Steam by StarsSlug
Summary: Mechanikles find himself caught in a dubious deal with Saleen: In exchange for saving him from the wreckage of his machine, he must now work for her.
Contains cephalopods and big clockwork beetles.
Rating: G
Categories: Aladdin
Characters: Abu, Aladdin, Carpet, Genie, Iago, Jasmine, Mechanikles, Other
Genres: Comedy, General
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 01/25/10
Updated: 02/03/10
Index
Chapter 1: Prologue: The Chambered Nautilus
Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Sunset
Chapter 1: Prologue: The Chambered Nautilus
Author's Notes: I could give a perfectly good, somewhat sensible reason for writing this: namely, that I’m re-addressing an imbalance. Saleen got far too few episodes to herself, and Mechanikles, whilst getting his share of screen-time, doesn’t really have enough fanfic. But quite frankly, none of these reasons really compares to the fact that I’m a nerdy bio-geek who still remembers Saturday morning cartoon, loves mermaids as much as she loves mad scientists, and has way to much affection for arthropods and molluscs.
The whole sorry idea was sparked off by wondering just how Mechanikles escaped from his exploding machine at the end of “Plunder the sea”. As such, the prologue begins at the end of that episode. (For the continuity-curious, before Saleen ever meets Aladdin.)
Please forgive any nerdy jokes about marine biology, arthropods, or Greek mythology. Or little mermaid references. You have been warned.
Enjoy. Or the beetles come in the night.
It had taken him months of meticulous planning just to draw up the designs for his beautiful creation: the perfect logarithmic spiral of the buoyancy chambers, the complex system of levers that controlled the sinuous tentacles, not to mention the channels of for steam, and the conduits for oil, linked into the great pulsing boiler at the heart of the machine. It had taken longer still for him to breathe life into those flat sketches, one man painstakingly piecing together an idea, making his insubstantial vision in hard, clean bronze. The results, of course, had been worth it. They always were. His beautiful machines, obedient to his every command, were the manifestation of all his ambitions, the power of his mind made into physical might.
And now, with no concern for the backbreaking effort that had gone into its creation, the asinine, scruffy-haired street-rat was standing just inches from the lever that would re-route the steam channels, sending the whole thing to the ocean floor in pieces.
“S-stay away from that lever!”
Mechanikles heard his voice come out as a desperate squeak. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to see yet another invention ruined. Even that little wretch wouldn’t be stupid enough to destroy something whilst still inside it.
“Why?”
“That’s the lever that will destroy my precious invention!”
There was a moment’s silence. Then a smile twisted its way across the boy’s face, one that was all too easy to read. One that brought about a familiar sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach.
Mechanikles gave a sigh, and pulled a scroll from it’s hiding place within his tunic. His quill scratched irritably across the parchment.
“Never tell enemy which lever will destroy invention.”
And then a grimy hand was tightening around a smooth lever. A shudder ran through the floor of the great machine. There was a blast of heat from the great boiler, a savage hiss of steam and a terrible noise, of splintering gears and twisting metal, a sound that seemed to fill both the sea and the sky. The heat became searing, and for a moment, the world was filled with the incandescent brightness and thunderous noise of the dying engine.
Then cold, and darkness, and silence.
********
There was cold water pressing in on every inch of his skin. That was the first thing Mechanikles noticed, the thing that snapped him back into consciousness. The next thing that he noticed, as he flailed in the water, was that something was wrapped tightly around him, something thick, slimy, and resistant to his frantic struggles. The more he tried to prise the thing off, the tighter it’s grip became. He gave a silent scream, thrashing against the obstruction, a cloud of silvery bubbles rising from his mouth. Then, although it was admitting defeat, even though his logical mind might have rebelled at the thought, the urges of his body became too much, and he gulped a deep breath of saltwater.
His struggles stopped. He floated there for a moment, blinking the water out of his eyes, feeling the taste of salt on his tongue. He breathed out. And, in the interests of both science and his own survival, he breathed in again. He could feel, with horrible clarity, the water flowing down his throat, and into the soft, delicate membranes of his lungs. He could also feel the slimy grip around him tighten, and now that he looked down what it was that was trapping him, he felt revulsion rise in his throat.
