Stranger Tides
Chapter Five: Bargaining.
In which opportunity is lost and deals are made.
She hits the earth below in an explosion of glass.
The sound of shattering glass is not unfamiliar to her ears, sharp as it is without the protective embrace of waves above and current below. The impact of her scale-less flesh with the dirt beneath her is familiar. Not as familiar as the caress of a cool current against her scales, but still familiar. She and it are old friends since first she set out to master her air-given legs. Thin things they were, pale and weak. Even after years above the sea, on shore and in men's frail ships, she prefers the beauty and strength and speed of her tail.
It has been quite some time since she was last hit by flying debris. She finds it to be a fault of the air. Water does not allow for such folly.
One of the sailors gives her his shirt. He is unlike the others. Not in the same way that Daughter differs. She, at least, is a pirate. He ... is not. Nor is he a sailor. He tries to save people. Tries to save their ... souls. She has heard of these, heard men say that they give life after death, but has never seen nor touched nor tasted them, and has found herself satisfied with giving death alone.
Blackbeard presses them onward with no more than two breathes pause spent on her change in circumstances.
The man who is not a pirate carries her weight when her legs fail to hold her. It is not hard to gain his aid – she has learned much of what men want to see, how to hide herself in the guise of one of the small, soft creatures they are so afraid to bring aboard ship. It differs little from the games she makes of baiting them into deep waters, and she is good as any mermaid at that.
At their midday rest he names her serene, when no naming was asked for, and Blackbeard's eyes flick from his to meet her own. They are of an accord of the folly in that. His warning - she is a creature, a hunter that feasts on his kind - goes unstated peril of ineptly attempting to wrest power unwillingly given likewise.
Teach cares not for this strange sailor. The ignored caution gains nothing but the smallest sliver of a frown. If she cared, the mystery of how he survived any length of time aboard the Queen Anne would be a tempting trinket with which to pass the time. As it is, she cares little.
Perhaps this not-pirate will be the price offered for her tear. She might even, perhaps, be tempted by such paltry offering if he continues his inanities. Their journey continues.
Soon she has her fill of silence.
Mermaids sing their own songs, yes, but those are deep things, made for the rolling of sand and current where sight is nothing more than a feeling. With the frailty of air-gills to use, they're not above stealing some from sailors. And she learned a lot, sailing the deep blue. The singing of songs, as well as other things.
It is night once more. They've made their camp, such as it is, between the trunks of trees. It is quiet, apart from the snoring. The worst of them is beyond her reach. She is beginning to recall the substance of the force behind her leaving.
Her rest, such as it is, is being watched over by the Quartermaster. Being dead does not suit him. He stinks, like old fish left in the sun to rot. She spares him no more than a slow glance as he takes up his post.
She stares out into the dark. The root she's tied to makes an acceptable backrest, if not a comfortable one. Her flank is tender still, brightening against the soft pale scales she now is forced to endure.
"The King and his men stole the Queen from her bed, and bound her in her bones ..."
He joins in quiet like. She doesn't jump. Her none movement is such she doesn't breathe for the time it takes him to take over the singing, such as it is. His voice is no better than her memory.
"Heave-ho, thieves and beggars..."
The crew arrive at the pools of saltwater torment as the sun begins its dive into the darkening forest once more. The rocky ground is broken by stunted growth and still pools, and in those pools, shriveled and dry are what one might think statues. She knows better.
They do not make bargain.
Instead, the Quartermaster, Second Mate, Gunny - all men she had once known by name - wrest her from his resisting hold and bind her arms with rope to the twisted mast of an empty tree. Blackbeard kneels before her, crooning as if she were a bird to be tempted with cage and lock. Her tail - glorious and free - twitches, sending ripples across the lip. She hopes his boots are soaked and his pants rot as he wears them.
He is close enough she could touch his skin.
"You would speak to me now, when you have need of my tears?"
"I had thought you dead." How human of him. She had rather expected his death herself. Humans are such short lived things. Especially in the sea.
"You did not wait for me long." A mere double fistful of years.
"Did you?"
She is the sea, is the rip current and the tides. She waits for nothing save her next meal. And perhaps Si, but then her difference from her sisters is marked. It is human of her, but she will not justify.
He sighs at her silence like he has a heart. He makes his offer - worse than nothing - and she rejects it. He warns her of his intentions, and she remains silent.
It is a cruel death he threatens her, trapped between sand and tide, but it is night yet. She has spent years at his side. The cruelties of man, and his methods, are not unknown to her. Even if she did not, her tears as no so easily spent.
