ohxhangxme:
He carefully watches her as she draws nearer the boat, as she pulls herself just enough above the water’s surface to lean against it, and he’s caught between his pulse practically humming in his ears and the awe inspired by her presence.
How is it that something so beautiful, something that seems so naïve and pure… can be so terrible, so deadly?
Knowing what he does about what will happen, there’s a heavy feeling in his chest, and he has the strangest urge to tell her the truth when she asks, to tell her to swim far away from men in general and pirates specifically and to take her people with her as she goes.…
But then he forces himself to think of the stories that others had told of the mermaids of Whitecap Bay, recalling to mind the horrors they had perpetrated…
“They’re lonely, the waters are, eh?” he repeats, and––despite his best efforts––there’s a change in his expression. Something that becomes at least a little less guarded. Almost openly sympathetic.
Lonely. That’s something he understands. All too well, in fact.
And yet still he has a part to play in the ‘good’ Captain’s plot, and he must play it well. He’s seen what Blackbeard does to those who cross him, after all.
Even as he waves a hand dismissively at the others on the boat and their chattering now about this singular visitor of theirs, his gaze remains on her as though transfixed, and he shifts ever so slightly closer to where she rests.
“I s’pose that my reasons for bein’'ere would depend. What would you want? D’you want me t’get t’know you?”
She fixed him with a curious gaze, and lightly tilted her head as she considered him. Handsome, and he had a kind, if very sad, sort of face. She had never been over fond of the idea that her people were nothing but killers; certainly they could very viciously defend themselves, and they could just as viciously attack when lured into a trap, but how could they m a t e if they only saw men as prey? While she had heard legends of there being mermen, the colony at Whitecap Bay was a sisterhood only, no men dwelt among them save for the few sailors who had not struggled or hurt them, the few who had then been raised above all others, taken as husbands to the bottom of the sea, and k i s s e d -- for that legend was true. In its entirety.
She had never been so fortunate. And she longed for a companion of her very own, a man to love her, to cherish her, to whisper sweet things in her ear and run his fingers through her hair, in the way she’d heard the men did to their beloveds in the stories. Sometimes, books and scrolls sank with ships, and while they were hard to read when sodden, sometimes just enough would be visible that she could l e a r n their tales. Sometimes, ships were dashed upon the rocks above the surface, and she would find more books and other treasures therein, safe and dry. And she wanted to know: she wanted to know everything. About humanity. And about him. “I wish to know you,” she confirmed, now reaching up and touching his cheek with a cool, soft hand. “I don’t want to be lonely anymore.” Her eyes never left his own. Across the water, mermaids suddenly screeched, and Una drew back, panic flashing in her eyes and questions, questions she instantly aimed at him. Now her people were attacking the other boats, grabbing men and throwing them, and she gave a cry of alarm and pain when she saw one of her beloved sisters get speared right in the side by a man’s weapon. With a scream of her own, as another of the men in his boat reached for her, drawing a knife, she dived down deep into the water, just as her vengeful sisters swarmed up to tip the boat...
