The Boy From the Sea

*Quickly, I just want to apologize for the last chapter, because near the end I accidentally switched back and forth from first and third person. I am VERY sorry about that, and I have made sure to keep things neat in this one.

On the other hand, if anyone liked it in first person point of view, or has any opinions on how they want me to tell the story, please leave me some feedback or put something in the comments section.

All characters are 18+ Enjoy*

*

He told the Spaewife about the quick healing, and the rapid acquisition of language. He told her about the unknown lover named Theo, and with his cheeks a brilliant red he whispered to her about how the boy had seduced him not once, but twice. He was surprised at how easy it was to tell her, and even more surprised at how easily she accepted it.

"I always suspected." Was all she said. When he gave her a look full of surprise and suspicion, she sighed. "Many people are ostracized and even punished for daring to love within their sex, it is far more common then you think."

She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Lets go in to see him then."

As they entered the hut, Adriel looked at them with an uneasy expression. "Christopher? Spaewife?"

Chris couldn't stop a small chuckle from escaping his mouth. "It's just fine Adriel, you gave her a bit of a scare, especially when she saw how quick you healed."

Adriel smiled a little, but also looked uneasy. It was the first time that his unusual healing had been mentioned outright. Really, it was the first time that his inhumanity had been mentioned outright.

The Spaewife ended the awkward moment in her usual brisk way. "Enough of this chitchat! Adriel? Is that your name? Alright, move the blanket down and let me have a look at you." She spoke clearly and used a few gestures to make sure that Adriel understood.

"Yes Spaewife." When he spoke simple replies and sentences, he sounded so normal, almost as if he had spent years learning the language instead of twenty four hours.

He pushed the blanket off of his body and Chris couldn't help but watch. During his brief seduction their hadn't been any time to really look at him, and it was interesting to study his strange body in the light of day.

Adriel saw him looking and a faint pink flush spread through his slightly tanned cheeks.

"I'm still here boys." The Spaewife said dryly.

Adriel flushed harder and his cock, which had given an eager little twitch, went limp. The Spaewife looked over his newly healed skin and inspected his strange chest, touching the places where his nipples and navel should have been with small hands.

"Wow..." She whispered softly.

"Wow? What is Wow?" Adriel looked puzzled and absolutely adorable.

"Just an expression... I was surprised Adriel." The Spaewife bit her lip. "I think you owe us both an explanation. What are you Adriel? And why are you here?"

Adriel looked down at his hands, and Chris could see tears beading in those large midnight eyes of his. "I... I tell you. I will."

He looked up at Chris, as if for reassurance and he patted the side of the bed, inviting them both to sit. With a glance between them, Chris and the Spaewife did.

---

"I live in water. Christopher call me 'Merlee', and I no know what 'Merlee' is, but... is what you call me." Adriel looked frustrated. "I no talk right! You no understand!"

"Hush, it's fine Adriel, I can understand you and Chris can too. You lived in the Ocean, and we call you the Merlee, please go on."

Adriel looked pacified. "Yes, I please go on. There is... a group. I no know word, but many 'Merlee' live same place."

"A town? How many are there?" Christopher was curious.

"I no know numbers, but many, many more then... town... here. Live in a town under water, and I am..."

Adriel struggled to find a word. "Family controls town, family lives above town, above people in town. Tells people what do."

Neither the Spaewife or Chris understood and they puzzled over the word until Christopher's eyes lit up. "Royalty! He means Royalty! Like king and queen and wearing crowns!"

Christopher mimed the actions out to Adriel and the boy nodded. "Yes. I, father was queen."

The Spaewife giggled. "Queen means a woman silly."

"Woman?"

The Spaewife burst out giggling and Chris blushed furiously. He gestured to the Spaewife, and then to himself. "Woman, Man, She, He."

Adriel blushed. "Father was king, mother was not queen. Mother was town woman, common woman. Father not like I, made mother and I live out of town." Adriel's eyes softened slightly. "Mother and I not only ones made to go out of town, five moon ago, I saw Theo."

"You and your mother and Theo were all exiled from the town?"

"Exiled mean told to stay out?"

The Spaewife bit her lip. "Yes Adriel, that's what it means."

"Theo caught at surface. Is against... what Father say to be at surface."

"Rules?" Chris supplied helpfully. "Laws?"

