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secret-engima:
Since I’m on a Mer!AU kick- everyone pls imagine Cor and Titus as mermen. Specifically, pls imagine Cor as a Fitey Beta fish mer, because I known Lionfish goes with the pun and are cool, but Beta are very Pretty and Smol and Fitey and it fits him.
No, the Lionfish is Titus, who is not a traitor and has never been since Niflheim feels no need to recruit “animals” to their cause. Titus does have scars from being a Niflheim captive though, and was possibly even kept in an Imperial exhibit for a while before escaping?
Anyway, Mer scales don’t need to match the scale colors of their fish counterparts, so Titus is a bright red lionfish with liquid silver stripes.
He may or may not still end up the unofficial Captain of Nyx’s ship somehow, but not at first. More likely he starts following Ardyn around after discovering these two disaster Mer who don’t know how to Mer and are covered in scars (he very probably thinks they’re mer who were raised in Nif captivity for the Emperor’s private aquariums) and because Nox and Ardyn are always hanging around Nyx’s ship, Titus is hanging out by extension and he eventually goes “I know I’m supposed to stay hidden from humans but LEVIATHAN’S TEETH these morons are going to get themselves killed without proper guidance” and that’s how the crew gets an angry growly lionfish merman clawing his way up the ship onto the deck to Yell At Nyx and Tredd for Doing The Dumb. Luche, under his mild hysteria that OH LOOK ANOTHER MYTHICAL CREATURE JUST CLIMBED ONTO HIS DECK, approves of what is clearly a safety lecture in another language. Maybe when it’s a mythical deadly sea creature doing the yelling they’ll actually LISTEN. (spoilers: they don’t)
Also on the roster of Mer in this AU are going to be Weskham (octopus mer, totally), the Amicitias (I’m honestly thinking shark mer? Maybe orca), and possibly Cid.
Cid is either a cranky mer who lives out in the marine trenches aka badlands of the mer kingdom OR he’s an equally cranky human shipwright who discovered that merfolk were not mythical or extinct and their royal prince of the time was an IDIOT and clearly needed someone to follow him around making sure he didn’t get his fool self killed by sharks or pirates of Nifs something.
Leaning toward human shipwright Cid tbh.
LC Mer tend to be long-finned (is that the term?) Koi fish, though sometimes they do look more like Betas. Ardyn 100% takes after the Beta fish vibes.
Insomnia is the Atlantis of this AU, but instead of sinking as an accident or a punishment, it was intentionally sunk by one of the ancient Kings of Lucii long, long ago with the help of Leviathan, who also turned the entire population into Merfolk thereafter, which is why all merfolk have some form of magic, but LC magic is still special. Their magic originally came from Bahamut, not Leviathan.
Also also Oracles are also merfolk and Tenebrae was a kingdom of mixed humans and mer before the Nifs Happened and now all the Tenebraen Mer have been displaced to Insomnia.
Aulea lives in this AU Because I Said So.
Okay I think I’m done rambling for now.
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secret_engima okay, but I REALLY LIKE THIS AU-
Imagine the Furia as descendants of merfolk that fell in love with humans, hence all the persistent mer traditions that are still in their Clan.
Imagine, every once in a while, all those recessive mer genes land in a particular Furia, resulting in a merman or mermaid born to humans but only appearing at two or three years old when their magic manifests.
(Imagine half-mer half-humans who can switch between mer and human shape. Imagine some of the Furia Clan having a MASSIVE secret that only the Arra and Lazarus Clans are aware of, because they are allies and they’ve helped certain Furia HIDE for CENTURIES.)
(IMAGINE PRETTY BETTA-FISH MER!TREDD! Who NEVER sings despite having the fish-scale tattoos of a Furia TideSinger on his throat because he can’t NOT sing REALLY WELL-)
Like, I don’t even know if this fits in this AU, but still, IMAGINE.
.
Also, I totally see Luna and Ravus as White Koi, where the LCs are usually Black Koi (which Gold and Blue highlights respectively).
a_world_in_greyOh my word YES THIS I WAS GENUINELY CONTEMPLATING THIS AND NOW YOU’VE SET OFF A RAMBLE BUCKLE UP.
It is super SUPER rare for a Furia to be that strong of a throwback to gain a tail, but there are … lesser throwbacks. Ones born with teeth too sharp or eyes that reflect light in the darkness or ones who can dive underwater and not come up for air for HOURS, but that is the extent of their oddities. A quirk, a flicker. All the Clans know the legends that Furia were once close Clans with merfolk, and even mated with them, so oddities like that are politely ignored and dismissed as throwbacks to the ancient bloods.
