The Plot Bunnies know it's Spring

And they keep multiplying. Rather than concentrating on anything I'm currently working on my brain took the long drive back home to come up with something new so here's my new project (not that I'm saying I'm working right this second on it but I am noodling around with it). The beginning of it was something I've been wanting to write for over a year and I can blame Shira Anthony and her Mer-Cave group on Facebook for it.

Last year I saw this picture there (btw it's by Itsmar so go to their page and check out their work)

I knew I wanted to do a captive merman at a sideshow story (there was another similar picture to this but I believe it really was drawn as a sideshow but I can't find it right now). So for months I carried around the idea but had no plot to go with it.

Then last week or so this picture got posted (the artists is Zwierzodudle. Thanks octoberland for that information!) and thought,'this needs a hurt/comfort sort of story.' But still it went nowhere.

On the drive back to Ohio, I was trying to work on my Vampires in Vegas story in my head and instead this story gelled. I can easily see it being a novella with what's in my head now, maybe longer.

I see it being steampunk/fantasy. Not really Earth but around 1880s tech level. I see a brother and sister from a wealthy seafaring family (tea importers? spices? something) but these two took to the air. The sister was an airship captain but head trauma with damage to the occipital lobe left her almost completely blind. Her brother is leaving the service in stages so he can spend more time with her and setting up his medical practice (he's ship's doctor).

He sees the captive merman in a circus. I'm thinking the old fortune teller taught him how to write because he doesn't speak. He communicates more like a dolphin. Doctor feels a great deal of pity for him because he sees in the merman's eyes he's not just a man in a suit and he really is chained. Air pirates or something bomb the area and Doctor makes off with the merman who can grow legs to be on land (because otherwise the story would be a bit weird sexually, just saying).

I know Doc spends time trying to figure out the merman's physiology and anatomy. I know he has gills and lungs. As a merman, he has a cloacal opening. Yes, my brain went there. I know, I know. I told it to stop being a doctor/biologist for five minutes and it told me to go to hell. I asked if that meant he had a shifting colon blending with the urinary tract when in fishy form. It decided two cloacal openings and I contemplating just driving into the Ohio river....

I know that Doc's place is ocean side with a cave/lagoon. Merman makes a decision to stay and even goes with Doc into an airship just to see what it is like. I know there will be an ocean rescue.

What I don't know is when in the world I'll find time for this because dammit, I'm finishing that Vampire in Vegas story come hell or high water (which I shouldn't mention either because work is the former and the creeks around my place are a-rising).