"Liam! The pickles are out of stock!"
"Aye, I see that, Maria, I'll get some new ones on the shelves in a moment."
Liam didn't dislike working in his sister's general store. It was a solid living, and easy enough to do. He wished he was a little more than the restocking boy though. Why couldn't he work the register like Maria? He was good with people, wasn't he? Certainly outgoing, and everyone liked him. So what if Maria didn't think his idea of 'freebies' was a good one?
"That's the last of them," he said, arranging the pickle jars from the back onto the shelf, "Anything else running low?"
"We've got a shipment of sardines at the docks I need you to pick up," Maria rushed past him. Always busy, Maria was. Her face was almost as red as her hair most of the time, her cheeks flushed from jogging everywhere she went. Liam was rather envious of her hair as a child. Even now he wished his own wasn't quite so orangey brown and a little more crimsony auburn.
"It'll be past my shift by the time I get back," Liam told her.
"Congratulations, you can tell the time. You'll have all of tomorrow to putz about, you can spare an extra hour of doing things for the store."
Liam took his apron off and hung it up, shrugging, "Fair point. Anything else you want from the docks while I'm there?"
"The store doesn't need anything else right now, we just restocked on the-"
"I mean for yourself, Maria."
"Myself?"
"I hear there's some lovely flowers blooming on the sides of the road there. Bright blue ones, they'd look nice in your hair."
"Oh," she said, pausing, and nodding, "If you find any you can bring them. But don't pluck too many!"
Liam bent down to kiss his big sister on the forehead before he left, "Of course. I'm off, then."
"Be safe!"
Blueport wasn't the biggest town along the coast. It wasn't the smallest either, but it was close. Most everyone knew each other, and those who didn't definitely knew Liam. He was almost the town mascot, or a stray dog that nobody had the heart to really shoo away. Sure, there were some people who didn't like him, but they were the kind of people who didnt like anybody.
Liam always walked on the edge of the road, where it shifted from cobblestone to dirt and grass and sand. He didn't own shoes, so it was gentler on his feet after a long day of rushing around on hard wood floors. He hummed a tune to himself while he walked from the center of town to the docks.
Paul, the fisherman, was a large and portly man. He was actually one of the tallest men in the village, and his round face was always smiling. He and Liam got along great. He was filling up a basket with the store's order of sardines when Liam found him by the docks.
"Ho, young man!" Paul said with a smile, "Been some time since I've gotten to see you."
Liam pat him on the back, chuckling softly, "You look the same as ever, my friend."
"I wish I could say the same to you! Look at your skin, boy- the sun hasn't kissed it in many weeks, has it?"
"Unfortunately I haven't had the time to go outside in the sun, with all the work I've been doing," Liam said.
"You ought to make time. It does a man good."
Paul tied the lid to the basket and helped Liam haul it up onto his shoulders.
"Not too heavy for you?" He asked.
"I'm not a child anymore," Liam said, "I should be able to make it home before collapsing from exhaustion."
"You joke, but the smell alone may overtake you," Paul laughed.
Paul had a contagious, big belly laugh that brought a smile to any face. People would sometimes say he just asked the fish nicely, and they all jumped into his net. Liam had gone fishing with him before, so he knew this wasn't true. But Paul's optimism was a definite contributor to his fishing skill.
"Why not take the beach route home?" Paul said, "You can take the fish to the store in the morning, and can pick fresh flowers for your lovely sister on the way."
"You know me too well," Liam chuckled, "I was planning on that."
"Well now you have an excuse, that being I told you to," Paul ushered him towards the beach, "Give Maria a hug from me!"
"Will do, big guy."
The sand felt amazing beneath his feet. Liam kept the basket of fish on his shoulder, focusing on not losing balance. He used his toes to pluck a few flowers and toss them up to his hand, which he used to put them behind his ear and in his hair. He would topple over if he tried to bend down with such a heavy load on his head.
As the sun went lower on the horizon Liam noticed something ahead on the beach. It was rather large, like a clump of seaweed the size of two- no, three full grown men. Resources like that rarely washed up on this beach without getting snatched up by seagulls.
"If I can get some of that home, we could stew it for dinner..!" He muttered to himself, picking up the pace.
He set the basket down gently before approaching the seaweed. His eager jog slowed for a moment, however, when he noticed something rather alarming. Liam was not an educated man, but he was fairly certain seaweed wasn't supposed to breathe like that. He rushed up and brushed some strands of the stuff aside, pulling it away from what it had been covering.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfxqfG9DSQz
It's flesh was pale, almost sickly. It had a long mane of thick black hair, slick and tangled with seaweed. It's upper half was like that of an absolutely massive man, but the lower half...well, Liam couldn't really find a lower half. It sort of merged with the seaweed, like an octopus or jellyfish. There was a thick, bluish substance oozing from a few wounds on the man's back.
Liam muttered a couple curses and rushed to the water, scooping up a handful and bringing it over to splash on the man's injuries. The salt would hurt, but it also cleaned the wounds. He started tearing his shirt to make bandages.
The man stirred while Liam was bandaging him up, a low rumble coming from deep within his chest. He opened his eyes, the pupils of which were so huge it was almost all Liam could see. They contracted severely when Liam made eye contact, and the man looked away.
"I'll get you back in the water in a minute," Liam said, "Or I'll try anyway. You're rather big. I just need to finish this up first."
He kept tying the bandages, hoping they wouldn't fare too badly underwater, "You're one of them seabeasts, aren't you? Probably from real deep from the size of you. What's your name?"
The man stared at him for a long moment, then let out a small rumbling noise from the back of his throat. Liam stared back, tilting his head to the side a bit.
"...guess you can't talk the way I can. Oh well! I'm gonna try and roll you back into the water now, okay?"
He took a few breaths and pushed the seabeast in the chest, rolling him partially over. He was...rather heavy.
The seabeast seemed to somewhat understand what Liam was trying to do, so used his own little strength to help him. Working together, they managed to get him to the surf.
"There now! I don't know what hurt you, but if it was one of us I do apologi-"
Liam paused, hearing a flick of movement and a splash of water. He saw a dark blue under the water zooming quickly away from him.
"...and you're gone. Well. Okay then. Back to my fish."
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