Beyond the sea 9

 Depressed, Elly slept all day until it was around the time she usually met Hizashi at the beach. In fact, she would have overslept if her stomach didn't start to ache. Trapped in the water without the means of cooking food or going to the grocery store, she had to learn to eat food raw. She liked sushi, but was having trouble adapting to the fact that she had to catch and eat it immediately. Thus the hunger pangs that woke her as she lay curled up in her tiny, carved out reef section.

She shook herself awake and cleaned up, using her fingers to comb out her hair and what few health supplies she'd brought with her. The supply was dwindling and she fussed about that for a few minutes, gathering everything to stare forlornly at the small pile. Eventually she realized she couldn't think about that right now; she had to make her way to the beach. As she sped off through the water her mind was filled with thoughts of Hizashi.

It didn't take long to get to their usual meeting place. She was pleased to see he'd had a small area dug out and shored off on one section to act as a man-made tidal pool. This was admittedly bigger and could fit her standing on her tail as well as resting laying down.

"Did you have this done this morning?" Elly touched the side of the rocky wall. It was very sturdy and not yet covered in algae.

Hizashi's smile was huge. "D'ya like it? I want to maybe get the guys to extend a tunnel out towards the house. The bottom floors have a huge pool, and I could drain it and set it up with saltwater an' stuff!"

Her jaw dropped. "Really? You'd go through all that trouble for me?!"

"Trouble?" He scrunched his nose up, wiggling his mustache at her. "This isn't trouble at all. In fact I kinda thought you wouldn't like it... it's, uh, not really done yet. I want it to look as natural as possible -"

"It's <i>wonderful</i>, Hizashi."

He blushed and sat down in a chair beside her. "I'm glad, then. I wanted to make it easier for you to visit."

"I'd visit you even if I had to drag myself onto the beach dry, but thank you. Really." She held his hand and his blush grew darker.

Their visit that day was as simple as their others. They talked and shared a meal together until it grew dark.

"By the way, I'm off on the weekend," Hizashi told her shyly, digging a finger in the sand and pushing it around. "D'ya wanna, I dunno, do something different? We could swim together."

Elly smiled at him. "I'd like that," she said, forgetting for the moment the magic that bound her. A couple seconds later when she remembered her eyes grew wide and she panicked, not knowing how to stop him without giving herself away. "I - but is it safe? I know you swim a lot, but -"

"Oh? You know I swim a lot?" Hizashi's smile grew. "How long've you been watching me?" His tone dropped rich and low, and it caused a shiver to run up her spine.

"Um..!"

Hizashi chuckled, stroking a thumb over the top of her hand. "Just joking. I swim great! Plus if you're there I shouldn't worry, right?"

"Oh, yeah." She brightened at once. "I'll <i>never</i> let anything happen to you."

"Aww." He squeezed her hand gently. "Thanks, baby." He paused. "Can you get here like, around lunchtime then? There's less chance of random people trying to sneak onto the beach 'cause they're eating or just ate. We should be okay, but just to be safe."

"I can do that," she agreed.

"I guess you gotta go." Hizashi sighed deeply. "I <i>hate</i> this part. I feel like an idiot missin' you when we're going to see each other so soon."

"Me, too. How about a kiss good night?"

He wiggled his eyebrows at her and got up off the chair to sit next to the pool. Elly, in turn, hoisted herself partially out of the water onto a ledge apparently built for this purpose. "I thought you'd never ask."

Their kisses grew longer, lingering until he hummed softly in such unbridled pleasure that she forgot herself. Her fingers wove through the ponytail he fixed his hair in, finding the tie and unfastening it. He pulled back, a knowing smirk on his lips to go along with the mischevious glint in his eyes. As she watched he casually shook the golden tresses down so they fell over his shoulders and back, framing the dear, sweet face she'd fallen so hard for.

Elly's defenses fell as he reached for her. She shivered as his warm palms caressed her back, expecting a play for her breasts, but his fingers moved lower out of curiousity.

He kissed her again. At this rate he never wanted to stop, his mind clouded with desire but lucid just enough as his hands began to wander. All he could focus on was the kisses ...and the shiny tail close to his fingertips. Hizashi's hands slipped smoothly over the scales, gripping gently.

<i>This really is real</i>, he thought even as his arousal grew. <i>There's no extra layer here, no seam. This is skin</i>.

"H - Hizashi..."

"So beautiful." His fingers stroked, coming around towards the front of the massive fish tail. There was one spot where the scales didn't line up exactly, but his gentle fingers getting too close caused her to stiffen and jerk backwards.

