5
(Day One)
M arin proceeded to brush his great curtain of pastel hair out of his eyes and look up at Blake and Celeste in turn.
“Oops,” Celeste said, tone flat.
“Well this is a new development,” Marin said conversationally, giving his fin an experimental flip.
“AHHHH!” Blake exclaimed, not conversationally. It took him several seconds of being possessed by his freeze reflex before his brain managed to force quit “freaked out” and jumped straight into “problem solving mode”.
“Oh my God, are you okay?!” Blake asked.
He jumped off of the bowsprit and onto the slide.
He ran down its length, falling onto his knees beside the merman— the actual merman —who was now sitting in the splash pool without a care in the world.
Blake’s hands fluttered around Marin’s shoulders nervously as he checked him over for injuries. “Are you hurt? You fell a long way, I—”
“No, no—I’m fine.” Marin shook his head. “Just a little stunned is all.”
Blake let out a sigh of relief, letting his hand fall upon Marin’s shoulder and squeezing it in reassurance. Satisfied that all was well with the merman, he immediately turned his ire onto Celeste.
“ And what do you mean ‘oops’ ?! He could have brained himself! Did you know this would happen?!” Blake demanded.
“I’m fine,” Marin insisted with a sheepish smile, although he was drowned out by Celeste.
“Yes and no!” they admitted, throwing up their hands. “I honestly thought he was a normal ghost or something! Really, I only wanted to mess with you and get some extra cash.”
“What’s going on? What happens now?” Blake asked, glancing rapidly between Marin and Celeste. The merman pulled himself up into a sitting position, resting his chin on his fin like it was his knees. For now he seemed content to sit and observe the chaos at hand.
Celeste crossed their arms over their chest, propping their chin up on the L of their fingers, appearing thoughtful.
“I mean, I guess this proves he really is a pygmalion; if you kiss one, then it’ll come to life as whatever kind of creature they were depicted as,” they began to explain.
“And in order to retain that form, that means you have four days to uh. Meet a few requirements?”
“Meet a few—?!” Blake sputtered.
Marin blinked, looking pensive, “What do you mean by that?”
“What will happen if I don’t?” Blake continued. “ And why didn’t you think this was pertinent information to tell me?!”
“Like I said, I thought he was a ghost!” Celeste defended themself, glancing down at their watch. “Look, it’s half past one on August first. That means you have until this time on the fifth. You’ll have plenty of time to—”
“TO WHAT , Celeste?” Blake said, flailing. “What are the requirements?! What happens if I don’t meet them when the four days are up?! Is he going to be okay?!”
“Well,” Celeste started, looking down at Marin with an awkward grimace. “It depends.”
“ On what?! ” Blake demanded. “Celeste, this is not the time to be cagey .”
Marin frowned at Celeste. “I really think you should cut to the chase.”
“Okay so.” Celeste glanced off to the side, looking repentant for the first time that night. “There are three requirements in total. The first is to fulfill their dying wish; the second is to return them to the place where they died. And the third is. Uh.”
Celeste hesitated, glancing between Marin and Blake.
“The third?” Marin prompted.
Celeste closed their eyes and cleared their throat. “Blake has to prove he’s worthy of your love.”
“Well damn,” Marin marveled. “That’s kind of a lot.”
“Worthy of his—?!” Blake sputtered, his face reaching nuclear temperatures. “How do you even measure that?! And you still haven’t told us what will happen if I can’t meet the requirements!”
“Well.” Celeste was now glancing all around the pool, appearing like they wanted to look at anything other than Marin or Blake. They cleared their throat. “He’ll… kind of. Die. Again.”
Blake stared at them, expression blank.
“ Die ?” he echoed, voice hoarse.
“Yeah, he’ll die!” Celeste heaved an exasperated sigh, like they were the one suddenly caught up in a life-or-death situation. “If you don’t fulfill the three requirements, then he’ll die!”
Blake stared.
“What do you mean by ‘again’?” Marin asked, filling the pregnant silence. He was still acting bizarrely calm given the gravity of the position he had found himself in.
As much as Blake wanted to explain, or even to comfort Marin, he found himself unable to move, still attempting to process the word “die”.
Celeste made a great show of flapping their arms while they struggled to elaborate, as if it would help the situation at hand.
