Paintings, mad fish and other troubles

Paintings, mad fish and other troubles

"Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited."

Warnings: Content, mature, slash, Yaoi m/m pairing. Violence, etcetera.

Special note, I am native German, so please be kind.

Beta: none

　

Special note: This is a spin off of some sorts of The Meersong. It is not necessary to read that one to understand this story but if you do, you can understand some things better I guess. I wrote this first chapter in three hours, is proud of herself here^^

Suryallee =^^=

How troublesome!

Chapter 1 of maybe 8

If someone had told Colin O’Hara a few years prior that he would one-day crash with a starship on a remote planet, he would have looked at them oddly and then would have given them the number of his psychiatrist fast.

Seriously, who would believe such happen to himself in those days?

Since the last four years now, the tall man with the curly red mane better known as the ‘MOB’ on his head, earned his living here with his paintings. Rubbing his MOB out of his eyes, the green-eyed man watched the ocean in contemplation of his newest dilemma.

Honestly!

What had he done so badly in his former life, according to his old granny Angelika’s old tales, that he deserved such a fate?!? He had just wanted his peace and quiet to work on his beloved paintings. Each of them already worth several fortunes on this world. Even the inhuman dwellers of the world came to him in the last years when wanting a painting. Better said, the talked to his agent, Moorland, one of his people here that too had crashed with him.

He was an artist, and a darn good one and he knew this too.

He had studied art on the best universities on earth before someone deemed it smart to rip him away from his way home from an art showing of his paintings and then had put him to sleep to fly around the rocks in the outer space.

Cussing he threw a stone into the water.

Colin wasn’t what one would call a social person. Actually, the most went running when meeting the tall and unfriendly Scot half German to never come back. He was known for his ability to make the most hardened man cry with only a glare of his green eyes. Some of the land dwellers mages had found it funny two years back to anger Colin to a point to cut one of his paintings into pieces… the follow up had been nothing nice to watch. Not even for the hard people around here.

He had become deadly silent and then had gone to the storages to get his stuff.

In one of the cargo boxes, someone had stored his family heirloom away for him. A big old broadsword. Something that even the medieval people here saw not often. It was monster of its kind and he had used it to practically hit their tower into pieces for his ruined paintings in his rage. Since that horror day, no one bothered him anymore.

Not to mention that said mages had a field day that day since the man did not respond as he had should to their spells at all.

Their arch mage had forbidden any to do such a stupid stunt again, he feared about the rest of his former good-sorted library too much. The most was gone and had been in stripes after Colin was through. The star people had shrugged it off. They had begun with the trouble in Colin’s peoples eyes and so it was fast smoothed over.

That two mages were still missing, no one wisely mentioned.

The medical department of the ship had needed to shot him with three tranquilizers that day to get him unconscious! Later he was told that the used mixture could have hit an elephant into delirium in under a minute. He needed half an hour for it to make him only dizzy. In the past, his clan had been known for battle rage. When he told that to the scientists, they shook their heads and left it wisely at that.

Since then, he had lived on a remote island far out in the sea and to his never-ending happiness almost alone. He painted only what he wanted to. No one could make him do something that Colin did not want to do. This had lead partially to his reputation of being a mad genius. What he wasn’t.

He just preferred to be alone.

The few fishermen families around the island brought him his mail or did his bidding when he asked them. He paid well and they themselves being a rather curt and private folk understood the artist much better as his own people did it most of the time. He acknowledged that and kept out of their business as they kept out of his.

The tavern wench of the island often found him in her bed, but that was all right too since he never staid the night and paid good for her services. He even had her checked from their doctors to keep her healthy and she left him to his solitary ways just as he wished it. The only ones he surprisingly tolerated were the children.

No matter how loud the tykes got, he never even growled at them as he did at everyone else.

If they got on his nerves too much, their parents found that out when they returned home. Sometimes pink or green from head to toe, or they came home striped in different colors, depended on it what pot with colors he could grasp the fastest or on what painting he worked on. Actually, Colin had fun too when he threw the color at the children. Some came home sometimes with odd pictures painted on them, the parents never complained.

That Colin seems to do not know the concept of taking a bath occasionally too aided his rumored madness. Hence, the MOB on his head what normally would have been hair, if washed more often.

Truth was, he simply was too caught up in his paintings so much that he often forgot to do the simplest things then. Like bathing. Or cooking. The latter soon an old woman took over. She had a sharp tongue and could keep up with the complicated genius easily. She took care that Colin did not forget to eat or to change his clothes even.

