Chapter Text
Tidal Walk
the endless infinity of water cycles; lack thereof
.----
“There’s something wrong,” Gakushuu says, head tilted to the sky.
It’s raining.
He’s soaked to the bone, white uniform clinging to his skin, haze of the storm making the lines blur so finely it almost looks like Gakushuu is part of the rain. His voice carries over, slightly distorted with the rumbling of the torrents in the background. Karma’s over by the veranda, staying dry, a notepad in his hands. He picks it up anyways, and he’s sure the words would have been lost in the noise to anyone else.
“What is?”
“I don’t know,” Gakushuu murmurs.
Karma looks back down at his notepad, his chicken scratch all over the page. He’s not a fan of writing notes in graphite, but he’s doing more cancellations as of late, so he finally succumbed and bought a box of pencils and a good eraser. Over a faint smudge of what used to be the word “fake” he amends “maybe,” frowns, and striked it through. Then remembers he has an eraser.
To Gakushuu he calls out, “has anyone ever seen a unicorn?”
“I don’t know,” Gakushuu says.
Gakushuu’s new to this fantasy urban setting they’ve both found themselves entwined in. What he knows is limited to what the river girls know, plus his own bit of digging, but he doesn’t have expertise outside his little niche. If unicorns were real, they’d be hidden deep in the forest alcoves that city magical folk can’t find.
Karma’d like to explore the world one day, he thinks. He’s going to have plenty of time.
He folds the notepad back into his bag - waterproof. Many of his belongings are waterproof now.
When he looks back up, Gakushuu is gone. Karma blinks and he's standing there again, still in the middle of a downpour. He's not smiling - or at least Karma doesn't think he is - but there's an almost serene look on his face. Gakushuu's moods are regulated by the weather and he's calmer on wet days like this, it's kind of cute. (On the flip side, Gakushuu is absolutely irritable in the dry weather.)
(It's because it takes so much more energy to keep everything running the way it should, especially with the dead dry air trying to jab into your skin, My'ra tells him. She's sunning on a warm rock by the riverbank as she tells him this, one slender leg dipped into the water. "He'll feel better with more water around. Keeps everything… regulated. Do you have a pond?"
"I won't be able to cart an entire pond around," Karma says. "We move a lot. At school."
"Is there a pond then? At school?"
"Well, yes," Karma says. "But we can't be there all the time. And we aren't allowed to, uhm, swim in it."
"Then what the bloody hell is the pond for, then?!")
The storm lasts into the evening, by which time Gakushuu is back on the veranda. As much as he wants to be elsewhere (five feet to the left, in the middle of a thunderstorm), schoolwork takes priority and is not waterproof. They work in silence, or Karma thinks they work in silence, until he has Gakushuu tapping on his shoulder to realize he's been trying to get Karma's attention for the past five minutes.
(Karma has hearing aids on recommendation. He'd made the acquaintance of a vampire is 62 who looks 26, in the midst of the world tour Karma's already planning for. He doesn't want to look 17 forever and she'd let him know there are ways around that, just before promptly kicking Karma out of her apartment. He'd interrupted her in her sleep, because there was a small pocket of free time he had after school and before his high-maintenance commitments (read: Gakushuu) that meant he was knocking on her door at 3. 23 pm.
Alesha hadn't been happy. They've made better arrangements for next Sunday.
Generously enough she'd shoved a little box into Karma's hands before slamming the door in his face, hence the hearing aids. They're terrifyingly poorly made - broken, likely - which made them perfect. Without them he heard raindrops after raindrops after raindrops, the low croak of a frog in a mud puddle twenty feet away, Gakushuu's low steady breathing in the middle of a thunderstorm… with those on, he hears jack. It's blissful.)
Karma pulls out the hearing aids. "Yeah?"
"I'm texting Ria and Taka," Gakushuu says insistently. "They feel it too."
"What?"
"Something is wrong," Gakushuu says.
"I don't feel it," Karma says.
Gakushuu frowns at him almost disappointingly like there's something Karma's just not getting.
