REVISED VERSION

I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: On stranger tides on the opening day. I enjoyed the film, and I fell in love with Philip and Syrena. They totally made the film for me. They are such an ambiguous couple because not much is revealed in the movie about them and there is such an open ending to their story. Still I adore them and I just had to write something about them.

It definitely contains spoilers, so in case you haven't seen the film yet, you might want to think twice before you read this.

For those of you waiting for my next chapter of When you believe, I'm sorry I interrupted that work to get this done, but seriously I HAD to write about Philip and Syrena!

Hope you like it!

Chapter I

"She has a name"

They young missionary still found it hard to take in everything he had experienced over the past few days. He had seen the rest of the missionaries being slaughtered by Blackbeard's crew. He had been tied up a mast for three entire days. He had been used as bait for mermaids and had survived the attack from the raging beauties. And thanks to him one of them had been captured and was a prisoner to the pirates, imprisoned inside a glass coffin.

He was half listening to what Jack Sparrow was telling him about saving his soul, as he looked back to see the trapped mermaid.

"...on the off chance that this does not go well for me" Sparrow's ramble continued "I would like you to note it–hearing now–that I am fully prepared to believe in whatever I must, and be welcomed into that place where all the goody-goodies want to go once they pop their clogs. Savvy?"

"We have a word for that Jack. You can convert" he replied, quite serious, opposite to Sparrow's joking tone.

Sparrow seemed confused, but Philip decided not to pay much attention to it. Jack was a pirate after all, and what could a man who disobeyed laws, violated rules and roamed free in the sea possibly know about religion? About God? It was obvious his sudden interest about redeeming his soul was not sincere, but simple convenience due to his situation.

The missionary was finishing to wash his face as he turned around, distracted, but his eyes fixed on the glass coffin near him. The mermaid seemed to be breathing heavily and he quickly understood she was suffocating inside her crystal prison. He couldn't help but feel guilty for that, since it was his own doing that the mermaid had been captured and taken away from Whitecap Bay. He knew he had to do something.

"She's not breathing!" he exclaimed, standing up and approaching the coffin hastily.

"She's got water" the Quartermaster simply replied, obviously not caring one bit about what was going on. Maybe it was because the man was a zombie and was permanently indifferent to everything. But Philip somehow knew that even if he was a normal, unzombified man, he wouldn't have cared either.

"We have to open this!"

"I support the missionary's position" Sparrow said, again out of pure convenience.

"She will escape" the zombie answered with his monotone, dead voice.

"She needs air!" the missionary insisted.

Philip tried to open the lock but was unable to do so. The mermaid inside was dying and every second counted, he couldn't keep wasting time fighting the lock. He took the Quartermaster's blade to stick it in the rabbet between the cap and the rest of the coffin. With a twist of his arm, the lock cracked and the coffin opened just a bit, but enough for the mermaid to breathe in some air.

"You see" he said, filled with relief that the mermaid didn't asphyxiate.

The Quartermaster took his sword out but Philip quickly put his Bible to keep the coffin open just as the sword had done before. He got a growl and an angry look from the zombie, but for Christ, he wouldn't let him close that coffin again. They needed the mermaid, and the mermaid needed to be kept alive. Blackbeard seemed to understand that, because he ordered the Quartermaster and the rest of the crew to keep moving.

Philip sighed with relief, and then turned to his side, where he was faced by the mermaid, staring at him with inexpressive eyes and a blank look on her face. He didn't know what to make of that, but he liked to believe she was somehow thankful for what he had done. True, she was captive because of him, but Philip couldn't stand the way she was treated by the pirates, he had made it his duty to protect her and treat her with the dignity every creation of God deserved. But it wasn't so much a duty; it was something he wanted to do, something he felt like doing. He too was a captive to the pirates so he might as well do something good while being with them, because he knew none of them would.

A sudden crack took him out of his thoughts in no time. He moved quickly to see what had happened and saw the glass coffin was shattered. The mermaid was lying on the ground, twisting and turning, her tail flapping. For a second Philip was sure she was going to die without her water, but it didn't happen. Her body coiled and her scales began to disappear, her tail parting in two parts, forming legs. The poor girl trembled, and embraced her knees, looking even more scared than before, even more vulnerable than she had looked in her coffin.

Philip couldn't believe no one moved an inch as her transformation happened. The mermaid had just turned into a human, and was sitting on the ground in front of the entire crew, naked, wet and shivering probably both from cold and fear. He didn't hesitate to take his shirt off and use it to cover her body. She gasped as she felt him near her and Philip embraced her both with the white fabric and his arms.

