by Viola Grace
Safi looked through the gloom and a tense fury filled her as she saw a small child in a blue bodysuit trapped inches away from a huge fish. The size of the head was the only thing that was keeping the beak of the fish from nipping the child into bits.
"Stay calm and keep still." She had never spoken to someone she hadn't made eye contact with, but it was out of the question.
The child sniffled and kept still, tucking her arms and legs against her body.
The riding beasts attacked the fish, slamming into it with pointed heads and darting out of reach when it reached for them. They kept going, pushing the fish away from the hollow in the coral that was protecting the girl.
The beast that Safi was riding shot forward and she leaned down to grab the little girl before the fish could realize that it was being distracted.
The little girl hung on to her with desperation and then whispered, "We have to get the man. He got hurt trying to take me home."
"Where is the man, sweetie?"
"Over here. He tried to bring the fish away but it followed me. I wasn't supposed to play in the current but I did and now the man got hurt."
The girl was sobbing, but underwater, Safi couldn't tell if tears were the result.
"We will find the man and the beasts will take us all home."
"Okay. You are really nice, not stupid at all."
Safi raised her eyebrows at the young girl. "Why would you say that?"
"The man told me he was looking for a woman who looked like you do and that she was stupid." She nodded with a child's logic.
The man in question was barely visible, but one of his legs was sticking out of a small hollow and Safi's beast zeroed in on him without hesitation.
Safi dismounted and floated over to find the man of her dreams bleeding and exhausted. "Ajax. What are you doing out here?"
"Looking for you. Why did you leave?"
She pulled him upright and hauled him toward the riding beast. "I wanted to spend my last day alive in thought and quiet contemplation. Then I turned around determined to propose to you."
He blinked in surprise, his mind clearly not that focused. "You were?"
"Until I heard from the little miss that you were looking for a stupid woman, I was. Now I am going to die just to spite you." She snorted at his astonished look. "I am kidding, but you are not in any shape to wed me even if you were willing, which I am pretty sure you are not. Get on the beast."
"Where did you steal these? They are extremely well guarded." He settled on a larger beast that was next to the one the child was sitting on.
"They came to me."
He gave her a wary look as he fitted his body to the back of the beast. "That is impossible."
She sighed and got on behind the child again, settling into place and asking them to take them all home. "No, merely improbable."
The beasts flowed forward in a wedge of bodies, their speed leaving Safi light headed, but allowing them to run into the search party looking for the child and exchange the little one for effusive thanks.
"Now to medical to let my last day end with a bit of dignity." Safi put the image of medical in the head of her beast and it darted forward, the honour guard of the pod surrounding them.
"Have you always been able to talk to beasts?"
"Pretty much. It was useless in the city unless I wanted to summon rats. They were friendly enough, but most folks were not appreciative." She held on to the graceful neck of the beasts as they sped along.
When they entered the city folks stopped and stared at the pod. Apparently, the graceful beasts did not often come to the city if they could help it.
Smiling weakly, she dismounted when they reached medical and sent grateful thoughts to all of the animals nearby. She helped Ajax in to the facility where the doctors immediately sprang into action to seal his wounds.
Dizziness assailed her and she slumped against the wall, sliding slowly to the floor. She heard voices shouting but darkness awaited her and it was far too tempting.
"Saffron Morgan, do you take Ajax as your own?"
Charon was speaking, a camera and light focussed on her face.
"What the hell." She was barely able to speak, but it was enough.
"I will take that as a yes. Then by the official charter of the Nasfron, I pronounce you a citizen. Doctor, it's all you now."
A cool injection into her arm sent her spinning back into darkness, but as she fell she thought…that was the suckiest wedding service ever.
A strange aqua hand was rubbing her face. It took a bit for Safi to realize it was her own. "What the hell?"
"Hello, wife. Glad to see you are up and around." Ajax was lying in the bed next to her and she squeaked and looked for covers to pull over her naked body.
"Wife?"
"Don't you remember? You proposed. I was rather relieved. If you had taken on any of the suitors I would have had to have interfered and Father would have gotten in trouble." Ajax lifted her hand to his lips and simply let her feel the heat of his touch.
She trembled and tried to distract him. "Why am I blue?"
"You are aqua. A very rare colour for the change to have enacted but not unheard of." He continued his kisses up her arm and to her shoulder.
"Why am I naked?"
"Because it has taken two weeks to make it official, but this is our wedding night. We need to consummate the marriage to make your transformation legal." His lips were against her neck and she realized for the first time what kind of bonus speaking with one's thoughts could be. You never needed to worry about what your mouth was doing.
He nibbled his way up her jaw line and then pressed kisses against her lips. "Do you have any objections?"
She sighed mentally and threaded her fingers through his dark hair. "Ask me later."
He chuckled and moved over her completely. He fitted himself to her and she almost protested her lack of readiness, but he slid in easily.
He stretched her and butted against the mouth of her womb, but he was in without any difficulty. "How is that possible?"
"Ah. The hymen was removed and you now secrete the same substance that all of us do to retain body heat. It's side effect is the internal lubrication that allows for easy entry."
Her formal virginity had been taken and she hadn't noticed. "Why remove the hymen?"
He slowly began to move inside her and she had a hard time concentrating on his words. "Many underwater predators are attracted by blood. It isn't a good idea to have to be that alert while you are making love for the first time."
She ignored the sensibility in favour of the feel of the hard muscled body moving over her and inside her. His skin was slick with the substance he had mentioned but it made it easier to stroke all of him within her reach. She twisted against him, lifting her hips to take him deeply.
