to travel on land, nor is it the nicest sliding over jagged stone. No, Maeve’s blessing is her second pair of arms, sitting just under the first, a perfect copy of her upper pair, though scars obviously differed. It is rather evident which god is behind each blessing, though the arms alone aren’t evidence enough, as graceful and elegant sea witches could also bear another pair of arms. No, it is her splendid stature and physique that makes it so obvious that she owes her gifts to the more militant of the pantheon.

She stands there, bedecked in foreboding armour that’s at once spiked and curved in form. The shoulders, for instance, vaguely reminiscent of a cowrie shell but for spires at either end. Similar imagery, as well as wave-like engravings score the surface of her pauldrons, gauntlets, breastplate and fauld. Her abdomen lies bare, showing off the tight muscled physique of a ruthlessly trained warrior. The grim, aquatic, muted tones of her armour, dark greens and blues, serve only to contrast starkly against her pale complexion. Though, that too is faintly tinted with a dark sea green one might miss under the sunlight, though it comes out a bit more prominently at these depths. Her scales and long flowing hair on the other hand are the opposite, openly revelling in their dark and rich tones of blue-ish green.

Her captain’s eyes turn to her, a dull, abyssal grey with a vertical slit pupil.

“Lissandra. Any other reports?” Maeve’s voice is cold and imposing, like the unforgiving fathomless depths.

“Yes, captain. Unfortunately, it made a detour to a nearby village and decimated the place before resuming along its predicted course. Thankfully the village had evacuated prior, so there’s only some property damage. A shattered dome, some number of crushed houses. The greenhouses were all ransacked though, the villagers will require some relief aid as they rebuild.”

Maeve shakes her head as she slithers over to where her helmet sits atop a table and tucks it under a lower arm, “We’ll feed them with the flesh of their enemy. Come.” She dons her helm – an armoured, finned, half mask affixed to a circlet – and heads over to where her weapon leans against a rack. The slab of metal is a double sided war glaive of immense proportions that’s nearly as long as Maeve is tall. And Maeve is still tall despite half her length being tail. Armed and armoured, she heads out of her tent and thrusts her powerful tail against the sand, dislodging a great puff of it to drift and settle again while her form shoots upwards, a trail of bubbles in her wake.

Around her is a decently dark gully, its light barely enough to make some vague shapes out. In the distance are some floating crystals shedding light over that patch of ocean in the distance, spacially locked to ley lines via magic as to not drift with the currents. Here however, that light barely reaches. At this depth, not only are her girls in the gully hidden, those on either side are hidden and those swimming some few hundred metres above are also hidden in the darkness.

She looks up, squinting through the watery gloom, even her decent eyesight in this deep dark is just enough to spot the faint silhouette of a number of figures, holding their huge Pisces warbows. A contraption of landwalker origin that found its truest potential in the depths. Here, via the use of buoyant materials and an assisting offset bow, a soldier can draw a weight far beyond their means and the issue of cumbersome bulk and weight is rendered null under the waves.

Not to mention mermaids are a race of natural markswomen and spearwomen regardless, piercing thrusts far more efficient in the water than sweeping slashes. And unless you were one of their war goddesses, namely the one slinging immense hammers around and causing tempestuous booms of inertial cavitation, you could forget about using blunted weapons.

Maeve appraises their formation with an approving eye. Despite having an innate racial understanding for three dimensional space, it took rigorous drilling to achieve such coordination. She looks over to the looming shadow of the giant leviathan in the distance. There’s no chance her girls won’t hit it, but even if the thing miraculously moved, there’s no chance of friendly fire so long as they aim for the direct centre. As for the signal of when to shoot? Maeve and Lissandra swim up to block the path of the leviathan. Slowly gliding, lurking in the dark with a barely concealed murderous intent.

Leviathan is more a title than a species, the things appear in all shapes and sizes. They are just large beasts with immense destructive potential. This one in particular, as the gloom slowly begins to part around it, looks like a maddened sea dragon mixed with a great whale.

Its eyes burn a furious red and it tosses its head about fitfully as it swims, seeking something to destroy. There’s no known reason why they rampage, be it breeding seasons or possibly chased out of territories by something meaner, so they look to bully something smaller out of theirs. Regardless, the usual course of action is to either redirect them – preferably towards another foe – or put them down. Maeve nods to Lissandra and then backs away in mild trepidation despite her size. Amongst mermaid casters, the Storm Witch is the most feared and for obvious reasons. Lissandra begins to mutter and move her hands and instantly the radius about her explodes with arcane electricity. The most taxing part about electromancy under water isn’t ensuring there’s enough power, it’s ensuring you can direct it.

Lissandra winces as the water around her crackles and vaporises, before she moves her arms – as if hauling an immense, impossible weight. With a boom sure to catch the attention of the leviathan, even if the lightning somehow didn’t, a huge pillar of crackling, branching energy rips through the ocean, slamming into the thing’s head, blasting flesh open and scorching the wound. That’s the signal. More explosions sound as horrendously powerful bows crack and whip through the water, propelling furiously spiralling arrows that spear deep into the leviathan’s hide from all angles.

Blood colours the ocean as it lets out an anguished roar, but it doesn’t even get the chance to bellow out all of its fury before Maeve advances on it, spearing through the water, weapon in hand. The apoplectic beast would kill every puny fishwoman here with the sheer magnitude of its rage if it could. Frenzied, its colossal maw opens in an effort to crush the paltry fish – even if it were slightly bigger than the rest.

It doesn’t expect the puny thing to half shear, half smash a tooth to pieces as it darts into its mouth. Mercifully, it barely gets to register this pain, before a huge warglaive rips through its skull, lacerates its brain, then spears through its eye. A bloodied Maeve forces her way out and does her best to wash the gore off her. She huffs, breathing a little deeply at the burst of power she’d unleashed. Her chest expands and takes in the bloodied scent of the ocean, making her nerves jitter.

Her imposing voice calls out under the waters. “Call the whales and leash it. We’ll take it to the nearby town and butcher it there. Pack up camp! Get a move on! We’ve only so long before the blood attracts some unwanted guests.” She turns to Lissandra, face as cold as ever. “Good work. Your magic is as… cataclysmic as ever...”

“Ehehe, what’s the fun in chucking big ol’ ice spears? Lightning’s where it’s at.” Eyes sparkling, she looks over the bloodied mermaid, paying particular attention to her stomach, where the blood sticks and shimmers strangely as if on a translucent second skin. “It’s always funny, the way blood sticks to the barrier.”

Maeve purses her lips in a thin line and looks away. While Lissandra is too preoccupied, a more focused observer might notice the faintest blush on Maeve’s cheeks. “Yes, though I imagine those filthy armoursmiths had a different fluid in mind.”

