The fading light was grey through the heavy clouds. Drizzled rain scattered plops against the water's surface. The wind had picked up by the time Francis rose just far enough out of the water to see the latest of pirate warnings sway to the growing storm. At this distance from shore, now that the boat sent to tie the body to the beam had returned to port, he did not fear being seen. He had angered Triton once and feared his power already.
'BEWARE' read the placard tied around his neck, a rough discarded plank marked in black paint and tied with the fraying end of spare rope. Francis ignored the warning, it not being meant for him, and propelled closer through the water. The pirate's feet, robbed of boots, nearly brushed the waves that reached up for him. Someday, the sea promised, they would claim him when the sun and birds had their turn.
His face, familiar from Francis' memory of it, was the only thing in his vision. A memory so distant it felt more a dream than an actual occurrence. The face was older, weathered by sunlight and the coarse salt that rode the winds. A pirate, from what he had heard. Caught a week earlier and made a special example of for his crimes. People howled their displeasure of him across the seas. It was how Francis had heard of it because he had been searching somewhere else for the same face. He had never stopped, not after a storm nearly killed him and had been rescued by chance.
What crimes did this man hold? Piracy was normally enough to warrant such treatment, but not the reason to have earned the attention of the entire kingdom. They had dragged him through the streets in chains and up to the palace steps where he stood before the king and laughed. When asked, he professed in a loud voice that he had killed their son, the prince.
Francis shook his head. He knew the truth of the statement. The prince had died that night of the storm when his ship capsized and he was sinking. Death came in the arms of a mythical creature, one of fins and scales who carried him as his lungs were about to flood back to the surface for breath. It pushed him to floating wreckage and sank quickly out of sight.
Death was a face he would never forget, not waking or sleeping. It haunted him as he meandered his castle in a daze. Consumed were his thoughts that he boarded the next vessel he could and set out across the waves to find the face again. His search was so intent that it roused the anger of the lord of the seas and he found himself imprisoned beneath the ever tossing waves. Never would Francis be able to walk the shores again, but he saw this less of a punishment. Now he was free to look for his mate unhindered by the need of air and legs too slow to swim.
Time had stretched thin. He had searched so long that he had lost the natural beauty of his former self. He felt the same haunted brokenness of the corpse before him. His search had ended, but he had been too late.
He opened his mouth, desperate for words that refused to come. Had it hurt to have the tail split in two? Did Triton leave him on the beach to crawl across the rocks? His own transformation had been unpleasant. The final thing to turn had been the gills, but not until after he had drowned, struggling to make the fused tail work beneath him. Such was the punishment for angering a sea god.
Arthur had been his name. It crushed him that it wasn't the first time he had heard of it. Drowning sailors had uttered the name as curses on their final breaths. He should have made the connection sooner. And done what? Followed the ship endlessly, their roles reversed? There was never a solution to their predicament. But had he been out on those ships looking for Francis? That brief hope flickered and faded.
"It was true, Arthur. You killed the sea prince." His voice felt thick and the reply of calling birds sounded overhead. "And I killed you too."
Goal completed, he had located his mysterious merman rescuer. His reward was the contemplations of what could have been, of recalling every happy thought he had once held and wishing that one of them had come true instead. Now he looked forward to the day where he too could join the other and be swept away by the waves.
Until then, he slipped backwards, gliding beneath the water as the wind picked up faster and the rain drops swelled with moisture. A fish tail momentarily broke the surface distorted of lapping waves. A storm was building, the kind that sunk unprepared ships and broke them apart into flotsam. That should have drowned princes beneath a murky sky.