Frank's Kraken Fic

Above, the surface of the sea churned and thrashed, foam crested waves marching along on their endless march towards the shore. Beams of light from the far away sun shone through, but could only go so far before they were swallowed by the endless blackness of the water below. Like arms reaching desperately for something lost the rays vainly strained to illuminate the dark fathoms that covered the seafloor, and all the awful, secret things that hid on the bottom of that abyss.



Below, the rocky expanse of the seafloor undulated in all its barren beauty. Great boulders, dressed in algae and kelp served as cairns while thorny sea urchins stood like warning signs. Small, milky-skinned and bulging-eyed fish darted between the cracks of the rocks to keep out of reach of the toothy eels that lived in them and disturbed the grainy sand at the bottom, little clouds of white-beige dust marking their flights. Occasionally, to the trained eye, the right rock would reveal itself as a giant clam, the blue lips of its shell puckered like an expecting lover.



And it was that thought, of an expectant lover ready to be kissed, that made Ceto's ire burn hot enough to boil the entire ocean. The woman swam above the seabed, her face contorted in a frustrated scowl, her almond-shaped eyes squinting in a poisonous mixture of indignation and anger. Dark hair flowing behind her ovoid face, she thrashed the deep green fin of her tail, the scales that covered her lower body glistening in the faint, muted light. Cetos hands were balled fists, the shell jewelry worn loosely around her arms complementing her fair skin. Both the thin gill slits on her neck and the longer ones on the side of her abdomen worked rapidly, opening and closing to quickly filter oxygen out of the water, displaying her agitation to the world if the rest of her body didn't already.



Then, the seafloor ended. Sudden and abrupt, Ceto found herself above a great, black chasm in the seabed, the vain fingers of light from above failing utterly to penetrate it. How deep it went she didnt know, few mermaids ever ventured here, and for good reason. They preferred the shallow lagoons and tropical reefs, where color and light were abundant. Where warm waters lapped at their skin as they played and splashed by the cove, daring any human vessels to come near.



Oh how Ceto had longed for that day, when she and her mischievous sisters would spy the sails of a human vessel. Long had she daydreamed, while combing the dark tresses of her hair, of captivating the crewmen with her song and with the charming curves of her body. To have them wrapped in the allure of her sexuality, totally enraptured with her, to do whatever with she pleased. It would be a testament to her beauty, her sexual prowess, the reward for so many lonely days spent lounging in the waves just waiting for them to lay eyes on her curves.



Ceto lingered on the threshold of the abyss, glaring down at the endless blackness before her. She still wore the two purple starfish attached to her large, curvaceous breasts. She and her kin rarely cared for modesty, but the exotic pasties were supposed to tease any hungry sailors who might lay eye on her. What was supposed to be an eye catching treat was now an unpleasant weight on her bosom, the tight constriction of the stars a physical reminder of her anger.



“Mighty Kraken, lord of the deep and terror of the sea floor, I ask for an audience with your magnificence.” Ceto shouted into the silent void before her. She was not truly sure if anything even heard her, or if her call was swallowed by the great black maw that yawned hungrily, devouring light and water and, hopefully, her worries. The abyss' only reply was further silence, the sheer immensity of it making Ceto feel insignificantly small.



“Mighty Kraken,” she repeated, further frustration coloring her words, “destroyer of ships and hunter of whales, most powerful and feared of devilfish, I implore you to-”



“I heard you the first time,” echoed a deep voice, cutting off Ceto's request, “cant you half-fish learn some patience?” The voice was like an earthquake, every drop of water vibrating from the sound that the submarine colossus made. It was like the grinding of icebergs or the creaking of a slowly falling tree, it spoke not only of the speaker's immensity but of countless eons of age, of a being that had seen continents shift and sink. Slowly, Ceto could see things rising from the depths of the abyss. Long arms the thickness of a ship's mast and lined on the underside with suckers nearly as wide as her torso. The snakelike tentacles crawled over the edge of the chasm, curling and writhing with the motions of the gargantuan body they were surely connected to. Straining her eyes, she could make out the glow of two massive reddish globes far below her, reflecting what little light reached the Kraken's body. Ceto thought she could vaguely discern the oblong dome of the monster's mantle and the outlines of numerous other arms churning beneath it. “Well get on with it. You wanted an audience with me and you've got one. Don't waste my time just swimming there.”