“Aw, don’t be like that! You’re so sexy captain, why not show it off? Besides, that patch of magic force field’s more protective than all your other armour combined.”

The thin line turns into a scowl, “I know. It’s why I wear this much of the indecent thing as is. I’m not ashamed of my body, it is a blessing from the gods. That said, there’s a time and a place, and a special person...”

Smiling, Lissandra deflects the topic, “Aww Captain, you need to loosen up. Hey, you were going on shore leave after this, weren’t you?”

Maeve wipes the last blood off her face. “Oh? It is that time again I suppose. Hm… must I?”

“Of course! You know it’s mandated that all the girls down here spend a little time on shore leave, or at the very least try their odds at one of the ship raids.” Her eyes glimmer, “I think I’m going to try my hand at raiding when my leave comes in a few weeks.”

Maeve sighs. “I’m not that interested in such fierce competition. Leave it to the kraken and sea giants.”

“But you could totally take them!”

“Be that as it may, I’d still rather not.” Maeve chats as her girls move about in ordered discipline, packing up camp and loading their burdensome packs onto summoned whales. Two more of the beasts are leashed up to the corpse of the Leviathan, albeit nervously, despite the creature’s recent and evident demise.

“If you’re taking shore leave then how about I send you up to my sister? You haven’t been to the north coast of the western continent yet have you? She’s a local, she can show you all the great spots!”

Maeve’s grey eyes study Lissandra, “So long as this isn’t one of your attempts to hook me up again. You know I can’t sing.”

The smaller fish beams, “Of course not, of course not, this is just for your relaxation, I promise.”


*	*	*	*

Norther lies down in a comfortable position, allowing the gentle caress of the waves rock him in his small boat,  squirming gently about, letting the warm sun roast this part or that. Though, no sooner is a patch of skin warmed before the sea breeze cools it again. He lazes, staring at the scant spattering of fluffy white clouds in a bright blue sky, dwelling in his imagination. The only thing that suggests he’s even doing anything is the rod fastened under his armpit, peering over the edge of the boat, the bucket that already smells of fresh fish.

Suddenly, something catches his hook and he jolts upright while the rod jars in his hand. The boat rocks a little, as he furiously wheels the line in. Something heavy, fat, hopefully, tugs back against him. Grunting, straining with a powerful heft, he hauls it out of the water and it flies through the air, droplets gleaming in the sunlight as its silhouette cuts through the sky. He gawks, even as it falls down towards him, hits him in the fore head and thunks into his boat with a damp, solid noise.

Norther stares at the familiar boot before a disgusted scowl crosses his face and he grabs the thing. “Ah, fuck off Barry.” Boot in hand, he looks out over his boat and searches around for his ‘neighbour’ of sorts. Seeing a shadow beneath the waters he pegs it. It vanishes into the crystal, glimmering waves. Norther doubts it did much damage to the shadow below. A man emerges, floating on his back, poking his tongue out between his lips as he tries to balance and put his shoe back on, knee up to his chest. He fails, dipping back under the waves and Norther scoffs. “Still as graceless as ever.”

Barry’s blonde sun-bleached head pops over the water, blue eyes glimmering in mirth. “I’m the most graceful. Grace is being in tune with your environment, one with the nature around you, boat man.”

“I was at perfect peace fishing before you showed up.”

He snickers, “Yeah, I know. I was watching. Real peaceful, not a single bite in an entire half hour.”

Norther rolls his eyes and hefts his bucket. There’s a meaty thunk as a fish on top of the pile inside is displaced and smacks its head against the wood. “I caught plenty before that. If they’re not biting, it’s obviously because you scared them off.”

“Hey, what did I just tell you? Harmony. One with the ocean.”

“You may be older than I’m comfortable thinking about, but I’m old enough to know bullshit when I see it. You totally scared them off.”

“Fine. Reject the wisdom of your elders. Here’s some more advice for you to ignore. You need bait to catch a fish.”

Norther frowns, perplexed. “What are you...” He reels his line in and studies the bait-less hook. “What? Did you…?”

Barry snorts then adopts a sly smirk. “No. What’s the matter, get too into daydreaming about mermaids again? Fish fever rotting your brain?”

“No I wasn’t! I-I mean… you’re one to talk anyway.”

“Nuh-uh, I did something about it, so I’m immune. And no, playing the role of the old lonely fisherman isn’t doing something about it. You’re lucky you’re half decent at this or you’d have starved by now.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m a fisherman, here to fish.” He pokes his starboard with a finger in emphasis.

“Yeah, while daydreaming about mermaids with no bait on your hook. That’s a metaphor, you know. You gotta offer something for them to bite the hook. You know how the other guys do it?”

He rolls his eyes, “No. How?”

“They all get together on a boat, ride it out into the ocean and have a kraken attack them. You know what you’re missing? The ocean and the kraken.”

“I’d be missing my sanity if I were to listen to you. Anyway, speaking of mermaids, where’s Sarah?”

Barry shrugs. “She’s out meeting some one apparently, a friend of her sister’s. Oh! Speak of the de-” A pair of arms rise from the waves, wrap around under his armpits and over his shoulders and yank him under. There’s a sudden tumultuous bubbling and Norther can only hope they’ve the decency to not start fucking infront of him. He sighs and stares out into the ocean, daydreaming while trying to ignore the rocking of his boat under him. He reaches into his bucket of bait, hooks another and swings it far far out, as to not accidentally hook the couple. After all, that isn’t how he wants to hook his very first mermaid.

Twin blonde heads pop up soon after. Norther sneers at Barry. “Quickshot.”

“What?” his eyes widen, “Haha! She was just telling me something. Your man Barry is no quickshot!”

“Sure, sure.”

“Sarah, tell him!”

“Save it, I’m suddenly not interested. Hello Sarah, how are you?”

Sarah, another beautiful blue eyed blonde smiles at Norther, “I’m fine Norther, yourself?”

“He was daydreaming about mermaids again, I tell you, boy’s a lost cause...”

“Shut up, I wasn’t...” He catches Sarah smiling at him knowingly out of the corner of his eye and sighs, “The same as usual. Had some luck before some one showed up. At least the evening’s pleasant.”

The blond man snickers, “You must have been real lucky to pull in fish without any bait.” They trade glares, or at least Norther tries to, but it’s deflected harmlessly off Barry’s ever-present shield of joviality.

“It’s warm and quiet, so what if I got lost in thought?”

“You mean yearning.”

Norther lets out another withering sigh and Sarah smiles, stepping in to break up the banter. “I’ve already told you, you’re lucky to have even met us. Most of the younger girls don’t stray so close to major shipping lanes so close to shore. The older ones are set up somewhere, unlikely to move around. Now… shipping lanes further out...”