"Oh," Karma says. Ria's a werewolf, Taka's a witch. There's not a lot the trio have in common. "The moon?"
"Think so," Gakushuu says. "Ria's senses are going haywire. Taka's charts and readings are off."
Karma pulls out his phone. "I'll ask Ritsu."
Gakushuu leans on his shoulder. He's lax in the weather.
"Ritsu, do you have information on the moon?"
Ritsu's avatar is bright and pixellated, casting a soft glow on their faces. Ironically that hardens the edges of Gakushuu's face. "There is a moon festival coming up soon, but you're not asking about that. The space station's been logging unusual seismic activity on the moon. It's unstable. They think it's going to collapse on itself."
Gakushuu's eyes widen.
"Don't go telling people about it, you two," Ritsu warns, good naturedly. "This information is illegal."
"Oh!" Gakushuu says. "Sorry. I have to."
Ritsu frowns at him. "Asano."
"Strictly magical only," Gakushuu promises her. "We are feeling the repercussions already."
"Oh, oh!" Ritsu says. "I'm sorry. I'll keep you updated in that case. Stay well."
Karma looks at Gakushuu. “What are your plans?
Gakushuu’s frowning. “Let’s go get the river girls.”
..---
The River girls are 5, 6, 7 or 8 depending on the season and time of day you catch them. Ikeda’s here more often than not, because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. He’s here today too, hands halfway in Shal’ll’s hair. He’s twisting a braid.
On a good day Kalasi can be seen out and about, but Karma usually doesn’t hedge much on being able to catch her. She’s here today, strangely enough, despite the after-rain sun beating down on them. She stares at Karma with narrowed eyes.
“Hi, Red-red,” Mr’ya says.
“Hi, Mir-mir.” Karma can’t pronounce any of their names. Sometime a few months ago they took pity on him for trying.
“Hi Akabane,” Ikeda says mildly. “Shuu.”
“Riku,” Gakushuu says.
“Well?” Kalasi demands. “Something is wrong. What is wrong?”
Karma wonders what they’re feeling. With the current influence the moon has on tides and the water, what would happen if it is gone?
“The moon is collapsing on itself,” Gakushuu says. “It’s unstable.”
“Fix it,” Kalasi says.
In a world with magic, science is eluding. There’s not much that most science can do to explain old laws. Kalasi is older than the river itself; why she’s here, none of them really know. She’s come by the crack on the riverbed that trickles down to the ocean, upwards. Technology doesn’t do well in water, so she’s hardly interacted with it. To her, magic is her science, and science is her magic.
“That’s not how it works,” Gakushuu says.
Kalasi scowls at him.
The braid comes undone in Ikeda’s hand, falling through his fingers like sheets of water. Ikeda looks disgruntled. Shal’ll is there in the next blink, her cold hands pressing to Karma’s cold face. “What do you see?” She says. “What do you see?”
“The moon,” Karma immediately says. “Ah, nothing.”
“What does he see?” Gakushuu asks.
“He sees what happened to the moon,” Shal’ll says. “He sees. What happened to the moon?”
“It was blown up,” Karma says. “By a rat. Uh, a science experiment. It was blown up with antimatter.”
Shal’ll makes a series of high clicking sounds. “She wants to see you,” she says almost eagerly. “She wants to see you.”
“Who?”
She makes the same series of sounds. Was that a name?
“He’ll drown,” Gakushuu says.
“Hold onto him, hold onto him,” Shal’ll tells him.
“Who?” Karma repeats.
Gakushuu repeats the trilling noises.
Karma scowls at him.
“Karma can’t,” Gakushuu says, louder. “He’ll drown.”
“You tell her then, on his behalf,” Shal’ll says. “You. On his behalf. Tell her then, she wants to know what happened to the moon. She wants to know-”
“I will,” Gakushuu says quickly. “Karma, go home.” He pushes his belongings into Karma’s hands and jumps into the water. He's left staring after Gakushuu, befuddlement on his face.
“Our mother,” Ikeda offers. “There’s no anglicized form of her name.”
