Work Text:
The bottle jets across the room, smashing into the shelf. The contents disperse in the water with a puff before settling to the floor of the cavern. Irate grumbles echo down the entry to the cavern as the Sea Witch inspects and discards her reagents and ingredients.
Rafayel peeks his head into the cavern tentatively, dodging a preserved sea cucumber as it torpedoes past his nose. It continues in a line all the way out of the cavern, trailing bubbles in its wake. He watches it for a moment before turning his head back towards the woman in the cave.
She mutters under her breath, using her tentacles to pull herself along the shelves and hold bottles up for comparison as she ransacks her own materials in search of something specific. The elastic textured skin on her lower half flares fuchsia in frustration, the colour rippling down her body from her waist to the tips of each tentacle arm.
Rafayel smiles as he watches her, fondness beating in his heart. He swishes his tail to propel himself into the room. As he swims, she turns and throws another bottle at the entry to the cavern. This one Rafayel catches neatly against his chest, spinning in a small spiral before coming to a stop against the other side of the cave. He holds the bottle up to his eye to examine the contents; deep red sediment rests at the bottom of the bottle, glimmering in the faint bio-luminescent light in the cavern.
"You don't need to come back until the potion is done, you know," she shoots over her shoulder, expression stormy as she crosses her arms.
He hums in acknowledgement but doesn't defend himself. He shakes the bottle, making the sediment swirl before his eyes before placing it down on a nearby shelf.
"It doesn't go there." She glares at him, and a tentacle snakes towards him, curling expectantly. Instead of handing it to her, he picks it back up and swims over to her. He leans over her shoulder; his long hair tickles down her back and makes her shiver involuntarily.
His hand braces on her shoulder as he floats slightly above her, surveying the shelf of ingredients with an impish smile. He places the bottle down on an empty space between a jar of abalone and a large chunk of quartz crystal. She sighs, reaching up with her hand to grab it and move it to the correct place.
Rafayel intercepts her, snatching the bottle back and ducking around to her other side with the bottle.
"Your system stinks; you should colour code everything so it's easy to find." Playfulness glints in the magenta of his eyes. She stares at him blankly.
"Maybe you Lemurians can discern colour well enough at this depth, but my current system works just fine for my less advanced eyes," she states matter-of-factually. He lifts his chin and quirks his head to the side, preening at the backhanded compliment.
She rolls her eyes at him, billowing out her tentacle arms to approach him and holding out her hand for the bottle. He stretches his arm out behind him, out of her reach. She fixes him with a stare, tentacles curling in frustration beneath her. His smirk doesn't budge as his hip fins flutter him closer to her, until they're nose to nose in the small space. Her eyes narrow to challenging slits. He meets her gaze evenly, unwavering.
One of her tentacle arms sidles up to his arm, encircling his bicep and twining up to his elbow. His muscles flex, trying to pull away as another two tentacles anchor themselves against the wall behind him, pinning him in place. His expression flashes with uncertainty as he realizes he's been trapped. She quirks her head to the side, eyebrow raised, letting him take in the full situation.
Two of her tentacles encircle his body, holding tight to the cavern wall to hold them both in place. Another stretches along his arm, the tip nudging open his closed hand to fetch the stolen bottle from his grasp. Rafayel thrashes his body once, but in the small space he can't get enough leverage to disentangle himself from the roiling mass of the Sea Witch's body.
He swallows hard, a flush creeping over his cheeks and making the fins on his ears flutter. Her tentacle forces open his hand and curls around the bottle, knocking it towards her body. She plucks it out of the water with her hand and inspects it, shooting a chastising look at Rafayel who remains entrapped.
She leans in, pressing her chest into his face as she places the bottle on the shelf behind him. She feels him freeze and stop struggling as her breasts graze his nose through the gauzy fabric draped over her body. She smirks in self-satisfaction, watching the sediments settle in the bottle and using a taloned finger to push it safely to the back of the shelf. She backs off, still holding him against the wall as she looks down on him.
His expression sends a thrill through her: pupils blown wide and glinting with flashes of blue, cheeks flushed making the aquamarine scales on his cheekbones shimmer even more fiercely in the low light. A shiver of sunset hued coral flits over her skin, mottling her camouflage with a ruddy blush. She wants to see more of that look on him.
Her free tentacles curl around themselves in anticipation and her hand finds its way into his long purple hair. Her fingernail scratches a spiral against his scalp as she twirls his silky tresses around her finger. Rafayel swallows hard, eyelashes fluttering.
"I knew the Sea Witch of the Abyssal Rift was feared by many, but I didn't think she captured poor unfortunate souls for the mere crime of incorrectly sorting potion ingredients." His voice is low, holding onto that playful lilt but with an undercurrent of trepidation. This is new; the tension between them is taut, like the rigging of a ship in a gale.