He waves a hand, defeated. “Yeah, yeah. I’m not so nuts to just boat out into the ocean and throw myself into it.”

“You lack romance,” Barry adds sagely, “That’s why you’re fated to never meet. I tell you back in my day I had to stow away on a ship, wait until there was no land in sight, steal their anchor, tie it around my ankles and take a dive. Men these days, all dreams no action.”

Norther level a flat look at him, “I may be… driven. Eager -”

“Desperate.”

“- but I’m not stupid.”

“I’d argue you’re a bit of all four.” He smirks. “If you’re that worried you can just cum into the ocean before diving in.”

It’s Sarah’s turn to nod wisely, “You humans vastly underestimate the ocean. Your cum will spread out so quick you’ll have nearly a hundred girls on you in an instant. Just don’t do it around married girls. We breathe the stuff. You’ll get beat up.”

Norther shakes his head, “That’s insane. A man’s got to be able to pick. Even more so if it’s just going to make people hit me.”

She starts to smile, “Well, you never know. Persistence is certainly it’s own kind of romance. Perhaps time will tell. In fact, I think we might have a visitor passing through.”

He leaps to the edge of his boat, fingers clutching at the rim, “Really?! Where?”

She shrugs. “I don’t really know, I just managed to catch a hint of her song in the waters. It’s definitely not one I recognise. But from what I could hear she’s really cute and she has huge tits.”

Norther squints at her, “How would you know?”

“You can tell by her voice. Don’t worry, it’s a mermaid thing. Just trust me. If you don’t, maybe you should row around a bit tomorrow and see for yourself. Try your luck.” She grins.

His hand’s already on his oar. “Why wait?”

Barry chuckles, “You’ve got all that fish, why not pop over and have a meal? You can stay the night, it’ll save you from rowing all the way back home, only to come out again in the morning. Mermaids like the early morning sun, you know? If you head home, by the time you get out here again you’ll have missed the best part of the morning.”

Norther nods, eyes gleaming, putting fist in open palm. “Yes. Good idea!” He takes note of their smug reaction. “I mean, I might as well. It seems to have worked out for you too, I’ve got nothing better to do. Anyway.”

They both meet his declaration with small claps of applause. “Why do you want one any way?”

“Who said I did?”

Barry grins, ignoring the protest “I mean I don’t blame you. Just curious. Maybe your pickings are limited so close to the religious bunch, but there’s always the stray goblin or rat girl, a passing harpy. Why mermaids?”

Norther shrugs. “Exposure. I guess. I don’t know… Grandfather had stories, before he went missing. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll find the codger. You’re basically a fossil anyway, aren’t you Barry?”

He shakes his head, “Nah. You’re still human, you couldn’t comprehend it. Real age? Some girls are older than the mountains. By your standards though, I’d be a good bit older than your grandfather. But enough of that though, put your back in it, or the fish in that bucket there are going to be fossils by the time you get to mine.”

“Ah! Sure, of course.” He settles back down into his boat. “Great idea.”


*	*	*	*

They float together, languishing in the bright rays of the sun as it pierces through the watery dome just a few metres above their heads. Maeve looks around at the vibrant and colourful reef. Rainbow fish dart and play blithely, heedless of the predator in their midst. Fortunately for them, her gaze passes over, uninterested. She swims into the passage cut into stone, overgrown with corals and other forms of life. It’s large enough that she has no issue passing through it, displacing a particularly surly looking eel as she does so. Sarah follows her into the submerged chamber, replete with simple and unrefined furniture, yet something welcome so far from aquatic civilisation.

“Not bad, huh?”

“Mm, quite.” Maeve takes her helm off and sets it on a nearby table, cut of stone. “Is this your home?”

“Oh,” She giggles, “No I live with my husband in a little cove north west of here. This little room was built for you. Or, people like you. Short term visitors. It’s a little sparse,” She waves her hand, gesturing to the bed, chairs,  shelves. There are even some bits and bobs you wouldn’t expect to last too long in the water. Super-hydrophobic, be it through substances mundane, or other means not so. “But it’s something.”

“I see that. Not to worry, I shoal with less. This is perfectly adequate. More than I could have expected, considering. No offence, but I don’t know why Lissandra brought me here to you instead of one of the more popular locations, like one of the cohabiting harbour cities.” She smiles grimly, “Granted, this trip won’t bleed my finances dry.”

“Oh, this area’s quite lovely. Just think of it as a chance to relax away from the big cities, without having to hunt down every beast that rears its head. Trust me, what I’ve got planned, you’ll love it.”

“I’ll trust your judgement.” She glides over to a shelf and browses titled before taking down a book.

Sarah smiles, “I’ll let you settle in then. I’ll be back tomorrow, but if you need me before then feel free to come find me, just head north west and follow the coast line, our house is quite… unique. It’s also the only one around these parts, so you can’t miss it. Oh and I took the liberty of catching some fish for you, they’re in the pantry alongside some pickled algae.”

The bigger mermaid nods before making her way over to the bed and lying down, propping herself up on an elbow while one hand holds the book and another turns pages. “Much appreciated.”


*	*	*	*

Norther moors his boat to the rickety pier built into Barry’s cove. It’s a peculiar land feature. A trench had been dug out of the beach where his home is built and it runs all the way up to his front door, allowing the house to be partially flooded with water. This isn’t the first time Norther had seen it, but the other man really has too much time on his hands. There are two doors to the large house, one which one would approach via said trench, the other via the sand. It’s a large house but the construction isn’t amazing… It’s clearly a bit of a pet project. When one enters, a good three fourths the room is wooden flooring, elevated a good bit from the ground level via a few small steps and floored with simple but comely rugs. A small fireplace it built off to the side of the room that serves as a kitchen of sorts. There’s another room up here, a guest bedroom walled off and by it is a comfortable sitting area with a few homemade seats, but the primary piece of furniture is a large dining table. The rest of the room and every thing else under the raised wooden balcony is completely submerged in water. Norther had taken a tour of their home before, but it was short lived, what with the whole not being able to breathe under water thing.

From his memory, their bedroom is down there, as is another spare room,  a proper dining room and a study-cum-lounge room.  It’s a respectable abode all the same, given that Barry built it all by hand and spell. Though the latter is kind of cheating. Norther sets his bucket down by the ‘kitchen’ and Sarah sets into it with a knife, showing not the slightest ounce of oceanic loyalty. He, meanwhile, relaxes on a couch by Barry.

“So how are things up top?”

“Ah,” Norther sighs, “Town’s the same as always. News comes, news goes but nothing ever happens. Undead plague hit Bergen then the entire place burnt down, I hear. Capital’s sent troops out to reclaim Korsvag.”

