Mermaid Tears

Mermaid Tears

Nightmare had long since gotten used to the water harshly crashing into him, as well as the oceans boiling as he swam through them. He was used to claws and teeth and other such sharp things penetrating through his flesh and bones. The weight of his trident was familiar, just as much as throwing it. The leviathan's world was little more than storming clouds and spewing volcanoes. He cared not about the disasters he and his twin caused. Why would he? All that mattered was the fighting. The ceaseless war that wouldn't stop until one side claimed victory... Or died.

The kraken couldn't be sure what had happened. His skull was in such pain, ichor painting the water so thickly that trying to see past it was impossible. Something was horribly, terribly wrong. Nightmare made an attempt to collect his thoughts, but everything was muddled and fuzzy and in so, so much pain. Somehow, he heard the voice of his twin through all the pain.

"𝐸𝓂𝒷𝒶𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓈𝑒𝒹?" Not as much as he was hurting. "𝐼 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝒸𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝒶 𝓉𝑒𝓂𝓅𝑜𝓇𝒶𝓇𝓎 𝓉𝓇𝓊𝒸𝑒 𝒾𝒻 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒶𝓃𝓉?" And didn't that sound nice. What if they could just go back to being brothers, even just for a day. Nightmare stopped trying to listen to his brother and instead tried to removed the ichor in his sockets to no avail. Dream had said something else, Nightmare hadn't heard it properly. Should he respond?

"ɖ-ɖʀɛǟʍ? Iȶ hurts," He drew out the s longer than he should have. Did that matter?

"𝒩𝐼𝒢𝐻𝒯𝑀𝒜𝑅𝐸!" Oh, something was really wrong. Dream sounded terrified. Warm hands cupped Nightmare's face, his injury only feeling worse from the heat. "𝒮𝒽𝒽, 𝒾𝓉'𝓈 𝑔𝑜𝓃𝓃𝒶 𝒷𝑒 𝑜𝓀𝒶𝓎. 𝐼 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊, 𝓎𝑜𝓊'𝓇𝑒 𝑜𝓀𝒶𝓎, 𝓈𝒽𝒽𝒽,"

"ɦurts," Nightmare managed to say through the pain, tears mixing with the cyan ichor. "ɦʊrts so bad" 

"𝐼𝓉'𝓁𝓁 𝒷𝑒 𝑜𝓀𝒶𝓎," Dream was hugging his so close. They hadn't been like this since... For a very long time... But the heat was making everything even fuzzier. His tears felt like lava.

"Dreaʍ?"

"𝒴𝑒𝒶𝒽?"

"I'm gonna քass out ռօա," And he did, leaving his frightened twin to try and stop the bleeding. Dream tried not to look at the ichor mixing with the water as he tied makeshift bandages over the wound.

-----

Blood. It was all Horror could smell. He couldn't see much anymore, however, even if he wanted to. But even with his now damaged eyelight, he could see the carnage. Blood and seafoam floated around, the scent taunting him for living. Bodies of the dead and dying were barely visible with his new injury. Everything had gone so wrong so quickly. And now he was the only one alive. If he actually recovered from this. His head pounded. Some of the blood was from him, he had little doubt in that. But what could he do? He was stuck here with only those turning to sea foam. He could focus on the sights and scents, but what good would that do? He couldn't exactly escape it all either, the sea foam sticking to him whenever it got close.

So he cried. He cried for those who were alive only moments before, he cried for the pups who were barely starting to live, he cried for those who tried so valiantly to defend the shiver, he cried for the memories he had of them all, lost when his skull was crushed, he cried for those who he loved and cared for, never to be seen again. He cried so much he could have filled the ocean from his tears alone. For that was all he could do.

-----

In some colorful reef sat a quiet whitetip shark mer. Pilot fish flittered around him, the only family he had left. A few were exploring the reef, the rest were just swimming around Dust, like a fishy barrier between him and the rest of the ocean. It was nice. Dust got a moment of calm and quiet. And Papyrus was always watching him. A pilot fish swam up and bonked their heads together. Oh. Dust really missed having his brother around for real. These fish, they acted just like him but- Dust didn't know he had started crying until all the fish had huddled around him, trying to give comfort. Something so familiar, Dust yearned for his brother to be the one pressing soft kisses to his forehead, telling him that everything was going to be alright. But he was gone. And all Dust had left was a school of ghost fish who were painfully similar yet just that much different than his brother.

-----

Killer would never admit it, but sometimes, he got really lonely. He never had a shiver, but who needed one anyway? Sure, some company would be nice, but why go out of his way to look for someone? Made no sense to him. Took up too much time and effort. Besides, he could go anywhere he wanted! He had no one place to tie him down! One day, he could be in warm waters, searching for the freshest of tuna to catch, the next he could find a cooler, shallow beach to lounge around in with no one to bother him. It was a good life he was living. A life of adventure and thrills! Why would he need someone else to slow this all down? He didn't. Sure, it would be nice to have someone to share it all with, but Killer liked his life right now. He didn't need to change it because of some silly emotions. He could drift to his soul's content.

