Author's note: Alright this was just an idea I came up with a while ago. It is actually an idea that I had (though slightly modified) for an actual novel that I want to write. I just didn't know how to do it. I didn't really know how to write it so I am practicing by turning it into a FMA AU fic so that I could practice writing about mermaids. It is quite different from the novel that I wanted to write but not by much. This is just practice so I am kind of experimenting with it and trying to figure out where my novel will want to go exactly even though I have the basic plot line down. Please review! I would like any suggestions to writing he plot of my book as I can get (though I dont think it will ever be published)

A Not So Little Fish

Chapter One

Surface Bound

It didn't used to be like this, Roy sighed as he hauled his duffle bag higher on his shoulders and walked down through the busy docks. Fishermen swarmed the place with cages and new catches ready to set sail to bring in more and more by the king's order. Instead of fishing traps and lines, the docks used to be brewing with trade and merchants. Instead of blood of the catch, the docks used to be soaked with gold. Amestris wasn't always like this, and neither was Roy. Roy used to work for the Royal navy. He used to be a high standing Colonel before the King's son died. They used to protect the waters from pirates, from invaders, but now they dropped their cannons and were armed with fishing lines when the navy was disbanded. They were now on the hunt for merpeople.

When the navy started to disperse, Roy feared the day when his unit would be disbanded. Many soldiers were sent out of the Royal Guard to the streets with no job, no food, and no pride left to work with. More and more soldiers had to fight to jobs on the harbor or in nearby towns in fear of being counted with the starving bums lying around on the street. They used to be prideful people who protected the nation and their king but now the country has changed and instead of navymen they need fishermen. And the time soon came that Roy's fears had become a reality; his unit was disbanded.

Roy had to pick up a job on one of the fishing ships. He was going to be checking the cages they dropped in the water for merfolk instead of patrolling the waters he vowed to protect when he was sworn in as his crew's commanding officer. Yet the people of Amestris imagined the merpeople as the enemy under the waters, so in a sense Roy was still keeping his vows but unfortunately it was in a new nature. He didn't like fighting this senseless battle as he would have rather been shoving pirates off their ports and blasting Drachmans back to the icebergs where they came from. There was no victory from fishing fore merfolk aside from having clear waters to sail in and even then your boat could be topsided by a rather unforgiving wave.

Roy boarded the large ship which was once his own but now was suited for hauling traps. He was pushed and shoved by the crowded crew as they brought on supplies and tanks for their catches to be stored in. It was a rather messy deal and Roy didn't like the disorganised manner of it. Orders were being shouted out from everywhere instead of just one and it was hard to listen to all voices at once. Suddenly Roy felt a rough shove from behind him and he stumbled forward nearly dropping his bag.

"Either move or get run over," he heard a harsh voice scold him. He looked up to see a blonde haired woman behind him, carrying coils of rope over her shoulder and a harpoon in her hand. It looked rather sharp and the glare in the woman's eye made her seem like she was rather keen in running him through with it.

"Okay, okay," he muttered as he took a few steps back from her. She raised her eyebrows curiously as if she was watching an ant scurrying around. Her eyes seemed to go right through him and Roy felt very uncomfortable. However, suddenly they seemed to soften and the dirty greasy woman before him gave a rough smile.

"You're from the navy aren't you?" She asked. Roy nodded his head and she smirked. "I just heard the last unit got disbanded. You were in it?"

"Yes, Colonel Roy Mustang, I was the commander-"

"Yeah but not anymore sir," she interrupted him. "You aren't commander of anything but that rope over there. I heard you were our new hauler."

"That's correct," Roy grumbled as he felt himself sink even lower into the depths of society. He lost his rank, his power, and his paycheck. If he lost anymore he would be a bum on the street.

"Don't worry sir, you will get the hang of it. It took me a while to get used to the difference as well," she said.

"And you are?"

"Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, my unit was disbanded two years ago, but now I am the wrangler. I make sure that our catch doesn't bite." Roy looked at the harpoon again and realised what it was for now. If merpeople really were so dangerous that they needed to be using that thing, Roy was debating whether or not to take his chances with finding a job on land.

"Are merpeople really that vicious?" Roy asked her as she started to walk across the deck to store her things. She seemed to falter with his question as she looked up at him.

"Do you mean you never saw one before, sir?" She asked.