The thing holding him was a tentacle. A tentacle belonging to an octopus larger than he was.
He stared at the octopus. The octopus stared back with huge, inhuman eyes. And, slowly, another tentacle was advancing, it’s thin tip snaking through the water, reaching towards his face. There was only one thing for a genius of his standing to do when faced with such a sight:
“AAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
He shrieked, a few last bubbles escaping, and flapped ineffectually at the slimy whip of flesh.
“Armond!”
Both octopus and inventor froze. Two pairs of eyes, one pair inhuman, one pair mismatched, turned to the source of the voice.
She floated in mid-water, her hair swishing around her head in a fat braid, an amused smiled on her face. It was a face that some might well have called beautiful, something that was of far less concern to Mechanikles to the fact that her body, from the waist down, tapered into a sleek, doubtlessly slimy tail.
“Armond, are you frightening our little guest?”
The…creature in front of him advanced with a swish of her fin, pointing an admonishing finger at the invertebrate. With a look in it’s eyes that was almost reluctant, the octopus loosened its grip, and crawled a few steps back. Satisfied, and with a frivolous flick of her hair, she twisted in the water to face the floating Greek.
“Awake, I see.” The amusement on her face was clear, and verging on sadistic. “None the worse for your little adventure.”
“Indeed.” Mechanikles shuddered. His voice, against all logic, came out as clear as it did in air, and he decided to take advantage of this fact.
“Madam, do you know who you I am? I am Mechanikles, greatest of the great Greek geniuses! I don’t know what you are, or what you are doing down here, but my schedule is currently immensely tight.” He reached into his tunic, withdrew his scroll, and unrolled it. He managed to unroll it into around fifty soggy little pieces.
The fish-woman wafted a lump of wet paper out of the way.
“Very tight, I see.” She coiled in the water, circling the scrawny inventor as he stared, horrified, at the remains of his to-do-list. “Well Mechanikles, greatest of the great, I am Saleen, daughter of the water, siren of the seven seas, and this is Armond, my little assistant. He’s great with hair. Frankly, yours could do with a little work.”
Mechanikles batted a tentacle away, as it reached for one of his twin braids.
“A siren, are you?” He squinted through his eyepiece. “Frankly, I was expecting someone with more feathers. Now, I can see it must be frightfully tedious down in this miserable little grotto, but I’ll thank you to finish messing my hair, and let me be on my way.” He gazed up through the blue, where lances of sunlight filtered through the water column, and nameless fishes weaved through the upper deep. It was dishearteningly far above.
A giggle from the so-called siren.
“Oh no. No, you’re not leaving anytime soon. Not without telling me where you get such wonderful toys.”
Even down in this dark undersea grottoe, even surrounded by countless and innumerable, undoubtedly filthy polypi, even floating between a mollusc capable of swallowing him whole, and a mer-woman who somehow unnerved him more, Mechanikles still bristled.
“Toys!? You dare to call my beautiful machines toys!?” Bubbles hissed from between his teeth. A hand reached into the secret recesses of his robe, and withdrew, with a flourish, a small and intricate beetle. “Do you know the love that goes into my creations? How long I spend at the drawing board? How many test I perform, how many refinements — Give it back, you filthy cephalopod!”
A tentacle took the beetle from his hand, held it to Armond’s huge eyes, and gave it a shake. The sharp little limbs moved limply in the current, but otherwise, nothing happened. With something that might have been called a shrug, the octopus passed the clockwork creature into Saleen’s hands.
A frown crossed her pretty face.
“It doesn’t work.”
“Of course it doesn’t work! I haven’t wound it up!”
The beetle was snatched back to it’s rightful owner, and given a few twists of an intricately decorated key. With a slightly crazed grin, he held it aloft.
“Behold!”
The beetle stirred into life: it’s wings beat at the water, and its metallic body rose. Then the rhythm slowed, the movements became jerky, and it sank like a stone, burying itself headfirst in the sand.