"Yes. Is against laws to be at surface. You might see, and law no want us to be found. Theo chased a fish, jumped above surface, and was exiled. Exiles still hunt, and town takes some. Every..." He held up five fingers. "...fish we get, town takes biggest one. Theo and I hunt together, we catch more and bigger."

Adriel's eyes softened even more and began to glisten. "I never like woman. Theo never like woman. One day, we hunt and Theo hold I in arms, kiss I on mouth. Merlee cannot..."

He was searching for a word, and used a gesture, making a circle with his thumb and forefinger and putting the forefinger of his other hand in and out. He meant it only to illustrate, but the dirty gesture had both of his human listeners blush.

"Sex. Or lovemaking. Or fucking." Christopher offered this, cringing a little at the dirty look the Spaewife gave him at that last synonym.

"Merlee cannot sex in water. Merlee go on land and change to this." He gestured to his pale shapely legs. "Merlee go to sand in open Ocean, far from human, and in dark. Merlee do sex on sand, then have young. Theo took I to hidden sand. Theo no know what do, I no know what do... I teach Theo, Theo teach me. It was beautiful."

His dreamy face broke and he started to cry softly as he spoke.

"Theo and I, like much, like too much. Both stop watch. Both stop careful. I not careful, and a man and woman who came to make sex saw Theo and I. Man and woman take Theo and I to Father, and he mad. He very mad."

Adriel cried harder. "Father have Theo dead. Tie hands to tree root and tail to rock in water. With tail in water, cannot change, with head in air, cannot breathe.

Chris flinched. What a horrible way to die, it was the equivalent of slow drowning.

Mother go to Father, beg him to live I. Father give me...live or dead."

"A chance." The Spaewife said thickly. Chris looked over and through his stinging eyes he saw that she was far from tearing up, she was already sobbing. "He gave you a chance."

"Father give me chance. Steal nets with glass, tangle I in nets. Force not to change."

"How did he force you not to change? I thought you just said it was impossible to change when you were in the water?"

"Father have power. Power turn me, something not 'Merlee' not human. I cannot change ever again. I exiled, I exiled forever."

With that, Adriel fell apart and collapsed, sobbing onto the thin mattress. Both the Spaewife and Christopher tried to comfort him, but to little effect.

---

The Spaewife brewed some tea, and she had put some herbs into Adriel's cup that she said would calm him down a little. They sipped tea, Adriel was getting better but he still dribbled tea on his chin.

"You need to bring him with you on the boat. Bertha was just the beginning, and the entire village is curious, and some are less polite then Bertha. I've heard ridiculous stories about how you've held a girl captive and are keeping her and forcing her every night. If they find out that he's a shipwrecked boy, his appearance with make them uneasy. If they ever see his chest, or even inspect him too closely to see he doesn't have hair, he could made them nervous and angry. I've seen people get lynched for less."

She sighed. "I don't know what to do in the long run. We can't keep hiding him, and we can't reveal who he is. I'll think about it and so should you, but we should keep him safe for as long as we can."

"Yes Spaewife." Chris answered softly. He had a heavy sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He wrapped a protective arm around Adriel's thin shoulders. "I'll keep him safe."

---

After the Spaewife left, Christopher dug around in a driftwood chest. The chest contained all that remained of his biological parents, and deep in the chest was a comb made from whalebone.

"Come here Adriel... Lets fix that mop of yours."

Chris sat cross-legged on the bed and Adriel obediently sat in front of him. The silky hair was hopelessly matted and tangled down to the middle of his back. Chris wet the comb in some water and got started, apologizing quietly whenever he tugged too hard.

The activity was simple, and surprisingly intimate. Chris ran his calloused hand a few times down that sweet and vulnerable curve of his neck, sometimes traced the delicate pattern of those shoulder blades. When Adriel's hair was as strait and combed and light as silk, Chris began to braid it into a thick plait that reached just between his shoulder blades.

Adriel touched the plait, puzzled. "Why Christopher make I hair a rope?"

It took a minute or two to make Chris stop laughing.

---

Christopher dressed Adriel in his smallest clothes, but they still hung on his short slender frame, and the calf-length breeches had to be rolled up so they didn't drag on the ground. Adriel hated the breeches. He kept looking down at them and clenching his legs together, repulsed and fascinated by the feel of cloth separating a part of him which had always been connected. He bore the breeches only for Christopher's sake.