“The only reason nothing ever happens is because it’s out of the way and Thule’s always trying to play neutral.”


He nods. “And? How are the oceans lately?”

“Wet.”  Norther glares at the man, “Well the Freaky Spooky Ones are thriving off the chaos as always, some of the beasts have gone on mad rampages, harmed a few villages here or there I hear. I mean, more than usual. But, nearest city’s five leagues from here, I’m not exactly up to date.” Barry shrugs. Norther opts to work around Barry’s ignorance and starts talking about the things the man’s familiar with. Namely fish and fish women. More specifically, the best ways to catch both. They natter together for precisely as long as it takes for the scent of cooked fish to fill the house and Norther’s stomach growls as the both of them migrate over to the table.

Dinner is a fairly short lived affair that consists of mostly cramming things down his throat and yearning for a fish wife of his own to cook these exotic seafoods for him. To celebrate the occasion or encourage the next day’s endeavours, the couple pull out a queer tasting wine from the sea. Norther tries not to drink too much of the stuff, but they’re incredibly insistent and he finds his glass filling before he can drain it. At the very least he manages to carry himself into bed.

His sleep doesn’t feel like it lasts especially long. About half sunken in the slumberous molasses and head languishing in a pool of alcohol, he jolts or slops into abrupt wakefulness, as the door to his room is kicked open and Barry shakes at his shoulder, shouting even as he lifts the still half wasted Norther.

“Get up man hurry up, there’s no time!”

“Mmmm...whhaa?”

Barry hauls him out of bed and grips him by the waist, slinging one of Norther’s arms over his shoulder. “Look, there’s no time to explain, there’s a mermaid that’s been beached up on the old Waypass island with a broken leg, you gotta get on your boat man! There’s no time, we can’t get there fast enough.” Half stumble shambling through the sand in the middle of the night, it’s only luck that stops Norther from slamming his shin into the side of his boat and coming to an abrupt sobriety. As it is, he’s allowed to be hauled into his boat, dazed and confused, while an oar finds it’s way into his hands and a heavy storm lantern’s placed somewhere on the seat.

“You’ve gotta save her man, she can’t last much longer, row, man, row! We can’t get there fast enough, it’s gotta be you!”

“R-right… Yeah, alright!” He nods neither noticing nor heeding the thunder overhead, hands gripping the familiar wood as he puts his back into it and pulls, stirring great eddies as his ship kicks off.

Barry nods to himself, dusting his hands off as he stands at the edge of his rickety pier, smiling smugly at the slowly shrinking boat.

*	*	*	*

Maeve flicks another page over, sucking idly on some thick vent-roasted kelp as distant thunder reaches her through the water. Her arms and armour sit off to the side of the room, while she languishes in bed. Her grey eyes flick to the entrance, as Sarah barges in with a flurry of bubbles, panic on her face. “Captain Maeve!”

Her eyebrow quirks, “Yes? Why are you in such a rush? In this storm, no less.” Slowly, she puts the book aside.

“Ah-hm.” Sarah composes herself and catches her breath. “Sorry. There’s a low-lying island just to the north of here, a human’s been stranded on the island and I’m not able to take him to shore through these waters, it’s hard enough trying to swim myself and that’s under the waves. He’s going to need your help, if the waves get any bigger he could be swept off the island.” Maeve’s already rising and there definitely isn’t an added spring to her slither as Sarah continues, “I’m sure he’d be appreciative to his rescuer.” Her lips curl as she watches the bigger girl cut through the waters, not so much as stopping to dress before leaving.


*	*	*	*

Lungs burning, muscles screaming, Norther had long since lost sight of the island amidst the waves, only growing more powerful, large and fitful the further out he rows. Lightning cracks overhead, yet the blaze in his heart burns just as bright, undiminished by the strain. He keeps his head down, squeezes eyes shut, and rows, and rows. He reaches a kind of state of being where he doesn’t even register the ferocious waves, more than once plummeting from their great heights, boat smashing through the waters below. Only rarely does he turn and squint through the corner of his eye, spy the looming distant landmass and turn, back to his rhythm of rowing. What he can’t quite feel to be a moment or an eternity passes when the boat jolts, cutting a swathe into soft, silty sand.

Clawing his way onto land with lantern in hand, battered from behind via large wave for one last measure, he stumbles and flounders over precarious rocks and smooth sand. Thunder cracks nearby and rain pelts down but he almost can’t hear it for the roaring in his ears, the billows in his chest raging, the desolate rhythmic thud of fire flowing through his veins. Scrambling up the island’s shore, he falls, twisting as he lands then propping himself up on his side. He runs a hand down his face, wiping the water away from his eyes as he catches his breath and looks around the island. It’s more a rocky outcropping at best, some shrubs and grasses in the very centre and a stunted tree. Finding his voice he calls out to the injured mermaid, but can barely hear himself over the waves let alone the winds and thunder.

No mermaids. He frowns, weakly standing. Despite standing close to the island’s shore his height alone is enough to allow him to look over it and to the fitful waves beyond. He holds the lantern aloft and lets its dim light illuminate the radius. No mermaids. He quashes the worry in his heart and laps the perimeter of the small island and ventures to the centre. Still no mermaids. And as he looks out of the corner of his eye, his heart plummets. No boat. And also no mermaids.

He finds a stone and sits down to regain a little strength, putting the lantern down beside him and sighing, it’s light shining over a dark and empty sea.. Hes take a moment to idly gaze at the sky, inquiring of the bleeding rain from lightning ripped scars. Is wanting to marry a mermaid really so bad? The storm looks set-in despite how unnatural his fisherman’s intuition tells him it is. He decide not to waste his energy guessing. Breath now a bit more under control, he rises slowly, gathers his light and sets to walking to the island shore, hoping to get a closer look at the waves and garner his chances at swimming back to land, or hopefully finding his boat again in the tumult.

He doesn’t make it overly far, walking a few metres down to the water’s edge when something emerges out of the corner of his eye. His heart leaps up into his throat as he beholds the emerging crown of beauty. Long, luscious, soaked hair, picturesque brows and exotic finned ears. Yet something else robs the strength from his legs, two parts of his mind warring, something deep and primal against something base and fearful. He stumbles a step back and trips absentmindedly, scarcely even noticing his fall, or the lantern’s for that matter, for how the figure already looms over him despite being so far away, only the light slanting in the soft sands to illuminate it by.