“Well of course, it wasn’t designed for underwater use.”
Saleen regarded the drowned beetle.
“Could it be?”
“Could it be? Could I, Mechanikles, design a machine for underwater use? Didn’t you see my Nautilus, you low-rate water-nymph? I can create devices equally at home on land, sea or sky!”
A slow grin spread itself over Saleen’s face. It was not exactly shark-like, as sharks on the whole didn’t quite possess the degree of malevolent glee that was slowly etching itself onto her face. It was the grin, not of a ravenous, primal killing-machine, but of something that knew exactly what it was doing, and was enjoying every minute. It was more like the grin of a sadistic dolphin.
“You can? Excellent! Then we have a deal: in exchange for me saving your life, you belong to me.”
Mechanikles froze. His eyes narrowed.
“Saving my life? Belong to you!? What deal?”
Saleen’s face became petulant, her eyes glinting and inhuman. The spiny fins around her waist bristled.
“The deal you made when you set foot in my oceans and tried to meddle with them.”
“Alright! What then? What if I accept? I can’t build down here, down in this wet, filthy little cave. I need my workshop, my blueprints, my…”
A cold finger on his lips cut him off, and made him gag.
“I don’t want you down here, making the place look untidy. No. I want your mind. I want your designs. I want them when I want, where I want. Go back to your workshop, and your toys. I’ll call you when I want you.” Then, to the octopus, she added: “Armond!”
Armond flowed forward in response, a tide of wet pink flesh. An icy tentacle snaked through the water and wrapped itself around Mechanikles’ left wrist, pulling his arm out and exposing the palm. As he tried to struggle, countless other tentacles entwined the rest of his body, holding him in a freezing grasp, his skin crawling at the touch of the creature’s skin.
“What are you-” A tentacle also found his mouth, cutting his protests short.
Saleen advanced, smirking and toying with her necklace, a starfish worn around her neck on a string. Now that she was close, he could see that the little creature was undoubtedly still alive: as she pulled it away from the string, its little tube-feet lost their grip one by one.
“Don’t worry.” She said, with equal parts false sympathy, equal parts enjoyment. “I’m just sealing the deal. It might sting a little.”
And with those words, she pressed the starfish down into the palm of his hand. For a moment, the feeling of its little feet sucking onto his skin was all Mechanikles could feel. Then the creature pulsed. A cold pinkish light lit it up from within, and at the same time, a sharp jolt of pain ran down his arm. He gave a muffled howl.
“There.” Saleen withdrew the starfish, replacing it around her neck. Armond released his grip, letting Mechanikles writhe. He stared down at his hand. There, glinting on his palm, was a small, shiny, star-shaped burn. He wriggled his fingers experimentally, and winced as the wound twinged again.
“It’ll never get better if you play with it, you know.” Her grin flashed white as she whirled around him. “That’s a special mark, you know. You’re lucky. I don’t give my mark to just anyone. That mark will tell me exactly where you are. That mark will let me find you again. With that mark, I control you.”
The pain in Mechanikles hand was abating, but the slowly building embarrassment and rage was not. He glared at her, one eye creased in fury, the other one magnified several times it’s normal size behind its lens.
“Control me? Control I, Mechanikles?! Well madam, you might have set your filthy enchinoderm on me, but mark my words, no-one controls Mechanikles! One day you will-”
Saleen nodded. And smiled her twisted smile.
“Tell me, Mechanikles, greatest of the great. You may be a genius, and you might be able to make pretty toys, but can you swim?”
Her question caught him mid-rant.
“Well of course. Well, a little. Not since I was younger, admittedly, but still, yes.” He frowned. “I don’t make a habit of sharing water with icky fish-things. He shuddered violently. “They don’t get out to relieve themselves…”
Another nod.
“Then swim, Mechanikles. I’m getting bored. Swim for your miserable life!”
Very suddenly, the inventor became aware of the water around. Very suddenly, it seemed to grow much colder, and its pressure weighing down on him much greater. The taste of salt in his mouth became revoltingly strong, all things of far less concern to him that the fact that he had just inhaled cold, wet, and distinctly un-breathable water.
