The Ereri Project!

Chest

"Where the hell are you taking me Eren?"

Eren just grins and kicks his tail a little faster. Levi notices quickly that they're closer to the surface than usual, but he's not surprised his lover's never-ending curiosity has led them here.

Because they're closer to the sun, Levi takes a moment to really appreciate how Eren's scales sparkle a little in the light, pink and about as bright as his excitable personality. Levi's scales are a shade of turquoise only rivaled by Eren's eyes.

Eren leads them quickly to an island Levi doesn't remember noticing before. Eren peeks his head up in a few places before leading Levi toward the land mass.

He's almost annoyed that he might have to drag himself back to water over sand of all things when he realizes Eren's leading him toward some rocks with enough water in between he can actually keep swimming. "Ready for the surprise?" Eren asks, pulling himself onto one of the rocks.

Levi stays in the water so he can swim faster if one of those strange land-walkers spots them. "You're lucky we're enough like those land-walkers we can breathe air."

"I'll take that as a yes," Eren replies. "Hold my tail."

Levi almost doesn't have enough time to react before Eren is leaning very ungracefully over the rocks to reach something.

"Shitty brat," he murmurs. When Eren sits back up he appears to be carrying a wooden chest of some kind. "What's that?"

Eren grins. "It's one of those boxes the others sometimes find on those sunken wood floats, only this one is still full of stuff and it's not all waterlogged. I found it sitting halfway in the tide like someone had dropped it."

Levi leans up a little bit to try and see. "So what's inside?"

Eren forces the chest open and leans it down to show Levi. "It's all the shiny stuff that's usually covered in mud by the time people find them."

"Whoa," Levi replies and pulls out a long string of pearls. "It's a whole string of those rocks from inside the shells."

"Land-walkers call them pearls I think," Eren replies. "That string is longer than usual."

"What do they do with them?"

Eren takes the string back and loops it around Levi's neck, twisting it once and pulling it over again so it's less long.

"They wear them," Eren replies. "They're more beautiful on you than they do on the land-walker women."

Levi makes a face. "Don't say weird things like that."

"That's not weird," Eren replies. "I always think you're beautiful."

Levi dips back into the water up to his nose. "Well, you're pretty beautiful too," he mutters, knowing Eren can't hear him.

Eren digs around in the chest some more. He puts on a gold chain with a blue jewel pendant on it. "Ooo," he says and picks something up.

"What?" Levi asks.

"I think land-walkers call them rings," Eren says. "They wear them on their fingers. Give me your hand." Levi goes to give him his right hand but Eren shakes his head. "Other hand."

"Why?"

Eren shrugs. "Human mate pairs all wear them like that: on the finger beside their pinky on their left hand."

"Weird."

Eren put a silver band with little shiny gems in it on Levi's finger before putting a plain gold band on his own. "Yeah, but I think the idea is kind of neat."

Eren puts the chest back where he found it and slides back into the water. "I feel all gross and dry now," he says.

"That's what you get for leaving the water," Levi says and backflips back underwater.

Eren frowns and swims after him, wrapping his arm around Levi's waist when he catches up. "If we were land-walkers would you have mated me then too?"

Levi shrugs. "Your scales are a pretty important selling point." Levi kissed the stricken look that's crosses Eren's face. "Of course I would have idiot."