Chapter Text
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Beneath the timid waves, Druid’s Cove teams with life.
Sunlight cuts through the water like shimmering ribbons and currents flow gently through the swaying anemones and clinging kelp. A mountain range of vibrant coral stretches across the sands, every inch of itself covered with even more eye-catching residents. Schools of fish dash in packs through arches in the branching growth, catching morsels only keen eyes can see. Creatures crawl and scuttle across the multicolored expanse, each intent on themselves, thoughts of food only faltering for an occasional sweep of the waters around them, vigilant for threats
To most creatures, the Cove is shelter. To one of its tiniest inhabitants, it is a constant negotiation between safety and exposure.
Gale knows this better than most.
He clings to a low rock near the edge of the reef, his brown, fuzzy legs braced as the current tugs at him. His large claw maintains its grip as his smaller pincer nervously picks at the purple algae that always climbs up his chest toward his eye stalks, persistent no matter how often he grooms. Curled around his backside is his shell, though its certainly a poor excuse of one. A metal base from a broken lightbulb, dulled into a rust by salt and time.
It fits, technically.
It protects, mostly.
But its edges press in ways that never quite stop hurting, and it rings faintly whenever he knocks against stone. Even now, as he fights the sudden current, it clatters against the coral.
Gale snips one claw in irritation and shifts his weight, trying to readjust his hold and prevent further disruption.
That is when the wave comes.
It is not large by ocean standards, but it arrives at the wrong angle, curling around the rock and catching Gale squarely in the side. His legs scrabble for purchase. The metal shell tips away, unbalanced, and Gale grabs for it in a panic, then suddenly the reef is spinning.
The sea floor rushes up to meet him. Or rather, he rushes down to meet the sea floor, quite without control.
Gale lands hard, tumbling once before coming to an awkward stop in a shallow pit of pale sand that puffs out around him. Disoriented, he freezes, instinct screaming at him to become stone, to become nothing at all. Movement attracts attention.
Because he is not alone.
Just a short claw-length away, another hermit crab stares back at him. A male. His pheromones drift on the current.
This one is smaller and slimmer, shell so pale it almost seems carved from moonlight. With a body that's translucently white, the faint workings beneath his shell are just barely visible. A pump of blood rushing fast and erratic. Red eyes gleam at Gale, wide and startled.
Along the back of this pale one's carapace runs a thin, healed crack, discolored and jagged like an old fault line in stone. It tells a story of pain, when safety could not be found, when something vast must have crushed down upon this poor crab and ignored his shell.
Or what passes for a shell. Because this male seems to be in a similar predicament to Gale.
Perched precariously on its back is a red plastic soda bottle cap, bright, smooth, and unmistakably uncomfortable. It is much too small, leaving most of the pale one exposed and offering little shadow to hide within.
Two translucent claws snap sharply at Gale, a rapid warning, and the pale one recoils as far as this inadequate shell allows.
Gale responds without thinking, clicking his own claws in angry retaliation and pulling himself into his metal bulb base. The sound rings out, clacks loud in their quiet sand hollow and both crabs freeze again, locked in mutual alarm, bodies tense, eyes unblinking.
Like this, they are easy prey.
The seconds pass. No shadows falls over them. No sudden rush of water signals danger. Their altercation has gone unnoticed.
The pale one's posture shifts first. Those sharp pointed claws lower, just a fraction. That slim body tilts, one red eye angling more deliberately toward Gale’s shell. The metal catches the sunlight from above, dull silver in patches where the rust has not yet claimed.
Gale notices this glance, notices how the pale one no longer snaps a threat. Slowly and carefully, he eases forward, claws held low, movements clear and calm. He turns just enough to make his shell visible, not as a dismissal or a warning, but as an offering of information.
That red gaze flicks from the metal to Gale’s algae-dusted body, then back again. His claws make a softer sound this time, uncertain rather than sharp. He creeps a little closer, sand shifting beneath his legs.
Up close, the differences between them are stark, but so are the similarities.
Gale is slightly larger, but not by much, and that seems to be because of Gale's shell being more spacious that what the other carries. The bottle cap shell bears faded white letters, worn smooth by the sea. It is too wide at the edges, and shallow, forcing the pale one's body into an awkward curve.
Gale recognizes that curve. He lives it every day.
Try as they might, no matter how much the pale one tries to shrink into its shell, it's impossible. That healed crack along its upper carapace catches the light at each subtle movement, a reminder of vulnerability and how deadly such an ill-fitting home can be.
Gale lowers his claws completely, and angles himself again, deliberately tapping the rim of his lightbulb shell against a nearby stone.
Clink.
The pale one flinches, then leans in, eyestalks shrinking in. One delicate claw reaches out and touches the metal.
Cold. Unyielding. Not grown. Not given by the sea.
Understanding flickers between them, silent and sudden.
The pale one responds by turning just slightly, exposing the back of his bottle cap. He gives it a frustrated shake. The cap wobbles, slips, and nearly falls off before pincers grasp once more to the edges, claws scrabbling. Radiating unease, the pale one's fear is palpable. The constant, gnawing fear of being seen, of being crushed again.
Gale snips once, softly. Not mocking, but something warm and sympathetic. He shifts closer, positioning himself so his larger frame casts a shadow over the pale one, just a little cover from the open water.
His action is noticed. The other hermit crab's posture eases further. Questing antennae comes quivering towards Gale's face, tapping lightly then darting away.
Gale does not attack, keeping his claws tucked in and allowing his own antennae to reach out in turn.
Gale, he says with the vibrations of his antennae.
Astarion, comes the return, soft touches gentle and unsure along his face and body, then, growing bolder, to his carapace and his uncomfortable shell. They explore each other with cautious curiosity that grows less cautious as the water continues to sway around them.
They sit together in the sand hollow, two crabs with ill-fitting homes, listening to the reef breathe around them. The Cove hums with life, fish darting and anemones waving, but in that small pocket of quiet, something settles between them.
Astarion lifts one claw and points, not at Gale, but past him, toward the deeper water where empty shells sometimes wash in after storms.
Gale's eyestalks follow the gesture. He looks into the depths, then back at Astarion. Slowly and deliberately, he clicks his claws twice and begins to move, turning his body in that same direction.
Astarion hesitates only a moment before scuttling after him.
No words pass between them. None are needed.
Together, they leave the hollow in the sand, two unlikely friends moving side by side through the Druid’s Cove, carrying their fragile, artificial shells and a shared, silent decision to find something better.