Saleen was laughing. Her laughter did not abate for some time, not until the struggling inventor had flapped, clawed, and scraped his way to the surface. She looked up at the scrawny silhouette, floundering in the shimmering waters above, and turned to Armond.
“Of course he’ll make it back to land. I didn’t go to all the trouble of saving him just to drown him again. Silly Armond. It’s the oldest trick in the book. He’ll make it, don’t you worry. Not by much, but he’ll make it.”
She turned back, and pulled the broken beetle from the sand.
“Why? I’m sure he’ll come in handy. It gets so tiring smashing ships all by ourselves.” She fiddled with one of the intricate wings of the beetle. “Besides, he does delicate things too. Perhaps something pretty to put your hair-care products in?”
Something floated down from above, see-sawing through the water as it fell. Saleen and Armond watched it, as it fell into the sand, sending up a cloud of debris.
Saleen sighed. Gingerly, she picked up the object, a wet and battered sandal.
“Of course, when we do use him, we might need to find a way to improve that fashion sense…”
Back to index
Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Sunset
Author's Notes: Another chapter that begins where an episode ends, I’m afraid. This one is set at the end of “Shark Treatment”, Saleen’s last episode. (Not saying much: she only got two.) Between this and “Plunder the sea”, Mechanikles also made his last official appearance.
Now that the nerdy continuity is out of the way, please enjoy. This one’s pure Saleen and Armond, and I hope I haven’t mangled them too badly.
The sun was slowly sinking down through a sky of fire, a great gold disk slowly melting into a rippling, molten ocean. Its progress streaked the clouds in unearthly colours, and sent a blazing ribbon across the waves. It was a sunset made for walks on the beach, toes dipped into the surf, and kisses as the waves threw soft white spray.
All of these things would have been far less painful for Saleen to contemplate if it hadn’t been for the fact that the object of her desires was sailing off into that very same sunset, leaving her squatting in the surf, trapped like a goldfish in a bowl.
Of course, that’s what it was: a giant goldfish bowl, forged from elemental proof glass. It was the perfect blend of magically potent and ridiculous, the infuriating hallmark of the genie that must have made it. Only its walls separated her from the ocean, and the little black shadow of the ship as it began to disappear over the horizon, into that glorious golden haze.
She dropped her head, gazing blankly at the sand. Trapped under this bowl, humiliated not only by the genie, but by the whole troupe of little pets that seemed to follow her prize about. Trapped and humiliated, to add to the ultimate insult of being rejected. For a moment, her teeth flashed in a furious grimace. Aladdin! Who was he to reject her? He was pretty, but he was only a street-rat. Who was he to reject her, a beautiful, powerful elemental?
Of course, he at least wasn’t trapped under a fishbowl.
With a deep sight, Saleen stared out into the sunset once more. Night would be coming soon, and she would be left alone in the darkness. A trace of saltwater, only the tiniest fragment of the saltwater that swirled around her, brimmed up in her eyes.
“Land-dwelling wretches.”
She turned her gaze away, determined not to look at the ocean that she was separated from. She looked up at the land instead, a sight equally painful. It was the world that Aladdin belonged to, a world he had refused to sacrifice for her. She rested her head in her hands, gazing up at the darkening sands, the legs that she had temporarily adopted curled awkwardly beneath her.
A swish of the ocean caught her ear. A glint of purple reflected in the wretched glass caught her eye. She turned back to the ocean to find, glinting golden in the sunset, her saviour.
“Armond! My hero!”
He was silhouetted for a moment, as though posing, his mighty tentacles bulging and glistening. Then in one fluid movement, the bowl was gone, hurled away, and she was free to run forwards and bury herself in the soft flesh of her champion.
“How I’ve missed my little squiddums!” She rubbed her face against his, his huge eyes creasing in pleasure, both of them lost for a moment in the joy of reunion. Then the memory of betrayal became all too fresh, and Saleen pulled away, staring past Armond into the horizon. Far, far away, a single black speck on the face of the sun, the little ship shrank to nothing, and vanished.