But then there are some Furia, a bare handful, who are More. They are rare in a generation, and having even one be born in the space of three generations is cause of surprise and celebrations, and there have never been more than five in the Clan at a time (a clan numbering in the low thousands mind you). But, they exist.
Tredd exists.
Tredd exists and when he was two and learning to sing the learning songs he accidentally put his mother to sleep and his father to a doze, when he was two he became obsessed with swimming, even more than is typical for Furia, when he was two he started a bad habit of scratching at his legs, insisting they itched even though the healers found nothing wrong. He was too young to notice the worried, excited looks of the Elders and his parents, who suddenly he was never alone outside the house for even a moment, how when Clans who were not Lazarus or Arra came to visit he was discreetly shuffled off to play out of sight in one of the hidden coves.
When he was three and playing with Luche and Axis, his new already-best-friends he’d known for maybe two months now, he splashed into the water and gasped as his legs burned.
The first transformation is always the hardest.
Luche and Axis screamed for the adults, not sure what else to do, not wanting to leave Tredd alone long enough to get help, only able to watch as Tredd writhed and gasped breathlessly, as his legs glowed bright with magic that then turned into muscle and scale and long, flowing fins, a tail at least twice as long as his human legs, beautiful and glittering like sunset oranges and dark ocean blues.
When the adults came, Tredd was shivering in the shallows, staring at his tail with wide, frightened eyes.
Luche and Axis rarely left his side after that incident, and it was only when they were older (when Tredd had mastered his ability to Change or suppress the Change) that they started to stray from being glued at the hip.
And Tredd is not a half-blood, born of a mer and a human, so Mer magic (transformation especially) isn’t EASY for him. But he’s used to the low burn of pain when he Changes, he’s come to terms with the fact he cannot sing for his crew no matter how he wants to because if he sings his magic will come out and he is not pure blooded enough to control how MUCH magic will come from his words. He bears the Tidesinger tattoo with pride even though he only sings for Axis and Luche and his own clan. He swallows the instincts that sometimes scream in his head and sometimes only whisper (Pod, his heart says as he sails on the Stormheart, my Pod mine-mine-mine). He is the only one in his generation so far (though the Elders whisper over one of his baby cousins, only a year old and already her babbling voice has hints of magic in it) and since merfolk are extinct, Tredd bears the heavy, secret burden of being their last legacy. Of learning what fragmented bits of language and legend have been preserved, of knowing the Old Ways and traditions and where they came from (why kissing on the lips was never, ever done outside marriage, why their dances are comprised of spins and bows and long silk scarves that look almost like fins).
And then Nyx gets swept overboard in the middle of a battle, in the middle of a STORM, and Tredd doesn’t know until it is far too late. He searches anyway, dives into the water and Changes, not caring if his crew (his Pod) sees or doesn’t see in their panic, but he cannot find her anywhere. He only finds her kukri, buried in the planks on the ship’s side like she had tried to catch herself with it and failed.
Then, two weeks later, after mourning and searching and praying, she comes back with Axis on her heels. Axis who won’t meet his eyes.
Axis who knew that two pureblooded merfolk existed and didn’t tell him.
And now Nyx is MARRIED TO ONE.
Tredd is going to strangle someone. At least once he’s sure the two pureblooded mer (King Mer, Alphas of Alphas and ruler of the Pods, Dragon Blessed he can just tell down to his bones when they look at him) won’t tear him apart the moment they figure out he’s a mixed blood and not a pure human.
Also also on a side note the Oracles are absolutely white and gold koi. Absolutely. :DDD
secret_engima a_world_in_greyOkay. I am finally in a position where I can respond to this. In short - I love this idea so much. Just - Nox and Ardyn, thrown into a different world, into different bodies (It’s actually probably less jarring for Ardyn then it is for Nox - Ardyn, after all, has experience in being at least partially not-human, and is just glad that he doesn’t have the Scourge anymore). And - there’s so much potential for angst there that I’m leaving unsaid, but instead -
Instead, I’d like to think that there’s something like joy beneath the confusion. This - this is something new. This is a new path, this is a new world that is completely open for them to explore. Seaweed forests, the beckoning wonder of a swarm of fish darting by and around them like a shower of silver arrows, the sheer exhilaration of an ascent that gives way to sun and sky and light. They don’t have to be kings or princes here. They don’t have to be heroes or villains. This is - new. The future unwritten. Something they can both learn, together.