"No, the waters for my fleet were all clear except for pirates and Drachmans. They were our concern-"

"Well, they aren't either of those," Riza cut him off. "We don't really know what they are aside from being half fish. This isn't war, it's just a job. We don't take sides, we just work." Roy frowned as she didn't answer his question at all. There was a look in her eye that he didn't quite catch and he didn't feel like understanding. There seemed to be a dread about the entire ship that he never noticed coming in.

He knew that this wasn't war, though some people forgot that. It was the mermaids who killed the King's son right before his coronation. There weren't many people in the nation who had hated the royal family so all collectively they wanted to see their murderers brought to justice whether it be through court or through a fishing hook. This wasn't war, it was just a job the king had set the country out to do and everyone supported him like it was his new campaign. There wasn't any real side to it.

Suddenly he heard a shout from above him and he looked up to see the captain beaming down at him with a rather superficial grin from the quarter deck. Hawkeye busied herself as she walked off to haul more supplies on deck, without much of a backwards glance to him.

"Ahh, Mr. Mustang, I didn't think you would show up," the stiff voice of the captain growled at him. Roy looked up towards the stern to see the old grey haired man grinning at him. He looked rather to be a businessman, which Roy knew that he once was as he used to be the General of the Naval fleet, but he had now hardened over the years with his early dismissal and General Raven now was just the Captain.

"Well it is either show up to this dung heap or not eat," Roy muttered under his breath so that the Captain couldn't hear. The man stumbled down the steps from the quarterdeck and over to him, the men of the crew dodging him as they hefted long coils of rope over their blistered and calloused hands. They were quite an ugly crew from what he saw and very few of them looked rather inviting other than the former Lieutenant.

"Well, Mustang, I could see that you are a bit new to how we work here, being the last ship since the incident to be disbanded you are probably still used to the order of the navy," the man started, hitting Roy's feelings right on the nose. "But you will get used to it. Just don't get in anyone's way and you will be fine. All you are doing is going to be pulling the cages up to the deck. The man that you replaced got his hands caught in the rope and… well…. Let's just not do that."

"Yes sir, I know what to do," Roy said, his gut dropping as he realised that the person who had his job was either dead or brutally injured. What a story to start off your voyage. Raven smiled superficially and patted him on the back roughly.

"You got this then. Let's just hope for a smooth sailing and a good catch. Just as a warning, those merfolk, when they hit the deck they will be fighting. Do not get in the way. My men know how to take care of them."

"Sir, are they really that aggressive?" Roy asked him, having his question be disregarded by Riza. The man frowned and solemnly nodded his head.

"Yes. They are now just like they were before. You know, I was on that ship when one of those bastards drowned the Prince," the man told him, a deadly look in his eye. "They are faster than cannons, almost like bullets coming out of the water. They jumped out of the water and pulled over half of the men overboard drowning them if they didn't skewer them first with their coral spears. It was a bloodfest, the worse I seen. But when the King set out that order for the merpeople, I can tell you seeing that was all the fuel I need to take them down. You do not want to be the ones who corner a merperson, but it is better than being the ones cornered." Roy felt even weaker than before. He could just picture the fins of merpeople jumping out of the water like vicious sharks, latching on and taking their victims under. Roy felt like Riza was right. He couldn't compare them to any Drachman or pirate. He couldn't compare them to anything.

"Don't worry, Mustang," Raven chuckled, his aura changing rapidly. "We got them beasts on the run. Once we catch the bastards it is all smooth sailing. Now you should probably go below deck. We don't need half of the crew until it's time to haul in the cage but then it gets chaotic. Try to stay out of trouble because I promise trouble won't stay away from you."

…..

Alphonse sprinted through the halls of the castle apologising to the many housekeepers he ran into on his way. He was making his way to the war room where he knew his father was. The King spent most of his time in there even though Amestris wasn't in any direct war against any of their neighboring countries. However, Alphonse feared that they might be soon. The King was having a meeting with the Generals all of whom were sitting on the edge of their seats like everyone else in the kingdom wondering what the King's next move was. Alphonse knew that he needed to be there. Though he was no General, though he was no King, he was a prince, the 2nd of the King's family yet the heir to the throne. He at least wanted to try and stop his father from the mistake he knew was about to happen; the disbanding of the last naval unit.