He also brought a light linen cloth that had belonged to his mother to set the table on holy days. The cloth was light and cool, but it would protect Adriel's vulnerable skin from the sun while they were in the boat.

Most of the fishermen were already out when they walked to the pier. Adriel walked slowly and unsurely, leaning on Chris the whole time, but he was a fast learner, and he was walking short stretches by himself by the time they reached Haven.

Chris hustled him on the boat before anyone could approach him. Once on the boat, Adriel covered his body with the linen sheet and sat on one of the cross supports. Chris climbed on top of a cross support and teased the sail so the wind rushed them out to sea.

---

Chris had been worried that being out in the ocean would distress the strange boy, but thankfully, his fears had been in vain. Adriel was a little listless, but he quickly cheered, dipping his fingers into the water as Windward hurtled through the glassy swells.

His first order of business was to quickly unrobe. He disliked the heavy feeling of the shirt and he hated the breeches. Chris had to smile at the look of loathing he gave the breeches at his feet after he tore them off.

He threw off the sheet for quick moments, letting the sun quickly sear his pale skin. Just thirty seconds of sunshine was enough to make his deathly pale skin begin to flush. Quick as a flash, he would cover up, and then it literally took about ten minutes to heal. The second time, he was able to stay in the sun for about a minute before burning.

Needless to say, it was a bit distracting to sail the boat whenever Adriel (innocent of any affect he was having) kept flashing himself every few minutes. Chris had to close his mouth tight and try not to drool at the sight of those silky buttocks and that lean torso and long shapely legs.

Chris managed to make it to a cove bare of other watercraft before breaking in.

Adriel gave a delighted little squeal as Chris dropped down to the bottom of the boat and lifted up the linen cloth. His face was almost a caricature of need and lust. He was careful to make sure that the linen cloth protected them from the sun before lowering his head and covering that hot smooth abdomen with eager nibbling kisses.

"Christopher!" Adriel panted, cradling the young man's head in his hands and throwing his head back as he felt a hot eager mouth wrap around his cock.

Chris moaned at the intimate pleasure of holding Adriel's soft cock in his mouth, but it hardened in mere moments. Chris sucked eagerly, hoping to please Adriel and at the same time desperate to have that luscious gasping mouth devouring his own cock.

"Slow Christopher! Please slow!"

Adriel was panting, Chris looked up to see those gorgeous indigo eyes shut, and the lash-less lids fluttering. He slowed, and moaned at the sensation of that hot cock stretching his lips, bumping the back of his throat. He rested his hands on the slender hips, feeling the bony wings of Adriel's pelvis with his fingers and stroking the smoothness of the perfect hollows in his buttocks.

'He's too thin' Chris thought, 'I need to feed him up a bit.' He moved one hand to cradle the vulnerable sacs of Adriel's testes. The skin there was perfectly hairless and smooth, and the delicate skin felt like satin.

"Christopher, look at I, please?"

Stifled in a tent of linen, breathing the same air twice, feeling the trembling heat and sweat and sex rolling off their bodies in waves, no sound but the gentle lapping of waves and the shrieking of gulls and the desperate sweetness of their breathing. In that uncomfortable boat, hard edges and awkward crouching, stifled in the protective tent, it was absolutely perfect. Christopher slowed down, and began to tongue Adriel's cock with increasing confidence and skill while the slender exile moaned in ecstasy.

All the time he was looking up into those wide indigo eyes.

---

Adriel had reciprocated, of course. Christopher's high mewling cries had been enough to scare the gulls away.

Chris rested his sweaty head on Adriel's chest while the boy cooed wordlessly and played with his hair. He got up with a hoarse chuckle.

"I really do have to fish, It's almost noon and I have to get back in time to meet Max's baby girl."

Adriel shrugged, giggled and kissed Christopher's hand before hiding under the sheet. The tangle of lustful limbs had been a little too forceful on the sheet, and it was ripped in places. Adriel carefully pinched the largest rip, about five inches long, closed and arranged the sheet around his body.

Chris laughed wryly and threw out the nets.