Water cascades down her as she emerges from the waves, moving with a seductive, hypnotic sway. Her soaked hair is long and thick. A lush dark greenish blue, sticking to her face, framing its imposing regal beauty perfectly then sticking, enviously groping her shoulders and large, full yet perky breasts. Her face is framed by more than wet clinging strands of hair, a pair of fins jut out where her ears would be to some decent length. The spines above are longer and thicker than those at the bottom, closer to parallel than splayed out. If not for the colouration – the spines being a similar colour to her hair, while the webbing leans further to a deep, dark blue – from afar one might easily mistake it for an ear more elven in look.

The lighting of the raging storm offers a vaguely dark greenish tint to her complexion and makes it hard to see the detail in her eyes at all. They come off as abyssal voids as unforgiving as the deepest oceanic trenches. Only the flickering of lightning injects a steely imposing grey to them, contrasted strongly against a vertical slit pupil. Her nose and lips are as perfectly proportioned as to cause a sculptor to shatter his tools and forsake the art. The former, slim, a hint of a cute upturn while a lofty dignity rests along the bridge. The latter, a shapely bow, perhaps more obviously full and lush if not for what looks to be an eternity of a slight stern, determined press. Her face is an overall diamond shape, her jaw tapers to a pretty tip while prominent cheekbones serve as a lofty seat for her to glare down at him from. Seeing her before him, Norther almost can’t imagine those dainty, singing beauties anymore. The imposing force radiating off her stirs something he didn’t know he had within him as he ogles her nearing form, wide hips swaying as she slithers near on an immense tree-trunk of a tail.

Her huge breasts – both proportionately and not – sit proudly on her chest. They sway with her motion and almost distract him from her arms, though that primitive and base part of his brain – even more primal than the part screaming for him to ogle her tits – points out that most humanoid torsos only have a single pair of arms, whereas the one before him, great as its tits are, has two. This is obviously strange, different, bad and to be feared. Thankfully, harder heads prevail.

Her lower right hand rests on her wide hip the way a knight’s may hover around his sword. Her other arms hang by her flank, both pairs sporting scars of varying severity over powerful muscles, roughly in keeping with the general form of femininity yet not too far from that limit that separates girl from monster. Her bearing is militant, leaning forward slightly as she approaches, though her shoulders are back and her back straight, the angle seems more a quirk of her method of locomotion.

Below her swaying bust is a toned, rock solid abdomen. Each abdominal muscle is pronounced, yet the eye is predominantly drawn down the lines tapering in at the waist and widening again at the hip. These lines diverge as her overall form widens, yet her muscles hone inwards, drawing the eye down to her womanhood where it sits in a sort of quasi-lap, scales receding here in mimicry of a more bipedal woman. They ride up the outside of her ‘thighs’ however, encroaching as far as her torso at the outermost of her hips. Her scales are large and thick and a few here and there split, giving way to scarred tissue if one were to look close enough. Being imaginative enough with drawing lines between some scars and one can almost picture the maw of some terrible horror of the depths. Three large, sharp looking, long and curved dorsal fins line her tail, which ends in a tail fin almost reminiscent of a shark’s in shape, or perhaps a ship’s sail, nearly parallel to the ground at the bottom while the top rises higher in a fan. As she slithers through the sand, Norther can see why her tail took that shape. At least, the inverse would be positively painful.

She stops before him and only now does he get a good gauge of her immensity, just shy of twice his height. If she lifted herself up on her tail any further he’d be able to stand and kiss her lower lips. He blushes, a thought so carnal, so lewd running rampant in his mind, stirring his loins when just moments ago he were dreaming of carrying his injured, pretty merprincess away. Something flips within him, whispering dastardly subversive words... wouldn’t it be nice if she were to carry him?

She just stares at him, tilting her head and looking out to the waves before returning to look at him down on the ground. He does the same, though not so intently and obviously not for the same reasons, slowly growing to full mast as he eyes her form. It is at once suggestive, no, boasting of both power and fertility. A pretty, roughly heart shaped pattern of soft, delicate scales sits above her pussy, already wet. Clearly, Norther thinks smugly, he’s quite the specimen himself. Though the ocean is also wet, there’s the small possibility that it has nothing to do with him. Yet.

He draws his hot gaze up her abs and his tongue starts to tingle, worse yet as he returns to ogling the immense mounds on her chest, almost half the size of his own each. His chest that is, each one larger than her head by far, but that’s not entirely foreign to monstergirls. It’s the difference of scale between the two of them that adds a thrilling element here. He may expect such a thing from one of those minotaurs or perhaps an ogre. Or even one of the larger breeds of centaur. He didn’t know mermaids came this large.

She smiles weakly down at the man on the ground. “Am I that scary?”

“A-ah. No.” Jolted to his senses, Norther shoots up to his feet. “No, I was just... surprised. Are you the one with the broken… leg?” His lips spill nonsense as his mind grinds along, eventually catching up with his mouth. He groans, while she raises an eyebrow. “Sorry, I had a bit to drink last night… tonight, I guess?  Then I was kicked out of bed and thrown into my boat before I could really make heads or tails of anything.” He grimaces, embarrassed. “My friend, uh told me there was a mermaid with a broken leg here that needed help. Only, no one was here and now I seem to have lost my boat.”

She chuckles, “I think we’ve all been there. I was told myself there was a stranded human here, in danger of being swept into the waves.” She looks around at the sea, large and stormy yes, but not that bad and not likely to turn so. “I’ve some idea as to what’s going on here.” She looks aside, shiftily though he doesn’t note the faint change in her demeanour, “Ah… I’m afraid I can’t quite carry you to shore in this weather, we’ll have to wait for the storm to clear. I could try and help you find your boat afterwards, but until then it looks like we’re stuck here.” She gestures her hand outwards as she talks, “So perhaps we should go for a bit of a walk around the island? I am Maeve by the way, a Sea Warden. One who bears the charge of protector and rescuer. When I’m on duty at least, anyway.”

Norther nods happily, perhaps wilfully misreading her body language as he takes her out-held hand in his. “Sure. This storm looks so set in, without a boat I’d rather not risk it. We might as well as walk as we wait it out.” She stiffens for a moment, before her hand relaxes in his. She opens her mouth but settles on clearing her throat and looks away, blushing. “I’m Norther, just a fisherman.”

Two vastly disparate forms make their way around the island’s small beach. The conversation isn’t as one sided as he might have expected, she shows just as much interest in his mundane life as he does hers. Her stories of danger and excitement as a Sea Warden make his pale in comparison, but you wouldn’t know it from the interest she shows, or the way she keeps asking for more. Chuffed and taken in the moment, he probably spills more about himself to her than he would have to any one else.

He tries to direct the conversation to the broader aspects of life under the ocean, but is largely helpless against her enthusiasm, the topic bring driven back towards himself, leaving him to try and awkwardly dance around his desires. She seems to pick up on it, regardless of how evasive he is about it. Perhaps to subconsciously escape the impromptu interrogation, he leads her back to his lantern, so they might take it to the low shrubbery and hopefully get some semblance of a fire going as the rain pours down around them.

