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Velvette felt her teeth creak as she clenched her jaw. Through the wall across from her bed, she could hear the unashamedly loud goans, cries, and shouts of her co-captains. She grabbed a pillow and buried her face in it as something glass shattered on the ground. She couldn’t even tell if they were fighting, fucking, or both. There was only one thing she knew, and that was that right now, she needed to be anywhere else.
After a quick change out of her nightgown into her captain’s attire, she none-to-quietly threw the door open, not caring about the loud BANG! that echoed through the ship. Her neighbors certainly didn’t seem to give it any mind. Growling, she slammed the door behind her just as loud, locked it, and stalked off down the hall with a snarl on her face.
Her mind wandered, searching for something to occupy her time as her feet carried her. She supposed she could go find Melissa, one of the few other women on their ship, but the sounds of two men doing gods-knows-what to their and each other's bodies still echoing in her ears killed her mood. So that was how she found herself above deck, stalking toward the helm. The current helmsman was looking out into the night, casually checking the compass and map at his side, but startled to attention when he spotted Velvette’s approach.
“Move.” If words could be acidic, Velvette’s would’ve melted his bones. There was no discussion about the fact that Velvette had never once in her life laid a hand on this or any helm, and that leaving her in charge of it would most likely do more harm than good, and that the current helmsman would almost certainly take the brunt of the blame for any harm that was done. He just offered her a shaky nod, bow, and scurried off to not be near the seething captain.
Now alone on the deck, Velvette slumped forward, losing herself in the encompassing darkness of night beyond the view of the ship’s lanterns. Her mind wandered with the sound of waves against the hull.
.
.
.
Ploop! A distinct sound caught her ear, uncommon out in the open ocean. It was the sound of something being dropped into the water, like a stone in a pond, or a coin in a wishing well. Odd, but the sea moved in unknowable ways, and so Velvette dismissed it.
SplashPlunk! But then again, louder. As if someone had taken their spread hand and pushed it rapidly beneath the surface. From the same location as the first sound as well. So lacking Velvette was on the dark, lonely top deck of the ship she decided to idly wander over to the side, if nothing else than to watch the interesting patterns in the waves that are causing such interesting sounds.
When she did cast her gaze into the water though, she was shocked stiff to find it gazing back. Or rather, something in the water looking back at her. She was on the verge of calling man overboard and sprinting for a cork barrel to toss in, but paused just before the words left her lips. The eyes gazing back at her were not panicked or desperate, but rather inquisitive. Studious. And moreover, though it was difficult to tell in the dull orange glow of the torchlight, they were radiant silver surrounded by blood red instead of the usual white.
“...Good evening…” Velvette said cautiously, one hand resting on the hilt of her cutlass. “To what do I owe your company on this fine northern night?” The eyes in the water offer no reply, simply continue watching. Velvette brought up her free hand to scrub her eyes. “Unless a mixture of sleep and Valentino’s pipe have finally driven me mad.” But when she re-opened her eyes, the other pair still remained. “I’m afraid our time will be very brief if you refuse to communicate at all.”
Though the eyes and head of the figure didn’t move, something did break from beneath the surface of the dark waters. A hand, and though in the light it was difficult to make out finer details of the color or texture, Velvette could clearly see wicked claws at the end of partially-webbed fingers. The hand curled a finger, beckoning her closer.
“You want me to…what? Jump?” The hand and eyes gave no reply, simply continuing their motion or lack thereof. Velvette snorted. “You gotta work on your pitch, love. It’s going to take more than a single finger to convince me.” Velvette smirked down into the water. For the first time, the eyes changed, eyebrows narrowing in what was clearly annoyance. Velvette was about to open her mouth with another cutting statement, but without a sound the head and arm disappeared below the waves, leaving only a quickly-dissapating ripple as proof they were ever there. Velvette startled back at the sudden departure, and for a few minutes she scanned the water, hand firmly in the grip of her cutlass. But they never made another appearance, and eventually Velvette returned to the helm. She tried to lose herself in the gentle rocking of the ship once again, but now she couldn’t shake the feeling of silver eyes piercing her from within the darkness.
Ploop! Velvette’s head shot up at the familiar sound.
This night she hadn’t even had to speak to the navigator, one of Vox’s crew if she remembered, all it took was a glare to send the poor bastard scurrying. She had once again taken up her vigil alone on the deck at the wheel. Though she wouldn’t admit it to herself, over the course of a day what she had believed to be fact had eroded away into dubious memory. Had she really seen something in the water? Maybe she was just tired and hallucinating. Mermaids are just legends, supposedly.
