Sailing home, the prince and his guardians are delayed by a storm at sea. The Crimson Knight ends up washed ashore on a nearby island, meeting a naked, mute girl who couldn't walk properly. He's ordered to look after her until they find her family, but he doesn't know that she was the mermaid who brought him to shore. After all, mermaids are a myth—aren't they? AU, 59OC.

Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyō Hitman Reborn, from which I've borrowed characters and quite possibly some concepts for this work, or the Little Mermaid, to which this fictional, fan-made story is inspired from. There are elements borrowed from other fairy tales, as well, but I do not own them either.

Chapitre Un

Time was a silly little thought.

Man invented it and the methods to measure it—by the second, the minute, the hour, the day—and yet each man lived with his own concept of it, creating for himself his own personal measure of time. While universally established, the objective measure is often subject to the whims of each subjective measure; it could be that five minutes is universally understood to be exactly three hundred seconds, and yet in the everyday perception of men, it could mean three-hundred sixty, four hundred, or even sixteen hundred...

Splash!

...much to the dismay of those who love to be precise.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!" Lambo quickly rose from his bed, falling down in his frantic attempt to stand up. He was wet from his large, fluffy black hair until his shoulders, though the water from his hair was quickly dripping to his back. He did a series of calming breathing exercises before glaring at the man who was beside him, casually shaking the bucket to release excess water. "What the bloody hell was that for?!"

"You missed the meeting," he nonchalantly replied. He placed the bucket on the corner near the door.

"It's not like I have any important role to it, anyway," Lambo huffed. He began untangling himself from the blankets. "And what else was there to talk about? We've done our job, we're going home—it's not like we're going through a new ritual or something."

"You should be a bit more cooperative, nonetheless," the silver-haired knight reminded. "Prince Tsuna, Sir Reborn, and the others expect a lot from you."

The remark made him feel a little bit guilty for missing out the meeting, opting instead for a nap he thought he deserved after patrolling half the night and charging from the front during the last leg of their mission earlier. Still, that he wasn't woken up for the meeting probably meant everyone else understood—he was, after all, the youngest, and he tended to be spoiled in the matters of function and rest.

He felt no need to complain, though he did want an explanation. "What's the real reason you woke me up?"

"It's been too quiet."

"You want me to make noise?" He blinked in disbelief, quickly darting a glance at the clock. "It's a quarter past three, I don't think everyone else would appreciate my orchestra."

"Not that, you idiot," Gokudera huffed, restraining the urge to smack him on the head. "Don't you notice it?"

"Notice what?"

For the love of God. "The ship—" Three years with Reborn and you still haven't used your senses. "—is sailing too smoothly."

"And that's a bad thing because...?"

Lambo looked at him with genuine cluelessness, and Gokudera looked back with exasperated incredulity. He opened his mouth to respond (with a good string of swear words, he should add) but a flash of lightning stroke and it was immediately caught in their peripheral vision.

Lambo looked to the window.

Another flash of lightning. And another. And another.

The boat was slowly beginning to sway heavily left and right.

He gulped, finally catching on.

"I don't know how to swim."

"Then you better not get thrown overboard," Gokudera told him, already opening the door. "Let's go!"

Under the sea was better than anything above it—or so she had been told for the past twenty-one years, not that she continued to believe in it halfway when a small treasure box sank right in the middle of her shell-bed. It was empty, save for a pair of shoes, earrings, a headband made with looking glass, and another box—a smaller box that took her longer to open, only to find a necklace whose motif was far different from the other items in the box. It had a gold chain and a teardrop-shaped pearl pendant that was partly embraced at the top by a small golden dragon with red eyes.

She found it very, very pretty—it was her favorite item. It never left her neck since the first time she wore it, like the notion that the world above the waters was perhaps not as dangerous and ugly and cruel as she had been taught. It was only a little while after that that she began to explore sunken ships, collect little trinkets from the human world, and sometimes, sometimes watch them from afar.

"This is dangerous, Sayuri-chan!" Skipper reminded her for the nth time. She had a hand on the side of the ship, and it was moving with the waves. He couldn't understand her lack of fear. "We have to get out of here soon! It's going to sink!"

"It's not going to si—" The flame angelfish motions to the quickly-brewing storm to their right, the lightning striking at the distance in impeccable timing. The dark-haired mermaid blinks for a moment, letting the situation sink in.

The waters began waving in a stronger, rougher manner.

"I don't know about you," Skipper starts, swimming farther away from the boat. "But I'm going to go back under where it's safer!" And off he went, back under the water as he told her. He was never one for risky situations involving humans—he had distant relatives kidnapped by them, sometimes eaten.

The thought never failed to give him shivers.

Sayuri snaps back to reality and quickly swims after him. Her tail is an uncommon, light shade of gold, long and slim, moving through the water like a goldfish's tail dancing in a dramatic matinée performance at Opéra Atlantica.

"Skipper, wait!"

The angelfish stops right before a tall rock, quickly turning around to face his ever-so-troublesome friend. Sayuri slows down and stops to float in front of him, her face etched with a worry far different from his.

"We can hide under the rocks until the storm passes," he suggested, briefly pointing to the huge, curved rock behind him. "And then we can collect the trinkets after!" he grinned, mustering up the best he could of his enthusiasm to convince her. As much as he hated the danger, he did find the little things his friend collect interesting—there was no other reason why he'd put up with her and her antics despite his fear of humans.

