Original artwork by  angel27, go check him out! Support his Patreon! [ https://www.patreon.com/Angel27 ] This pic above is older, quicker work of his, his newer stuff is 10 times better! :D

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Much like the other picture by Angel that I posted yesterday, I got this almost 5 years ago.

The stuff below is all new, though! I finally got around to writing for some of the older art I've commissioned. (although I wrote these a few months ago now, heh)

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A Myriad of Muddled Marine and/or Maritime Musings

~

A Haiku for You:

Sharks swim in silence
Forever in the twilight
Of an endless sea

Before them, all flee
No fish wishes for a fight
'Gainst that tooth'd offence

How lonely a life
these fin-festooned fellows lead
out there in the dark

And so it is clear
why one would live in a tank
On land, by his choice

Near land-dwelling folk
Folk who come by and see him
More often than naught.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sea Legs, by Amethystine

-

A young man went to sea, as young men are wont to do.

Flee to the sea, to see how it is to be free, you see? No need for pedigree. I agree. Much glee.

But.. his spree on the sea was marred by his knee.

Well, both knees. His legs in general, really. And his stomach.. and his head.

He couldn't get the hang of the rock and sway of the way of the waves.

"You'll git'ch'er sea legs, lad!" he was told, by many a man, with many a grin. "Eventuallee!"

Still, he could not.

Flummoxed from the font of foul fluids that found they had to exit from betwixt his lips at regular intervals, the young man became desperate.

When he was presented with a pair of strange, squishy sacs, he was not as off-put as he might have been, normally. They were orbs of an odd odor and a pallid cast, he was only held back from eating them upon being told to do so by his thoughts of his daily.. eruptions. Expulsions.

"What _are_ these??" he asked, incredibly incredulously.

"Ya wanted yer sea legs? Well I'm givin' 'em to ye!" said the salty sailor, crustily crying back over his shoulder. "Now eat up!"

It seemed to the young man that he was being given an ancient mariner's secret remedy, something to quell his stomach and put him in the mind of a real buckler of swashes!

He munched and he chewed and he sucked and he swallowed, the messy, salty things. They made him shiver and they made him groan.

Then he collapsed on the deck of the ship. His sea legs had not come to him! What little stability he had leaving him entirely, his legs had becoming all the MORE useless.

Fabrics tore while he flopped himself onto his back, to see how his legs writhed of their own accord, trembling and flexing in impossible, boneless ways.

"What the devil!?" he shouted, to no one in particular, or the whole crew in general. Either way, his eyes were locked on his morphing limbs.

"Oh, ya got yar sea legs, I see!" said one of his other shipmates, coming up behind him. It was one of the younger ones, who was less mysterious and had been more amicable toward the inexperienced new sailor. "Well, when ya'r done, I'll toss ya'verboard, not ta w'rry."

"You'll what?! WHY?"

"Hmm? Heh, I 'ardly s'pect yul be wantin' tuh stay up 'ere in the dry n' the air."

"This doesn't make any sense! What are you foul ruffians doing to me? What were those things I just ate??" demanded the young man, who was watching his legs merge into one and extend into something that only seemed able to squirm around across the planks of the ship with increasing energy and fluid movement.

Before he tore his eyes away to look at the one who had come to speak to him, he noticed pointy bits appearing at the end most of all, but there were smaller spikes of flesh in other spots as well.

"Sea legs."

"They were no such thing! They haven't made me more able to walk around on the ship, as you can plainly see! They haven't made me more suited to life on the ocean."

"Not.. ON th'ocean, no," murmured the other man. "But why didja tink sea legs had anythin' tadoo 'ith walkin' 'round a tub like ths'un?"

The new sea-man once again silently cursed the backwards way these men talked.

"SEA." He flopped his oddly transformed body into a hard, punctuating slap on the deck between his two words. "LEGS." He didn't notice how gracefully he controlled his modified body/appendage. "I thought it was about getting legs that were better at being stable on a ship's decks. Handling the rocking, not feeling sick all the time, or off-balance."