And yet, when she cautiously peeked over the side of the boat, a familiar pair of silver eyes found her immediately. “Oh. Holy shit. Holy shit you’re real.” Velvette staggered back a bit, voice an equal mix of awe and dread. According to the legends, catching the attention of a mermaid basically never ended well.
Though she did hear one tale one night in the pub from a man who claimed that he assisted a mermaid caught in a fisher’s net, and in return she offered him forty weights of sunken treasure. Of course, the man telling it was shitfaced on cheap swill at the time, so Velvette had brushed it off as a tall tale told to score points with the barmaid. But if it were possible…
Motion drew her focus back to the water, and she saw the webbed hand reach up once again and beckon her closer. Velvette couldn’t help but snort lightly to herself. One half-mad tale of riches certainly didn’t outweigh the dozens of deep-ocean nightmares shared by those supposedly lucky enough to survive an encounter, and from all of those disparate manic ramblings one message was always clear.
Don’t get in the water with them. If you do, it’s already too late.
“Oh, well last time it didn’t really click, but this time the dismissive single finger is waay more convincing.” Velvette drawled sarcastically, starting to climb up on the railing. She even made a fake lunge, and snorted to herself as the mermaid surged up out of the water slightly, one arm outstretched to grab her out of the air. “Yeah right, come on love, it’s gonna take more than a pretty pair of eyes to throw my life away.” She said, slipping back down onto solid deck and leaning on the side of the ship.
“...My eyes are pretty, hm?” The mermaid’s low voice rumbled through Velvette’s ribs. In fact, a lot of the mermaid was pretty, even just from the neck up. The flowing pale hair, nearly the same color of her eyes but without the shine. The pale-gray skin (scales?), angular jaw and pointed eyes sharp enough to cut yourself on.
“Oh, she speaks!” Velvette put a hand to her chest in faux-shock, playing it up enough to cover her blush. “You know, I’m insulted you thought you could lure me into the drink without saying a single word. Ya think so lowly of us humans?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?” The mermaid replied, smiling like one would at a particularly dumb pet.
“You know, I shouldn’t even be letting you talk to me at all, should I?” Velvette perked up. “Everyone knows the stories, mermaids luring sailors in with their sweet word, dragging them down to their deaths. Really, it seems like I should…” Velvette’s words trailed off, and she let the drawing and leveling of her custom, engraved pistol speak for her.
The mermaid raised an interested eyebrow at her, but that was all.
“What, nothing?” The barrel of the gun drooped slightly as Velvette looked at the mermaid. “Normally blokes are a little more terrified right now.” Another long moment of silence passed, before it all clicked for Velvette. “Wait. You don’t actually know what this is, do you?” she asked, gesturing with the gun for emphasis. When all the mermaid did was narrow her eyes in annoyance, Velvette didn’t even bother trying to stop the incredulous laughter from bubbling out of her. “What, really? This your…your first day or something?” she said between gasping breaths. The mermaid’s eyes only narrowed further, face now tinged red in humiliation at being laughed at. She continued the silent treatment, and eventually Velvette’s laughter died away. “Well then,” she said, wiping her eyes “why don’t I show you?”
It was eerie in a way, pointing a pistol at someone and not seeing them react at all. Even the most jaded human would still draw themselves up, step back, narrow their eyes when a gun barrel was leveled at them. But the woman before her just narrowed her eyes in curiosity.
The shot echoed through the still night like a clap of thunder, and Carmilla Carmine’s life was changed forever.
On the ship, not much happened. A few of the newer crewmembers jumped, but a look and shake of the head from the more seasoned crew had them cautiously returning their heads to their pillows. The Vees ran a chaotic and messy ship, and hearing a gun go off was not an odd occurrence at any hour. The next morning the crew would do a decentralized, silent headcount to see which of their ranks had been sentenced to Davy Jones’ Locker, and find that everyone was accounted for. Less common, but still not too out of the ordinary.
The mermaid jumped back at the loud noise, fangs bared and claws raised, but still stayed above the water, narrowed eyes trained firmly on Velvette. Velvette snorted, before bringing a hand up and wiping one of her cheeks with her thumb. The mermaid carefully mimicked the action, and when she looked at her thumb she was shocked to see it stained with her own blood. Her eyes shot back to Velvette, widened in shock and fear, only to be met with Velvette’s cool, cocky smirk. They stared at each other for another moment more, before she dove back under the waves.
A few days passed before Velvette saw the mermaid again. She wasn’t surprised after the first night of silence, figuring she had scared her off with her crack shooting. She still had her reason to escape her room pretty regularly, Val and Vox’s horny cacophony, but on those nights she would just stare up at the stars and try not to nod off.
Until one night, when a seashell silently popped up over the railing of the ship and clattered onto the wood of the deck.
