NaruHina: Postscripts

Forty

Hello, can I request a drabble based on shamylicious-blog's naruhina mermaid au? I hope it's not much of a trouble.

(Notes: Images can be found at this address: 

https://shamylicious-blog.tumblr.com/tagged/mermay2021)

He kept his head underwater and waited for the light vibrations he knew were her footsteps. He could feel her walking slowly above him, on the wooden dock that hid him from her view. When she was finally directly over his hiding space, she stopped.

Feeling safe, Naruto quietly slipped under the surface of the water and swam a few yards away from her, making sure her eyes wouldn't be able to follow him. He swam until he got to his other hiding place, the one that gave him a clearer view of her.

She usually came to the dock at this time, the early mornings when she would stand and just watch the sunrise. When the weather was particularly fine, she would sit down, cross her legs, close her eyes, and then let the sun slowly bathe her face in its warmth.

And all the while, he watched her, hardly daring to breathe for fear of disturbing her.

He didn't know why, but she called to him, made him defy his parents' wishes. This beautiful creature with her long dark hair, her lavender eyes that gazed far into the horizon that seemed to be searching for something. This lovely human creature forbidden to his kind.

"Don't go near the surface," his father had warned. His stern face was frowning underneath the heavy gold crown atop his head.

His mother, the queen, had also pressed a hand to her chest and looked at him with worry. "Naruto, we don't mix with humans. Remember that."

But he couldn't stop coming here, not when she arrived in the mornings. She never touched the water, though. She only stood on the dock and waited and watched. And listened.

Still, he didn't know what she was waiting for because it never came.

She would search with her eyes, still looking out into the horizon, and he felt that she was praying, sending out a message over the seas.

Sometimes, though, he thought she could somehow sense him even though he knew she couldn't see him from behind his hiding place, these rocks that hid the scales of his lower half. The moss green color of the craggy rocks matched the iridescence of his fins and provided enough camouflage to hide him from human eyes.

Her eyes would turn in his direction, but he would never meet them because he would always hide. And wait with anxiety, hoping she would turn her gaze away from him again so that he could watch her some more.

When she did, he would feel the loss of it in his very soul, but still, a part of him would rejoice, always happy to have a chance to gaze at her beauty for longer periods of time.

The worst part of the mornings was when she would turn around and leave. He would hear her walk away from the dock, her shoes crunching the rough stones of the shore. And she would walk away just as quietly as she'd arrived.

He would watch until she disappeared from view. Then he would slip back underwater and go back to his parents, who would always look at him suspiciously and wonder at his absence.

But today, though, Naruto was feeling particularly bold, so he ventured further out of his hiding place, and in his haste to get a closer look at her, he dislodged some of the rocks underneath his hand, causing them to splash loudly on the surface of the water.

She heard it, and across the surface, across the ripples and the waves of the sea, her eyes finally found his and they met each other's gaze for the first time.

Then he heard the unmistakable sound of her voice—saying his name.

"Naruto."

And something burst within him as his heart beat once, and then pulsed throughout his body as memories suddenly flooded his mind.

They were hazy, but always, she was there. Always, this woman with dark hair and smiling eyes were by his side. Those hands, he could also feel, could suddenly touch her warm skin, could feel its silkiness underneath his fingers.

They seemed to be from a life lived long ago...

And he suddenly remembered now the whispered stories of the lost princess, the one who'd gone to join the humans and left the mermaids. The one who'd been punished by the gods for defying them. The one who'd been cursed to wander on land far away from her people.

The one he had loved a lifetime before, even before he'd been born.

There was a sudden splash, and then she was in the water, swimming towards him, still dressed in her human clothes.

But she was calling to him, straining to reach him.

Her voice reached him before she did. "I knew I'd find you again. I knew it."

And then she was there in his arms because he'd met her halfway, swam with all the power in his tail so that she wouldn't have to struggle to get to him.

"Now say my name, and the curse can be lifted," she said as she hugged him and cried happy tears.

She was a stranger to him. He'd never even talked to her, but she seemed to know who he was.

Naruto didn't know why, but he suddenly knew what to say. Something inside told him he wouldn't mistake it, that he was certain he knew her name.

"Hinata," he whispered.

And she laughed, a joyful hum she pressed to his chest.

And Naruto suddenly felt as if his life was complete.

"Hinata," he said again.

"You remembered me," she replied.

He smiled at her, at this creature that had pledged her love to him before, a love that weaved itself into the threads of time and bound them to each other.

"The memories never left," he murmured. "I only remembered when I finally looked into your eyes."

Those eyes, lavender and glinting with tears, looked directly into his. "My love," she whispered. "You've come back to me, after all these years."

Her lips met his and there it was again, the beat in his heart that pumped throughout his entire being and made him breathless.

Another splash in the water made them both look down to see her transformed into her true form.

She gave a happy laugh and a joyful flip of her tail, the scales shiny and purple, catching the sunlight that streamed through the water.

Hinata, the lost mermaid princess of legend, was finally going home.

And he was taking her back to where she really belonged.