"We should stop," she gasped.

Hizashi swallowed his disappointment, forcing himself to roll away. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"I don't know, um. I don't really understand my body yet."

"Ya don't hafta justify your decision, babe." He paused in thought, frowning for a minute. "Wait, you don't know? It's <i>your</i> body."

Elly took a deep breath. "I wasn't born like this, Zashi. It's not natural." Her heavy tail beat in the shallow pool once in agitation, sending a spray of salt water over them. "S - sorry. I'm nervous."

"Not natural? What?"

"I did this to myself." She dug her hands in the sand and blurted out, "it's magic."

Once upon a time the music professor would have laughed this off as a joke, but he was far less dubious now that his girlfriend was half fish. Still, he frowned harder. "Magic?"

"Well... yeah."

Hizashi sighed, leaning back on his elbows to stare up at the starry sky. As she waited nervously for his reply he absently sought out familiar star clusters and constellations that had been with him since he was small. "Magic," he repeated.

"I know it's a lot -"

"You're living proof, yeah?" He looked over at where she lay, his gaze lingering on her shining tail. He'd <i>touched</i> her there, and he knew what fish felt like. It was identical; a living, blood-coursing part of her. "I accepted that already. Shouldn't be a lot more to believe in magic."

"But it is?"

"Eeeehhh..." Hizashi rocked a hand back and forth. "I love music, yo. All kinds! Have since I was a kid, an' I remember listening to stuff like <i>In the Hall of the Mountain King</i>. Like, really seeing the troll king in my head." He grinned at her. "I had nightmares for a week."

She giggled a little. "I know what you mean. There was some classical piece this kid's show paired with a mummy skit and it scared the shit out of me! The music still kind of does, too."

He nodded. "But like, what I'm gettin' at is that it's kept me open-minded, I guess..? I dunno."

"I'm glad. But still nervous."

"Don't be." He took her hands in his, looking earnestly into her eyes. "You can tell me whatever you want. We can go slower, whatever. All I really want is to be with you."

Elly smiled gratefully at him. "Thanks, Zashi."

"Still on for that swim, right?"

She waved at him from the dark sea. "I can't wait!"

It wasn't until he was rinsing off in his shower before bed that he realized he had more questions.

"Wait, she said she did this to <i>herself</i>, didn't she?"

Sls final

 "Wait, so what you're telling me is, <i>you</i> made that hurricane on your wedding and yet you blamed your brother?!"

Pepa looked uncomfortable, and a fogbank obscured her face as she answered. "Yessss... I took his joke too seriously."

"You're both okay now, right?" 

There were a few conversations like that during their meal as Elly was told by various family members the stories of what happened after Bruno left and then came back. Most were a little awkward, at best, and her man tossed some salt backwards at the table at the end of breakfast for good luck. He wasn't quite sure everything was going to go as smoothly as they wished, and they could use all the extra luck they could get.

They retired to his tower to discuss plans, and she was silent the entire trip up. 

"Is everything all right, love?"

"Yes!" She hugged him before flinging herself onto a comfortable chair. A rat scurried onto the back with a brush in its paws, wriggling its whiskers and staring at her hair with longing.

Bruno raised an eyebrow at it. "<i>Not now</i>," he mouthed silently, shooing it away with a panicked look. The furry creature pouted but ran off.

"Everything's better now than it's been for years," Elly continued with a smile. 

He stared at her for a moment, coughed, and sat on the bed beside her. "I don't think my mother -"

"She doesn't approve of me for some reason. I know. She didn't when we were kids, and she doesn't now."

He shrugged. "I don't care. The present is more important than the past."

"And the future?" She paused, hesitating and unsure. "Bruno, <i>our</i> future?"

He sighed, rubbing his arms and withdrawing into himself. "Please don't ask about such things."

Elly apologized at once. "I'm sorry, I just - you know I'm scared. If I lost you again I don't know what I'd do."

He stared at the floor for several long minutes before sighing. "If you want, I'll share one with you, but! It might not be what you expect, and it may show you what you do not wish to know." 

"I - I don't want to cause you pain."

"The visions themselves don't hurt," he informed her, rubbing his temples. "It's what I See, when and how much, along with the stress of trying to decipher it all. And, and, well... it's worse when it's unexpected or I wake up with the remnants of one like this morning."

"People interpret your visions badly, right?"

He nodded. "<i>Si</i>."

