Rosy Skies (Otayuri)

Afternoon

Every night, Yuri slept beside the merman. He gradually recovered, aided by the assistance of the spotted merman. He began to eat more healthily, and was slowly getting back up to the weight he had been before his downward spiral. The wound on his hand eventually faded away without scarring, as if it had never happened. The tenderness on the stub of what had once been his tongue subsided as well. He got phantom sensations sometimes, and then his brain would be confused when nothing happened. The taste buds in his throat adapted, and he was able to detect strong flavors.

Although he felt like he was being stabbed viciously by serrated knives every time he swam, Yuri bore it willingly. It was enough to simply be by his merman's side. Yuri followed him around the palace, and was quite morose when he had to leave for official business. The merman gave him a nickname, and he was quickly able to recognize it. It sounded like a high whistle that dropped with a glissando into a low one. The merman told him his name, which was quite long. Yuri ended up shortening it to the three syllables he could actually pronounce without a tongue: Oabe. The merman seemed to find the appellation endearing.

As soon as Yuri was well enough to leave the bedroom, he was adorned with elegant jewelry and diadems. They were delicately crafted of vibrant coral, glimmering pearls, sea glass, bone, and shells. Servants came every morning to carefully comb and braid his hair into ornate styles and put little beads on them. Sometimes, they put him into loose robes and tunics made of old fish nets or woven sea plants.

It drove Yuri crazy how everyone stared as he passed them by. It was in the way that one would admire a fine muslin or an exotic animal caged in a menagerie. Not wanting to disappoint Oabe, he tried his best not to start any fights (although sometimes he would glare at them pointedly with wide eyes if they persisted; they would either look offended or glance away and pretend like they hadn't been watching him at all). What were they all gawking at anyway? He was just a scrawny, miserable creature that couldn't even swim right.

When people were talking to Oabe, they tended to ignore Yuri entirely. (Although he caught them leering at him.) Just because he couldn't articulate or understand their language, they treated him like he was stupid. As if he were a pet or an amusing toy. But Oabe never behaved towards him in that way. He never expected Yuri to swim behind him; they were always side by side. He would even slow down to make sure that this was possible.

With great patience, Oabe started to teach Yuri mermish. It proved to be quite a laborious undertaking. The word and sentence structures were entirely different from Yuri's mother tongue. The written mer language consisted of impossibly complicated carved characters that Yuri couldn't hope to decipher. He easily got frustrated, but Oabe coaxed him over his stumbling blocks.

Over the course of many months, Yuri began to grasp common words and phrases by ear (he never quite got the hang of the writing). It helped that he was being immersed in mermish every single day. Soon, he found that he could comprehend snippets of conversations that he heard. He learned that the name Oabe had bestowed upon him meant something akin to "little one who was found." For some reason, it warmed him to his core whenever he heard it.

Yuri still could not articulate his thoughts, because many merfolk vocables included a tongue click. Oabe seemed to come to understand his body language, however, and soon was able to read Yuri fairly easily. Yuri sometimes tried to mask his emotions, but he wasn't very skilled at it.

Gradually, Yuri came to know Oabe's family. His father, who he deduced to have a king-like status, was a weathered, quiet, middle-aged man that frequently dozed off. At the morning meal (Yuri was permitted to sit on a stone next to Oabe, although he didn't like to eat in front of people and so he did it in the privacy of Oabe's room), now and then the king would fall asleep mid-bite. Oabe's mother, on the other hand, was a fierce mermaid who viewed the world with a cold and calculating gaze. She wore her armor everywhere, with no other ornamentation besides at formal occasions. Everyone respected and feared her. Her son shared her thick, dark hair and tan skin, but Oabe's eyes were so much warmer than hers.