Disclaimer: My imagination thrives on stories and characters that others created before me.

Chapitre Deux

Words had always been important.

Perhaps not always, perhaps not always as much as actions do, but they were significant to the extent their purpose allowed them—and yet for all the words in all the languages in the world, there were thoughts that cannot be fully communicated in a group of letters marked in sheets of paper, or a group of sounds making the thought spoken and heard.

Such a moment Skipper arrived at that morning.

A couple of minutes later, when the waves had pulled him back to consciousness, he fleetingly thought it was ironic how he couldn't find the words for the thoughts he wanted to express to a friend who was unable to communicate a single word back to him.

Her mouth opened and she tried to speak—a sentence, a phrase; her tongue and mouth moved as it would have normally did when she spoke before, but there was no voice, no sound, and he did not understand anything save for the amusement in her eyes—and he knew the reason behind that, seeing that her golden tail was gone, replaced by a pair of skinny little legs—human legs.

Holy seaweed.

If it weren't for that face that he knew so well, he wouldn't have recognized her as his friend—the stupid, reckless, hopelessly sweet one.

"You are a horribly foolish, simple-minded, absolutely hopeless idiot!" he cried aloud, finally breaking the (one-sided) silence. He was still gaping at her in disbelief. "Get back to the water! You know you can't stay on land for more than ten minu—"

Splash!

Skipper frowned vehemently. The girl was giggling soundlessly as she stood and wobbled, holding onto the large rock beside her to help her keep her balance. The human she saved was lying on the sand, a mere meter away, still unconscious but alive, enough to wake up any time and chance upon seeing them.

He did not want to ponder on the consequences should that happen. "Sayuri!" He called again, this time with a voice pleading for her to think about exactly what she was doing. "Come back, please! You can go on shore again some other time!" Preferably in situations that would not get you caught sauntering unstably in human legs. "Ten minutes is almost up! Please! You have to get back before it—"

Thump!

"You know, the water's not that far, you could've just sat somewhere nea—"

He stopped, realized that she did not sit down; rather, she fell out of balance, and it wasn't just because she did not know how to manage weight on two scrawny human legs. She was not looking at him anymore, and her amused face had immediately been replaced by an expression of fear and distress as she looked at the figure that sat up groaning beside her.

For the second time that morning, Skipper could not find the words that manifested his shellshocked panic; he merely scrambled back in the water, swimming away for fear of his life.

Four hours staring at the water was beginning to make Lambo sick.

"He better be alive so I can kill him myself," he grumbled, biting his lollipop.

The spiky-haired prince looked at him with an amused smile, a tad bit envious himself of the single person in the ship who seemed to be more optimistic than worried. It was as if he didn't hear the captain saying earlier that the knight hit his head before falling overboard.

He silently wished he could pretend to ignore it and be as relaxed as he was.

Sighing, the prince looked around him, noticing that many others looked as bored and exhausted as they were. Majority of them skipped breakfast to save it for lunch, feeling that they wouldn't reach their destination on time (that afternoon) as planned. The Kingdom of Vongola wasn't that far away if they headed straight for it—a good three or four hours from where they were, according to the captain—but searching for the missing knight meant they had to tread the sea slowly and carefully to find him.

It could take them another day, at this rate.

He turned to the figure dressed in black beside him. "I'm sending word to Mama," he said as he stood. "Should I ask for Ryōhei or—"

"And Chrome," Reborn answered, his eyes still searching the sea. He had barely moved since they began scouting; his discipline was impeccable. "Her owl would be useful. We could use another bird to scout."

He nodded before turning his heel to head for his room, where his pen and paper were. He spotted the cook peeking from the door to the lower deck; he was probably wondering when he was serving food. Tsuna took one more survey at the people around him and figured it was about time that they all had something to eat.

He was halfway through the main deck when he heard Yamamoto yell.

"He's back!"

He turned in alarm, their missing man the first person to enter his mind at the mention of a he—yet the tall noble meant his pet swallow, who hovered before its master, a pocketwatch dangling from its beak.

He found him! was his immediate thought as he nearly ran beside the black-haired lord.

"Where did he get that?" Lambo asked, looking more awake than he did two minutes ago. Yamamoto took the pocketwatch from the bird, and gave it to Tsuna, who inspected it immediately.