It doesn’t take long for him to give up on the futile distraction however, and settle down next to her by the half-protection of some small trees.

He can’t stop his gaze from wandering over her from the corner of his eye as he sits next to her. She sits with the posture of a woman crossing one leg other the other, tail lifting almost in imitation of a pair of knees, though turned so none of her fins are crushed under her. She almost seems to straighten her back and prop her prodigious bust forwards under his gaze, though surely that’s just a fancy of the mind. She’s the first the break the silence, whereby he awkwardly realises he’d begun to stare. “So… why would you row out into a storm just because some mermaid you’ve never met was supposedly injured?”

“Well to be honest, although I may not be so enthusiastic, if I had the ability, I’d probably try to save just about anyone. Though it certainly helps if it’s a cute mermaid, besides, the whole dashing rescuer is romantic right? Oh, sorry, is that a generalisation sort of thing?”

She chuckles, “A love of romance holds true for the majority of us.”

Norther looks at her, “Even you?”

She pauses before smiling, “Yes. Even me.”

He lets out a sigh of relief “Phew. I guess I won’t be snapped in two then for admitting that I was mostly in it  for the ‘rescue and carry home a beautiful mermaid’ angle.”

She scoffs, “I’d never. Although… I’m afraid you might have to keep looking, if that’s what you want. At least, I doubt I was what you were imagining.” Her words trail off, as she turns her head to look out over the sea.

He looks her over and gulps, gnawing on his bottom lip, before coming to a determination in his mind. He smiles, boisterous, and holds an arm out to flex, “I wouldn’t really know about that until I could give it a try. I spend most days rowing after all, I feel like I could give it a good go.”

She turns back to him, eyes wide, but her look turns to one of sad defeat as she begins to shake her head no. Perhaps sensing her inner reluctance, he swallows his nerves to rise up on a knee and lean in for a kiss, closing his eyes so that in the worst case scenario he doesn’t see the slap coming. She freezes, eyes going wide in shock as his lips touch hers. He hears a sharp inhale, tastes the sea on her lips, plump and soft. He waits, eyes squeezed shut, balancing on a knee somewhere between leaning against her and not, waiting for her to do something, reciprocate in some way, any way. His heart drops down to his stomach, as he takes her continued inaction as rejection.

It’s as he goes to lean back and break the kiss four hands grasp him at once and she follows him as he tries to pull back. A hand rests on his cheek, another pulls him in by the hips, one takes his hand, and holds it to her own cheek while the last rests over the curve of his shoulder. It’s his own turn to react in shock and surprise as she takes him, tongue parting his lips to dive into his mouth. He feels something vaguely off about the sensation of her tongue wrestling with his, but he’d never kissed a mermaid and the errant thought is long lost as joy blossoms within him towards her returned passions.

She pulls him closer to her yet, lifting him off his propped up knee, giant breast pressing up against his chest as she makes soft, sweet noises into his mouth. Emboldened, his free hand moves to her shoulder and begins to slide lower as he throws his efforts into the kiss, heart thundering and pounding in his ears as excitement begins to take him. For all the busy rushing of blood and hormones through his body, he doesn’t notice his own arousal, hand traversing over the ample, mountainous curve of her breast, fingers finally brushing a large nipple, stiff in her own anticipations and about the size of his thumb.

She moans into the kiss as he gives it a squeeze before sinking his hand into her breast, groping it as best he can with a single hand where two might not suffice. Dividing his attentions – as much as playing with an enormous breast took much attention – he tries to push against her invading tongue, jaw working against hers as their lips meet. He opens his eyes, finding her grey ones staring back at him, though fairly swimming with affection and joy. He can’t help but grin, even as he has her upper lip caught between his. His smile coaxes one out of her for a brief moment before she returns to the kiss and catching his bottom lips with hers.

She pulls back from the kiss, sucking on his lip ‘till it pops back, leaving him to feel a little lost, wanting to continue. She casts a glance to his arm half buried in her breast and he lets go with a jerk.

“Oh, s-sorry, I didn’t mean to, just kinda lost myself in the moment.”

He chuckles self consciously, but she doesn’t seem to be listening, smiling and lost in thought, her eyes drift to the arm her was flexing earlier. “Heh.”

“Hey!”

“Ah – haha, no sorry, I didn’t mean to… you don’t have to apologise or anything, I loved it, it’s just,” a mirthful grin tugs at her lips, as she lifts him up by the hand, off his knees, then feet, then the ground entirely as another hand grips his wrists together, while others hold him by the hips as to take some of his weight. She even goes as far as to lift herself further off the ground with her tail, leaving him dangling a metre or two. “You? Carry and protect me? I think you have it the wrong way around.”

A quiver thrills its way up his spine as his pants grow tight, bulge pressing up against her breasts. “How can you know without giving it a shot?”

“Hmm, still boasting?” She looks down at the tent in his trousers pressing up against her and smiles. With deft hands she liberates him of them, tossing them aside, “Maybe you’ll get your chance.” His erect cock springs out and rests between her tits, spurting a little precum out as she watches. It is a purely natural reaction to her breasts brushing against its underside, pure physical stimulation, it has nothing to do with being manhandled with one out of four arms, absolutely not. “If you’re still so boastful after this.” She leers as a free hand wraps around his cock and she lifts him higher yet, ‘til his cock bobs at lip level.

Her face darkens. Though… so to do the upper spines of her ear and when one considers the dark greenish tint to her otherwise pale complexion is this darkening… a blush? She reaches out with one of her lower arms, surprisingly soft hand wrapping around his balls, giving them a tentative squeeze.

“Look how hard you are. Are you sure you wanted a cute little mermaid to carry off?” She smiles at him, now not-so-cool grey eyes searching.

He gulps, shaft throbbing in her hand. “Not anymore, no.”

“I am flattered.”

One hand around his cock and the other still around his wrists, she uses her last two to grab his ankles and pull him up onto her shoulders. He’s almost sitting on her bust now, though she quickly supports his weight effortlessly with a hand on his lower back and another on his thigh, holding him in place.

Before Norther is able to really say anything, she brings her lips to the tip of his cock and slides her tongue out.  He gasps, a little startled. His own experience with tongues is of something relatively short and round, not long and bifurcated feeling it in his mouth was one thing, though he could have chalked it up to being mistaken. Seeing it is another. It’s still warm and wet though and the twin tips flicking around his head feel amazing. Her length is enough that she’s able to wrap about his cock twice or thrice. She looks up at him, “Hish zish goo?”