"You will walk"

Both the missionary and the mermaid looked up to Blackbeard as they heard his words, who was staring at them with a mixture of disgust and determination. It was obvious he couldn't understand why on Earth Philip was helping a mermaid, but was feeling pleased to see the mermaid now had legs and could move on her own. She would walk, as he commanded her.

Philip helped her stand up. Her movements were slow and shaky. He could feel she was having trouble finding her balance, but once she was on her feet, he let go of her. The girl stood for a moment and then hesitantly moved her foot forward to take a step and immediately fell to the ground.

"I can not" the girl whispered, ashamed and fearful. She was not used to walk, only swim, and she had an injury on her left foot where Philip's sword had pierced her fin back in Whitecap Bay.

"Walk or die" Blackbeard told her, a sour and derisory voice coming from him. He looked down to her as if he was looking at some inferior creature, not a human.

Philip's blood boiled inside his veins. How could he treat her so? He had an uncontrollable urge to defy him, to help her.

Her head hanged low, staring at the ground. She was being humiliated terribly by Blackbeard. A mermaid was supposed to be vicious, strong and dangerous, and all she was, was a fragile, useless girl waiting to be killed on the spot. She knew that man would end her life if she didn't walk. But no, she wouldn't die feeling humiliation, so she looked up and stared into Blackbeard's eyes, a defiant gaze finding its way to her eyes.

"Put your arms around me" a soft voice whispered next to her.

The missionary was knelling next to the mermaid, offering his help. But she didn't want that man's help. A mermaid never needed anyone's help, so why would she?

"I do not ask for help" she answered proudly.

"But you need it"

In that man's eyes she saw he genuinely wanted to help her. He was being protective of her, and truth be told, in the alien environment she found herself in, she needed that protection and that help. She blinked a few times, still hesitating whether she should trust that man, if she would allow him to assist her. She carefully slid her arm around Philip's neck and he embraced her body to carry her.

"We are in a hurry, yes?" the missionary spoke as he stood up, cupping the mermaid's body in his arms while he sternly looked at Blackbeard.

"Don't fall back, clergyman"

He had been carrying the mermaid for a while and not even once had she spoken to him. She only looked at him from time to time with a faint smile or something that sort of resembled one. Philip just figured those looks and those shadows of a smile were meant as some kind of thanking.

The crew stopped near a gigantic tree to check routes, so he placed the girl on one of the huge roots. She was staring at him, but again, no words were coming out of her.

Philip was amazed by her. As all mermaids, she was truly gorgeous. But there was something inhuman about her beauty. No woman he ever met looked like the frail girl in front of him.

"Such beauty" he began to say "Surely you are one of God's own creations, not a descendant of those dark creatures who found no refuge on the Arc"

He couldn't believe she was a cruel creature who lured men into their deaths and fed on their flesh. Such a vicious creature couldn't be a creation of the Lord, but beauty was made by Him. The missionary couldn't quite place what that girl was. A creation of God or a creation of the Devil.

"Such beauty…"he continued "Yet deadly" and walked away from her.

"Deadly? No!" the mermaid's words made him turn around. He stared at her in confusion. There was something in her voice, the way she denied to be deadly, that prayed him no to believe she was such a thing.

"You attacked me"

"No"

For a moment neither of them spoke and Philip thought she wouldn't go on, but she did. However what she said, he didn't expect to hear "You are different"

"Different?"

He wasn't quite sure what the mermaid meant, but then realized that she meant he was not like the rest of the men. On one hand they all had an interest in her, they wanted to gain something from her. And on the other, they all treated her like less than a human. But he didn't want anything from her nor treated her badly. He was in fact the only one who showed respect to her.

"You protect" the mermaid continued to speak "Just like I protected you"

Philip remembered she had tugged his leg to drag him towards the water. Obviously he thought she was trying to drown him, like the rest of her sisters had done with the other sailors who perished at their hands. Now he understood she just tried to move him out the way from the falling lighthouse. She was not trying to end his life, but save it.

"You pulled me out of the way..." he whispered as that realization came to him.

The girl nodded and smiled softly. She turned her head as Angelica began to shout orders to the crew, who was on the move again within seconds and their resting time was now over.

"Bring the creature!" Blackbeard shouted.

Something inside Philip snapped as he turned to face the pirate captain. He couldn't take it any longer, he hated the way he addressed the girl, the way he treated her, they way he stared at her as if she was some strange animal "She has a name!"

Blackbeard looked at him without any expression on his face "Then do tell"

Philip felt silent for a moment. He didn't know the mermaid's name. He looked into her eyes, trying to think how could that beautiful girl be named. And then a word popped into his head.

"She's Syrena"

I hope you enjoyed this!

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