"But there's different sides and ways of seeing things... like Mirabel realized. Right? I'll chance it. I want to share this at least once, since it's a big part of you." She took his hands in hers and held them to her lips. 

He watched her silently for a few long seconds and then sighed dramatically loud. "All right." 

"Thank you."

"But we have to go outside here. The room before this has the area I do this in."

"The one with the candles." He nodded and helped her up with a hand gone suddenly cold. Elly frowned in concern but as soon as she was up he was out, preparing the sandy floor beyond.

The room was circular, as it was the top of the tower, and flanked with sconces that held candles. Green glass depictions of his previous sessions were set into the wall in intervals, peppered liberally throughout with the trials of human life. They weren't all depressing, she noticed - the few she could see showed happy marriages and similar scenes. She watched as he readied his viewing space.

"Okay." At last Bruno sat inside the circle and crossed his legs, taking a deep breath as he lit the leaves around them. "I - I need to do this, to help me..."

Elly curled her tail neatly around herself and sat across from him. "You don't have to explain if you don't want to. It's stressful enough and I appreciate your efforts."

He nodded gratefully and closed his eyes. When he opened them a moment later the green was lit from within, though curiously blank as he looked at what she couldn't see right away. The fire between them roared up and sand spiraled into a cone around the couple, whirling rapidly. She laid her ears back but sat quietly watching the sand as it began to coalesce into images. The dark-haired man suddenly stood, his poncho whipping about himself and his hands balled into fists.

It was two older people; both, however, easily identified. His older self lay on a bed and a a grandmotherly Elly sat beside him, holding his hand. She kissed it, then laid it on his chest before setting her forehead on his motionless arm to weep.

"Oh," Elly whispered as the scene unfolded, sobbing. "Oh my god."

His knees gave way and he crumpled to the ground, still-glowing eyes pouring tears down ravaged cheeks. He instinctively caught the glass piece the vision produced from the sand and held it up, tilting it this way and that. "Now you know," he husked. The fire in his eyes went out all at once.

"Why are you sad?" Elly grasped his face in her hands and covered him in kisses, still crying a little. "Everyone is going to die someday, but your vision shows we'll be together right until the very end. It's bittersweet, yeah, but look how much we're in love."

"There was death but <i>you saw love</i>?" His large eyes focused on her, wet with tears and filled with wonder. "You - you really still want to be with me?" 

"There are no bad visions," she insisted. "It's life. There's no way to escape it. You don't make these things happen, Bruno. I won't leave. I love you."

"I showed you <i>death</i> -" his voice broke and he took hold of her by the shoulders, tilting his head as his eyes still poured tears. "Or something close to it, my <i>gata</i>, my precious one... and you? You still..?"

She looked deeply into his eyes and nodded. "There is no life for me unless I can be with you until the end."

"I - I can't..!" He sniffed loudly, then grasped her around the waist with a determined grunt. "The - the <i>official</i> marriage can wait. I can't anymore." He lifted her in his arms and purposefully carried her into the living quarters.

He laid her on the bed - <i>our bed,</i> she mused dreamily as she held her arms out towards him. <i>This is our bed now</i> -- and joined her, kneeling above. 

Clothing was shed as they kissed and caressed, writhing on the sheets and tangling them in places until he muttered and tossed them aside. He turned back as they fluttered to the floor and their eyes met and held.

"I've never done this before."

"Me, either." She held out her arms. "But I think we can figure it out, no?"

Bruno smiled then, a genuinely happy smile. "I think you're right. Here, maybe if..."

They shifted and moved together slowly until their bodies became one.

"<i>My god</i>," he gasped, shuddering. "You're so <i>hot</i> inside, <i>mi alma</i> - my soul -- I never thought..!" He fell over her, his forehead pressed to hers and his eyes dark with passion. His hair tented over them, giving them more intimacy as they came together in a devastating kiss.

"You feel so good," she moaned. "Please don't stop. Keep loving me."

He arched his back, sweat dripping from his brow and beading on his skin everywhere else. "I'll try my best," he wheezed, "but <i>this</i>, this is different. It's so much <i>more</i>."

She raised her legs along his sides and kissed him seriously. "Don't worry, give me what you can and I'll do the same."

"Oh god." He moved slowly for fear of losing control, his hips bucking now and then as a shudder of pleasure wracked his body. As predicted, however, the pleasure was simply too much; he couldn't hold back and lost himself in an explosive release of pleasure.

He needn't have worried, however.

His love was with him in body and in soul, as she would always be.