He means to make threats when parley would have served his ends better. He is not the man he was, and that that is bitterest of galls. She is not one to take threats lightly. Begins to sing. Softly, echoing from the pool and through the stunted, twisted trunks of the trees. She cannot free herself, not without the strength and scales of her truewater form, but she is not helpless. Far, far from it.
She is a dolphin in a school of minnows. And she is very, very hungry. All she needs to do is catch one of them.
"Come all you pretty fair maids,
whoe'er you may be,
who have lost your pretty sailor bold,
upon the raging sea.
I have no use for Cupid,
I have no use for gold,
there is none so good for hunting,
as my jolly sailor bold."
Two sailors she has caught in her song without issue, but they are intercepted before reaching her and pulled back by others flailing and cursing. The crew retreat, falling back out of earshot.
She let's her humming follow them through the trees. Lending speed to their stumbling.
"My singing may attend thee, whe'er ye may go …"
A rush of footsteps shatters the silence of the night, hands brushing against her own and her rope bonds begin to shift as it is loosened. She does not move to aid him, though she longs to trash and break free – he is making enough noise. She will not be the one to alert them to her escape. Not until she begins dragging them to the depths.
A whistle, and the not-pirate collapses beside her. Gunny slits his throat. She regards him and not-pirate's still form without much feeling. She is still bound, despite his efforts, and the teeth of this half-air form are most unsuited for feeding despite the growing strength of her hunger.
Their excitement dulls when she does nothing more. Had they been expecting her to be sentimental over the passing acquaintance of a days length alone? Over a man who had injured one of her own and misnamed her besides?
She watches them, and settles to wait for the emergence of sun. Caught fast, she will burn till she is nothing but another husk, but she will not beg. She is of the sea and to the sea the pearl that grew the rest of her shall return. She has fought for this life until there was nothing left with which to fight.
The edges of the world lighten. Another, softer set of footfalls approach, and the creak of leather disturbs the stillness as a body settles beside her. She tastes the air. Leather, salt and sweat. And beneath it all, ale and flowers. It is Daughter.
"What do you want?"
"For the price of my tear?" She would have much more than she would have otherwise accepted. Death, and flesh to fill the void growing within her, and more besides. But those will happen whatever she does. "I wish only my freedom, and, once your dalliance with the fountain is done I will have you."
Daughter jolts, heel of her boot disturbing the surface of the water. She smooths it with her tail. "You wish to eat me?"
Huffs amusement. The twine of her tail is hidden by the shallow depths of her confinement. The heat of the sun is beginning to creep through the shelter of the trees. Even successfully bartered with, the fountain will always feed the sea. Teach will not survive the week, even with her tear. But she will not tell him that now.
"And what of it if I did?" Food is food. The sea is bountiful, but it is vast. Few are the things that she would disdain to eat. Other than boots. Boots have many uses, but they are far from edible.
"Then I wouldn't untie you."
"And you would have no tear."
She relaxes, to the extent that she can. They are in familiar territory now, and while she may still die in the course of this game, that is the way of it. Like playing Liar's Dice. Someone has to win this game of wits. Humans don't like it to be otherwise.
"How do I know you wouldn't leave the moment I let you go?"
Because Daughter has something that she wants. Not that she knows that, even if she has been told. "Then I wouldn't get to have you."
They sit there in silence for long minutes. Glimmering shafts of light are beginning to stream their way through the trees. It's oddly beautiful. Like floating just beneath the surface. What clouds there are in the skies above are scarce. It will be a warm day.
Daughter groans and rolls to her feet, striding away. She does not watch. Either will be released from her bonds, or she will die.
The chill of a blade to her throat. Lazily allows her eyes to open. Daughter. Teach stands behind her. "You will not leave without giving the tear."
Hands are tight about her own. She is still held fast. "Nor will I give the tear without leaving."
Slowly, the tension of the rope is loosed. Pressure of blade keeps her pinned to tree. Her hands come loose. The skin is soft and frayed. No matter. She will not be keeping it long.
She lays her hand atop the wrist holding the knife. Gently, like the brush of a seaflower. Vial is held to her cheek. Her tail curls, pulling tight against the wall of the pool.
Looks passed Daughter's intent face, to Edward. To what could have been. Lets slip a tear, twists grip, and makes the sanctuary of the pool's depths.
Gills burn, and are present, and she can breathe freely once more.
She leaves them to their fates. She has fish to find.