He just… was like that.

His latest painting had brought him his current nemesis in his life.

Actually by sheer accident, really!

The son of the old woman was one of his few true friends. Solkan was like Colin too a rather shortcut young man who was a fisher like almost everyone on the islands around here. He had one day a few months ago aroused the curiosity of the sea folk somehow. And with that begun a dilemma of the other kind that soon had Colin too in its snare. Not by choice, honestly! He had ended up in the follow ups without to want it.

Solkan was not bad looking.

Tall, dark-haired and eyed like most folk around here he made a striking picture that had heads turn left and right when he passed by. His personality too was to the likening of the people here and so, Solkan had no troubles to find lovers in his life. Although, he had set his eyes onto a nice young woman in the late. And with that begun the entire chaos.

No, actually with a simple fishing trip it did.

If one was honest, that was. On said trip, Solkan had accidentally fished up a miffed Sealord by sheer chance. Said Sealord had not been too thrilled to be tangled up in his net and had snarled rather madly at the fisher in return. To their horror, it had been Selkas, the green devil they had caught! He nearly drowned them all before his eyes had suddenly set on Solkan and instead to drown them, the Mer had simply left them in one piece.

Much to their surprise.

Since that fateful day, Selkas had often shown up when Solkan was out. Much to the latter’s horror. Solkan had been smart enough to listen to his elders and took nothing from the Mer. No fish or other presents. He always refused them politely and even went not fishing for weeks to get Selkas off his back again.

Nothing worked.

How Colin fit into this weird wooing story gone wrong?

Well…, he had to sit and hear out Solkan all the time when the man came back and needed a buddy to complain about the Mer’s advances.

At least, so it begun.

Harmless enough, neh? Or so one would think. The truth was Selkas saw that one time from the seaside and promptly begun to see the red head as a rival. What ended in it that Colin had a wet house and some ruined paintings and Selkas with sporting several bumps and cuts after Colin got him a few days later in a self-made trap.

The two looked later as if a tsunami had rolled over them.

This was also, how Selkas found out that the red head was actually one under all the dirt and that he could give as good as he got. More so, Colin was seemingly immune to his poison what complicated the things a little for Selkas who could bite Colin as much as he wanted with no affect whatsoever on said blasted man!

Eyeing each other oddly, both decided it wasn’t worth the effort and kept for weeks out of the others way. Mostly to heal if honest but no one would have told that to anyone who asked. If someone dared to, that was. Both had a fool mood for weeks.

Then one day, Solkan had just gone home, Selkas suddenly turned up at his strand and told Colin his side of the trouble of the day with a pout.

Colin by now used to it to drown out others when they came to complain simply went on to paint next to the agitated Sealord. Grunting sometimes to show he was still somewhat listening… what he truly wasn’t. That odd affair repeated itself from now on every time Solkan came over. Even if not, Selkas took to it to beleaguer the red head more and more often. He even showed up when nothing was amiss for once…

That alone should have told Colin something, he figured later out.

To be honest, the man enjoyed the fool mouth of the Mer actually fairly a bit. Selkas could make a drunken sailor blush if he wanted. More often then not the two simply traded insults and were even content with that odd behavior.

One day a group of mages and nobles turned up at Colin’s door to ask him out about the Mer.

They wanted to hunt him. Colin told them to die for all he cared and closed his door in their faces. He was not fond of that sport these humans here had. He had seen to what that could lead in the end. It ended with them setting his abode on fire. Luckily, for Colin, since the event with Selkas he stored his paintings in a nearby cave, unluckily for him, they burned his only house down.

With him nearly in it.

He had been asleep when they had set the fireballs lose.

He cut all work trades with the country they had belonged to and took a boat to search for a new place with more peace for him to work.

He ended up on an even more remote island as before.

Onto it lived an old man who soon turned out to be a mage that was actually one for the first time that did not bother Colin. Both men had simply eyed each other and then gone their respective ways. In the end, Colin settled inside the old abandoned tower on the island while the mage kept on living in his cozy little house at the bay. Colin soon got aware of it that the mage had a kind of apprentice. Said apprentice was a mershark of huge proportions going by the name Tealka and that he could bite damn hard!

