Chapter Text
The gentle landscapes of the small but quiet town of Rivermore. Everyone in that town seemed to know each other very well, except for one person that while often in town, she barely spoke to others outside of needing to make exchanges. Most of the town didn’t even know she existed as she lived in the outskirts of town and was kept to herself.
As the girl walked through the grassy plains, carrying a small basket of herbs that she had collected for various uses, squinting in the distance she saw a strange figure on the shores of Rivermore’s beaches. As her vision managed to see an alarming sight of what appeared to be a washed up young woman with a shade of blonde unusual to her town. Not knowing what else to do and going off of pure instinct she climbed down the grassy plain cliffs down to the rocky shores. As the young woman approached the unconscious woman that rested against a few of the sharp rocks, her eyes darted to the alarming sight of blood on the side of her waist.
She thought about what she should do, she obviously didn’t want to leave this obvious stranger out to deal with the elements despite Rivermore being a mostly lukewarm place but at the same time what if other people were looking for her? If she snatched this woman up and then someone she knew came for her to only see her disappear then they’d assume that she has been kidnapped. The adrenaline rushed in her body out of not knowing what to do before finally making a split decision. As she rushed to pick up the unconscious woman and take her to safety even though she needed a way to leave without having to climb back up even though she had the strength for it as she didn’t want to accidentally drop her or the basket. Even though it looked suspicious it wouldn’t have felt right if she had left her there to either fend for herself or even die as compared to her psyche she was much smaller than her.
After scouring the area she managed to find the stairway the most people use to access the rocky shores whether for working purposes or leisure purposes, she quickly grabbed the unconscious girl and carried her to safety. After a few miles of walking she had finally arrived at her quaint cottage deep into the woods that she had inherited from her father thanks to being an only child, she headed inside and placed the unconscious girl on a chair, she took her hand and two of her fingers to check for a pulse on neck, thankfully the girl was conscious and very much alive. She needed to check before she started to quickly rummaging through her storage to find anything to help her.
“Damn it, do I have anything in this place? My fault for not organizing things properly…” As she murmured to herself, the unconscious girl started to become conscious and woke herself up slowly, rubbing her eyes to wake herself up even more. As the other woman grabbed a small medicine bottle that she believed would help the now conscious person, she turned around thinking she was still unconscious, “Alright this may actually help-” but once she noticed out of surprise she dropped the mason jar, causing it to shatter all across the dark oak flooring and letting out a small yelp. The blonde girl looked very confused from the reaction.
“Alright, so that girl you grabbed from the shore finally decided to wake up. Just think of something” Before regaining her composure, the blonde girl’s eyes darted around the very unfamiliar area she’s now currently in, “Where am I? Are you going to torture me? You’re not gonna violate my body are you?” Fearing that terrible things were going to happen to her like how others her species had faced before by humans, “Hang on now, no I’m not going to do… that, but this may seem a bit very questionable by I saw you by some of my town’s shores stranded and didn’t know what to do so I kinda just impulsively decided to take you back to my place to help you get better,” but the tense air didn’t ease up as the blonde girl went from complete fear to a mixture of fear and skepticism thinking she was lying.
“Are you sure?” She asked, “I promise I do not have any hidden ulterior motives, once you’re better than you can practically do whatever you want to do,” a sigh of relief left her mouth knowing she wasn’t going to be hurt in any sort of way despite the odd circumstances. “So, even if you do decide to leave, I still need to ask, what’s your name exactly?” Strangely the aura that emanated from the tall brunette woman with emerald green eyes was a strangely trustworthy type, after staring into her eyes for a while before answering, she felt comfortable in saying her name.
“It’s Nell,” A peculiar name she heard, but at least it was a name nothingless, “My name’s Emily,” she said in exchange, “What are you doing here all by yourself in Rivermore? Nobody ever really comes here outside of business related issues,” Emily asked out of curiosity as she wanted to know more information from this stranger, hesitant to answer but not wanting to lie Nell answered truthfully, “No… I’m actually a mermaid,” surprised by the straightforward answer because not only did Emily up until now only thought they were a myth, but were cruel creatures from what she had been taught so to not only have one in her residence but for that one to be a completely kind person, she needed to process such information.