Ceto shook herself from the deep bass of the Kraken's voice, the thrumming of every syllable the beast spoke making her very bones shake. She inhaled deeply, her gills flaring wide like fleshy flower petals, gathering what courage she had before addressing the Kraken. “I've come to ask a favor of you Mighty Kraken. Something that should be but a trifle for someone so powerful as you.” A deep rumble came from the abyss, which Ceto couldn't discern the intent behind. Was the monster acknowledging her flattery, or growing impatient with her? She feared the latter, eyeing the trunk-like arms that coiled and twisted around the boulders below her. If it wanted to, the beast could wrench one of those out of the seafloor with ease, and she shuddered to think of what would happen should those arms seize her.



“Sailing east is a sloop crewed with fourteen sailing men. The flags they fly are blue and gold and they have no cannons on their deck, though they do carry net and harpoon.”



“Yes? And?” Replied the Kraken, its darkness-shrouded body unreadable in expression. All Ceto could see were the sinister spheres of it's eyes, the invertebrate's thoughts as distant and indiscernible as a glacier's.



“All I want from you mighty Kraken, is for you to drag that sloop to the bottom of the sea. I have little to offer, though I can bring you pearl and sunken gold and abalone shells and other treasures, to bring some pleasant lights to your dark home.”



The Kraken was silent, slowly coiling and uncoiling its arms like a thinker drumming his fingers. Ceto bit her lip in apprehension, her breathing heavy as she imagined what the beast might do next. Had she offended the monster somehow? Would it be upset with her, and drag her down to the depths to be its next meal? Were the baubles she and her kin valued as worthless to the Kraken as she feared? She had little idea what something as ancient and powerful as the gargantuan cephalopod could want as remuneration. She did not want to insult its intelligence by offering it food, implying it could not hunt for itself or insinuating it was but a simple animal. And she did not think the monster had need for the services of but a single mermaid. Yes, if the Kraken wanted something, Ceto feared it would simply take it.


“Why?” Came the thunderous reply, the single syllable shaking free a trio of small rocks from the cliff face and sending them tumbling down to the bottom of the abyss. Now exposed to the open sea, a large crab scurried towards a rock beside Ceto, hiding in one of the many crevices. The mermaid wished she could do the same, but was fixed, paralyzed by the behemoth's attention. If she fled, she feared a tentacle would quickly wrap around her tail and pull her down before the Kraken's enormous, ship shattering beak. There in the dark of the abyss, would the scream of her terror even escape that all-consuming blackness?


“They spurned me!” Ceto shouted back, overcoming her fearful paralysis with balled fists and eyes half-shut with rage. “I spent years waiting for a ship to sail by my cove, years! I spent my whole life waiting for the men of my dreams to find me, and when they finally do show up? Those ungrateful boors watched me do everything I had practiced, every coy smile and inviting glance I could offer, then sailed away! They didnt care for how long I'd been dreaming of them, how hard I had worked to make sure that moment wouldnt be wasted, and they ruined it!”


Ceto was left fuming, her face distorted with rage and her gills gaping wide from her heavy breathing. The beast before her was as silent as the endless abyss it inhabited, ambivalent as the waters that surrounded them. For a moment, fear abandoned the mermaid, and she shouted angrily down the chasm at the Kraken. "Well? Are you happy that I admitted it? Is that what it takes for me to get what I want? I'm a failure of a mermaid and I cant stand it!"