“You know, like ‘The Little Mermaid’? The Hans Christian Andersen queer-coded original version—not that animated Disney shit. When she can’t get the prince to fall in love with her, instead of becoming the Sea Witch’s slave, the mermaid kind of, well…
” they cleared their throat. “Dies and turns into bubbles?”
“Great. That’s — ” Blake covered his face with his hands. Now he couldn’t look at Marin. “That’s really goddamn perfect. Thanks Celeste.”
Despite his struggle, Blake turned his attention back onto Marin. Biting his lip, he crouched back down into the pool, kneeling beside him in the water. “A-are you okay? That… that must be a lot to digest.”
“I’m fine,” Marin insisted, shooting Blake a brief smile that was almost chilling in its serenity. “I’m more interested in what this one meant by die ‘again’.”
Celeste began to explain: “You’re a pygmalion. To put it bluntly, that means that you were a living person who died and was trapped in this figurehead and—and don’t look at me like that Blake!” They huffed, returning Blake’s glare with one of their own. “I didn’t write the rules of the universe.”
“No, you just tricked me into putting this person’s life at stake ,” Blake retorted, gesturing at Marin. “Where did you even get this four-day rule?”
“Ugh, read this,” Celeste was already fiddling with their phone, corralling it into Blake’s hands. “It’ll probably enlighten you both.”
On the screen was a blurry picture of a vase, a calligraphy inscription emblazoned into the porcelain. It took a few attempts to discern the poem, but he was eventually able to read out loud:
“ Read this verse
And read it well
It speaks of the curse
Of the pygmalion spell
Awaken her with but a kiss
But reader, dear remember this:
Know the final utterance of her passing breath
And grant this wish she made upon death
Return her to her dying soil on the fourth day,
It is there she may decide to depart or to stay
These four days you have to prove your heart
Or else she shall be torn apart”
“‘ Torn apart ?’” Blake echoed, incredulous. “Celeste, that seems a bit more severe than just ‘die’! Where—where did you even get this?”
“Someone’s deleted Pinterest on the Wayback Machine,” Celeste explained, scrolling down and tapping at the comments with urgency. “There’s more.”
timidtimbal8:
Seems legit to me. Do we know if there’s a body left behind?
greyfae1962:
I think it depends on the form that it takes? I imagine that if it can revert back, it will.
whitepeacock2002:
Idk the meter’s kinda shitty lmao
dark-chii-chobits:
y only 4 days?
timidtimbal8:
My guess is that it has something to do with numerology? In the bible, 4 holds a lot of power in consideration to creation. In eastern culture it’s also heavily associated with the cycle of death and rebirth.
“So this is all we have to go off of?” Blake groused, returning the phone. Celeste planted their hands on their hips. Their expression was tinged with guilt.
“Well for now ,” they returned. It was like they were struggling to deflect responsibility.
“Excuse me,” Marin chimed in. “Can I say something?”
Blake deflated, rubbing his forehead.
“Of course. You don’t need to ask permission. I’m sorry, I feel like I’ve been speaking over you,” he apologized. “And— Jesus, that water’s filled with chemicals. Don’t you need saltwater or freshwater or something?”
“I think I’m fine for now,” Marin told him in a nonchalant tone. “And if I’m being completely honest, I wouldn’t mind disappearing after a few days.”
Blake and Celeste stared at him in shock.
“I’m… I’m sorry, what?” Blake gaped at him.
Marin shrugged. “I’ve been tacked to the front of a fake pirate ship for almost twenty years. Life isn’t exactly interesting or exciting for me. The park’s only open in the summer, so I spend more than half of the year sleeping anyway, and I’m typically only partially conscious even at that.”
He tilted his head up, looking up at the pale stars with a nostalgic glint in his eye. “I think it would be nice to have a few days to know what life outside of Water Zone is like and then finally get to rest.”
That is… extremely sad , Blake crouched down in the water next to Marin, setting a comforting hand on his shoulder. He brushed his thumb over his bicep, giving him a consoling smile.
“Look, I…” Blake paused, carefully parsing over his words. “While I want to honor your wishes, I don’t think it would be right for me not to try.” In fact, giving up and letting Marin die was the most messed up thing Blake could possibly do in this situation.
“How about this,” he proposed. “We try to find out who you were before you died—I’ll do everything in my power to fulfill those conditions, so you’ll have the option to change your mind if you want to. The poem even says something about ‘choosing to stay or part’ at the place where you died.”