Nell slowly got herself out of the chair to leave the cottage, “I mean, sorry this news came out of nowhere I’ll just, you know, leave and never bother you again-” but when she tried walking she felt an intense pain in her legs causing her to collapse onto the ground. They hurt like hell when Nell did that as due to being a mermaid for all of her entire lifetime up until this point to finally have legs so walking was something she wasn’t used to. When Emily saw this she panicked from the scene, she barely even knew this person but felt this urge to help her.
As she rushed over to her aid, Emily’s eyes darted down to see Nell’s legs and her expression turned into absolute terror. “What's wrong with them?” Nell asked in panic, “What do you mean what's wrong with them? They're BLEEDING.” Emily exclaimed with absolute panic in her voice as she couldn’t stand the sight of blood, trying to hold back her vomit she got up and paced around the room, “Alright, alright you now have a stranger in your house whose bleeding from her legs,” before she realized that she had some leftover gauze bandages, a needle and threat and as well as a mild antiseptic hydrogen peroxide in a bottle for treating injuries like these.
But getting those things would require her going up stairs. She looked back at Nell clearly in pain before sighing and rushing upstairs to grab the supplies. Once Emily came back down stairs with the needed supplies she walked over to Nell, “Let me see your legs,” she urged with Nell hesitatingly complying as she outstretched her now heavily coated in blood left leg first. Trying her hardest not to gag at the scene nor stench of blood she grabbed the bottle of antiseptic first and opened its top. ‘What are you about to do?” Nell panicked as the bottle seemed unfamiliar to her.
“I'm going to be completely honest it's going to hurt like hell when I pour this on so try not to scream.” Emily warned, Nell held her breath as Emily poured the liquid causing a burning sensation as it fizzed as the blood started to break down, Nell bit down on her lip to prevent any screams. As Emily finished pouring on the first leg she quickly wrapped it up in gauze bandages before sewing them up to secure them tightly. “Alright, one leg down, let me see the other,” Emily stated before working on Nell’s right leg and repeating the same process. Once she finished Nell’s legs were covered in gauze and the scent of chemicals.
“Alright, that should do it,” Emily got up and said proudly, it wasn’t the best, it actually looked a bit shoddy but it was better than nothing aside from the blood that was left on the floor, “Now I don’t think you’re going to be completely healed in a day or two, it may take awhile but for right now though since you’re more than likely going to stick with me we need to figure out a few things,” “Like what?” “Obviously the clothes situation,” Emily pointed out directly as Nell was wearing nothing but a fashioned dress made out of torn white fabric and ropes barely holding together and also barefooted, “Oh, these old things? I mean I had to use my surroundings a bit, I don’t think being completely nude in the cold would be a good thing?” “Besides I barely have any other clothes with me though.”
“You know since I usually go to the town plaza to shop or for other business related things, why don't you go with me tomorrow and get you a few things alright? Especially some shoes,” Emily told Nell as a promise that she’ll fulfill. “Anyways we should head to bed, it’s getting late,” Emily noticed the time, she reached out her hand to help Nell up the stairs with Nell without second thought accepting the help and started walking with obvious pain. “Man, it must be extremely uncomfortable to walk barefoot all day.” Emily stated.
“It's extremely uncomfortable to walk in general, it's like stepping on the sharpest parts of knives on already tender feet.” Nell rebutted with clear signs of struggling to walk, “No wonder you stumbled around a lot today,” as the two walked upstairs and down the hall to an empty bedroom which only contained a bed, desk with a chair and a chest filled with miscellaneous junk. The room was quite old and dusty, clearly meant for a child but was better than nothing.
“Sorry it hasn’t been cleaned in awhile, I had no other use for the room up until now,” Emily apologized for but Nell didn’t really care as she tried stumbling towards the best, “Nah it’s fine, really, at least I can just lie down,” before she fell onto the ground which Emily responded accordingly by picking her up and putting her in bed herself. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning alright?” Emily told her before closing the door behind her to go to sleep. Nell lied down staring at the dark oak ceiling, she couldn’t help but think that as a mermaid whose amulet is giving her this human form that what if someday the guards from the underwater kingdom would eventually come searching for her and take her away.
She only just met Emily and already thought to herself if she could see a future with her living together, she didn’t know what their relationship was yet, could they just be roommates, friends or something much more? As Nell slowly drifted to sleep her mind filled with these thoughts couldn’t cease as she knew the inevitable would soon happen.