JJBA ONESHOTS

(Trish-centric) daylight is (not) betrayal

<minor spoilers for part five character personalities, major spoilers for pt.5 villain>

Description: Fantasy AU. Trish is a mermaid. Giorno is a demi-god. and Diavolo is the Sea King.

(Trish kind of wants to live in the sun, Diavolo is a better parent but just as paranoid, and Giorno is the son of temptation himself.)

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She finds him in the shells, laying in a patch of sea grass and softly glowing coral. His hair is deep gold, more rich than any fallen treasure, skin pale as the shells around him, and he's clothed in coral-pink. And it isn't unusual to find corpses in the ocean depths, but his chest is rising lightly, and sea grass doesn't grow in the abyss.

That's no human.

Trish hesitates, just a moment. She isn't supposed to interact with people. But—she's curious. And he may be no human, but he isn't a creature of the sea, either. He has two legs and no fins, and Trish could outpace him in an instant. This is her garden anyway, she knows her way around these luminescent plants. So—

Her fingers curl around a rock as she leans closer, stretches out a finger, and pokes his cheek. It's warm to the touch, and she can feel the blood shifting below his skin. Then—then he moves.

Trish snaps back her hand, draws herself to a taller height and back away, just a little. His eyes flick open, and they're colored sea glass, glittering like emerald. He opens his mouth, and it looks like he's trying to talk, but all that comes out is a stream of bubbles. Right. He isn't made to talk beneath the water. He's made for air.

Trish is King Crimson's daughter, is the sea's princess, and there's hardly a difference between the blood in her veins and the water around them. So it isn't that hard, really, to tug the bits of air around them into a bubble around his head.

His eyes go wide, and he licks over his licks, grimaces, and says, "You're—the Crimson King's daughter?"

Oh. He's perceptive. Then again, she did just manipulate the sea itself, and her hair is pink and her tail is shaded a hot pink that blares danger, and there are only so many creatures like her.

Trish laughs a little. "Sure."

"Oh," he says, and straightens a bit and the faintly glowing coral begins to bloom flowers. She's pretty sure they aren't supposed to do that. "It's a great honor to meet you."

Well, that's kind of obvious. They dwell in the deep, after all. They dwell where the ocean is blacker than night, where the water is made of ink. And when they do go in shallows, when Doppio wants to feel the sun on his skin, when Trish wants some land thing, they're careful to avoid people.

Which really makes it all the more suspicious that Blondie is here, really.

"Mmhmm," she hums, and flexes her tail so the spines along it's edges prick up. "And what are you doing here? You should be dead."

He smiles pleasantly, and Trish can see him grip tightly on the sea grass that's grown around him. "My name's Giorno. I was sailing across the ocean and fell in. I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure of where I've ended up."

He says it straight, factual. His voice doesn't falter or veer into becoming unsure, and he's great at lying. But it's a terrible lie, because there's no reason to sail around here, and he wouldn't have ended up in the abyss if he hadn't been looking for it. He wouldn't have ended up here unless he pushed through the charms, protected against the warded water.

"Really," she says, and raises a brow. But Giorno doesn't take it back or change his story. So, okay. He'll be dead soon enough anyway. "You still haven't told me why you aren't dead, though."