Summary: AU. The Merpeople of Bermuda have long forgotten their ancient enemies, the Serpents. But when Sam is cornered by one outside the city, she is faced with truths that few people want to hear, and even fewer wish to believe. DxS

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, blah blah, on to the story!

The mermaid Sam was a bright little thing, a teenage girl with a tanned, tropical body and equally tropical purple fins and eyes. Her body started small and rounded out at the junction of her human and fish halves, then tapered along her tail and flared at her fins, creating a highly visible and easily recognizable outline. Her straight black hair cascaded down to the small of her back, flaring with every move she made. And though her clothes were seaweed green, they consisted of a flaring skirt and a simple strip wrapped around her chest, neither of which did anything to camouflage her against the white, sandy seabed.

She would be easy for a predator to find.

And find her one did—just one, though that was because a Serpent found her first, and few creatures wanted to tangle with a Serpent. They looked like distant cousins of the Merish, but a Merish would never suggest that. Serpents were monsters with translucent scales all over their bodies and faces and impossibly long, snake-like tails where the Merish's mammalian flukes and fins were. They had claws on their grotesque, webbed hands, pointed fish fins where their ears should be, and sickly, pale skin under their scales.

Worst of all, Serpents were pure predator, built to kill, who didn't make any distinction between eating some dumb fish or a soft-skinned Merish girl. Where Merish had supple fins on their arms and blunt teeth, sharp spines grew at Serpent elbows and pointed teeth lined their mouths, along with curved, hollow, poison-filled fangs.

The Serpent that found Samantha was no different. Thin olive scales covered him, even his "human" torso, casting a greenish tinge over his entire body and a discolored glow on the reflective white sand below him. His tail was gray-green, complete with faded black tiger stripes that marked him as a venomous member of his kind. The spined fin running along it only made him look bigger and more monstrous. His hair—the one thing that might have made him look Merish, was white like bleached bone.

He circled her, shoulders tensed and murderous grin in place as he readied himself to strike. Unreal, bright green eyes flashed at her with vertical black pupils. Samantha's arms wrapped around her sides as she shrank into her fright, threatening to crush the gills on her sides.

"Well, well... What brings you to my part of the Ocean, little fish?"

She swallowed. If anyone else had called her that, they would have suffered a fist to the jaw. Now, though, Samantha could do no more than shiver as a body of green and black stripes coiled around her.

"Don't you know it's dangerous outside of the city? A little girl like you could get...hurt."

The way his tongue ran along his pointed teeth didn't help her nerves. In fact, she tried to back away, forgetting that the rest of his body was on her other side and backing into a rough, scaled tail. She turned, startled; when she looked back, his face was right in hers, spiny fins flared at the sides of his face, teeth staring her in the eyes.

"Now that you're here, though, why don't you stay a while? It's dinnertime, and I'm starved!"

She could feel the thud of her heart beneath her ribs at the feral hiss in his voice. Daring to look away from his face—those teeth!-she hoped for a way out. Up was not an option—she doubted she could pick up enough speed like that. But there, between his coils, was an opening that he hadn't seemed to notice.

"Join me for a bite!"

But Samantha didn't feel like sticking around. She whirled in place and ducked underneath him, almost kissing the sand in her rush to get away. Arms tucked against her body and tail fins spread, she swam madly for the gate. The enraged hiss of the monster trailed after her.

A garden of coral separated her and home. She ducked beneath a bright pink branch, stopping to catch her breath. Her eyes watched the ocean above, trying to see where the monster was, trying to see...

...Nothing. Tiny fish fluttered above the coral but the rest of the area was clear. Was he waiting for her to appear again before he gave chase? But no, she watched the sand she had just crossed and he wasn't anywhere. He hadn't followed her. Why hadn't he followed her?

She didn't think about it long. She was still shaking as she picked her way along narrow pathways through the coral, finally reaching the home-side of it. He wasn't there, either, so she darted for the nearly invisible gates of her city.

'I'm alive! Dear Poseidon, I'm alive!' Never had she invoked the name of the ancient sea-guardian, but she needed someone to know! She certainly wasn't telling anyone back at home.

A/N: Edited once for grammar and legibility (the first posting was rushed—mistakes were made). No real changes were made to the actual story.

Thanks for reading!