As he rounded the last corner he saw a couple of their guards closing the large oak doors to the war room and he hollered out to them to stop. They faltered a minute as they watched the Prince of all people jet down the hallway towards them. Before they could say anything against him, Alphonse squeezed through the crack in the door and gave a small apology to the guards that he had passed. He stumbled into the room before the doors were locked behind him.

The room had a large round table in the center of it and maps hung around every wall. It was a rather intricate room that overlooked the harbor through large sunshine filled glass windows. Alphonse remembered playing in there when he was little, before he had any responsibilities as prince like schooling and lessons. He would often run around and spin the large delicate globe around that sat in the corner of the room until his father kicked him out for disturbing his studies.

A group of elderly men, including his father circled the table and were quietly discussing their next plans. It was quieter than Alphonse expected a war room to be but he guessed it was just because he never experienced one in the heighth of war.

"We need to focus on economic relief. We need to restore trade in the harbor or else our citizens would surely starve-"

"No, we need to recruit more people into our army. The soldiers up in Briggs have been needing new recruits in order to help defend our land borders. It would provide more jobs and opportunities to the poor."

"There were plenty of jobs before. If the homeless are too lazy to get jobs let them move to the country and become farmers. It is what this country needs more of, less fish more vegetables."

"No," the King said, a dull look in his eyes. Alphonse had never seen his father really smile before. He always seemed to have a frown on his face. He always seemed to be angry, but he was determined which he guessed was the sum of it. He was too young when his mother died to remember her and it was the same for his brother. He didn't know how it impacted his father because he never really knew him before the aftermaths of their deaths. But he could imagine him to be less angry, less revengeful, and more caring. He imagined him to actually have something resembling happiness shining in his golden eyes instead of just regret. "We need to disband the navy all together, put more people out into the sea. If we get more ships there can be more crews to provide jobs and fight those devils under the sea."

"Sir, there is only so much water that the ships can fish in. The boats are already fighting for their trapping grounds as it is," a General argued stating the obvious. With the disbanding of the navy unit over the course of the last few years. The fishing boats have just increased to compensate. The waters were sprung with cages set to catch fish or merpeople and there was barely room for anything else. People were fighting over who got to trap where as there wasn't enough room for all of the boats to work. Not only that but Alphonse had noticed that there was just too much fish being hauled in as a result. Over half of it wasn't eaten and the rotten piles of meat just left a stench in the city streets that you couldn't avoid. Even though there was only one more unit left in the Navy if they disbanded it there would just be more pressure than there already was.

"Might I have a word?" Alphonse said nervously as he walked a bit more into the room. Heads looked up at him curiously, a bit surprised that he was there at all. King Hohenheim turned around in utter shock to see him standing there. Hohenheim didn't like Alphonse partaking in any of the politics of the nation. In fact, he didn't like him taking his responsibilities at all. All Alphonse wanted to do was help his father run the nation and help it grow into a better place, one with less starvation, with more wealth and more strength. He wanted the nation to return to what it once was, the one he read about in the history books and heard about from the citizens, the nation Ametris was before his brother died, but his father wouldn't allow him even to take the reigns a little bit and he knew that stepping into a war room like this was something that was above and beyond a simple adolescent rebellion. His father looked furious at him for even thinking about entering the room, for even imagining to take part in the kingdom he would one day have to rule, but Alphonse wanted to try. He was 15 after all. He was to be coronated at age 16 like was tradition in the kingdom. If he didn't get used to the duties of a king he wouldnt be ready when the time came.

"If we restore the Royal Navy to its previous state, the sailors who are flooding the streets without jobs will be restored to their previous occupations. They will be earning a pay check and they will be contributing to the economy in the purchasing of goods. If we restore the navy, the ships can protect trade around Amestris's harbors and seas from Pirates and trade routes can be restored bringing in more merchants from outside the kingdom to boost the revenue that we collect. The Navy could also help protect us from the powers of Drachma. Though they have a weak navy and we have nothing to fear from them but their land soldiers, if we have a navy we would be able to attack them by land and by sea incase they plan to invade," Alphonse told them though the Generals were a little too dumbfounded to really pay attention to him. His father was still glaring at him as he listened to his proposal, hating it more and more because it went against his plans. However after a moment of digesting, the Generals found the suggestion quite appealing as they nodded their heads to it and discussed it a little further in hushed voices.

