Chapter 3
The human was a lovely specimen, prime plus-one material, but also…
Fian bit his tongue and shook his head. If he’d seen the human bathing in the water, acting like he had and giving a gift freely like that—Fian would have thought him a sea sprite, would have wrapped him in all his arms to make sure he was real and not a siren image.
But it wasn’t just the human’s looks, of course, not just the honey-blond hair that reminded Fian of sea grass in a current or the eyes like drops of golden amber washed ashore.
Fian was a hugger—he liked to get his suckers on people he was friendly with—but that would have revealed his demonic nature.
As a result, Fian had been waving, and he knew it had been too much and not at all within the acceptable ranges for humans.
And yet Kai seemed to be okay with the exuberance, and had in fact returned the gesture with matching enthusiasm.
“He wants to make sure I feel welcome,” Fian muttered to himself, his gift clutched closely to his chest.
He cast one last look at the Jammery, which was the little seaside shop’s name, according to the rustic sign outside and the much smaller, much prettier label tied around the lid of Fian’s gift. The one that Kai had given him.
“Kai,” Fian said, tasting the name on his tongue like he wanted to taste the human’s skin with his suckers, but for now he had to leave.
He considered his next steps as he walked along the winding roads of the small town where the houses were mostly one story and the gardens small but vibrant with flowers and unusually full of garden gnome displays.
The gnomes struck Fian as an odd decorative choice for the townsfolk, but he’d carved several hundred dicks out of driftwood not too long ago, so he wasn’t going to judge anyone for favoring gnomes with very erect hats and a penchant for fishing rods and other wooden garden tools.
The jam though. Fian couldn’t keep his suckers from coming out, and with his fingertips, he tasted.
Most important of all, there was Kai. The human’s own taste had been tampered with magic, unpleasant like an oil spill on the water.
That taste, the magic, it darkened the taste of the ink on the label and of the jam, noticeable to Fian even though the jar was sealed.
Fian came to a halt when a tabby cat jumped out of a gnome-full garden and stopped right in front of him, locked eyes with him, and meowed noisily.
“Yuck. Shoo, feline.”
Cats, like some of the very young human offspring, could usually tell a demon by sight.
One time, when Fian had visited a bigger city further south, a horde of the beasts had decided to trail him while he had tried pistachio gelato, and that had not been the “inconspicuous behavior” the Human Liaisons Unit advised.
The cat meowed again and approached Fian to wind its furry little body around his legs.
“Ugh.” Fian stepped over the cat and lengthened his steps.
He glanced back. The cat stared accusingly but made no move to follow, so Fian relaxed and went back to thinking about Kai.
“I wonder if those dark rings under his eyes are from the magic, that nasty spell that has been placed on him? It’s lack of sleep, normally. I hope he gets to sleep right away.”
The breeze blew a noseful of salty air in Fian’s face. He wasn’t sure why he cared about magic being done by humans to humans, except technically possibly as a demon he should maybe perhaps not let them.
There were no super strict rules, but a human who didn’t know what they were doing (which, as far as Fian was concerned, included the entirety of the human race, but especially that surfer, Tom, who had consented to marrying Mikano) could seriously damage the Morpheusrealm and the balance between realms. Plus, magic was a demon thing and way too demonic for humans to get grabby about.
On top of all that, Kai had given Fian a gift, and he had not rejected the idea of being picked up.
“He’s under a spell. Maybe the very fact that he didn’t tell me to go and suck a sea urchin means that he would very much like to be picked up.”
Fian grinned into the wind and headed shoreward, a spring in his step. A gift was to be returned in equal measure, and an unprompted gift such as the jar of rosehip jam Fian was carrying in his arms was especially precious.
A demon might give such a thing to a lover, never to anyone random.
It was how the demon myth of the landbride started, with a gift the landbride had given, and then the demon, knowing he could only match that value by giving her love, had thrown himself into her nets, thrice.
The first two times, she’d tossed him back, had told him to keep to the waves, but on the third try, she’d kept him.
“Kai will be my landbride,” Fian said, trusting that the sea breeze would witness the oath.
There was still the issue of the spell though, the magic done to Kai.
Fian could of course call Mikano because the Human Liaisons Unit was likely more responsible in this case, seeing as how humans using magic and disregarding the metaphysics that made it safe to use was also one of their duties.
However, calling Mikano would have meant telling his brother why Fian had come here, and that would draw Mikano’s ridicule.
Or worse, Mikano might attempt to help Fian win Kai’s heart.
There were few things worse Fian could imagine, and at the very thought, his skin turned blue.
He had made his way almost to the ocean now, and so he checked he wasn’t being watched, wasn’t being caught at being demonic, but there was no one around.
He forced his skin to calm, decided firmly that he wouldn’t tell Mikano about Kai—not yet at least—and began the shifting between forms, allowing the magic to turn his human clothing back to its true demonic weave.
Fian walked out to the comforting cold of the water, the sea song of waves sounding brighter now that he had met Kai…Kai, who would be his.
Once he was deep enough, Fian let the shift come, abandoning human legs in favor of his suckers. He started swimming, but did so without haste, the jam jar firmly grasped in two of his arms, his suckers exploring.
“The salt is going to wash his taste off,” Fian told the waves.
He then dipped beneath the surface when the next wave came crashing over his head.
But there is so much human money at the bottom.
Maybe I can use the coins I have at home to buy more jam?
They are old and maybe from a different country, but they are as pretty as Kai’s eyes.
I probably have to try; if Kai is to be my landbride, he has to send me away twice before I can give him love during my third visit—
Fian stopped midswim. Small bubbles came up from his mouth where it had fallen open.
I have to love him too to give him love in return.
Tremors ran through Fian’s arms, and the surface of the jar was almost entirely covered with his suckers.
I’ve never done that, loved someone like that, but he gave me a gift.
That means there is a small current of love, and all we have to do is swim with it, his head above the water, mine below it.
Fian resumed his swim back to the Morpheusrealm, but he slowed.
His skin was a patchwork of shifting colors and textures, the only constant the jar and the taste the salt was slowly erasing.
Humans love like this too, right? They give rings to one another before they wed, and before the love is fully formed, except in this case, Kai gave me a jar of jam.
It must be the curse. Maybe he’d have given me a ring if not for that… where do humans keep their rings?
Fian, so caught up in his thoughts, was hit in the face with a plastic bottle, sea trash, the one thing he truly loathed about the human realm.
He hurried back to the Morpheusrealm after that, the most precious thing he’d ever been given held safely in his arms: a jar of rosehip jam which was no less than the key to Kai’s cursed heart.