Opening it, he found the family crest on the lid, and the red diamond he had asked to be inserted there years before. "It's Gokudera's," he confirmed. He looked at Yamamoto hopefully. "Can he show us the way?"

Yamamoto grinned confidently, and the prince ended up remaining on the main deck, thoughts of letters and lunch subconsciously pushed aside.

Ten minutes was a crucial time for merpeople.

It was the allotted time for them to try their human halves, to trade their tails for a pair of feet before they returned to the sea not a second later—or, at least, that was what they had been believing for centuries.

Sayuri did manage to scramble to the water within the ten-minute mark, but her tail did not return and instead the human she saved placed his coat on her and swept her off the ground. He hadn't been forceful, so to speak—he was redfaced and scowling, but he asked her if she was okay and he only carried her off to the dry part of the land when he saw her eyes were wet.

She didn't even notice she was crying, lost in frustration, fear, and distress, until she realized that he was patting her tears dry and muttering unnecessary apologies and comforting reassurances that he was not there to hurt her. She stopped crying, and he began asking questions after that. He quickly learned that she couldn't speak, and it wasn't longer later that he learned she didn't know how to walk either. He knew she was no cripple; she did have scrawny legs but they were strong enough to hold her weight. The problem appeared to be more of a lack of knowledge than working function.

"Divide your weight on each foot, it will help you keep your balance better."

Finding nothing else productive to do, the silver-haired knight thought of simply teaching her.

"You don't have to put your foot up in the air too long, you'll—"

Thump!

"—fall."

Stupid, stupid, stupid! She thought, clutching onto the coat he wrapped around her. I am such an idiot. What did I do?!

She was not looking at him, mulling over her own regrets as she stared at the sand, but he could see clear as day that her tearducts were wet and about to flow again. Gokudera sighed and crouched down in front of her.

He knew she noticed, but she did not move to look at him.

"We can take a short break, and then you try again," he told her, more stern than gentle. "You can walk, and I'm not going to be proven otherwise."

She lifted her eyes to meet his, wishing that he'd help her regain her tail instead, but that was a request too imposing and impossible. She alone couldn't think of a way to return to her normal self—what more could a human do when his knowledge of sea magic was close to nothing? This is the best we can do, she thought in defeat, tears cascading down her face. I have to learn how to be like them now.

She was sniffing and crying as she avoided his eyes again, and that easily frustrated him again as it did earlier.

"Shhh!" was the best he could gather after a short silence as he awkwardly scooted nearer to her. "What are you crying for? I'm not mad!"

She hadn't moved, the tears only kept flowing and the silver-haired knight mentally cursed himself for his disability to comfort crying... well, crying people, in general. He had never been good with wailing kids, much less with crying women, and he absolutely had no idea how to comfort a woman who could not tell him (and this was not by choice) why she was crying in the first place.

"Look, uh..." He swallowed his pride in his throat. God, he swore mentally. He abhorred dealing with weeping women. "I'm not mad, I swear. You don't have to walk if you don't want to."

She stayed still, looking down at the sand with a hopeless expression on her face, as if she hadn't heard him—it made him doubt if he sounded sincere enough. Regardless, she had not stopped crying and it was painful to watch.

He sighed and gathered his thoughts carefully, before he moved to cup her face in his hands and made her look at him. "Look, please," he implored; the distress must have been evident in his voice, because she lifted her eyes to grant his request. "Please stop crying. I don't know why you do, and you can't really tell me if my guesses are correct, but crying isn't going to make anything better. It just makes you look worse."

She stared at him for a good while before he realized what he just said.

"By looking worse—I mean... that is, uh... what I meant was—uh..."

He was blushing, embarassed, but she understood his intentions and a small smile crept up her lips while he stammered to explain himself. It took him a little while to notice, and when he did, he stopped talking and merely stared at her.

It was the first time he saw her smile, and she looked much better than worse.

"Help should arrive soon," he said, feeling the need for a slight change of topic as he withdrew his hands. A familiar swallow found them not long after he woke up, and he'd immediately given it his pocket watch—it should've been able to return to its owner by now. "We'll need to climb the ladder to get on the ship," It wasn't technically true—there was always the option to lift the boat, but neither of them had dire physical problems and he did not see the need for the extra trouble unless she doesn't learn how to walk by the time the ship arrived. "That's why you have to learn how to walk. Climbing is not that different."