"Where did you learn all of this, young Prince?" One of them, General Edison, asked him finally after moments of critical thinking.

"I took several classes in economics from the tutors that Father gave me-"

"I don't think we saw you in here before. It is definitely a good notion you got there," another stated. Alphonse smiled weakly and nodded his head in acceptance to it however his father closed his eyes, a huff of aggravation quite evidently seeping out of him.

"We don't have anything to worry about in the sea from Drachma. The soldiers of the navy could help in the army, farm crops in land, or help the town. The sea isn't the only job they need to have. Disbanding the navy will give more sea to the fishermen to use and it will help defeat our merpeople infestation faster and get them out of the way making our waters safe," Hohenheim growled at him, posing his direct confliction to his solution.

"Father," Alphonse started again. "If we disband the last of the navy, there is nothing standing in the way of this country and sure destruction. Either economically or by outside forces." The Generals looked back and forth between each other and muttered back and forth trying to decide which of the royalty's opinions they liked better or was more practical. However his father didn't want any part of the discussion.

"Alphonse," the King finally stated after a long moment of silence. Alphonse perked up at the sound of his name and he felt himself holding his breath in fear of what he might say next. "Might I talk to you outside?" He asked, shooting an arrow through his hopes. The man got up and with a gentle yet firm hand lead his son outside of the war room, leaving the Generals to discuss the country's affairs by themselves. Alphonse felt a pit in his gut start to grow and he knew that he made a mistake for ever stepping foot in there. Not only did he disobey his father but he probably embarrassed him in front of all of the Generals.

"Dad-"

"Alphonse," Hohenheim sighed, the sound of his disappointment riding strong in his voice. Alphonse frowned as he looked up at him, their golden eyes meeting for what seemed like the first time in ages. "I am disbanding the navy for the betterment of the country, for the safety of the citizens. Once those dreaded creatures are out of the water we would be free from fearing the ocean we sail in. By sending more people out to hunt those blasted merpeople-"

"Dad, the merpeople haven't attacked a ship in over four years. We don't have nothing to fear but the stories that keep spreading around. I know that you are upset about what happened to brother but-"

"It wasn't an accident Alphonse, it was a direct attack on the royal family. I will not have it that creatures from the deep are attacking our family, our nation like this-"

"But dad this isn't the way to go about it-"

"Once the ocean is free, our navy ships can sail free, but until then, my son's killer needs to be found."

"Dad-"

"Alphonse!" Hohenheim argued cutting the boy's retort off before it even began. Alphonse frowned as he closed his mouth, the anger in his father's voice growing more than it ever did. "I don't want you interfering in my line of work. You obviously don't know anything yet about politics. I know what is best for the country-"

"Dad, I don't know because you will never let me try! I am 15 and soon I will be of age to accept the throne however you aren't letting me learn and try to become a king-"

"Alphonse, you won't need to be king until a long while-"

"A year dad-"

"You don't need to worry about this. You don't need to worry about any of this. I will take care of it-"

"No you won't dad. You are running this country on a grudge, you are running my life out of a grudge that you have against the creature that killed my brother. You are tearing everything apart. You don't even see the state the country is in because you are obsessed. You are more interested in catching that monster than helping me run a country. You won't let me do anything you let my brother do. You let him travel, see the world, and you won't even let me go down to the shore for a simple swim."

"You don't know what is out there Alphonse-"

"Because you wouldn't let me see it!"

"I am done with this conversation Alphonse. I am going back into that room and I will discuss the betterment of this country. I do not want you intervening ever again," the King ordered before he turned around to make his march back into the war room. Alphonse felt his face heat up in anger as he watched his dad turn his back on him yet again.

"If this is the country you are making I don't want to live in it," he muttered underneath his breath just loud enough for his father to hear. The king faltered at the door and looked like he was about to turn around but Alphonse was already storming off down through the hallways where he came from.

….