…and of course it isn’t the almost-paradise that they enjoyed for the first few, naive months. Of course there is an Empire, and they are people struggling, and they do what they can. Rather then the ‘canon’ Noe-verse tendency of wrecking Imperial bases, I’d imagine that Nox and Ardyn make a hobby of sinking Imperial Ships, Imperial Fleets - it’s satisfying in a way that appeals to both of them.
…also. Ardyn would totally explore the wrecks of sunken ships for treasure. Just because.
And Titus! I love this so much, Titus as an escapee from an Imperial Lab, Titus somehow stumbling across these two Royal Mer who don’t know how to Mer. ARRGH. How is this his problem - but he’s not enough of a bastard to just leave them in the lurch like that, plus - the scars. The utter ignorance of even the simplest things of their own culture - Titus is wrong about the origin thereof, but he’s dead on in recognizing the trauma/PTSD that these two are carrying.
(He’s also. Incredulous but utterly resigned to the fact that Nox got married by accident to someone he’d known less then a month.)
How did Titus stumble across these two hapless mer? And how did everyone involved react - Ardyn and Nox would have been - both happy to meet another Mer, finally, someone who speaks their language, who can explain things, and a bit - overwhelmed at the verification that there is a greater Mer society that they know absolutely nothing about. (Give Ardyn a minute to come to terms with it, and he’ll gleefully start with All The Questions - this is something New, and very INTERESTING!). Meanwhile, the Galahdians are probably freaking out - a Mer! ANOTHER Mer! Who actually speaks Common, can serve as an interpreter, and who is - why is he adopting them. What, no, how did he get elected Captain of their ship?! Can he do that?! (Apparently, he can Do That.)
…also, I totally head canon that the three full-blood Mer totally knew about Tredd at first sight. And have been politely keeping quiet about it until Tredd choses to reveal himself to them - it’s basic courtesy, if nothing else.
And Insomnia. Oh, Insomnia. I just - love the idea of Insomnia as an underwater city. A city that is both familiar an alien in turns to Nox and Ardyn - there are familiar sights turned unfamiliar. It is a city in three dimensions, with open roadways and buildings set in strange geometries, with carefully tended coral gardens and parks of seaweed and brightly-colored reefs. Where there is no Wall, but there is a Shimmer - a Shimmer that wards the Mer from sight of the Upper World, a Shimmer bound not to a bloodline but to the Sea. To split blood and desperate Need - once upon a time, the Mer of the Sea traded with the people of the land, with island-formed Accordo - but war came, and now those times are less then memories.
(But time and tides change, and what was sunk may once more rise - and that which is land may give itself once more to the waters.)
…further head canon that Regis is the first King in several centuries to have a Complete Armiger, incorporating all the weapons of his ancestors, and not just those whose tombs were placed beneath the waves once the sea-change took them. Mainly because Cid, lovely, hard suffering man that he is, carted the idiotic mer around in the back of his truck in a half-full bathtub specifically so said dumbass Mer could get within Magic-Range of the Tombs of his Ancestors. (Regis thought it was fascinating. Everyone else - less so.)
…everyone sees Ardyn and Nox’s complete Armigers and thinks that Niflheim specifically tried to make them gather all of said weapons in order to make use of said Mers as living weapons.
hamelin_born a_world_in_greySO glad you’re enjoying this because I’m having a blast. XD
Alll this yesssssss. Once the panic wears off a bit it’s just- it’s so fascinating. It’s a whole new world for them, one without ANY of the expectations or pressures of the old one (at first anyway). I just- I love the thought of Nox and Ardyn exploring the ocean, marveling over the things they’ve never seen in their old lives, never known could be so BEAUTIFUL.
And yes, Ardyn 100% explores sunken ships for treasure. He Has All The Shiny Things. XD
But then they discover Niflheim’s fleet. And yes the ships are wood and canvas rather than metal that flies, but it’s still NIFLHEIM and a few days of observation proves that Yeah It’s The Same Nasty as Old Niflheim. And so they strike. It’s instinct, it’s cathartic. And little wooden ships are in no way prepared for an armiger to tear through the keel. >:D
Titus baby! And Titus didn’t escape an imperial lab (they don’t have those in this verse) but he DID escape a glorified aquarium full of “exotic” sea life where he was often forced to fight Big Nasty Sea Beasts for the amusement of the Emperor. So yea, scars and issues. Still working out HOW he meets them but I suspect he’s gonna run into them by accident when they’re following the Stormheart around. He oscillates wildly between WAYWARD ROYAL MERS?? and YOU’RE FOLLOWING HUMANS AROUND????? to “oh no these are all my idiots now aren’t they”.
