Deep under the waves, the water was heavy and cool on her skin as she swam. She flicked her tail harder in order to propel herself deeper. The tail was a little unusual for her kind; hers was a bright red, easily visible even from a great distance in the blue-green watery world. In her culture, that meant she was born for the battlefield where she would only blend in when surrounded by her enemy's blood.
The mermaid scanned the ocean floor, recognizing the landmarks that she had mapped a thousand times. The graveyard of ships were right where she left them. She couldn't claim them all as her own doing. Some had been sunk decades before she had even been born.
She wasn't too optimistic about this scouting trip through the old wreckages. She had picked over these ships several times; she doubted there would be anything left to pique her interest.
What she really wanted was to sink another ship. Just one more, she'd keep telling herself, but she also knew if she did sink another, it would draw too much attention, from humans and from the king. So, she settled for what was left from the ships that were already at the bottom of the ocean.
She paused one moment to decide where to start. The recent wrecks she had searched quite throughly. The older were the ones she explored as a kid, before she had fully trained her voice. She took those as he best bet if she wanted to find more items for her collection.
She swam through a large crack in the ship's hull, meandering through the cargo holds. She found a skeleton sitting on the wooden floor, unable to escape his watery coffin. At his hip, she saw slight glint. She quickly searched through his rags of clothes to find a dagger in a golden sheath. Ornate jewels decorated the outside. It would have been a ceremonial human weapon.
The mermaid smiled. At least she knew her trip all the way out here hadn't completely been in vain. It brought promise of other treasures that could be hiding.
With renewed vigor, she swam through the rooms of the ship. The doors that were opened held nothing interesting. Just the echoes of life that had been on the ship. The mermaid came across one room that remained closed. She tried the handle, but the door was too stiff to open. She backed up a little and rammed her body into the wooden door. After a few attempts, the door gave way and broke apart into splinters. When she saw the contents of the room, the mermaid's throat gave out an excited squeal. Sitting at the edge of the room was a knocked over chest, spilling out gold, silver, and a rainbow of precious jewels. However, what interested this marine woman was not that, but the store of weapons sitting in racks.
There were various blades deteriorating from age and salt water, but not all of them were a loss. There was a large axe attached to the wall that had minimal signs of rusting. She assessed the rest of the weaponry, deciding that trying to transport them to her collection would probably make them fall apart. The axe, she optimistically hoped, would make it.
With some effort, she yanked it off the wall, its clamps rusted through. She admired the detail from both sides. It was hardly used, no nicks on the blade. There was a good chance the human weapon was still sharp.
The light of the room flickered unnaturally. Something had obscured the light from the surface before it could get to the room the mermaid occupied. She squinted and turned to see what obstructed the light. What she found was that she was face to face with a great white shark.
She groaned internally. Sharks were annoying to her. Most of them just saw her as a creature of smaller size and concluded she would be lower down on the food chain. The opposite couldn't be more apparent. She wasn't going to chance fighting off the shark with a weapon. That might inflict too much damage on her treasure. Instead, the mermaid took a deep breath.
"You better swim away, shark, swim away fast. I guarantee, if you attack me, your life won't last," she sang. Her voice was hauntingly beautiful, emanating effortlessly through the ocean medium.
The shark's pupils constricted with terror. Even if it hadn't realized what she was, who she was, her song took effect, causing the shark to swim away at breakneck speeds.
She smiled with pride at the effect of her voice. She swam over to a bookshelf. She pulled one off and opened it to find what she always did. Whatever had been written on the pages had been smudged away upon contact with the water, leaving only black smudges on wrinkled paper.
She hummed to herself as she flipped through the book to look at some of the images that were still decipherable. She especially liked the bloody scenes of warfare. They gave her a better idea of how the weapons she so adored were made and used effectively.
As she listened to the melody she was producing, she paused to think, as if there was something important that she was forgetting.
"Shit," she said aloud to no one. She grabbed up her treasure and rocketed out of the ship. She prayed that if she swam fast enough, she'd be able to make the ceremony in time, no matter how much she hated the inauguration day formalities that went on every year since her father and her brother after him were crowned king.
The mermaid princess swam so fast through the water that she was hardly able to take note of the floating vessel just mere feet above her. She would have to check it out in secret after the ceremony if her brother didn't kill her first.