Edward searched the ocean floor mindfully as he swam along its bottom. While the other merfolk were gathering the seaweeds that they often collected, Edward was scanning the sea for the dreaded wired cages that they all so feared. He remembered a time where there was no cages to be afraid of. He remembered a time when there was only open waters and gentle currents to play in. But soon the metal traps started to appear, not just for fish, but for them as well. And as their abundance grew, the merfolk began disappearing. The humans were hunting. Edward didn't know why it started but he knew that the cages grew like wildfire. They would come crashing down from the surface with no care in the world where they landed. They would smash houses and fields that they would land in. The merpeople tribes were as small as it was and a cage like that could destroy their villages. Edward remembered moving their own village twice because of the huntings but no matter where they went the cages would surely follow. They caught fish, crab, manatees, dolphins, any type of sea life in their midst without care and even the unsuspecting Merfolk. The cages were hard to see in the depth of the ocean and many merpeople would swim into them not knowing before it was too late and they couldn't get back out. Sometimes foolish merfolk would challenge each other to go near a cage and end up getting caught inside just to be stuck there until the humans came to retrieve their haul. It wasn't until Edward started to investigate the traps by himself that they were able to relieve the waters of some of their tension.

Edward would cut the cages when he found one. Each cage was marked with a rope and a float that he humans would pull it up by. If he cut the ropes there was no way to retrieve the cages and then they could work on a way of freeing their captives. Edward swam the borders of their tribe's territory every day, cutting the new cages and checking the old to make sure no one got stuck in them. He was very careful in doing so because if a strong current picked up in the waters he knew that he could have been the next victim as well.

One thing that Edward was curious about was why the humans were hunting them at all. He knew them like all merfolk did, long ago in another time, and because of this he knew that humans were very strange creatures who didn't do anything without reason, may those reasons be good or bad. But hunting merpeople didn't seem reasonable at all to him. He didn't understand, none of them did, but they all dealt with it differently. Many of the merfolk in Edward's tribe and others grew angry at the humans for what they were doing and often tried to tip fishing boats over that were setting cages. Unfortunately that just brought two ships in its place with twice as many cages. Though still angry, the merpeople decided it was better to just avoid them all together. Edward however, was curious. He wanted to understand why. If he had a reason, maybe there was a solution, but he never got around to figuring it out. The humans were still a mystery to him. He knew that not all of them were bad, not from what he could remember, but now he just didn't know. As more and more of his friends disappeared around him he grew more desperate for answers, and he grew more scared that he might be the last one left. So he continued to cut the cages and hope that he could find the reasons the humans depended so much upon.

Edward neared the shoreline and he caught sight of the glimmer of metal at the bottom of the sea. It was a cage, new and just recently placed. The wiring on it was brand new and the sunlight that came in through the shallow waters sparkled off of it signaling its danger. Edward slowed down as he approached it and looked around through it. It was empty with only a few fish inside who were waiting for a way out. Edward felt a wave of relief wash through him as he swam up towards the rope. No one was in it. It was unlikely that anyone would have been caught in it since it was so close to the shore as well as the tribe's borders, but he still felt the fear build up inside of him whenever he had to check one. He didn't want to find someone stuck on the inside. He remembered the few incidences that he was too late. He caught a new trap with someone in it and he didn't have enough time to help them. They were already being pulled towards the surface, fear in their eyes and arms outstretched begging for help. He was nearly pulled to the surface once in his own attempt to help them, but he just didn't have enough time, he couldn't pull them free. Edward feared having to find someone in the cage. He never wanted to see the horrified look in their eyes ever again. Though merpeople carry the stories of their lives in their eyes and their tears, the fear they had when they were trapped in the cages was more of damnation than sorrow. They all knew that the end was coming. For whoever go lifted to the surface, they knew they were never coming back.

Edward swam halfway up the line and pulled out his sharpened coral knife from his seaweed belt. It would take some work but he knew that he could cut the marker free of the cage and have the sailors boating around blindly trying to find their traps. Just as he was about to cut the rope however he heard a sudden splashing coming from above him. It sounded familiar and yet so foreign at the same time. Edward glanced up to see the blurry black outline of the figure scuttling across the surface of the water one stroke at a time. It swam around the buoy that was anchored just a few feet away from the cage, marking the distance from the shoreline and the border of his tribe's territory. At first Edward thought it was a merperson. They used to swim near the shore and on the surface before the huntings began. It was fun to feel the air on their faces and splash their tails against the water but now they were too scared. None of them did that anymore. None of them even dared.