Another tussle with a Mer followed a grudgingly patching up from the cussing mage who had thrown a fire spell between the two feuding males to separate them before one was killed. Nevertheless, not early enough to prevent Colin to lose a good part of his left thigh and Tealka from loosing a few of his razor sharp teeth and half of his back fin.

Both needed a while to heal after their fight.

Surprisingly, Tealka and Colin got along after that. The huge mershark had just reacted to Colin invading his territory and Colin to being attacked suddenly. When it was clear that the human wasn’t to be removed and even kept out of Tealka’s hair, the two got along. That was, until Selkas showed up one day and found out that Colin had emigrated here of all places that way.

Moreover, Colin found out that day that the mage knew the mad Mer since he was a seedling.

Since then, Selkas took up again on his hobby to pester Colin who in turn ignored him mostly. Much to the astonishment of Tealka and the old mage who both watched the two all the time headshaking.

The fisher folk had fast found out where Colin had gone to as had Moorland.

The first showed up twice the week and took over the duties from before, with cleaning and cooking for the man, the latter threw a fit first then he asked for the paintings and then he vanished again to only come back all three months to give Colin new orders or to get the finished paintings.

This is where we come back to said painting from before.

The one that started a completely new mess in Colin’s life.

Actually, it was a present from Colin for Solkan and his future wife.

He had meant well, he really did. How could he have known that Selkas would throw a fit when seeing him work on it? Ok, so maybe he should have known by now that the Mer had a crush on the man. But really! To take one of his brushes and draw a crude beard on her face on it one night before he wanted to give it to the couple was a bit too childish, even for Colin.

It didn’t even look that bad, in Colin’s opinion but he doubted it that Solkan and Nema would see it his way.

The mage helped him to remove the blemish again without to complain even. He just shook his head at the pouting Mer and even went with Colin to prevent Selkas from doing something else to the picture. For weeks after the marriage Selkas was not seen anywhere near the costs or even the island.

Rumor had it that his prince the Merprince Sunan had kept him away.

Colin begun to breathe again and to paint too. Then one night he was rudely woken from a drunken Mer right on the doorstep to his tower. How the madcap had managed to come up here was a miracle to Colin but he had. Now he was singing drunken songs and made it simply impossible to ignore the drunken idiot. Where had he gotten the potent alcohol anyways from? With a curse, Colin gave up sleeping and went down to Selkas to try to talk him into going home.

Ripping the door open, Colin greeted an unbelievingly sight.

“Oh stop it! You’re getting on my nerves with that horrible singing…what the fuck?!!” There sat Selkas with two bottles empty at the tip of his tail and at least three more in reach. One in hand he sung the worst song Colin had ever heard and besides that, he was covered in blood, guts and other unpleasant things. Cuts run over the sides of his long tail and his back fin was ripped into two halves. He was bleeding not badly, but enough to have the man want to take those bottles from him.

Eying him, a moment Colin finally voiced his fears out before he sat down next to the mer.

“You didn’t go and killed him for simply loving someone else I hope?”

The Mer gave him a sad smile. One that made Colin’s insides does an odd jump. Shaking his head the green and black colored Sealord took another gulp out of the bottle in his webbed hand before he rubbed his mouth with the back of the other that sported a hole that was still bleeding in it.

“Naw, I wouldn’t do that. Besides, my prince forbade me such.”

He gave Colin a short glance before he looked down again. Colin just eyed him before he stood again, took the bottles under soft protests and went inside to get his first aid kit. It took him an hour to patch the injured Mer up and half of another to somehow carry half drag the drunk back to the ocean.

Then he went and woke the mage up.

Again, he had to half carry half drag Selkas to a new location. This time Colin cussed. Had he known that, he would have left the old man sleep! Finally having the Mer inside the boathouse of the mage inside a hole that looked like Selkas often slept there, Colin could go to bed again.

Later, a few days later Colin found out through Moorland what had occurred.

The ones who had burned down his old home had tried to make true on their idiotic plans to catch the Sealord. What truly was foolish, knowing Selkas a little and his history a bit more. Of course, the entire thing had gone down the drain. They had used Solkan as bait… that had marked their doom.

The man was actually the only human that survived that night.

The entire ship had Selkas ripped into parts and pieces.

Using his tail, he had hit holes into the hull from the underside all the while others of his kin had distracted the sailors on board. In the end, he had literally torn the mages and nobles into little bits. Had gorged on their entrails or had simply bitten them and watched them die horribly on his natural poison. No one on board had escaped the wrath of the Sealord that night.