Nymphs are predominantly female, and they run on a matriarchy. Gakushuu and Ikeda are turned, thereby one of the only few male water nymphs. Mother is a loose term, especially when Gakushuu and Ikeda use it. They do because of courtesy, and because it'd be easier for everyone involved.
Gakushuu told him about her once. She’d been there when the oceans first formed. The trills and chirps that are her name change with the seasons - moon phases, because so does she. Ouch.
“Oh,” Karma says.
“Go home,” Ikeda says.
...--
“There’s no point in remapping things now,” Taka says. “There are too many fluctuations.”
“How far off are your readings?” Karma says.
Taka frowns at him. “You were supposed to die yesterday. Are you dead?”
“Um,” Karma says. “Yes and no.”
“Very,” Taka says.
“Shal’ll wanted him to meet (intelligible) yesterday,” Gakushuu says.
“You should have brought him,” Taka says. “Then my readings would have been right.”
They sit in silence for a bit.
“Is it working?” Gakushuu says.
There’s a divination spell sigil drawn onto a flat river stone Gakushuu picked up yesterday. “No,” Taka says.
“Aw,” Gakushuu sounds disappointed.
“I really hope the moon doesn’t collapse,” Taka says. “Many things rely on the lunar cycle.” He pauses. “Even tracking. My familiar won’t be able to find his way home.”
“Well we can’t fix the moon,” Karma says. He turns to Gakushuu. “Can we?”
“I certainly can’t,” Gakushuu says.
"I bet the fey can," Taka says.
Ah, the good old fey. For what little Karma knows about every magical folk, every other of said magical folk knows even less about the fey.
"Probably," Gakushuu agrees. He stares unblinkingly at Taka. Taka stares back.
"I told you, I'm not a changeling. My purple eyes are hereditary."
"Ugh," Taka says. "Maybe your dad is a changeling?"
"He is good with words," Karma agrees. "You, too, but to a lesser extent."
Gakushuu shoots him a glare. "Yeah, and I'm a changeling half-fey water nymph."
"And male," Karma tacks on.
“My father is not a changeling,” Gakushuu says loudly, chin tilted upwards. “Neither am I.”
“Sure,” Karma says. “Do you have grandparents?”
“Fuck you.”
(Gakuho was weird. He always looks at Karma like he’s trying too hard to solve a puzzle, and he looks at Gakushuu a little bit of something sad in his eyes, like he’s still trying to find something he knows he’d thrown out a long time ago. Maybe he knows, maybe he has a hunch.
They’ve had many strange interactions before, and it always feels like they’re having separate conversations.
Maybe it’s Karma’s fault. He’d been angry that day, and it’d slipped out of his mouth before he had time to bite his tongue. “Gakushuu’s got his big brother Ikeda looking out for him.” The look Gakuho had given him was chilling. He’d turned tail out of there then, and he keeps a bit more of an ear out for any mention of it.
So far, there’s nothing. It’s been months now.)
“I think I would know if my own father is anything but unremarkably human,” Gakushuu says. He’s still on the same thread with Taka.
Taka is insistent. “It’s the only lead we have!”
“It’s not a lead as much as it’s a red herring,” Gakushuu says, exasperated.
“Guys,” Karma says.
They turn to look at him.
“Ignoring the whole conspiracy theory on Gakuho being a fey - which if I’m being honest is kind of worth checking out - but we should focus.”
“Karma keeping us on track,” Gakushuu teases.
“Oh shut up,” Karma says. He has his notepad out. “If we were supposed to find fey, where do we start?”
“A perfect fairy ring,” Taka says. “It cannot be centered around a tree or pole or anything of the sort. Magic must be present in the soil, and even then possibly only one out of thousands could hold a gateway open. It also runs a risk of, well, you never being able to return to this world again.”
“It’s not feasible,” Gakushuu says.
Karma stares back down at his notepad, frowning.
“Oh, it’s raining again,” Taka says. He stands up to pull the curtains open. “It sure seems to be raining a lot recently.”
“Yeah,” Gakushuu says. He looks out into the storm, thinking, and Karma watches him.