ALSO.
There’s a language barrier for Nox and Ardyn and Titus too. >:D Not a complete one, not like with the humans. But the Kings Speech they know was derived by land dwelling Insomnians, and Insomnia sank a LONG time ago. To Titus it’s like they ARE speaking mer, but a weird, heavily accented, nigh-intelligible version of it that misses a lot of common phrases and cues (and sub-tones which is a Thing I like to mess with in non-human languages and will elaborate on some other time). So Titus is just- he’s horrified. He comes to the conclusion that these two were taken at VERY young ages. That Nox was possibly BORN in captivity and Ardyn was the one to teach him what warped versions of the language he could recall after being taken away at a young age and only having human languages (muffled by glass and cruelty) to learn from afterward. Aka Titus is a Scream.
And then he gets attached to the Stormheart’s crew as well as the mer idiots following it and OH LOOK HE’S CAPTAIN NOW.
(No one knows how he got elected, but they suspect it had something to do with a drinking night gone wrong, a game of poker, and Luche betting his Captaincy because he honestly doesn’t want to be Captain and wanted to sucker someone else into it for a change, but nobody was expecting Titus to WIN).
Hmmm Titus will know about Tredd in an instant, but Nox and Ardyn … they have no frame of reference? They’ll sense he has magic sure, but they won’t connect that to “can shapeshift into a merman” until he actually shows them and then they’ll be amazed and delighted (and curious, can they do that too or is that a mixed blood thing?)
Insomnia. Insomnia is gonna be so strange and exotic yet familiar to them. An underwater CITY. And the Wall is still a Wall, can still protect from physical threats, but mostly it’s meant to hide them from sight and smell and hearing, so small stuff like minor predators are still a risk (big things like sea monsters just ping right off the Wall though).
*slaps table* ADOPTING THIS NOW. Regis is the first King in centuries, since the sinking of Insomnia, to have a full armiger. And Cid didn’t have a truck in this AU because this world doesn’t have that level of technology but he DOES have a houseboat that can sail pretty far up river, a wagon that he built with a steel tub/basin for a bottom, two chocobos to pull it, and an eager mer prince who is 100% down to stuff his armiger full of buckets of water to make sure he, Clarus, and Weskham don’t dry out in the cramped wagon tub.
Also Cor was a Smirk™ the entire time because he could use his human form to sit up front with Cid rather than in the cramped wagon tub (that was also stuffy because Cid had to cover it with canvas to keep anyone from looking inside and seeing three irritable mer teens/young adults inside.
Ohhhhh they also might think Niflheim crafted different weapons to supplement the ones they couldn’t reach underwater/didn’t know about. Because if you think about it, some of the canon weapons wouldn’t make any sense for a mer. The Rogue’s Shuriken for one, and possibly the Crossbow of the Clever depending how much oomph it has to fight the drag water would put on the bolts.
But yeah, so many theories on what Niflheim wanted with the two of them (and how they GOT the two of them).
….Ardyn probably is gonna have to weave a cover story about how he was captured first when he was young, but later his Dear Sibling was captured sometime after having a fling with Regis (possibly that she was caught trying to find him and free him?) and then died in captivity, so the cover story is that Nox really WAS raised in captivity by Ardyn until he and Ardyn managed to escape. Which handily explains how neither of them have ANY IDEA HOW TO MER.
Regis is going to be h o r r i f i e d.
Ardyn’s cover story about his dear sibling isn’t going to hold up to a lot of questioning, being shaky as all hell.
On a related note, did you know some fish spontaneously change sex when the conditions are right?
Basically, everyone smiles and nods when Ardyn talks about his ‘dear sibling’, and swim away convinced Ardyn is Mor’s bastard child, Nox is Ardyn’s kid, and the trauma of being forced to carry a kid fucked Ardyn up so bad he can only function by pretending Nox is his nephew.
#Mer!Nox verse#worldbuilding#if we wanna make it extra terrible#people might assume Nox is *still* Regis’ kid via Creepy Experiments#ffxv#sexual abuse cw
lectorelWell, that just took a darker turn left. It is a very intriguing thought though - although I like the idea of Nox being unmistakably Regis’s kid, one way or another.
Ardyn learned long ago that if you give someone the bare bones of a story for them to expand upon as they will and come up with their own conclusions, it’s much easier to sell to them. More then that, it will be more internally consistent, and they won’t think to look beyond it - the lies people tell to themselves are the lies they question least.
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