Only Solkan had and he did not remember much since he had been unconscious.

The Mer had brought him back to his island and then had vanished.

Some people had the following day seen the leftovers of his rage in the waves and had told everyone else.

Somehow, Selkas had found alcohol in the wreckage and had ended up drunk on Colin’s doorstep in the end. Who then had him patched up and to the old mage and that was that. For days, Selkas was an uncommon silent fixture on the island. Just sitting in the waves or sleeping the day away on the vast strand. Not even Colin and Tealka dared to disturb him. He seems to need the solitude.

On the third day, Colin had enough.

“Ya know, you look like shit, Selkas.” The Mer looked oddly at the man who had told him that for moments before he sat up. “I know! I don’t feel like it, alright?!” The man nodded slowly. Colin knew very well what Selkas meant with these words. Throwing a bar of soup and shampoo that his people used near the Sealord into the sand as well as a comp and some hairclips the man grunted a “Use that, man, you stink more then I do on my best days!” and walked back to his own abode.

Right under the oddly stare half glare of a surprised Selkas.

Later the day, Selkas showed up at the part of the beach that Colin now mostly used to paint when the weather was good. Clearly cleaner as before and his hair combed for a change. So what if he still sported a black eye and several injuries? Laying the used items down near Colin, he eyed his newest painting with critical eyes.

Actually, Selkas was always anew surprised over the talent of this human to paint such beautiful pictures when being such a gruffy hermit.

Colin was what? Thirty? Maybe, but Tim told Selkas earlier this week that Colin was actually in his age, around twenty at best. In addition, that he was a genius painter and artist. Just not a person’s person. The man was well known for that. Selkas settled onto his arms and watched the man paint a flower of a kind he had never seen before in real.

“Is that flower even existing somewhere?”

Colin nodded. “Yes. They grow in regions that you will never see, I suppose. Mountains and such. They are rare to find and some believe they bring eternal love when given to their loved ones. They are just a bitch to get, since they grow in high and dangerous places such as cliff sides and short outcroppings of the mountains.”  

Selkas nodded to that.

“I see. Do they really believe in such shit?” Colin gave him a short probing look before he snorted too. “Yeah. Some do and each year some die in their foolish tries to pluck one from the stones. It is called romantic I was told.” He gave a new snort and both laughed at that for a while. Pointing at the picture Selkas asked him a new question soon.

“Is that huge stone thing a mountain?”  

Again, Colin nodded.

“Yes, actually it is one that is… was on earth. It was called the Alps. Better said, a part of that big massive. Most likely it is gone now… or maybe not. Who knows? We had to go since a comet found us so cute to visit my home world one day. It most likely has destroyed all that lived on earth when he showed up.”  

Colin fell silent and laid his brush down. Looking down at the strand the man went on in an almost silent voice to describe his home world to the avidly listening Selkas.

The mountains and the forests. The oceans and the volcano’s that Colin had always loved to paint when younger. He had often visited Hawaii just because of their volcanos. The reds of the magma as well as the blues or grays of the sky on clear or stormy days. He stunned the Sealord with his vivid telling of places or sights from his memories.

He even described scents to the astonished Mer. That of pines or of the moor of his grandmother’s home in a place he called Scotland. The light of the sun in his hometown when it was winter or summer. In the end Selkas was stunned of the vivid imagination and talent to transmitter it through words alone that the man had.

In turn Selkas begun to describe the sea to Colin who now in turn listened to the Mer.

The idea from Colin following, Selkas told him of the light in the water, how it changed the deeper or higher you dove in it. On the other hand, what color the water took in what areas. From green to turquoise to blue and even black. All those colors he told the man. As well as the fish. What kinds lived where, and why. How they looked and moved. His melodically voice soon had Colin captured.

As well as Selkas tales had it. They were funny and sad, captivating and sometimes simply mad. They told much of the struggles for life in the deeps and of how the Mer saw his world. What he thought about the humans invading his territory and endangering his people and so on.

In the end, it was near midnight when Colin finally said goodbye and went to bed.

Selkas sat a good while longer on the beach. Looking at the still there drying paining of a mountain flower from earth and thought. He couldn’t really describe it nor explain it, but just talking and listening to Colin had somehow calmed him down much more as the drinking had done the nights before. Not even spending his rage to be denied had done the trick so thoroughly.

It gave him much to mull over.

2012 by Suryallee