Norther swallows and nods fervently. He almost worries he gave the wrong answer as she retracts her tongue, “If only it was so easy to suck first and then sing. At least then I’d maybe have a chance...” Before he can ponder on her words or offer a response, she wraps her lips around the tip of his cock and bobs her head down, while lifting his ass up from behind. Her tongue coils around inside her mouth, squeezing and caressing his length as she takes it. His tip rubs down along her tongue and butts into the back of her throat as her lips fairly engulf his groin, her disparate size is all the more evident as her head butts up against his stomach. The fingers once wrapped about his prick move lower to knead and gently squeeze his balls while she blows him.

He’s overwhelmed with a desire to grab a handful of her breasts, or hug her head into his crotch and thrust into her face, but her grip remains iron-clad, arms locked away as surely as if by shackles. Her solid hand presses down on his thigh, holding him in place, preventing him from thrusting. The other on his lower back stops him from pulling away. He has no choice but to relax in her grip and let her head bob back and forth.

Her lips, never more than an inch or two from his base as she milks him inside her hot, wet mouth using her tongue and the pressure from her cheeks hollowing in as she sucks. Her eyes, meanwhile, never leave his. It’s almost disconcerting how she studies him, as if learning from his expressions where exactly to attack, making minute variations, like a master fencer seeking to strike where his guard is lacking.

She soon finds it, the perfect combination. The flicking tips of her tongue lash along Norther’s cock, striking these sensitive spots he didn’t know he had. He groans and cums down her throat. She keeps sucking for a moment, eyes going wide, slit pupils dilating as she tastes his seed flooding down her stomach, her cheeks hollow again. She brings her lips from the tip of his cock with a lewd wet pop and swishes the cum left in her mouth around, moaning and relishing in the taste before swallowing. “Mmm, to think it would taste this good...” Face darkening again, no, blushing, she turns aside. “Ahem. You didn’t see that.” Composing herself, she looks back to Norther and smiles. “So. Still energetic enough to think about carrying away mermaids, hmm? Oh!” Her eyes return to his still hard cock and her lips curl into a grin, “Seems like this guy hasn’t given up yet. You sure are adamant.”

Norther snorts. “You can’t weigh much more than my boat. I’m sure I could figure something out.”

“Hmph. I’ll not have a Sea Warden be underestimated and overlooked by a mere fisherman. Let’s see how much strength you have,” She sets him down and pushes him over in the same motion, carrying him to the floor and settling down over him. “After I’ve drained you to the last drop.” With a flurry, she peels his soaked shirt off him and tosses it aside, her lips now curling in predatory glee. A genuine passion fills her face, pushing aside her cold stoicism as her gaze bores down on him. Two of her immense arms rest by his head, elbows dug into the sand. She leans her weight on one, while the other grabs his chin. Another yet strokes through his hair while the last runs down his hip.

Her breasts engulf Norther’s chest as they rest heavily on him and he relishes the chance to finally sink his fingers into one, catching a large nipple and gently squeezing it as he loses half a limb in the soft things. His other reaches up to catch her descending cheek, stroking her face as her lips meet his.

The disparate size means he’s more overwhelmed than actually contributing much to anything. Her long tongue parts his teeth and slithers around in his mouth, it’s about all he can do to catch her full shapely upper lip between tongue and his own lip. Her rapaciousness takes the air right out of his mouth and he finds himself coming up short of breath as his heart hammers in his chest. She tastes and smells like the ocean, as he had much assumed. But he can feel through his chest an immense, powerful heart thrumming.

She breaks the kiss off, offering him a moment’s respite as she shifts herself, arching her back and bringing her hips forwards so that his cock is no longer sandwiched between her abs and his stomach. She bites her lower lip, flashing a worryingly pointed canine. Then with the hand on his hip, she angles his cock down towards her womanhood, smearing a line of precum as she rubs it along her tight stomach. His sensitive tip grinds over the small patch of soft scales and flicks against her stiff bud before sinking its head into her hot, sopping, giving entrance. Her huge tail swallows his leg, wrapping around it once, barely, for the size and thickness of it before continuing to trail out into the sand.

She lowers her immense wight down over him, so inexorable he’s honestly surprised there’s even that moment of resistance before he plunges into her sopping folds. Though, him not being horrendously endowed, that speaks to her tightness more than it does his girth. He momentarily hits a barrier more tangible than the tightness of her sodden, strangling vice before her hips crash down on his with enough weight to almost wind him. Powerful inner muscles squeeze and caress his length as it plunges through a tight wet tunnel he has no idea how far along he is. She feels it though, tipping her head back in a long luxurious moan so uncharacteristic of a stern, imperious, queenly voice that he almost cums there and then. Her ears flutter a little bit as her long tongue rolls out, her eyes wide, slit pupils dilating to almost round. “Haah…”

She quivers as she gets used to his length and girth inside her and reaches a finger down to her lower lips and scoops up a small bead of her blood, flickering a dark crimson red in the light of the storm. She looks a him, a faint smile playing at her lips. One of the arms beside his head cradles under it, fingers spreading through his hair as she takes his head in hand and holds it there, lowering her wet lips to resume the kiss as the other pair rises.

He surrenders himself to the big mermaid, more or less as he has this entire encounter, only it’s a fuller more sincere surrender now and he feels something deep within him resonate deep within her. A kind of fittingness. His cock swells and throbs in her depth, making her passage writhe, her folds stroking along his length as her inner muscles work to add motion where the simple carnal thrusting isn’t enough. She moans into his mouth as she feels him spread her pussy and spurt small loads of precum into her already abundantly lubricated passage.

He pinches, kneads and squeezes her large nipple, sinks half his arm into her soft giving breasts while the other reaches up under her arms to lay across her powerful back, as much as it can. Norther fights back into the kiss as he gropes her huge breasts and tries to hold her closer, doing what he can to impress upon her a reciprocity, sincerity, that he’s not just letting her take him for a ride to be done with it. She responds well to it, moaning again into the kiss as her wide, dwarfing hips smash into his. Her pussy grows swollen with her arousal and horrendously slick, there’s a lewd wet squelch as her lips squish up against Norther’s crotch.

He naturally cannot last long, fucking the very icon of the sea’s beauty he’d dreamt of, even if she’d come before him and awoken desires within him that he wasn’t previously aware of. Norther clutches at any part of her he can reach and groans into her lips, thrusting up against her with his hips, muscles burning and straining as he tries and take her weight, all while balls clench and throb and his loins work to pump the giant fish woman full of seed. It feels like his soul jets out of his cock, giant chunks of life force distending along his shaft before blasting along the remaining length of her passage and spilling into her womb.