---

He only had about three hours to fish, but considering the time limit he made a pretty good catch. Adriel helped him. Whenever he pulled in the nets after dragging them behind the boat for a bit, Adriel reached into the net with one hand and into the burlap sack full of salt with the other and quickly salted the fish. The fish needed to be salted to last in the hot sun, and then to last all the way to the inland markets. Out in the boats they were merely rubbed with salt and some stuffed in their mouths, and in the village the traders would store the fish in barrels filled with brine. Adriel's hands were quick and clever with the fish; he never fumbled or dropped any, and he even knew how to stun them quickly with a jab behind the flapping, bleeding gills.

It just shocked Christopher a little when two hours in, Adriel got hungry and took a bite out of one. Adriel's clever hands ripped apart the fish in moments, peeling off the thin skin and eating the filets off of the struggling cod in neat voracious bites. The cod was still twitching feebly after Adriel had eaten away one side. He saw Chris looking at him and held out the fish in a shy smile.

"Christopher want fish?"

His pale cheeks were dusted with silvery scales. Christopher imagined what it would look like for Adriel to have a long tail covered in those scales. He managed to shake his head, and Adriel shrugged and devoured the rest of the small fish.

---

The fish were salted and stacked like firewood, the net was folded with the glass floats wrapped in protective layers of cheap wool. Adriel was sunning his naked body, and he was still pale, but not translucent. His skin was the color of a human's skin who had spent an entire winter indoors. He wasn't tanned, but he had a bit more resistance to the sun.

Christopher pulled in the sea-anchors (two floats that went out on long lines to each side of the boat, having three points made it drift less) and began to tease the sail to bring Windward back home. The boat followed a golden trail of water that was reflecting the sinking sun.

Adriel sat upright suddenly and his eyes grew wide with absolute terror. "Christopher! Christopher! They are coming!"

Chris heard nothing, but Adriel had better ears then him so he heaved his weight out to give the wind more surface on the sail. The wind made the sail taut and his arms trembled with the strain of holding it out so far, but the light craft began to skim across the water, even weighed down with fish and an extra person.

Adriel took the rudder, allowing Chris to pull the sail out as far as possible, not having to slow down to use the rudder. Now Chris could hear it. The strange garbled speech that had sounded so cumbersome and awkward on land sounded alien and eerie in the water. It rose up all around them, and it sounded high and beautiful, like sped-up whalesong.

Adriel saw a glimpse of a pale furious face in the water. The face was cold and furious and dim, and a gigantic muscular SOMETHING was thrashing the water into foam even from three feet below the surface. Though the Windward was skimming quickly across the surface, the thing below the water kept perfect time with them. The face turned and the tail briefly flicked above the surface as the Merlee propelled itself downwards.

It was not a fish tail. Even from the briefest glimpse that Christopher had seen through splashes of foam, he was able to tell what it was. It was the muscular flattened scaly body of a water snake. A huge water snake.

Christopher could see the town. Adriel was moaning in fear, cowering near the bottom of the boat as the eerie underwater howling got closer. Suddenly two pale slimy hands had caught the lip of the boat and Chris could feel the sudden drag. The skin on the pale webbed hands was translucent and tinted green. The face rose and Adriel shrieked. It was an angular woman's face and the limp silvery hair stuck to her shoulders and hollow cheeks. Her eyes were dark purply-blue and furious, and her thin lips were bared to show teeth that were small and neat and well-fitting, but as sharp and narrow as pencil-tips. Gill-slits flapped and trembled at the sides of her neck.

"I cant slow down Adriel! Hit her!"

Adriel moaned and grabbed one of the smooth green-glass floats. He smashed it over her head and she sank with a screech and the water was streaked with blood.

The garbled whalesong was fading. Fading as the water got shallower and the town got closer, but before they left entirely Chris saw a small group of them head and shoulders above the water. They were furious and alien.

He pulled into the dock and saw several curious townspeople coming in to finally see the strange boy (girl?) that the young fisherman had caught in his nets.

"Put your clothes on and don't speak a word. They can't know how fast you learn."

---

They managed to get through the throng of people. Christopher's story was that the burns had been on his back, for he had wrapped his shirt around his head to protect him from the sun, that's why he didn't have burns on his face. He was from another country, that's why he was so pale and didn't speak a word. He was frightened and homesick, that's why he had gone with Chris to the boat in the first place.