Her suckers squeeze along his arm, detaching and leaving behind a spiralling tattoo of circular marks. The tip of her tentacle teases along the inside of his palm, making his fingers twitch together. His gills flare, pushing water out in warm bursts that swirl between their bodies. His long tongue darts out, licking his lips. Her eyes are fixed on his plush lips as they part, and the bob of his throat as he swallows.
She had admired his beauty from the first day she had met him, when he had come to her with that request to become human. When he had left to fetch the ingredients, she had felt a sense of loss: if he succeeded, this beautiful Lemurian would be gone. No more shimmering tail sparkling with bioluminescence, no more glinting scales in the deep sea depths glowing like stars in the sky, no more gauzy fins draped like translucent silk floating in the water, no more shining aquamarine eyes that flash with mischief.
That alone seems like a crime worth punishing: taking away this beauty from the sea for what? Some human girl? That doesn't seem fair. Lemurians are ruled by love, but it makes them foolish.
Her hand slides down to cup his cheek, caressing the side of his face. The pad of her finger smears the glowing paint that adorns his cheekbone, bleeding down from the corner of his eye like a glistening tear. His eyelashes are so long and dark as they bat against her skin, tickling the back of her thumb.
"This Sea Witch has several reasons to punish naughty Lemurians." She meets his eye, tentacles blooming between them as they crawl up his abdomen. Suckers latch onto his chest, the tips of her tentacles swirl across his skin, tracing along the glowing paint and tugging against the chains of his body jewellery. A tentacle wraps around the meat of his pectoral and squeezes, suckers latching onto his nipple. He gasps in surprise, sharp teeth biting down on his lower lip.
He looks back up at her through his lashes, eyes full of desire. A single droplet of crimson blood dissipates from his lip where his teeth broke through the skin. Her siphons flare at her hips, pushing warm water saturated with the scent of him through her gills. A shiver of icy blue ripples down her body as she takes a deep breath.
"Your Magnificence," he starts to protest, the words thick on his tongue, "I already have a lover."
A sobering shock washes through her emotions, like the chill of descending through a thermocline. Her skin darkens, clouding over with a deep, roiling burgundy. Her lips twitch into a sneer. That human girl is ungrateful. She doesn't deserve this immortal life, she doesn't know what Rafayel is giving up for her, and how could she? She's only a human.
Her gaze turns cruel as she looks down on her prey; a wriggling sardine caught in the tangled web of her tentacles. She should show him what he's giving up by confining himself to land in the name of this love.
She doesn't say anything to him. Keeping him firmly ensnared in her tentacle arms, she drops her hand from his face and turns her upper body to the shelf beside her. This jar is kept tightly sealed; within lies a single frond of bitter, fermented sea grass. Rafayel watches her, chest still heaving as he struggles futilely against her grasp. She shoots him one more sidelong look before encircling the jar with a tentacle and unscrewing the lid beneath his nose.
Her brow is set with determination as she wafts the jar beneath his nose, permeating the water with the diffused scent of the herb. Rafayel's eyes flash with momentary betrayal before he closes them, turning his head to the side away from the jar. Her heart twists with guilt for a moment, but she steels herself and forces the jar beneath his nose. It's for his own benefit.
After a moment, his struggles weaken, lacking any will as his skin warms beneath her. Scorching heat radiates from his skin as his eyes blink open; his pupils eclipse the sunset hues of his eyes and absorb all the light in the room. He angles his jaw and light flashes at the back of his eye, predatory.
A slow smile creeps up her lips. Her Lemurian toy is finally ready to play with.
Tentacles unfurl as she slides over his body, teasing and touching wherever she pleases. Rafayel protests weakly, soft sounds bubbling from his lips as she lingers on sensitive spots with her suckers. His body becomes tattooed with red suction marks. His gills work overtime, sucking in violent breaths and forcing hot water against her skin. She slides her fingers gingerly through his gills, letting the soft skin close over the digits and seeing him spasm at the sensation.
Her siphons flare with arousal and she spares a tentacle to rim the opening to her own gills. She shivers, goosebumps prickling over her upper body as a shock of deep aquamarine flares down her lower body. One of her hands draws back to her own body as well, circling at her breast through the thin fabric that covers her chest. Her lips part and she swallows hard, watching Rafayel stop fighting the sensations and start to lean into her touch.
Feeling triumphant, she grasps his chin with her hand, pulling him back to face her.
"Are you sure you want to give this up for some human girl?" She goads him, thumb and forefinger squishing his cheeks together.
He blinks up at her, eyes fighting for lucidity as he answers, "She has a temper like a storm…just like you, Your Magnificence…"
Indignant, green jealousy flashes through her, and her fingernails dig into his cheeks as she stares at him.
