A Giant x tiny story involving a human and mermaid, with art for each chapter. A water plant worker meets a mermaid on a shoreline. She enchants him with a mind-control spell due to fearing the human, but the spell backfires. I’m naming the story “Fish Market”.
Check the anchor at the bottom of this text for the drawing’s long text descriptions.
Cara and Jacob
Cara can mean “beloved” or “friend”, while Jacob comes from the Hebrew “to follow, to be behind” but also “to supplant, circumvent, assail, overreach”, or from the word for “heel”. Most of my names are placeholders that stuck with me, or quick google searches for a nice general meaning. It’s not that deep, though — especially considering that this is a story about a mermaid and man smooching.
As a note, most of my ladies have 4-word names! I think it’s cute and became like a game to pick only 4 word names for my female-presenting characters.
Those characters were later incorporated into the Butterflies universe.
The story — “Fish Market”
Content warnings: Physical contact, smooches, giants and size difference dynamics.
AO3’s updated version
I keep the up-to-date version of this story on A03.
There are no new chapters as I make this post, but if this story gets more content and edits, those should be up on AO3.
Chapter 1 — First encounter
Sea and sky blurred into an angry gray mass. They were on a small rocky beach, under heavy rain and a high tide.
The storm lifted a whiff of human sweat mixed with brine, grass, and dust.
The mermaid glimpsed a shadow in her peripheral vision — something massive that struggled to remain quiet.
She sensed the heartbeats, the compressed sand under its weight. The man stood soaked and still, near the retaining wall and a set of slate steps that connected the shoreline to the docklands.
Too far to snatch her, too close for comfort. Human presence was too loud to stifle.
The mermaid rested on a vast formation of jet rocks. She glanced at the black, foamy waves that boiled around her. The water swirled with predators and she felt like easy prey: Hungry, sore, tired.
She started a shaky melody, still pretending not to see the human lurking. She sang about warm currents and whirlpools and a lightning strike, casting a net around the man’s mind.
Those land hunters impressed her. Dirt sharks adorned with cruel-shaped tools and sailing war vessels with which they’d loot the ocean. Building forts near the sea to pluck from it every day. Slopping the digested remains into the same waters that fed them.
Some settlements seemed less hostile and poisonous, and over the years they’d form alliances and trade with the merfolk. They still scared her.
Her melody shifted with the rumble; raindrops became its percussion.
The man who watched the mermaid was on his work break. He enjoyed spending time on that part of the coast — as it was often vacant, save for gulls and crabs.
He forgot the work, the neighborhood, himself. First in awe at the visitor, watching her, then because the creature cleared his mind.
What remained was a feeling that something was ravenous, overwhelming, spiraling. That she shouldn’t return to the ocean now.
If he lifted the creature to his chest, her tail would reach no further than his thigh.
Stepping away from the wall, the man stood between the mermaid and the sea. The waves soaked his shoes and heels; the rain was indifferent to his hat — water dribbled down his face. He twitched at the cold pang, resisting.
She shivered at the beast fighting against her spell. Sang louder until he gave in, knees and knuckles sunk in black rock and sand, deep in icy waves.
His face was finally neutral, if not for the purple paleness and spice of fixation in the eyes.
“May I have your name?” the mermaid asked.
Seconds of downpour followed. She watched the man as her tail and fins contracted — she’d jump back in the water if he lunged at her. Take a chance with the tide and other predators, but not that one .
“Yes.” the giant’s hollowed-out voice rang. It ticked her ears and sounded like a sunken ship.
What sort of answer was that? Did he break free?
“Well?” she tried again. Her stomach rumbled, and it could be hunger, fear, or regret.
“Jacob.” Tension.
“Jacob,” she mirrored.
He wasn’t able to articulate that something felt wrong nor that he had forgotten himself, “Please release me,” he said simply, to the thunder.
“You scared me. I’ll release you once you’re far from me. Why were you sneaking? Can you climb back the steps towards your… what’s the name of… all that?” She gestured towards the docklands.
He unhurriedly followed her gesture with his gaze. To part from her vision was painful. Stared blankly at the town’s railings, windows, and towers above; as if trying to understand it as well.
“That’s the market, the docks and my workplace. The water plant. My home. There are many names.”
She saw no water plants , only palm trees. Those were, indeed, too many names.
The giant’s expression spasmed again as he stood up.
“Okay,” she jerked away from him, then recovered her tone, “so go back home, Jacob.”
He felt his mind clear up as he trudged away from the creature.
“We weren’t expecting merpeople this week. I stopped to figure out if you were a trader,” he lied.
“I’m sorry about the rough treatment,” came the mermaid’s response, now from afar.