She eyes him for a good minute, weighing in the options she had. She wanted to observe the humans further, but it was highly dangerous that she do so during a sea storm. If the ship sank, she'd be crushed under it like many other unfortunate algae and other sea creatures. She could, however, just collect trinkets if she waited; it was not like she wasn't going to be able to watch another group of humans pass by the area, others whom she might be able to observe in a non-stormy situation.

Skipper had a good plan, she thought.

"Okay," she smiles. "Okay!"

"Strike the royals!" Gokudera commanded loudly, watching as the sailormen moved swiftly against the pouring rain.

"What?" Lambo snapped, looking back at him in confusion. "I thought you wanted me to keep Prince Tsuna safe under deck?!"

"I meant the sails at the top mast, stupid! Get going!" He briefly clarified, exasperated. Lambo ran back inside rather obediently, mumbling something about how it was the wrong day to have worn his favorite cow-print pajamas.

Gokudera quickly turned to the tall, black-haired man who was already climbing up the foremast. "Yamamoto!" he called. The twenty-three-year-old noble stopped and turned to him, closing one of his eyes momentarily due to the harsh wind.

"Use your blade! It'll be faster!" the knight told him. "We have back-up sails, anyway!"

"Got it!" He reaches the fore top, still holding onto the mast to keep his balance. The boat was swaying strongly, and any blunder could lead him either to the deck or the sea. He takes out his sword from its scabbard with one hand, and prepares to strike.

Down below, the old captain gives the wheel to his assistant for a moment, running to the silver-haired knight for another important task. "Sir Gokudera!"

The man he calls immediately turns to him, still holding onto the railings of the stern deck as he quickly whips his hair backward because the wind kept pushing it to block his sight. The wind was howling and the ship was swaying far too much for his comfort; he was beginning to feel a little dizzy, but he wasn't going to rest until the storm stopped.

"Sir Gokudera!" The captain himself latches onto the railings, a meter near him, as the ship leans to the left. "We have to reef the mainsail!"

"We're abandoning course?!" The knight asks. Reefing the mainsail meant rolling it halfway, and then sailing with the wind to somewhere calmer.

"I know the area, Sir! I've passed here for twenty years!" He tells him, hoping the mention of his experience would convince the knight. "There's an island nearby where we could dock until the storm is over!"

The ship leans to the right and both of them try to keep both their feet on deck. Gokudera glances at the masts; Yamamoto only had one more royal to strike. He turns back to the captain. "Are you sure?!"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Take back the helm, then!" He tells him, jumping to the main deck where he could start climbing to the mainsail. "I'll handle it!"

"Storms are really bad up there, aren't they?" Skipper mumbles, watching the flashing lights and the silhouette of the boat as it struggled against the waves and the wind. Sayuri is beside him, leaning on the rock with her chin pressed up on her wrists, her eyebrows furrowed with worry.

Neither of them could really feel the chaotic vibes happening above, being down below where the waters were calmer, barely affected by the storm.

"What do you think we'll get after this?" Skipper asks randomly. "It was a big ship, looked really grand. Maybe they'll throw down some gold."

"Maybe," she mumbles absent-mindedly beside him. Her mind is focused on the scene they're watching; while she is excited at the prospect of new trinkets, she was worried for the people in the ship. Humans couldn't swim this deep in the sea, or so she learned from the skeletons she's seen.

She's always ever just seen skeletons—she's never seen humans really die before, and she wasn't quite sure she wanted to.

"I hope they throw down those silverwares again! They are so interesti—oh, look! They began unloading!"

Sapphire-blue eyes quickly scanned the scene for whatever the angelfish spotted, and they rested on a peculiar-looking silhouette. Unable to recognize it, the mermaid quickly jumped from the rock and swam closer, eyes narrowing for a more focused look at the silhouette that seemed vaguely familiar.

Those looked like pants, she first thought, noticing the structure. It had boots, gloves, and a coat, too, but there was no hat—whatever was on top of the coat reminded her of an octopus, or the hairstyle she saw earlier on—"A human," she gasped as the silhouette turned and lightning flashed, the quick lighting revealing the face she had seen look over to the horizon from the ship. "A human!"

The little mermaid swam rapidly, reaching the man and stopping his descent by grabbing onto his shoulders, grasping his coat.

Skipper followed quickly after her. "You have to let go of him!" he tells her immediately. "He's already dead!"

"He can't be!" She's been taught that humans needed air, and that they couldn't breathe through water, but they could be revived from drowning when there wasn't too much water that entered their systems. That was exactly why she needed to bring him back above, where his respiratory system could automatically function, as soon as possible. "We have to bring him back there," she tells her friend, looking worriedly at the silver-haired man in her arms.

His eyes were closed, but she could faintly remember that he had a pair green and reflective as the sea on a good, sunny day.

"But there's still a storm," Skipper reminds her. "He could get hit by the boat and die bleeding!"

"There's an island nearby," she tells him. "I can get him there in five minutes in my best speed."

"He's not going to survive five more minutes!"

"He is! He will!" She stubbornly retorts. She hooks her arm with the man's and lifts him higher to shallower water, but for a minute she stops and faces him. Humans need air, she recalls, but they can't breathe in water.

She inhales deeply, opens his mouth and puts hers on it, carefully transferring the air that she could breathe for him.

Skipper catches up to them just as she lets go and pulls him up higher, making sure that at least his head floated above the water. She heard a silent gasp, but when she looked, he remained unconscious. She felt him move slightly and she could only hope his respiratory system was automatically functioning for him.

Holding his trunk and keeping his body afloat, she pulls him as she swam to the nearby island at her best speed.

Fin de Chapitre Un