"I don't need to hear what you have to say, after all. Let me show you the pleasures that you're forfeiting so you can make an educated decision."
One of her tentacles unfurls up his neck, tip teasing across his plush lips. He looks up at her with wide eyes as it pushes into his mouth and slides to the back of his throat. She groans as she feels the warmth of his hot mouth enveloping her tentacle arm. She thrusts further, compressing and filling the space in his mouth. He gurgles but doesn't fight, a small stream of bubbles escaping the side of his mouth as his lips are stretched to accommodate. He groans around the intrusion, swallowing and sucking obediently.
Seeing his body loosen, she maneouvres to his side. Both of his hands are pinned behind him, pushing his chest forward. His tail fin flutters uselessly at the floor of the cave, gossamer hip fins chasing the warmth of her body. Following the line of his body chains, those soft scales just below where skin becomes scale begin to part. Beads of arousal drip down his tail as his cocks begin to emerge.
She slides the tips of two tentacles down his body, playing at those soft, sensitive scales, and watching as his whole body jerks in response. Drool escapes the corner of his mouth, dissipating in the water between them. Her hand releases his face and scrapes a line down his throat and chest, leaving a red trail of raised skin. The pads of her fingers catch on those first few scales but continue downwards to the slowly opening slit.
She leans in, perching her lips below his ear to whisper, "A human body doesn't have this."
Her fingers slip down and part the scales fully, tentacles slipping past the opening to wrap around the concealed cocks. Rafayel groans, the sound muffled to her ears but vibrating against her senses as she thrusts her tentacle into his mouth shallowly. Her breath shudders out of her, body flashing with myriad colours. Her tentacles squeeze and squirm as they retrieve his two cocks from their protective encasement.
She uses her fingers to part the scales before bringing them together and sliding into the now empty slit. Rafayel bucks into her hand, pushing her fingers deeper against his sensitive walls. She curls her fingers, beckoning inside him as her tentacles continue to pump and squeeze his cocks. Her other hand wraps around him to tease at his nipples. He whines and squirms, eyes squeezed shut. Glimmering pearls form at the corners of his eyes and fall to the floor with soft taps.
"Shhh, see how beautiful you are? A gorgeous creature, with the most lovely scales," she coos in his ear, tongue darting out to lick his quivering ear fins. "A human can't even see all the colours that shine on your magnificent tail."
"Tell me," her voice is commanding, "what's the name of your lover? Maybe I should visit her, see why you're so enraptured by her. A human that earned the undying love of a Lemurian, to make him forfeit his people, his body, his self. She must be very special."
She withdraws from his mouth, her suckers pulling his lower lips down into a pout as she gives him a chance to speak. Rafayel blinks heavy eyelids as he looks at her, skin flushed and completely covered in scratches and blooms of hickeys.
"My love, she's captivating like the sea… her laugh is like the dancing sea spray," he gasps the words out, brow furrowing as she continues to play with him. Her tentacles squeeze and pump the slick lengths of his cocks, pointed tips slipping into the slit at the top of each. He bucks against her hand again, forcing her fingers deeper into himself as he humps against her.
"That's not what I asked for." She stops moving. Everything stops. The grip on his cocks loosens to a teasing graze, the suckers on his chest unlatch and tickle over his skin, her fingers withdraw from his slit trailing arousal fluid in a sticky bridge between her hand and his body.
He whines, as she repositions to hold him in place. A tentacle wraps around his throat, teasing at his lips.
"Tell me." Her voice is firm as her grip tightens on his neck. He looks up at her, pathetic, ruined, mind bleary from the fragrant herbs.
The word that spills from his lips is so unexpected, so joyous that her whole body shivers and squeezes around him. It's her name.
Every inch of her bunches and tenses, squeezing and swirling and sucking and sticking. The suddenness of it all makes him throw his head back, baring his throat as he comes. Glistening milt spurts between them as Rafayel moans. She tenses in elation as her own pleasure bursts within her, colours rippling over her skin as ecstasy shivers up her spine.
So overtaken, she grasps him, lips pressing over his and encompassing his mouth in a hungry kiss. He moans against her lips, long tongue snaking into her mouth and exploring her teeth. Her fingers knot in his long hair, tugging at the root as she latches onto him.
She feels the pearls of his tears fall against her nose and cheeks. Confused, she withdraws and searches his eyes. Rafayel looks up at her with wet eyes full of guilt, she doesn't even notice that he's freed his hand until it presses a bottle to her lips. She swallows in surprise and balloons across the room away from him.
"You can't remember yet. It's for the best." He watches her and more pearls litter the floor.
She flashes magenta, furious, but her movements are lethargic, slow. Her eyes blink and fall heavily.
"I'll sing to you tomorrow, my beloved bride."