AU - Jessen of the Sea pt.13

When Jessen awoke, it was to sunshine on his face, bird song in his ear, and intense pain from the hips down.  His first instinct was to curl in on himself, to protect his center, but when he tried, he found himself in pieces.  His tail was not where it should be, the weight of his fins were non-existent, and there was something very soft below him.  He reached out, slowly and carefully, with one hand and touched the soft surface beneath him.  It was dry, and squishy, and quite unlike anything Jessen had ever touched before.

Everything felt dry… and small.  His skin felt like a cage and part of his mind realized that the constant motion of the sea was missing, as were the quiet sounds of the waves.  Everything was warm, and rather soft, but solid.

Something wasn’t right, but Jessen could not wrap his mind around what it was as another shot of pain screamed up his back.  As it was, he could not keep the sound of pain in his throat.  There was a sudden flurry of motion and muffled sounds around him, but he could not concentrate on the voices and slipped thankfully back to unconsciousness.


When he woke again, the light behind his eyes had faded and a soft night breeze was lightly blowing around him.  It was quiet… except for the soft sound of breathing, everything was silent.  His ears seemed to be covered with some sort of fabric and his tail felt very strange.

He carefully opened his eyes to the darkened room.  The first thing he noticed was that he was out of water, and that the room was nicely warm.  He looked to the side and smiled sleepily.  Sitting in a chair, fast asleep, was the light haired Prince Kai, his arms folded across his chest and his head tilted in an uncomfortable position.  Someone had pulled a blanket over Kai’s legs and there was a pillow on the floor that someone had probably tried to get behind the Prince’s head and failed.

He had no idea why he was out of the water, no idea why he seemed to be in a room in the high cliff castle.  It was sparsely decorated, Jessen noted, but the windows were opened wide to the night and light bits of fabric gently rustled in the breeze.  There was a large golden cage sitting by one of the windows on a desk that had two small birds sleeping in it.  Jessen guessed they were birds- they looked nothing like a seagull or a tern, but they had wings and feathers so…?

Jessen nestled back into the soft bed.  He ached all over, but his hips and tail hurt the most.  He carefully moved his tail and hissed at the sudden pain that ran up his back.  The muscles in his tail felt torn in two and Jessen idly remembered a figure standing high above him with a harpoon and a net in hand.  Had he been harpooned?  How had he not died?  Oh, and Ness had shown up and had done something to him… what had he done?  Where was he?  Why was Jessen here?  All Jessen could remember was being tossed up onto the beach and choking…

He should be worried, frightened, fighting to get away… but Kai was there, and Jessen trusted Kai.  So he stretched his arms high above his head and stretched his toes the other way as carefully as he could before falling bonelessly against the bed once more.  Something was wrong –something was missing- but he couldn’t put a finger on what it was with his mind so mixed up and tired and the pain in his lower half.  So he just shook his head, pulled the thin sheet higher, and fell back to sleep.

~