Jacob risked glancing back at her and caught the soft, slender figure among sharpness, stone, and foam. The long shiny tail curled around her tiny figure.
It seemed as if the rain could crush her, and the aftertaste of the spell pushed him to crawl to her side to shelter her with his own body if need be. He resisted.
He felt angry, freezing cold, and miserably weighed down by his soaked clothes. But then again, there were tales of man-markets selling merfolk in neighboring villages — no wonder the mermaid would react strongly to a stranger prowling.
Jacob shrugged. The mermaid pondered whether to offer him something, to make up for her reaction.
The giant’s voice interrupted her thoughts, but she didn’t understand him.
She shook her head, “What did you say?”
“Do you like nuts? apricots? They’re sodded now, I’ll just leave them here.” Jacob took a handful of something from inside his clothes and left it on top of a slab before climbing back to the docks.
The mermaid waited until he was gone before gorging on the strange food.
Jacob would return weekly to the same shores. When the weather was clear, he’d pick flat stones and skip rocks on the seawater. On storms, he’d pray to the ocean goddess and leave apricots near the water.
Chapter 2 — Shared dreams
Cara woke up to her alcove’s darkness, hearing bubbles and the seals outside. There was no land, no clouds, no sun — and much less the man she had seen on the shoreline.
Something in her spell backfired. The mermaid gave themselves days and miles of distance since they met, yet they were still bound.
When she slept, the shape of Jacob would press his throat against her and hum a sailor’s tune. Where merfolk notes were clear and loud, his’ you’d feel through skin, closed lips, and guttural sounds.
The elders gave an unexpected, hearty laugh as she conveyed the dream, “We’ll let you figure this one out, Cara.”
She didn’t find the courage to describe the lullaby — A song about a good catch, fruits like gemstones, and flowers to garnish one’s hair.
“Here is a warning, though. A lead.” Old Merv said, still playful, “You’re sharing mind currents and the human knows. For once, you’re on the receiving end. How does it feel?”
To that, the mermaid momentarily lost her voice.
She also kept the part where she’d curl up under the shade of the brow bone and lashes, lazily stroking the man’s cheekbones until he’d doze off.
More days passed, and they could not slumber without hooking onto each other.
Chapter 3 – Love-bites
The 18+ version of this drawing is available as a hi-res to my Patrons, or in my lower-res 18+ NSFW Twitter. This link goes directly to the uncovered-version Chapter 3 drawing.
There’s a symbol in the biting and the spot — Cara figures she loves being kissed where her tail and torso merge, and Jacob found it out due to going for that spot often already, gently dragging teeth and tongue on scales, and nibbling at her fins.
It’s like a shoreline conceptually, a divide between land and sea that they’d like to blur out. They’re testing limits on what it means to be a ‘beast’, to be ‘human’ — teasing and tugging at the deep layers of their egos.
Development — Sketches and close-ups
Long Descriptions
Chapter 1 art
Digital grayscale sketch emulating a pencil texture and a grainy paper. A man holds a mermaid close to his chest. She is only a few foot tall and leans against his body, her tail cascading from his arms and hands. The mermaid wears no clothing and has a side braid, plus small flowers and dots on her hair and pointy ears. The man wears a hat and a clear-colored shirt with rolled-up sleeves. His face is in shadow, barely visible. There is a rectangular shape around both characters. It has five-line musical staff and notes, like a song framing the characters.
Chapter 2 art
Grayscale sketch emulating a dark pencil or ink texture, and a grainy paper. A mermaid (Cara) is laying down. She has long wavy hair and a top covering her breasts. A giant man (Jacob) looms above her. Only his face and right hand are visible; his head seems to be as large as the mermaid’s entire torso. His fingers touch the woman’s arm, as her left-hand rests on the man’s right cheekbone. They seem relaxed, looking at each other with neutral expressions. The composition is a distorted, close-up perspective view of the duo, as if the viewer was very close to them. Jacob’s head alone occupies 2/3 of the canvas.
Chapter 3 art
Grayscale sketch emulating a dark pencil or ink texture, and a grainy paper. A similar distorted-perspective drawing with Cara at the center, her tail held by Jacob’s arms. The man has half-closed eyes, shaved hair, and a half-open mouth partially hidden behind her body, as he kisses the spot between her tail and humanoid torso. Cara touches the man’s forehead with her right (our left) arm.
Patreon
Patreon is an extra motivation for me to continue making those stories and rambling about worldbuilding, fanfiction, art tips, and original characters. And also to set my websites up and organize all those rants and texts. Thank. You!! ♥
The HI-RES safe (all tiers) + not-safe (Tier2+) versions of those images are on Patreon, and my NSFW Twitter @ has a low-res uncensored version of the third chapter drawing.
Leave a Reply