“We’ll get ‘em next time, Armond!”
********
Down in the depths again, the coolness of the water against Saleen’s skin was comforting, as was being able to merge the halves of her tail back into one again. She leant back in the coiled clutches of Armond, his powerful tentacles now as delicate as feathers, gently repairing the damage that the days stresses had done to her hair.
“We could have done it, Armond.” She sighed, as he gently combed her hair from the roots. “We could have had Aladdin, if it hadn’t been for that stupid genie.”
Armond nodded sagely. In some ways, he was a reverse hairdresser: whilst others of his talents may have delighted in amusing clients with chatter and patter, he acted as a listener, a soft molluscan sponge for troubles. There were few problems that Armond felt unable to tackle with sympathy and a dye job.
“If it hadn’t been for you being so brave, I could still be under that horrible bowl! Why do they always have to interfere?”
Saleen frowned, and shifted on Armond.
“It’s the company he keeps, I know it! You saw how Aladdin was when it was just me and him. If his friends didn’t always stick their feet…paws…claws…tassels…vapour…whatever into the situation, he’d be ours! Well…mine, anyway. They drag him down. Especially that princess. What does she do to him? How does she keep him?”
Armond gave one of his multiple-armed shrugs.
“Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen. It’s a perfectly good saying. Hasn’t she ever heard of it? Little hussy…and I know my huss.”
Saleen shifted. Armond, who was busy re-plaiting her voluminous braid, stretched to accommodate her.
“Well. Next time. Next time, it’ll be different. Take notes, Armond! Next time, we have to get the genie out of the way somehow. And that magic carpet. With them gone, none of the others can stand up to my power! I’ll have Aladdin eating out of my hand! And this time, I won’t let anyone steal my magical starfish.”
Saleen froze. Realisation dawned on her face.
“That’s it!”
She stood up abruptly, causing Armond to lose his grip. Her hair came free, waving and flickering around her head like a cloud of fire. She paid it no heed. Instead, she weaved through the waters of her grotto, past her dressing table, with its stacked and obscure products, and into another opening. She slid through, Armond trailing after her.
Inside this portion of the extensive grotto was a collection of sunken items. Crowded on the natural recesses of the rock were myriads of treasures, in both senses. Pieces of jewellery, the gold and silver untarnished by the enchanted water, winked from every rocky shelf. Everything that man might conceivably take to sea was here, from fine china to delicate cutlery sets, to beautiful dresses that floated ghost-like, preserved by the magic of the place.
Saleen passed all these treasures by, rummaging through the shelves for some other goal.
“Where did we put it, Armond? The other starfish? The one we made before?”
Armond looked up from what he was examining, the skull of some unnamed unfortunate, which was currently being used to model a tiara, and shrugged.
“Oh! You’re no help at all, you know that?” She swept the contents of the shelf to the floor with a tut. “Well, we’re not leaving until we find it.” She sighed, muttering under her breath. “Stupid enchinoderms. You tell them to stay put, and they just wander off on you.”
Her search of a pile of necklaces was interrupted by a tentacle tapping her on the shoulder, and Armond pointing her to a pile of objects distinctly out of place amongst her collection of luxuries. The pile consisted of the two wooden handles of a scroll, the paper melted away long ago, a single sandal, and a motionless metal beetle. Lying in the centre of this pile was a small, pink starfish.
“Good job, Armond.”
Saleen’s fingers closed around the starfish. She looked up, up at the surface of her watery world. Above her enchanted grotto winked innumerable openings, the light streaming down. Some were larger than others, and all showed a different scene: moonlight and stars, or blazing sun. Some looked out onto human faces, others onto empty rooms. Others still blinked into existence, as other slowly disappeared. Here in this place, she was truly underwater, under all the water in the world, looking up from every pool or puddle.
She grinned once more. Her loose hair whipped around her as she gazed up, up through the holes, into the light.
“Come, Armond. We’re going to be part of their world.”
Back to index