He lasts all of a few breaths, before faltering with a hip creaking thud, blasting out a puff of sand while her pussy milks the rest of his load out of him and into her, not permitting his cock’s withdrawal for an instant. She sighs blissfully and lays down over hom, though her powerful muscles move, keeping the majority of her weight off him. Maeve nuzzles her head by Norther’s, “How do you feel now? Still having unrealistic ideas in that cute head of yours? Or do you accept that you need a Sea Warden to carry you off and protect you instead?”

Norther snorts, “Hmph. You’re not going to spoil my dream, just because you’re a little bigger and a little stronger. In fact, the bigger the catch the better. See if I can’t give it a go!”

She gives off a gasp as strength fills Norther and he pushes her off him. She lay there, huge tits pressed into the sand, eyes blinking in sheer confusion as he quickly whirls around behind her and hefts her giant tail up onto his shoulder, groaning and nearly buckling under the weight, but ultimately hugging it tight and bending her back and hips upwards. Her puffy slit glistens at him in the gloom light of the storm and his own cock seems almost larger, but honestly his head’s so awhir with a feral urgency to breed that he’s not thinking much less seeing straight. Norther takes an arm off her tail long enough to line up and slam home with a wet fleshy smack that rocks her body once, then twice, then he gains his rhythm, relishing in the way he’s able to slam into her and make her shudder.

“Ahhhn, yes! Harder!” Her four hands dig trenches through the sand as he pounds into her from behind, he almost wishes he could see her drooling glazed face from the front, but he’ll have to settle for admiring how her wet hair jostles and bounces as he slams into her from behind. Her tail hangs limp down his back and makes a lazy wrap around his legs. Norther’s balls smack into her clit as he ram down her molten, contracting and constricting insides, feeling his head scrape along every fold, before he settles in for deeper thrusts and finally buts up against something more solid. A curious ecstasy surges through him as he realizes he’s bottomed out in her deep muscled merpussy. Still sensitive from cumming the first time and now with her pussy worshipping his length and kissing and caressing his shaft slavishly, he quickly re-mounts that peak of climax. The knowledge he’d claimed her deepest depths with his throbbing spear stimulates him like nothing else. Her insides begin to quiver and spasm and cling to his length horrifically tightly, rolling in waves and stroking as she cries out into the tempest and gouges the sand deeper. Norther has no recourse but to offer his own bestial roar into the furious sky. He jets thunderous ropes of thick cum directly into her womb, tip of his crown battering apart her cervix just enough to splat white seed all over the walls of her deepest sanctum.

He pulls out mid climax and slams back in, making him cum even harder while her breath hitches and her eyes roll up. The tail hanging down his back and idly coiling about his leg wraps around the both of them as fast as a whip, wrapping around his hips and hers, clenching each time he thrusts in, practically forcing him to smash his pelvis to dust against her. “Morreee!”

Norther obliges, thrusting and cumming deep into her womb all the way until the strength leaves him and the weight of her tail forces him to his knees, cock sliding out with the motion and smearing against her lips, marking them in his seed while a thin trail of it trickles out of her pussy, most of it locked inside her womb. The last thing he feels before passing out is her rolling over and pulling him up to her with her tail, pulling him into her arms and burying his face into her bosom.

*	*	*	*

When he awakens, it’s to another climax ripping through his loins. Her hot forked tongue squeezes around his length as he blows his morning load down her throat. Her large head looms in his vision, lips fairly engulfing his base while her eyes glimmer in a hitherto unseen playfulness. She draws her suckers from his cock with a wet pop, “You’re awake. You passed out, but not before you manhandled me in a way that I still can’t believe and made me cum harder than I ever have.” She smiles, “I don’t know who came off worse. I don’t mind being your little mermaid if there’s more of that. Ahh~ But then you look so sexy when you’ve no control.” She sighs, “Regardless I feel a great burden has been lifted from my shoulders.”

Norther grins smugly, “Hmph. While I admit it feels pretty good letting you have your way with me, I always knew I had it in me to turn the tables. Now you can’t doubt me. Even if this pretty Sea Warden was impressive. What did you mean by burdens?”

Maeve smiles ruefully, “We Sea Wardens are indeed impressive, though, not for the reasons you’ve assumed. As for burdens,” the rueful smile turns into a fuller, beaming one, “I’d always worried about matters of the heart, if I’d ever attract a man. My singing voice, you see, it’s been likened to that of murder. Mermaid murder, even. It’s not like I was ever bullied over it, but there was only ever one time I’d tried to lend my voice to a chorus. To this day it’s been passed down in sailor legend as haunted and cursed. It doesn’t really feel good denying my sisters an entire hunting grounds. But now I know that there’s at least one man attracted to me even without my voice.” She moves up his body, her face coming to a stop above his, as she props her self up on an elbow again and strokes his cheek. “Maybe the only man for me, if he wishes.”

“I do, of course. But.” Norther levels a sceptical eye at her, going over her beautiful face, large full breasts, wide womanly hips and imposing powerful physique, “I don’t know if I really believe that you’d have a hard time attracting men.”

She smiles, “You flatter me, though you saw the proof of it last night. I suppose you’re right, I’m not blind to my own beauty. But… every mermaid is beautiful, you understand, and traditionally our voice is our greatest asset. A large part of my lonesomeness stems from my own insecurities, I recognise it. But the Goddesses provide and I do not regret it. For I would not have met you.”

Norther blushes, grinning despite himself. “So… what now?”

She stirs and begins to get up. Norther follows her, albeit wincing a little at an abused hip. “Now one of two things happen, we part ways and I keep this past night locked away in my heart and hope it leaves a legacy.” Her hand brushes over her womb and voice is still cool although a little less so, less ice cold and more… melted ice.

He shakes his head at that and step up to her, grabbing a hand. “That’s not happening.”

“Or,” she smiles softly as she turns to him, “we discuss how exactly we’re going to manage this. I fear I cannot leave my post, my heart is set on guarding the oceans. You would perhaps have to come and live with me, and I realise what a large change that would be for you. But before that, I think we must have a discussion with little Sarah.” Her voice cools, dropping its scant warmth. “It’s ill advised to deceive a warden of the sea.”

“Right!” Norther cracks his knuckles, “I need a word with Barry. Mermaid with a broken leg, honestly! Couldn’t even come up with a decent excuse, that’s the last time I drink at theirs! They cost me my boat!” He waves his arms angrily, conspiring with Maeve about their revenge all the way up until the edge of the water, where she suggests he climb her back. He feels strong enough to swim the distance but leaps at the chance anyway, about as fascinated to see what it’s like to swim through the ocean on such a powerful form as others are to ride on the back of a dragon. The two of them depart the island and vanish under the waves.