The thrusts inside her were exciting and irritating at the same time. When he stroked between them to touch the small nub at the top of her sex she twisted in surprise. Grinning, he did it again and with him rubbing at her as well as stroking inside her a shockwave burst inside her, locking her around him and holding his cock in a vise grip.
He groaned and she felt the jets of warmth bathing her from the inside. The expression on his face was intense and focussed on something that only he could see.
He rolled to one side and took her with him, cuddling her against him. "There, formalities are settled."
She blinked and got a little angry. "That was a formality?"
He stroked one hand down her back. "Only in the sense that it was necessary to allow you to live. I consider it a worthy goal."
"I still don't understand."
"Well, when you collapsed in the medical centre I had already explained to the doctors that I was your fiancé and you had the right to full transformation. They immediately summoned my father who did an emergency ceremony. It was quite touching. He asked if you would take me and you said what the hell. It was lovely. We will tell our kids about it."
She blinked. She thought it had all been a weird dream.
"Anyway, once you were officially a bride of Nasfron, you could undergo transformation, so they started just before you went into complete organ failure."
"Good timing."
"We thought so." He slicked his hands over her spine and cupped the curve of her hips. "Why me?"
She didn't know how to answer that and when he began to caress her breasts she lost even more thoughts. "Um. You are funny, smart, handsome and you touched me voluntarily. The others didn't even want to give me a normal greeting."
He sighed and scooted down to nibble his way over the slope of one breast, licking and sucking at the tip. "I could not stop touching you and I knew that if my scent was on you they would think twice before trying to press their suit."
She threaded her fingers in his hair again as he worked lower, teasing and tasting. "You cheated? Why didn't you mention you were interested?"
"I was not allowed to. My father considered it cheating. He was afraid that you would bond to me since I was the one that hauled you from the wreckage."
"You haven't told me how that happened. I remember the ship hitting the water, the noise of the water pressure collapsing my pod. I still don't know why the pod didn't float to the surface."
She was thinking her sentences to him as he worked his way down her belly, tonguing her navel as he spoke.
"Your pod was trapped under the wreckage. You were washed up under the struts being pulled into the deep."
She blinked as he parted her thighs and his talented tongue continued to work against her, a flicker of heat against the cool of the water that was her new environment.
The wet heat of his tongue between the lips of her sex enticed her to raise her hips for more. She twisted on the soft pad of the bed and when he slid two fingers into her to tease and raise her tension, she moaned on every plane, psychic and physical. Bubbles came from her lips and she blinked in surprise.
Ajax chuckled and fastened his lips around her clit, gently using his teeth on the swollen nub while his fingers stroked faster and faster, causing moan after moan to come out of her.
He added a third finger and she shrieked at the feeling of fullness, arching off the bed and thrashing her head back and forth.
Ajax surged up her body but instead of entering her, he kissed her and lay down next to her, his erection between them.
Aftershocks rippled through her, so she languorously gripped his cock and started to stroke slowly. His body was giving off the same slickness as hers and she wrapped both hands around him, stroking and caressing while she scooted down to return the attentions he had given her.
She sucked on the flaring head of his cock, stroking her hands along the shaft, occasionally cupping his balls and rolling them in her palm. She sucked and stroked, working him until his hips arched with every motion until he jetted cum into her mouth, a rumbling roar in her mind.
Safi licked her lips, the salty taste slightly fishy, but no worse than most of the food on Nasfron.
She returned to give him a kiss and though she was braced for avoidance, he greeted her kiss with enthusiasm and hunger.
She cuddled back against him and sighed. "What will I do here?"
He grinned and rubbed his finger along his nose. "As to that, you technically could have been transformed without a wedding. You are an animal caller and those are in high demand."
"Animal caller? That is an actual thing?"
He grinned and hauled her out of the bed to the balcony of their bedroom. She looked out, her hair the only thing between her and human indecency. "Whoa."
"They have been outside your room since you took me to medical. More come every day. They leave to feed and then return." Ajax kept his arm around her waist as she took in the pods of riding beasts in the yard and spreading through the city.
"That is a lot of animals. I thought you said they were hard to train."
"They are. But some folks have been known to be able to speak directly to the animals and ask them for cooperation. You seem to be one of those few."
She looked up at him. "So, the physicians would have fixed me without the marriage?"
His green skin darkened. "Yes."
"Then why did you…"
"Marry you?"
"Yes."
"Because you wanted me not knowing what I was thinking. With no courtship, you still chose me. How could I resist an attractive woman who wanted me for me and who put funny at the front of her list of favourite traits?"
She sighed and stared out at the pods of beasts. "What do I do with them?"
He laughed. "The same thing you do with me, whatever you wish."
Author's Note
Washed Up was my version of The Little Mermaid. I despise the ending of that fairy tale, so have crafted my own. I love a positive happily ever after.
Viola Grace
http://www.violagrace.com
About The Author
Viola Grace was born in Manitoba, Canada where she still resides today. She really likes it there. She has no pets and can barely keep sea monkeys alive for a reasonable amount of time. Her line of day job tends to be analytical which leaves her mind hopping to weave stories. No co-worker is safe from her character analysis. In keeping with busy hands are happy hands, her hobbies have included cross-stitch, needlepoint, quilting, costuming, cake decorating, baking, cooking, metal work, beading, sculpting, painting, doll making, henna tattoos, chain mail, and a few others that have been forgotten. It is quite often that these hobbies make their way into her tales.
Viola's fetishes include boots and corsetry, and her greatest weakness is her uncontrollable blush. Her writing actively pursues the Happily Ever After that so rarely occurs in nature. It is an admirable thing and something that we should all strive for. To find one that we truly like, as well as love.
