"What is that?!"

"That's a ship, Lance. You know, the thing you work on every day? The thing we're on right now?"

"I know what a ship is, Hunk, but that thing isn't a normal ship. Look at it closer."

Lance tossed his eyeglass to Hunk, who caught it poorly and turned in the wrong direction.

"Okay, what am I looking for?"

"Over there. Do you see it?"

There were a few moments of silence as the weak-stomached cook adjusted his view.

"Woah, Shiro? Come take a look at this."

"Lance, come take the wheel. What did you find?"

The captain the Paladin, Takashi Shirogane handed off control and descended to the base deck of the smallish watercraft, taking the eyeglass handed to him. He directed it towards what had seemed to be another ordinary fishing ship.

At first, he didn't seem to see anything wrong, though the ship was a bit higher out of the water than what was probably safe.

He adjusted the glass. The ship seemed to be abandoned; he couldn't see anyone on deck or at the wheel. "Keith, is there another sandbar out here?"

The navigator shrugged uncertainly.

"I didn't think so."

"It looks like the ship's run aground."

"No, Shiro, that's not it. Look at the nets."

Shiro glanced up at Hunk, who for once was not slouching, and then back through the eyeglass.

All the nets were deployed, and as he scanned them for any flaws, saw one move.

He adjusted the eyeglass closer again.

There was definitely something trapped in one of the nets, hanging halfway in the water. Whatever it was was splashing violently, so much so that Shiro was beginning to think it was a dolphin when a very human arm shot up and grabbed the net from the inside.

"There's somebody trapped in there!"

"Wait, a person? Are you sure?"

Shiro handed the eyeglass off carelessly as he moved to the other side of the ship and the life boats, dropping one into the water.

"Whoa, whoa, Shiro, hold on! We need to plan this out, what if it's a trap? Who's going with you?"

"Lance, bring the ship around, get as close as possible without running aground. Nobody's going with me, the boats are only big enough for two each. It'll be fine, Keith; you'll have eyes on me the whole time. There's nothing to worry about. I'm just going to cut them loose and bring them back, okay?"

"Shiro, hold on-and you're gone." Hunk had tried to slow the captain by grabbing the back of his jacket, but he shrugged out of it and jumped into the boat he'd loosed. He smiled up at his small crew from it, a calming affirmation for all of them.

"It'll be fine, big guy. Don't worry about it. In and out, promise."

He lifted the paddles and began to head for the other ship.

As he drew closer, he could hear the splashing from the person's panicked struggling and sounds that only a human could've made. He came up on the opposite side of the ship, so he couldn't see who he was talking to as he ran his boat onto the soft silt the much larger fishing ship was stuck on and waded to the nearest net, scaling it up onto deck.

"Hello? Can you hear me? Where's the rest of your crew?"

There was no response but that of the splashing water hitting the hull of the ship. Shiro drew his smallest knife warily; now onboard, something did seem very off. At least there was no blood, he thought as he looked around. The ship looked very old, as if it had been grounded years ago. The net that the person was trapped in was linked to the side of the ship, not an actual pulley system; Shiro jumped the railing and found himself barely waist high in the water. How had someone gotten trapped in this?

"Hey, stop struggling! I'm here to help."

The net was wrapped tightly around the person, slapping the side of the ship and sending small waves of water up around Shiro. He still couldn't see the person inside, though he saw a thick lock of woody hair knotted into the net. Shiro reached up and grabbed the net around the hand, pulling it down.

The creature inside froze.

It wasn't human.

Shiro was holding a human hand, slender and cold, and staring into human eyes, beautiful hazel. From the waist up, everything about the being was human. Well, almost everything; it had scales on its shoulders and fins along its elbows, slotted gills, and a long dorsal fin bleeding into the tail.

The creature's lower half was made up of a tail that was long and winding, a dorsal fin traveling down its back to a thin, silky fin that spread out from the end of its tail like a leaf. It was armored with sleek scales that Shiro felt the inexplicable urge to stroke, to run his fingers over them as if he was feeling seaweed. Glistening shades of emerald and jade in the noontime sun, Shiro was completely enthralled by the tail so strongly that he didn't immediately react when it smacked him in the face, the creature beginning to flail again, panicked whimpers and gasps leaving it as it struggled.

Shiro shook himself back into some semblance of life; whatever this thing was, it still needed his help.

"Stop, stop struggling! Your hair's going to strangle you if you flip yourself around like that!"

In three swift movements, he sliced the net open and the creature's long tail flopped out of its confines, but it was still dangling by its hair. He reached out without thinking and grabbed the creature's hair. He could see no way of untangling it from how it had been worked into the net. As soon as he touched its hair the creature froze again, breath hitched in its throat, and it occurred to Shiro that the creature was, in fact, breathing air through its gills.

Slowly, painstakingly, the creature reached out a shaking hand. It came inches from Shiro's face before hesitating, fingers curling back in.

They stared one another down. It felt like years of silence, some kind of wonder as they tried to understand what each had come across.

Carefully, the creature dropped its hand to Shiro's wrist, taking his knife quietly. He let it go, entranced, and the creature snapped up the blade to slice its hair off just below where Shiro was holding it. It unraveled and Shiro pulled away a handful of long hair, brown like the fleshy inside of a young tree. Its torso followed its tail into the water, but for whatever reason did not shoot away into the deeper ocean. The creature floated where it had fallen, watching Shiro, who was as still as the creature. Its tail swirled lazily through the water, the thin, soft fin at its very end reaching out to Shiro. It weaved between his legs and rested against his chest. In some part of his dulled thought processes, it occurred to Shiro that the creature could be slowly entrapping him.

It came closer and reached out again. The blade was in its hand, and it seemed to be holding it out to Shiro-to take it back? Slowly, with all the intent of being gentle, Shiro reached towards it. The creature's eyes darted down to his hand, away from his face, and stretched the blade a little more.

"SHIRO!"

The creature startled horribly; it threw the knife at Shiro and disappeared. Shiro cried out in pain, falling back as the roughly thrown blade cut directly across his face. Keith was screaming from the deck of the Paladin, nothing short of horror on his face as he watched the shape that had been the creature move away swiftly, too quickly to ever capture on ship.

"Shiro, are you okay?! What was that?!"

"Get back on deck!"

Keith threw down a rope. Shiro grabbed it numbly, half-consciously being dragged back on deck. Hunk grabbed him before he was even on deck and pulled him up, forcing him into a tight bear hug as Hunk choked back tears.

"You scared us too much! Oh, why don't you people listen to me?"

Shiro groaned and pushed himself free from the hug, wiping his bloody face on his sleeve.

"What happened down there? What was that?" Lance repeated, bouncing from one foot to the other at the wheel. Shiro looked back to the destroyed net and the knot of hair in his hand, then back out to the open water, where the creature had long since disappeared.

"I don't know."