She nodded in understanding. This time she wasted little time in standing up—she was beginning to get used to it—and he quickly shot back up to his full stature and backed a couple of steps to give her space for walking. She still wobbled, but it was lesser than before and he thought she'd nail the exercise within the day.

Finally balanced, she shifted her gaze from her feet to his face, deciding to worry less about her footing and try walking as a normal human would. Humans did not look at their feet to see if they were in the right positions all the time as they walked—their focus had always more on their destination, and less on how to get there. I have human legs now, she thought solemnly. Walking should be natural.

She lifted her right foot and landed it quickly in front of her, and then she repeated it with her other foot. Wobbling, she slowly took a few more steps, pausing when she thought she lost her balance. She steadied herself within the minute and resumed, biting her lip in frustration when she saw that the silver-haired lad had further distanced himself from her.

"You're doing much better," he told her. "You just have to stop wobbling so much."

He was wearing a small, teasing grin on his face and she wanted to wipe it off.

Clutching the coat wrapped around her, she resumed her walking exercise—still wobbling, but even lesser than before. Noticing that he was taking yet another step backward, she quickened her pace, dangerously swaying left to right as she did.

"GOKUDERAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The loud call, followed by a blaring horn, caught the both of them off-guard. She lost her footing and almost toppled over if her companion hadn't quickly reverted his attention to her and caught her before her knees hit the sand.

She reached him, he noticed—he didn't need to run to catch her. When she looked up at him as she stood up again, he gave her a small smile for her improvement. "Just in time," he remarked. "There's our ride."

Lambo welcomed him with a kick to the groin.

"You bloody bastard!" he yelled. Yamamoto and Tsuna winced at the name; Lambo was perhaps the only person they knew who would use it on him and manage to stay alive. "We've been staring at the water for hours looking for you, and it turns out you've been screwing around with a—OW!"

The knight punched his gut in return for the endearing welcoming gesture. "I found her when I woke up," he said, gritting his teeth as he waited for the (unnecessary and unwanted) pain in between his legs to ebb away. "I was teaching her how to walk."

By that time, Sayuri had landed both of her feet on deck, assisted by one of the ship's crew. She looked for the only familiar face she knew of and wobbled to it in a few, quick steps. She caught on to his shirt as he rose back to full stature, facing the rest of his friends more properly.

"I apologize for the trouble, Prince Tsuna," he said in earnest, addressing the spiky-haired lad. "It won't happen again."

Tsuna raised his hands and waved them dismissively. "It's no problem, Gokudera-kun," he told him, smiling. "It was an accident. We're just glad you're alive. Are you hurt anywhere?"

The knight shook his head and smiled back. The prince took this as a good cue to shift his attention to the figure clinging onto him and watching them. She hadn't spoken a word since she came onboard.

"Hi there," he greeted her, waving a friendly hand. "What's your name?"

Sayuri, she wanted to reply. She had been nameless since she got her legs, unable to say it or even give hints about it. There were no more lilies in the island than there were on the ship.

Instead of replying, she bit her lip and stepped back, clutching onto the knight's white shirt tighter.

Tsuna looked at the knight in confusion. "Is she shy?" he asked, hoping for some confirmation. She was looking at them the way he used to look at big dogs when he was five years old.

"She can't talk," Gokudera clarified, glancing at her.

"I thought you said you were teaching her how to walk," Lambo remarked, wondering if he heard him correctly earlier.

"I was," he clarified again. "For some reason, she didn't know how to stand or walk properly until I started teaching her, but she can walk. You've just seen her doing it, though I admit she should stop wobbling." She did a good job climbing, though, he thought; the ladder wobbled but she managed to pull through. He figured it was because the activity required a bit more arm strength than footwork.

He sighed. "She can walk, but she can't talk," he stated clearly, hoping it would end the confusion right there and then. "She has no voice. She hasn't said a word to me since I woke up and found her."

Yamamoto scrutinized the girl; she seemed to be able to understand them, but she kept staring warily at them, as if she were scared that they might do anyting bad to her. "Maybe she also fell aboard from another ship," he thought aloud. He was no match to Gokudera in most things that required (strategic and logical) thinking—the guy was a genius in his own right—but it was a fairly easy assumption to make. (Very logical, too.)

