Viktor had always been drawn to the impossible—to the boundaries science had yet to break. But when he found you, an injured mermaid washed up beneath the rusted docks of Zaun, even his brilliant mind struggled to comprehend it.

Your shimmering tail, once a marvel of the deep, was torn and ragged, the iridescent scales dulled with blood. Gasping for breath, you flinched as he knelt beside you, your webbed fingers weakly pushing against the cold metal of his cane.

“Easy,” he murmured, his voice gentle despite the curiosity burning in his golden eyes. “You are hurt.”

Your kind didn’t belong here, among the soot and oil-slicked waters. And yet, here you were, looking up at him with fear, with defiance, with something ancient in your gaze that sent a shiver down his spine.

“I won’t hurt you,” he promised, though he knew words meant little from a man of science to a creature of myth. “But if you stay here, you will die.”

A pause. Your breath hitched, and for a moment, Viktor thought you’d refuse. But then—slowly, hesitantly—you reached for the hand he offered.

His fingers curled around yours, firm yet careful, as if holding something both fragile and powerful.

Perhaps this was not just an encounter of logic and discovery. Perhaps, in the haze of rust and salt, of science and the sea, something more had just begun.