κατάρα του ωκεανού || Para 01
Andromeda was somewhat aware of the mortal’s waning sense of wonder in her, and she wasn’t sure if that ought to concern her or comfort her. Certainly she could tell from the way he carried himself and the way the air around him was tainted with the stench of blood on him that she could not see yet somehow still stained him that he was not a man who spent time nor resource on something that bored him. No, it wasn’t whether or not she garnered Nathanael’s attention or not that she questioned, that she could tell quickly. The true question was whether or not she preferred the consequences she would face as result of his lapse in interest or the prolonged suffering of his audience. “If only I were so lucky,” she replied icily, her cold stare unwavering in the wake of his grin.
The sea maiden didn’t feel even fractionally better, though she was sure her counterpart must have known this. Chagrined, she watched him pour from one large vessel into a smaller one and drink from it as he monitored her. She stared back for lack of ability or option of anything better to do, and out of a stubborn unwillingness to back down—the same orneriness that had granted her an audience with him in the first place.
“Then what would you have me know, oh great and formidable god?” Andromeda questioned, her voice both lofty and mocking all at once. “And toward what great gift of life should I dedicate my prayers to you? What idol are you, as man or god, to my bone spliced directly of goddess? If I am not more than you as a simple man, then I am certainly no less than your equal as god. No arrangement places your weight on the scale favorable toward mine.” She paused, feeling ill and weak in the dry setting of the captain’s cabin. “But you seem to think I view our merits all wrong. Tell me then, oh great god,” she implored, voice dripping with contempt, “what it is I ought to know, what oversight flaws my logic. Make a believer out of me.”
The shoreline green of her eyes narrowed when he challenged her experience with the working world of man. Inexperienced though she was, it wasn’t exactly for lack of trying. These attempts to get to know man, to see it up close, smell it and taste it, to at least see it in some real way before dragging it down with her to the darkest depths of the ocean always stood in the way of accomplishment or meaningful interaction. Until now. Livid and miserable as she may be, and feeling sicker and fainter by the moment, she was learning about man.
“And what of my word?” Andromeda challenged. “Do you trust it? Certainly you don’t question it—you’ve heard little more than what I choose to tell you.” The reflection of light in his cabin caught her eyes, glinting off of them with a more brilliant glimmer than that of the light’s reflection on the crafted blade. “I can only assume that this must be an occurrence against your nature,” Andromeda smiled, but it looked like the curling of the lips of an angry dog, purely for the sake of bearing teeth, “on the basis of my emergence striking you like some sudden revelation. Tell me, have you long awaited this day? Have you hoped and hunted? Have you reveled in whiled dreams and fantasy?” She asked the questions as if his suspicion of her species existence was little more than the flight of fancy of some juvenile. “Did you pray that this day might come?”
Andromeda had little energy left within her to give any sort of strong reaction to the fact he intended to reduce her to little more than a playing piece. Certainly there must be a game occurring, between this man and what she could only guess. However, she had managed to get herself roped in nonetheless. She eyed the razor edge of his sword, her head lolling to the side in half fatigue and half coyness. Her eyes dropped to the floor, or rather her tail, though she didn’t notice how the brilliance of her scales reflectiveness and rich color had begun to fade to a dull, lusterless gray. “Woe am I,” she signed in sardonic melodrama when he informed her that he had no current intention to end her life, “poor displaced creature of the sea.”
“Yes, if only you were,” Nathanael sighed, merely to mock her tone for lack of anything else to do. This was the most conversation he had bothered to have in what felt like weeks, especially since he usually reserved his oh so glorious company for that of Elias, whether or not his friend wished to hear it. When they had their little staring contests, it simply gave Nathanael moments to take in the differences in her features. They were soft – though that was simply a facade that he could see through now that he’d seen the creature in the throes of anger. He could see the razor like edges throughout the woman’s eyes and high cheekbones, and he simply chalked it off as something that was unnatural in nature. The captain wasn’t sure what the gods had wanted when they had created the mermaid before him, but he wasn’t going to worry about that now.
“Prayers? Are you the praying type, woman?” he questioned back, keeping up the ruse of whatever it is they were currently playing. Questions upon questions with no clear answers; this was merely the beginning, though Nathanael knew it was probably just as close to the end. “Perhaps Ammut will swallow your heart anyway,” he mused, always one who favored the scale metaphor. Nathanael shrugged his shoulders, his interest in the woman getting the better of him as usual. He liked listening to her speak, no matter the tone or words that left her mouth – he would always listen. That irked him to no other, since who was she to command his attention? Nathanael didn’t bend towards anyone’s will. Not the gods, and definitely not the creature tied up in his cabin.
“Tell me your merits, then. Tell me whatever it is you wish for me to know. You as well speak as though you hold all the power in simple word. If I am to make a believer out of you, perhaps you should make one out of me as well. Believing in existence is one thing, but I can’t say that anything else comes out of it,” he drawled, tapping his fingers on his forearm as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Perhaps I don’t trust your word. You’re a captive; a pawn in a game I’m certain you wanted nothing to do with. Those in your position would say anything to make someone believe they had the upper hand,” Nathanael shrugged, his blue eyes meeting her own green ones, “I take your word with a grain of salt – much like you’ve taken mine. Until we exchange names, you have told me nothing worth of listening to. What else have you done but mock me? Should I take my wounded pride and leave? Perish the thought,” he grinned slightly at his words, because, naturally, he thought he was quite clever. “Ah, woman,” he groaned, rubbing his hand over his eyes for a brief moment before he leaned back against his desk once more. “I have forever dreamed of you. In all your glory – swimming around the icy depths of the oceans; Minerva as your deity that you give all the praise to. No. Until today, I had rejected the thought of such things swimming around with nothing better to do but attack those who live on their ships. Seems such a desolate lifestyle, though your lack of excitement seems to reinforce the ideas.”
Nathanael’s own smile simply widened, as if her mock enthusiasm was the funniest thing he had heard all day, “I don’t wish for your kind to be hunted. And if that’s the only small mercy I have for you and the other women of the sea, then so be it. You hold yourself and your species in such high esteem that one can only wonder if you had even bothered to step foot on land. Where would you wish to go? Or perhaps, where, besides Ελλάδα, do you even know of?”