"Aye, she must be traumatized," the captain piped in, agreeing with his guess. "Storms at sea can cause very ugly memories."

"Why is she naked though?" Lambo didn't see it click. The knight was washed ashore but his clothes were perfectly in shape, only soaked and sandy.

"Must come from a shipwreck then," the captain assumed. "There are a dozen ways to rip your clothes during one, and a shipwreck is nastier than falling aboard." He eyed the girl sadly. "She must be very traumatized by it that she lost some of her memories, the poor lass."

The deck was silent for a moment after that, all the men regarding the long-haired girl sympathetically. Sayuri merely stared back, unable to correct their shipwreck theory and wondering if they would even believe her were she able to talk. It seemed no one even thought of the possibility of her being a mermaid whose tail was traded for a pair of legs.

"We should get her dressed," Reborn said, finally speaking and breaking the silence. At some point, he was beginning to wonder when they stopped the sympathy and trailed their eyes down her skinny legs. (Not that he expected that sort of behavior from his not-so-smooth students—save for Lambo, the brat grew up a lady's man in spite of being fully-blown annoying when he was a kid.)

Tsuna nodded at that, blushing when his eyes moved down involuntarily after that statement. He'd been trying to avoid looking anywhere but her face. He turned his head to the captain, who was behind him handling the helm. "Does this ship have women's clothes?"

"Only whores' rags, Your Highness," he answered bluntly. Every captain was aware that some of his men took to wenches every now and then. "I'm afraid they won't cover better than that coat."

"Gokudera's coat is a good fit on her," Yamamoto commented randomly. Lambo snickered at that; the knight was one of the smallest guardians, save for Chrome (but she was a girl, and she didn't really count).

The silver-haired lad glared at the two of them before returning his attention to the girl beside him. She was skinnier than she seemed, if he remembered correctly. His coat was merely structured, so it didn't seem as loose as it really was on her. Getting her a shirt from his suitcase was not a problem, but he was doubtful that his pants would fit her. He'll need to drill a new hole in one of his belts.

"Gokudera-kun," Tsuna called, snapping him out of his thoughts. He looked back at him expectantly. "The two of you should go down and rest for a while. We'll have lunch delivered to you." His amber eyes glanced at the girl beside him. He smiled. "She could use my cabin, I'll be staying here for a while anyway."

"There's no need, Tenth," Gokudera quickly declined. He often switched between calling him Prince and Tenth, the latter for his faith that he'd be the tenth king of the Vongola Kingdom by—oh, how time flew—the next year. "I can share mine," he said. He did not want some random girl, no matter how poor her circumstances were, going through the royal's things. "She'll need to borrow some of my clothes, anyway."

Lambo barely stifled his laugh, but kept his mouth shut when he saw the imaginary daggers the green eyes were stabbing him with. He's going to get thrown overboard at this rate, Yamamoto thought, noticing. The two always bickered like brothers, and they got violent quite easily.

"Alright then," Tsuna nodded, not really finding any valid counterargument. He just wanted them to rest.

Gokudera smiled at him reassuringly. He was just about to turn his attention back to the girl, just to realize that she had long stopped clutching onto his shirt and was standing beside him, a smug grin on her face.

He placed his hands inside his pants' pockets. "If you fall down, I'm throwing you overboard," he said, smirking as he began walking away. He could feel her staring at him disbelief, but judging from the steps he heard following him afterward, he figured she was pouting at him as she tried not to lose her balance.

He wondered if she would've walked better if he said he'd throw her overboard for wobbling.

By the time they had their late lunch, Sayuri had stopped wobbling in her walk and was happily skipping everywhere she could until she plopped down on the bed and took a long, deep nap. She lied on the bed diagonally, taking all of the space as if all of it were here own.

"You could use my bed, Gokudera-kun," Tsuna offered, seeing his silver-haired friend looking down at the situation displeasingly when he entered the room to check up on them.

The knight sighed and shook his head. "It's fine," he reassured as he turned to him. "Can I do anything for you, Tenth?"

"You could rest," he told him jokingly as he walked closer. "Are you sure you aren't tired?"