Edward, forgetting the rope, swam a little bit higher as he watched the figure. As it came into view he realised that it wasn't a merperson, but rather a human. Strange enough, as the merfolk stopped coming to the surface, the humans had stopped swimming in the open waters. Edward was rather shocked to see that a human had come this far out from the shore, deep enough for sea life to swim beneath them. He watched wide eyed and entranced as the person kicked their two legs and propelled themselves through the blue water of the sea. They stayed afloat and held onto the floating buoy for a spell before continuing again. Edward followed around below them, curious as to what they were doing. From his distance he determined that it was a man, a young man, from the muscles around the chest and the lack of other things. He didn't know what he looked like, he didn't know anything else because he didn't dare get too close. But aside from the ability to kick him in the face and scream bloody murder he knew that the human couldn't hurt him without the boats and cages. However, he also knew that it wasn't his own safety that he stayed away for. In his own fright, he didn't want to scare the human either. It was one of the first few he had seen swimming. And he rather enjoyed watching them. If he scared the person away and back to shore, he was afraid that they might never come back into the water.

As Edward stared up at the person, he caught another flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. He saw the slim and sharp features of a rather thin shark circle around the area. Edward knew that sharks didn't eat humans but this one seemed mistaken. It circled around as if determining that the food it wanted to eat was worth it or not. It continued to circle, and Edward thought it would have realised that the human wasn't a fish by now but it got closer and closer to it, its mouth widening ever so slightly. Edward wanted the human to swim away but they didn't seem to think that there was anything in the water. As the predator went in for its final charge so did he.

Edward launched himself at the shark right as it was about to take hold of the human's leg and he tackled it away. Cool air hit his skin as he broke the surface of the water, the shark struggling in his arms to get away. Vicious teeth snapped as it tried to break free but Edward held on tight as he struggled with it. Their fight tore waves in the water's surface and turned the blue hue of it white as they tore about in it. Screams from the human's sudden surprise hit Edward's ears as the shark slammed him against the back of the buoy, knocking the breath out of him. Edward glanced over as he struggled to keep a hold of the small but angry shark. Why wasn't the human swimming away? As he was about to yell at him he suddenly froze as he caught sight of the human's face. It was contorted into pure fright, golden eyes almost hidden beneath the mass of wet golden hair. Golden eyes. He felt consumed in them for a long second and he felt like he couldn't look away. He remembered gold. He remembered seeing them before.

Suddenly a roaring pain ignited in Edward's arm as the shark managed to bite a hold on it in his trance. Edward screamed at the human to get away even though he knew it was in vain. His voice came out gargled and scratchy from the years of sea water contorting its sound. He couldn't speak above the water's surface. The human didn't budge until the water started to turn red from his bleeding arm then he seemed to get the idea. In fright the human sped off towards shore as Edward was able to pry the shark's jaws off of his arm. However the instant it let go, the shark just took another hold on his shoulder, biting even deeper than before. Edward screamed as he clawed at the shark, pushing it off of him. It spat him out and whipped around its tail at him to abandon the fight. It knocked him in the chest and Edward felt his head slam back into the metal of the buoy. His body slipped below the blood stained water as he sank towards the bottom of the shallows. Black clouds of blood trailed behind him as he felt his mind spin and roar around him. The last thing he felt was his back hitting the sea floor and watching the dim light of the sun glistening through the water fade to nothing.

….

Alphonse scrambled back onto the shore, his breath high in his throat as he gulped the air greedily. He spun around in the sand, his legs shaking so terribly he thought that he might just have fallen over. That was a shark. That was a shark! And a merman. He didn't know which to be more scared of. The fighting in the water was just a spinning of tails and splashing of scales and he was absolutely terrified. He felt so close to death he could barely keep his head above the water. Until he saw the man however. The merman struggled with the beast with golden eyes latched upon him. Alphonse couldn't help but see the shock in the creature's face as they stared at each other. He didn't know if it was fear or curiosity. But then he saw the blood. It was so much blood. It drenched the water and turned it black and red staining it. Alphonse swam away as he heard the threatening growls from the merman yelling at him. He didn't know what it was saying he didn't know if it was violent or going to attack him however he wasn't going to find out. Alphonse swam as fast as he could towards the shore, wishing everything in the world that he didn't go in. He should have just followed his father's warning for once but he was just so angry he needed to get out. He had ran away from his guards, he had run away from his castle just to clear his head by the seashore. Alphonse wanted to swim but he shouldn't have gone out into the water. He should have listened to his father.