"Be quiet," groaned the Kraken, two of it's tentacles coiling around a boulder and rocking it back and forth. "I need to think, and that's not easy with your whining distracting me." Still caught in her tantrum, Ceto began to shout back a response, but was silenced when a tentacle, moving far too fast for something of its size, shot from its resting place and covered the opening of her mouth. The numerous suckers lining the limb affixed themselves to her face with a combination of dull pressure and tickling, biting sharpness. Eyes wide with panic, Ceto seized the limb and pulled, trying to wrench it from her mouth as vainly as the sun tried to illuminate the seabed. She tried hitting the rubbery arm, scratching and pulling at it, but the creature seemed immune to any damage she could try and inflict upon it. Her gills working overtime, chest heaving from peril, she hefted a large rock from the seafloor and was poised to strike the arm with it when another limb, just as quick and stealthy as the first, reached and wrapped itself around her wrists, coiling itself three times until it encircled her forearms up to the elbows. With precision belying its power, the Kraken twisted Ceto's arms behind her back, binding her in place with frightening efficiency. Ceto didnt see the Kraken's eyes, but she heard the deep rumble of its abyssal groaning again, the power of its voice snapping her from her fit of anger. Heart hammering so hard she feared it would burst through her chest, Ceto tried to calm herself, still struggling against her binding, but without the intensity that would provoke any retaliation from the goliath.


The Kraken was thinking. It was not as cruel a creature as the legends purported. At least not anymore. In his youth he'd scuttled a few fleets, sure, and who didn't enjoy a nice sperm whale for lunch now and then, but he considered himself a mostly amicable creature. Its not as though he went out of his way to destroy those vessels. They'd speared him with harpoons, blasted his beak with cannon and rammed him with the keels of their awful wooden boats. A shudder went through his web of slimy tentacles when he recalled the thought of harpoon lodging itself in his skin, a sensation he did not want to experience again.


In truth he felt nothing but pity for the half-fish creature he held captive in his arms. He was a creature of the sea, through and through. As old and as mighty as the ocean itself, assured and confident in his power, while the fish with the deformed upper half and unusable pectoral fins was torn between conflicting natures. What moved her, the core of her being was of the sea, but her head, thoughts and dreams belonged to the land. It was some cosmic trick that had resulted in her race's birth, he thought, perhaps some god had wanted to spite both men and fish, so he joined them together?


And what did a gods will matter to him? The mighty Kraken? The terror of the abyss, lord of the places the sun feared to show to the world? Sure his glory days of smashing galleons and wringing the necks of sea serpents were behind him, but he did have a reputation and all. A duty to uphold. The human half of the mermaid was asking for aid, but it was the aquatic half that truly needed his help.


"You are not a failure," grumbled the Kraken, slowly relinquishing Ceto. Where his arms had bound her numerous red sucker marks dotted her skin like a hundred hickeys. "Just confused. You have no need for a landthing's approval."


"Does that mean you'll do it? What do you want in return?"


"No. They haven't bothered me and I cant be bothered to muster up enough ire towards some humans that've done quite literally nothing.”


“You lazy conglomeration of worms!” Shouted Ceto, seizing the tip of one his arms and twisting it. “You masquerade as a leviathan but are nothing more than a toothless-”


“Quiet,” said The Kraken, silencing Ceto with the boom of his groaning voice. “I wasn't finished talking.” Ceto suddenly felt very, very small as the spherical bulk of The Kraken's mantle began to rise from the abyss. Like a woman's locks his numerous limbs flowed from the mountain of clammy green flesh that was his body, the dim, cold suns of his eyes boring into Ceto with something she did not expect to see from a beast like him. She thought a being as primal, as ancient and powerful as he would be beyond baser emotions, ones she could possibly fathom. But in those cold unblinking eyes she saw not anger or disgust or even hunger. She saw pity. Simple, sad pity. Feeling the twitches of the slimy tendril between her hands she gulped and released it, though the limb stayed by her side, gently, protectively curling around her upper torso and breasts. “I was going to say, before your human half stole your tongue, was that I was still going to help you.” The single limb that encircled her tightened slightly, not restrictively like before but comfortably, almost reassuringly, like a hug. More joined in, one coiling around the tip of her tail, just before the start of her fin, another sneaking behind her and snaking its way between her hands. It was slow, not the quick binding grasp of a predator entwining its prey but of a trusted lover's embrace. If she wanted she could dart out from the cephalopod's slowly coiling caresses, but