The first thing Saira registered was the distinct, tragic absence of motion.
The world wasn’t spinning.
Her stomach wasn’t performing violent back flips.
In fact, she was lying on something warm, flat, and blissfully motionless.
Ah, she thought, floating in the warm haze of partial consciousness.
I did it.
I died.
The ocean took me.
Farewell, debt.
Slowly, her delicate white lashes fluttered open.
Blurry sunlight filtered through a canopy of strange, glowing palm leaves, casting soft golden light across a figure looming directly over her.
He was breathtaking.
Bone-structure chiseled by divine hands, sharp luminous emerald eyes, and wet, red hair clinging to a sculpted jawline.
Droplets of sea water dripped from his collarbone like scattered diamonds.
Saira let out a long, peaceful sigh.
Of course.
Heaven had a welcoming committee, and they sent the main event.
“An angel,” Saira whispered, her voice a raspy breeze.
Eagre froze.
His webbed claws were on her shoulders, where he had been aggressively shaking her awake to demand clarification on his “pitchy” high notes.
Reaching up with a delicate, trembling hand, Saira gently cupped his cold, shimmering cheek.
Her eyes welled with romantic awe.
She pulled herself up just an inch, leaned in, and pressed a soft, lingering kiss right against his lips.
Eagre’s brain completely short-circuited.
His tail gave a involuntary, violent smack against the wet sand.
His fins flared.
His ancient, terrifying ocean-predator instincts dissolved into pure, unadulterated shock.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t breath.
He was double-stunned-paralyzed first by a random human kissing him on a beach like a tragic heroine in a play.
Saira pulled back, resting her hand against his chest with a faint, angelic smile.
“Take me to the pearly gates, handsome.
I’m ready.” Then, a wave washed over her ankles.
It was wet.
It was salty.
It was very much real.
Saira blinked.
The hazy golden light faded.
She looked down at her waterlogged cloths, then at the coarse sand stuck to her arms, and finally back up to the hyper-detailed, distinctly non-angelic glowing scales along the stranger’s neck.
Her soft, angelic expression instantly crumpled into a glare of pure, unadulterated fury.
She smacked him on his chest with an ugly scowl.
” Wait a minute,” Saira snapped, scrambling backward in the sand like an offended crab.” I’m wet!
I’m still wet!
Why am I wet?!” Eagre snapped out of his trance, blinking rapidly.
“You-you were drowning-” “I was sinking!” Saira shouted, pointing an accusing, sand covered finger at his face.
“I was on my way out!
Do you have any idea how much work went into getting on that doomed ship?!
I was about to be debt-free!
I was peaceful!
I was about to go to heaven where there are no lone sharks and no motion sickness!” Eagre sat back on his tail, utterly flabbergasted.
“I saved your life!” “You ruined my death!” She yelled back, throwing a handful of wet sand at his iridescent tail.
“Who asked you to drag me up here, you glorified salmon?!” Eagre gasped, his webbed ears flaring in sheer offence.
“I am an apex predator of the deep-” “You’re an apex nuisance!” Saira cut on seamlessly, scrambling to her feet, though she wobbled slightly.
“You pulled me out of a perfectly good watery grave just to drag me onto…where even are we?!
Some creepy, glowing Island?!” “Aethel!” Eagre snapped, his glowing eyes wide with disbelief.
“And you should be bowing down on your knees thanking me!” “I’d rather drink seawater!” Saira barked back, crossing her arms and glaring at him,burning with theatrical rage.
” You over-scaled, song-stealing, boundary-violating dolphin!
If I die of dehydration on this beach, I’m gonna haunt you!” Eagre’s glowing eyes narrowed into slit-like pupils.
His webbed ears pinned flat against his head, and the iridecent scales along his neck flared with a furious, deep blue light.
Nobody called him a glorified salmon.
And nobody called him a boundary-violating dolphin.
“Enough!” He roared, his voice echoing off the cliffs with the terrifying weight of the ocean behind it.
With a whip-like snap of his powerful tail, Eagre launched himself out of the shallow water.
He lunged straight at her like a striking shark, claws extended, sharp fangs bared, fully intent on dragging this absurd, disrespectful human back down to the dark abyss to end her once and for all.
Saira didn’t even flinch.
She didn’t scream, she didn’t cower.
In fact, her eyes didn’t even widen.
Instead, her hand reached down, gripped a thick waterlogged piece of driftwood half-buried in the sand, and swung it with the frantic, unhinged leverage of someone who had survived three debt-collecting brawls in an alleyway.
THAWCK!
The driftwood hit Eagre squarely across the side of his cheek with a heavy, wet crunch.
The sheer force of the swing sent the legendary, terrifying ocean predator collapsing face-first onto the wet sand with a muffled splash.
The wood snapped in half, dropping from Saira’s hand as she stood over him, panting and dusting off her palms,still utterly furious.
Eagre lay there for three solid seconds, completely frozen.
His ears were ringing.
His nose was buried in the cold wet sand.
He slowly pushed himself up on his elbows, a sea-urchin stuck to his forehead, staring at the broken piece of log in absolute, horrified disbelief.
She had hit him.
A human girl-who looked like a porcelain doll-had just hit an ancient sea monster on the head with a stick.
“Don’t you ever lunge at me!
I survived three different loan sharks who carried iron knuckledusters!
Your little teeth don’t even make my top five list of current problems!” Saira barked, pointing down at him while he was still on all fours in the surf.
Eagre blinked up at her, his jaw dropping open as sand spilled out of his mouth.
“You…you struck me with a…branch.” “It was a driftwood!” Saira snapped back, crossing her arms defensively.
“And if you try to drag me into the water again, I will make sushi out of you!” Eagre’s fins flared in absolute indignity.
“Sushi?!” “Yes, sushi!” Saira barked, entirely unbothered by his sharp teeth and glowing eyes.
“I’ll fillet those pretty scales, roll you up in sea-kelp, and eat you!” CREATORS’ THOUGHTS coconutshadow Here’s my second chapter.
hope whoever is reading my story finds it entertaining!
take care!