"I'm sure." If anything, he was the one he should be asking to rest—he was unconscious for a good part of the time he fell overboard, and it was a kind of sleep and rest in its own way. He wasn't sure if the prince had rested better during and after that storm, however.

Tsuna turned his attention to the girl, scrutinizing her face. She looked happy in her sleep. "I feel bad for not knowing her name," he said quietly. He didn't know how to address her when he wanted or needed to.

"About that," Gokudera pondered, remembering their conversation a few minutes ago. "I asked her if she remembered her name, and she nodded and tried mouthing it."

Tsuna turned to him curiously. "Do you know it?"

"I don't know how to read mouths, so I could only get the vowels—a, u, and e, I think they were," he recalled. "I don't know the consonants that go with those, but I'll see if I can figure it out by trial and error later." Or I could just call her Wobble, that'd be easier.

"That's great then!" the spikey-haired lad beamed. "We could start from there."

"Start what?" Gokudera blinked.

"Start searching," Tsuna clarified. "I was thinking of searching for her family. There's a possibility that she has living relatives left, and until I'm sure that there are none or that there are and we could return her to them, I thought we could take care of her for the time being." He looked at him sheepishly. "Well, not really 'we'—I was thinking you take her in for a while."

Gokudera loved this man—in a non-romantic way, as most (well, all but that wasn't possible) should know—and would do anything for him, but this was a request he did not expect and was on the verge of openly disliking (and maybe even refusing). "Did you tell Sir Reborn about this?"

"I did," he nodded. "He disapproved of taking her in the castle, he says it's inappropriate since I'm trying to woo Kyoko-chan, but he—"

"—said it was okay if she didn't stay in the castle," he finished for him.

Tsuna noticed his discomfort with the idea. "I was thinking of giving Lambo the job but—" he glanced down at her, and then stared back at him, "—she's most comfortable with you."

"Because I was the first one she met," he reasoned. "The others would be—"

"—no less friendly and hospitable as you would be," Tsuna finished for him, his lips raised to a grin. He meant the compliment, truly—after years of being friends with the man, he knew that he wasn't as bad as others made him out to be. "I'll help pay for her expenses, and you can leave her to Grand Nan most of the time. You don't have to do much."

"My Prince," Gokudera started. The brunet tried not to wince at the name; it was the knight's way of expressing his vexations. He often used it when he felt that the prince was making decisions he did not thoroughly thought through. "Be that as it may, there will be people who will take advantage of your kindness. If you find no problem in paying for her living, you will eventually find it troublesome when men and women come to the castle, most pretending to be victims of shipwreck, and ask for your aid, as well."

"That's why I'm asking you to take her in," Tsuna rebutted easily. "It will give you a better image, and no one will expect you to take in any more 'shipwrecked victims' because you're—"

"Neither a prince or a noble," Gokudera tried not to falter; he understood that too well. "Just a knight living off on his salary, among other things."

The brunet blinked at that. "You do have a business, then? Just as Reborn says?"

"I sometimes work with Irie and his team," he admitted. "I get a percentage of what I help them with." Shouichi Irie and his team members, Giovanni and Spanner, were scientists under the royalty. They were tasked to innovate, mainly things that would increase economic productivity, though his personal specialty was more concentrated on weaponry.

He liked to work on astronomy, too, but that was less helpful for the country than weaponry to spend the research funds on.

The knight sighed and ran a hand through his silver hair. "If it pleases you, Tenth," he grounded out, feeling that whatever argument he'd use would be said in vain. The royal had made up his mind already, if the confident grin on his face wasn't good enough of a sign.

The sound of something hitting wood shifted their attention to the figure on the bed.

Sayuri hit her head on the headboard, effectively waking herself up. She blinked slowly until her vision cleared, staring at the wood for a good minute before she turned her eyes to them. Her lips curled to a pout, as if she weren't happy to see them. (Not that they would know that she hoped she woke up from a bad dream instead of entering one.)

"At least she's not going to chatter my ear off," Gokudera remarked unenthusiastically. Sayuri got up to sit as she brushed her hair away from her face. She stared at the two of them, blinking curiously.

Tsuna smiled, thinking of telling her that they should be near their destination when two knocks on the door sounded off the room and they turned to find Yamamoto peeking in, smiling as usual when he cheerily announced—

"We're home."

Fin de Chapitre Deux