"D'ya feel sick now, boyo?"

"Of course I feel sick, look at me, I--!" he stopped. He felt fine, actually. Better than he had in days, stomach-wise. Thinking back to the too-salty, mushy, cold spherical things he ate, which had also somewhat disgusted him in the moment, he thought more highly of them, not just because they seemed to have settled his belly, but also.. the memory of them.. he kind of thought they'd be delicious, now. Something to really sink his teeth into.

"...what WERE those things I ate anyway? Not their title, but where they come from."

"Theys from th'sea! Tha'r sea legs!"

"UGH, NO, they're NOT. That's the name, the title, right? They were more like.. eggs!"

The more experienced mariner paused and shook his head, bending down to pick up the pathetic excuse for a cabin boy. He carried him to the side of the ship. "Wha'd'ya think I've been callin'em, mate?"

The junior crewman writhed in the surprisingly strong arms of the sure-handed sea-scavenger. "What?" he asked, beginning to feel short of breath, his throat and skin painfully dry.

"Eggs! From seals! Seal! Eggs!" He paused just a moment, working himself into a position where he could lean out from the railing of the ship somewhat, to better drop the dumbfounded one into the dark drink below.

There was just enough time for the sea-changed newbie to recover and reply.

"But.. seals don't lay.. eeeggggggsss~~!"

His last word tumbled out of him and extended for the duration of his descent into the choppy waves below.

~

He had wanted to find out what it meant to be a sailor, a sea-man, a mariner.

So, as it turns out, 'Mariner' means to be more marine than most men. Marine-er = Mariner.

He was a true sea-man, then. A man of the sea. The so-called 'seal eggs' had made him more suited to a life _in_ the ocean, not on it.

The same thing had happened to the other young man who had joined up the same day as him, the one who he was told had 'gone overboard' in what he thought was a sad accident for his companion in the experience of being new to maritime life.

A pair of sharks, one blue (our hero), one black-tip (the other 'fresh fish', as the crew had called them both). Apparently, it was random what sea-beast you became, but the crew was happy as long as it was quick, and they were always large enough for their purposes.

The new guys, they naturally got the lowest rung on the ladder. Not much lower than living below the bottom of the boat and being made to be the grunt-work for a season of sea-floor scavenging, is there?

He was right, though. 'Seal eggs' were not from seals, they were just called that, for upon their discovery, they had made their discoverer and his wife into seal-people.

Sea nymph shenanigans? Mermaid mischief? Some plot by Poseidon or Triton's trickery? Some way for beasts of the brine to be replenished after an unjust death, as viewed by the gods?

There _was_ an inclination for the transformed individuals to run off and live in the sea. That's probably why so many remained as sailors after their tour of duty at whatever tasks they were pressed into was over and they were turned back to human form.

The call of the sea
is as strong as can be.

Of course, there was a pretty strong drive for young men like our hero to then also see what happens when one gets promoted to crow's nest duty.

But that's another story.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


A Kiss Before Diving, by who else? Amethystine


Ace liked to roam
'Round his sea home

Looking for the kind of fun
That you can't have with just one

He found a nice seal girl
'round which he'd want to curl

Flirting then quick began,
according to his plan.

Amid the shark-charm
meant to disarm

He asked why he'd seen so few
beautiful seal girls, "Like you!"

"Because we keep gittin' smitten
with shark guys just like you, kitten

"No baby seals can come, from such a pairing
even if it's a thrill, to be so daring"

He said he'd help, if he could
she said he certainly should!

She kissed him hard, then, and it made him start to shake
Her lips were heaven, but his form began to quake

His rough tailfins got all slippery
as they became much more flippery

He was so stunned, quite totally shocked
she grinned in a way that kind of mocked

She hugged him with tail and arm
saying she meant him no harm

She murmured something about a 'seal mating chase'
and dove below, leaving him there, our poor friend Ace

What had she done?
Why had she run?

Overwhelmed with the urge to persue
the new way he moved was quite the clue

It was then _quite_ hard to miss:
He had been 'sealed' with a kiss!

.