Happy trills sounded from somewhere near by. Killer went over to investigate. A few mers were darting around each other in the brighter water making the shallows of the area. A goldfish mer was curling around a larger great white mer and giving him affectionate kisses while a whitetip settled on the sand nearby, petting a small fish. Killer watched with, not quite envy, at the display. He wouldn't lie and say he didn't want to have that sort of love with someone, but he wasn't jealous of them.

The bull shark quickly made his way back to the cavern he was staying in. And there, all alone with no one, not some sweet goldfish or other shark, he cried. Not that he would ever admit it.

-----

"Hello?" Cross peaked his head out of the container. There wasn't anything. Well, fish and a small squid, but no other mers. Or any giant beasts with writhing tentacles capable of ripping the container's door open and snapping off his shock collar. "Anyone there?" No reply. Was this a test? Did Gaster set this all up? Cross carefully swam out of the container. What was the goal? Did he even have one or- Or was he really free? He swam further. No, how would he have even escaped? Sure, the container could have just fallen into the ocean, but Gaster was not a careless man. He wouldn't have let something as simple as a storm knock Cross overboard. Not when he had been working on him for years. Still...

Cross darted away from the container as fast as he could. He was free. Even if this was all just some test rigged by Gaster, he wasn't in some small aquarium anymore. This was open ocean. It had to be- It- it... Cross glanced at the container, getting smaller as he swam away. This was real, right? Cross settled on the sand covering the bottom of the ocean. It was soft on his fins, unlike the rocks that had been in the bottom of one of his old tanks. Seaweed floated, a massive cover for fish and other sea creatures. Bubbles floated from the occasional lobster or crab returning from the surface. Some were just dropped back in, how, Cross didn't know. Maybe landwalkers, maybe it rained crustaceans out here. In wasn't scientifically impossible. Was it? Frog rain was a thing. Gaster had talked about it once. And frogs weren't much bigger than some crabs.

The newly freed mer had laid in the sand for hours, watching the fish swim past, snapping up the occasional critter that strayed too close to the shark. It was... Nice. The open water, all the animals swimming around, the waves, the light, the water. And Cross would hopefully get to live in this forever. The very same seas that he was robbed of in his puphood, they were all his to explore now. Much too late, yes. But he was still here now. Tears pricked at his sockets, and for the first time, Cross allowed himself to cry. there was no doctor who would mock him for it out here. He could cry, he could swim, he could hunt. And no one could stop him anymore.

Soulmate

"Do you believe in soulmates?" It wasn't a question Kelp was asked anymore. When he was younger, he heard stories of people finding their person, their soulmate. Stories of love and happily ever after. He might have believed in them then. When he was a child looking at the adults around him. Growing up though, he found that sometimes those stories ended in tears and broken hearts. He stopped believing in soulmates and a true happily ever after. And no, Kelp wasn't being pessimistic, just realistic. Things like that are just made to make the world seem like a better place to innocent minds. And, there is always the occasional story of everything going well, giving hope to other people.

But Kelp never fell in love. He wasn't given a real reason to believe or not. His calling wasn't to anyone around him, but the ocean and all her creatures. A fisherman he might be, but he had respect for the waters that provided him everything, his income, his food, his way of life. So he protected her as she did for him. Kelp took it upon himself to try and right the wrongs done by others who dwelled on the land. Everything from picking up litter to freeing marine life trapped in trash from the land. He saw just how awful it got. The wounds of seals trapped by fishing nets, he hated having to carefully tug the tangled strands from around the poor thing's neck, doing his best not to cause any further damage.

Oh how Kelp hated nets. So, when he saw a large creature trapped in one, he rushed to help. He met face to face with a growling shark mer who tried to get himself away, thrashing around and only hurting himself more. It pained Kelp to see him in such a state, could a mer even understand him?

"I'm going to help you," He said softly, setting his clippers down in the sand so that giant red eyelight could examine them. "I'm just going to cut to out, okay?" The mer stopped moving around so much and fell still. Kelp took this as a sign that he could probably start working. It was long and tedious, trying to free the shark mer. The net dug into his fins at places and it was tangled so much that his hands hurt from all the clipping. It seemed like it took hours, and it probably did. But eventually, Kelp got the mer free. He gave a small chrrp and pressed his head into Kelp's hand in a show of gratitude. "Need help getting back to the water?" The mer looked at the tide, which had lowered since Kelp had found him, and nodded. "Alright big guy, lets get you back," With a bit of effort, Kelp got the mer back to the water where he only looked back once before swimming away.