However as Alphonse stared out into the sea which once held the torment of two predators fighting over him, it was now silent. The waters crashed to the shore like they had always did, unbroken and without a sound. The only difference was the large stain of blood lingering near the buoy where he had been swimming just moments before. Blood. It was a horrible sight and he couldn't stand it but it had him wondering if it could have been his own filling the ocean if the merman hadn't intervened. Alphonse shook his head, his trembling body getting the better of him as he collapsed by the shoreline, the sunlight warming his body gently. Sand stuck to his wet body and scratched his skin as he ran his hands shakily through his hair trying to calm himself down. It was a merperson who killed his brother surely it was after him, but it wasn't like the shark had any other reason to be there than to have an afternoon snack. Alphonse was once not afraid of the ocean. Just moments ago he had been free in his mind and free in his thoughts with nothing of the ocean to haunt him. But now, the fear of the ocean had been set in him, but he couldn't determine what to be scared of.

…..

Edward's eyes flickered open and he saw that the sunlight had faded from the sea's waters. The dim moonlight replaced it, hardly reaching even the shallow depth where he laid. He groaned as he sat up a bit and tried to remember what happened. Oh yeah, he fought a shark. Edward didn't know what came over him. No one he knew even thought about fighting a shark before let alone coming between it and its' meal. Edward just didn't want that human to get bitten. Instead, he ended up scaring the human off and getting himself bitten. He cursed himself for being so stupid. He should have let the shark eat him. Maybe that would have taught the human not to swim in such deep waters. But then again, there probably wouldn't have been enough of him left to teach a lesson to.

Suddenly Edward remembered the golden eyes of the human he saved staring back at him. They were large, frightened, and yet, they held a confidence that Edward couldn't quite remember where he saw it before. It was such a long time ago, nearly fifteen years since he saw anything above the surface. He knew that he was slowly forgetting what he once was, just like the many merfolk before him.

Edward winced as he felt his shoulder. The wound was still raw and Edward could still see wisps of blood being taken away by the soft current. He could see where the hundreds of teeth from the shark sank in. It wasn't good. He needed to get back to the village and get it taken care of or else he knew it might just be infected. If that happened it wouldn't have mattered if the shark took his entire arm or not.

He groaned as he struggled to get up from the floor of the sea but as he did he smacked his head off of something hard. He yelped and clutched his head, trying to massage the pain away. What was that? He tiredly opened his eyes to see metal wiring surrounding him, the metal glistening ever so dimly in the moonlight. The heart in his chest seemed to freeze over as he looked about him. Metal wiring surrounded him and trapped him along with a few other large fish that got caught in its steel tomb. He was on the inside of a cage. Edward desperately pulled on the wiring wanting to break it. He tried the openings on the tops and sides put they wouldn't budge. They were only made for one direction, in. He was stuck.

He felt his chest tighten as fear struck him. He was caught. He was finally caught but how? He desperately looked up to the surface of the waters where he saw the buoy float, its muffled bell ringing as the waters rocked it back and forth. He fell in. When he hit his head, he fell into the cage trap. Edward gripped his hair as he tried to calm himself down but nothing would work. He was dead, surface bound. If the shark bite didn't kill him, he was sure the humans would. He didn't cut the rope. He would be hauled straight up the next time they checked the trap. His friends wouldn't come looking for him. They probably didn't know where he was. Though they knew he checked traps he was usually out late, they wouldn't know he was missing until the morning and then they would have to search their entire territory for him. It would be too late. The humans would sure have come by then. Edward was as good as gone.

The sinking feeling in his chest reached rock bottom and Edward stopped fighting the metal cage around him. He sank to the bottom, desperately wanting to find some form of company. His life couldn't end there. It just couldn't, yet he knew that it was. He shouldn't have hung around so many cages, he should have just left them where they lied and hope that no one swam into them. He shouldn't have saved that boy from the shark. He should have just let him get bitten. Now he was trapped in a metal cage he was trying to save everyone from, now he was bitten by a shark he was trying to save the human from, now he was alone on the ocean floor with no one around to hear him. Edward put his head in his hands and shook his head. Merpeople were too prideful to cry. But right then, Edward wasn't thinking of what it was like to be a merfolk. He was remembering what it was like to be human.

….