CARME, The Runaway

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞

·· ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── ··

The ocean pushed against her like a second skin—weightless, boundless, living. Carme glided through it effortlessly, cutting through the water beside Dorothea. The water was cold, yes, but she felt nothing. Her form did not sense temperature or weariness, but the movement, the flow—it was something different. Something thrilling.

They were far beneath the surface, where sunlight shattered like splintered glass above, filtering into the flowing blue emptiness. The kelp forests quivered like guards in the flow, and schools of fish flashed silver as they dispersed past. Dorothea moved forward, her mermaid tail flowing through the water with ease, scales glinting like moonlit plate armor. Her dark hair streamed behind her, and her upper body remained humanoid but ethereal—sleek, otherworldly. She looked completely at home in this world, not just moving through it, but belonging to it.

Carme followed, watching in awe. Every so often, they resurfaced to speak.

"Stop swimming like a person," Dorothea teased on one breathless rise. "You're fighting the water instead of becoming part of it."

"I'm trying," Carme muttered, flicking her wet hair out of her eyes. "You've had centuries to get good at this."

Dorothea only grinned before diving again.

Back under, Carme pushed harder. Her limbs sliced through the water in powerful bursts, but it still felt wrong—mechanical, forced. Her instincts were honed for speed and combat, not this... fluid dance. She let her body drift, just for a second. Let herself stop thinking.

The sea flowed past her. Her own sharp eyes followed Dorothea as she dove deep into the kelp and sent a scattering of fish fleeing with a flick of her tail. In a continuous motion, Dorothea looped and dove once more, vanishing into the susurration of movement before surfacing once again, a wriggling fish cradled between her jaws. It was seamless, beautiful.

Carme kicked forward, attempting to imitate her. She darted into the center of the school, arms out, eyes fixed on a rounded silver fish at the edge, but the moment she struck, the entire shoal broke in a flash of fright. She snapped futilely at water space, the momentum of her own body sending her stumbling.

She swore to herself and turned to attempt again.

Time and again, she dived—too swift, too direct, too brutal. The fish felt her coming each time, fleeing long before she reached close. Her vampire instincts counted for nothing when she could not move as the water did, read the hidden variations in its pattern the way Dorothea read them.

After her fifth unsuccessful try, she hovered there, snarling between compressed teeth. Her fingers formed claws, her body coiled. Even in the subdued stillness of the deep, anger coursed through her like a tide.

Dorothea swam back towards her, her head canted. She didn't say anything—couldn't—but she jerked an eyebrow and rapped her tail gently against Carme's forehead before reversing and disappearing into a sliver of rock and kelp.

Carme exhaled, sending a stream of useless bubbles after her. She was thinking too much. Again. She always did.

She loosened her arms and gradually started to take Dorothea's route into the gash, allowing the beat of the water to lead her this time rather than cutting through it. She kept her elbows in and modulated her angle, observing how Dorothea's tail propelled itself—not like legs pulling, but like a ribbon that rode the current. A dance. Not a pursuit.

Another school of fish swam into sight. This time Carme did not strike. She wandered, moving slowly in a circle, her senses extending outward. The fish were tame now, uncertain of her but not frightened. She pinched her eyes and waited for the perfect moment.

And when she struck—it was instinctive.

She darted in a wide arc, cutting off escape. Her hands swiped out, and this time they caught something solid and wriggling, but it wasn't just the success that startled her—it was how she'd moved. There was a slickness to her motion now, a fluidity she hadn't felt before. The drag of the water was... less. Easier. Her body had shifted somehow—not enough to alarm her, not yet—but enough that she felt it in the way her limbs sliced the current. Like the water wasn't fighting her anymore.