In the days following, Kelp noticed that his luck was looking up. He would catch far more fish than normal, hadn't lost any of his equipment overboard or off the dock, and the weather had been clear ever since, even though there was a high chance of storms for that week. He didn't think much of it, just that he had a lucky streak. So, with that in mind, he went to the dock to just relax. He had caught more than enough to keep him sustained for weeks to come, so he didn't have to be out on the water as much. Kelp could finally take a moment to himself.

The landwalker removed his shoes and dipped his feet into the water. It was cool and refreshing, something he- There was a loud splash and right in front of Kelp was the shark mer he had rescued not that long ago. With a bloody fish in his mouth.

"Umm, hi again?" Kelp had backed up considerably, staring at the mer. The fish was gently placed on the dock in front of him.

"Thank you," The mer said almost bashfully. He nudged the fish closer, single eyelight looking at Kelp for a reaction.

"Y-your welcome?" He took the fish. A purr came from the mer who promptly flopped onto Kelp's lap. There was a moment where the fisherman was thinking through all his life choices and wondering how on earth they got him here, but... Hearing the satisfied rumble from the shark... Kelp placed a hand on his head, mindful of the gaping wound, and just, pet the mer. They sat like that for quite a while before the mer bid him farewell and sunk back into the sea.

And the visits just kept happening. Kelp did learn the mer's name, Horror, and the mer his. They met and sometimes talked. Most of the time they sat in silence, looking out at the horizon.

And, for the first time in a long time, Kelp wondered again; are soulmates real? Because if they are, he had certainly found his.

YOOOOOOOO WE GOT A CROSSOVER COMIC (a poorly made one—) BUT A CROSSOVER COMIC NONETHELESS!!

DreamTale x Monkie Kid Crossover where Nightmare decides to try and target other multiverses :P

I'm now Nugget Trash folks

i got gay daddy too 😂

Hear me out, it was for a really, really stupid reason. Like he fell out of a tree or something. Or got bit by a baby monkey.

THE FACT THEY NEVER EXPLAIN WHY MACAQUE WAS INJURED HERE??? LITERALLY WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE THIS.

You know those anime meta posts along the lines of “I was born with pink hair. The doctors told my parents I was a Main Character and ever since my life has not known peace from demons/spirits/sports competitions/harems who find me”

Well I see that, and I raise you this:

An anime boy whose appearance is, by absolutely anyone’s account, completely and utterly average. Mundane hair. Mundane eyes. Not even glasses to set him the tiniest bit apart. A simple, unmemorable, unrecognizable civilian among a backdrop of millions.

And he has a lot of passions, and a lot of ambitions, which he hones every chance he gets. He’s dabbled in sports and archery and cooking and just about anything you could wrap a competition around. And he’s competed in many of these. Every chance he gets. With all of his passion and all of his might.

He’s crushed by the competition every single time.

Until one day–one day something clicks for him. Something that should have seemed obvious from the start and yet never was–as though everyone, including himself, was unwittingly blind to it. It clicks, when he realizes every kid who’s beaten him in competition, every kid who’s gone on to fame and glory and acclaim, has been some candy-haired gel-spiked ridiculously-dressed fucker. 

There’s some trend there that this Main Character boy can’t explain and can’t understand but he decides, this one time, fuck it. He’ll play along too. He’s got a model train competition in four days, and he’s got nothing more to lose. He hits up the department store, buys the pinkest, noxious-est, fruitiest hair dye he can find, the spikiest hair gel available, and the gaudiest clothes on the thrift rack. He enters the model train competition looking like a bubble gum gijinka.

And he wins.

Suddenly, the other candy-haired contestants notice him. They talk to him. They pledge rivalries. Girls notice him. Judges applaud him. Acclaimed model train aficionados offer him internships across the world. He’s hit on something. 

The main cast expands to cover just about every candy-hair cliche in the book: from the mostly-normal-looking demure school girl with the blue hair to the Naruto-est, yelling-est boy with the red-and-green spiked hair. The cool megane senpais, the purple haired tsunderes, suddenly everyone is interested in him. They’re prodigies and upstarts and underdogs and they truly believe that this main character boy is one of them.

So the main character boy maintains his ruse. He touches up his roots at dawn every morning and carefully attends to his gelled spikes and tells absolutely no one about this great, uncanny, unfathomable secret he’s stumbled upon. He wins his competitions left and right. He racks up the acclaim. He’s hailed as a prodigy of all trades, just now bursting onto the scene, and boils to the top of all his candy-haired peers.

He’s rising up, his every dream within his grasp. Until one day he gets a note under his door, taped to an old picture of his Normal Boring self from middle school, that says “You don’t belong”