For a moment, Velvette could only stare at it, confused. Her brain was struggling to parse the strange sight. Thankfully, she had gotten a little better at handling the unexpected over the past few days. Walking over to the seashell, she picked it up, eyed it for a moment, and looked over the side of the ship, unsurprised to see a pair of silver eyes looking back at her.
“Not exactly the type of gift I usually go for, but I suppose it might be pretty important to a mermaid.” She said, leaning against the railing, dangling her arms over the edge, one hand fiddling with the shell. “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you back here again.”
The mermaid gave no reply, and Velvette decided this time not to fill the space. The two gazed at each other, the silence only broken by the lapping of the waves.
Eventually, the mermaid spoke. “Your…weapons. Your technology. It fascinates me. The ability to make a noise that does damage, all with a device so light you can carry it in one hand. How is this possible?”
Velvette smirked, it was almost cute how little she knew. “It wasn’t the noise that hurt ya love, it was the ball.”
“I saw no ball.” A ghost of a sneer snuck up to the mermaid’s lips, matching the sudden ice in her words.
Velvette didn’t try to stop the haughty laugh. “That’s how it did the damage.” She considered it for a half second. There wasn’t any harm in showing the mermaid how a gun worked, it’s not like they would ever work for her. “Here, look.” Velvette reached for her belt and brought a powder horn back up. Normally a captain wouldn’t bother carrying extra loading implements for their weapons, but the Vees knew how little their crew liked them, and kept a tight watch over the tools the crew would need to exact their revenge on their brutal captains.
She opened it and poured a small amount out onto the railing of the ship, while the mermaid watched on hungrily. “This is called gunpowder. When you light it with a bit of flame…” next she grabbed the sparker needed to light the fuses on the cannons. Man, Fishy here doesn’t even know about the cannons does she? She’d probably cream her scales if I showed her that. Velvette brought up the sparker, and with an expert flick the small pile of gunpowder caught, burning for barely less than a second before going out. She was amused to see the light in the mermaid’s eyes, like she was a magician performing a magic trick for a child. “When you do that, but in a tube with only one side open and a ball in the way, it forces the ball out too fast to see.” She figured she would skip all the extra chemistry of gasses expanding, the mermaid probably didn’t even have a concept of what a gas was, and that was way more complicated than Velvette wanted to get into. “Hate to burst your bubble though babe, but it won’t ever work for you. Not only does fire not work underwater, but gunpowder doesn’t work after it gets wet either.” Velvette shrugged at the mermaid. “‘Fraid you’ll have to stick to those claws of yours.”
“My claws are plenty sharp.” Carmilla replied.
“‘Course they are love.” Velvette snarked back. “So now you tell me this mermaid, your kind have names? If you’re gonna keep visiting me, I should probably know what to call you.”
“Do you, human?”
“Pfft, course I do. It’s Velvette. Carve it into your mind, it’s a name that’ll go down in history. Now, you?”
“...Carmilla. Carmilla Carmine.”
“Why do humans do this?” Carmilla asked, gesturing to the boat. “Traverse the water in these ships? I’ve seen the suffering such a journey can cause, especially when the sea is unkind, why not stay on land?”
“Depends on the people.” Velvette shrugged. “Some sail to conquer, to escape, to explore. There’s no single reason.”
“So then why do you?”
Velvette stilled, eyes widening slightly at the question. It was asked perfectly innocently, unaware of how intimate it was. What was she going to say? Got tired of the pressure at home and ran away? Way to sound like a tantruming child. “I’m a pirate love. No better way to be free.”
“And what is a pirate, exactly?”
“I take other people’s money and stuff, because they can’t stop me.” Velvette lifted her chin in arrogance, but when Carmilla didn’t reply, she looked back at the mermaid to see her once holding up her hands in a ‘what do you want from me?’ kind of gesture. “Uh, right. Money.” Velvette deflated a little. “Money is…” Her sentence trailed off at having to explain the complicated concept to someone that had probably no basis for it. “It’s just another way for humans to have power. We give people gold and jewels, and they do stuff for us or give us other stuff we want.”
“Mmmm. It’s all about power for you, isn’t it?” Carmilla mused, and Velvette scowled at how accurately she had pinned her.
“Well what else is there?”
“Got a surprise for ya love, another surface-life thing you’d never get down there." Velvette flicked the thing she was holding into the air like a coin, and it sailed through the space between them for a few seconds before landing in Carmilla’s hand. As Carmilla rose to catch it, Velvette raised her eyebrows at Carmilla’s human, topless torso. “Hhmmm, not much of a concept of clothes down there either I guess, huh?” Velvette purred, making no attempt to hide directly where she was looking.
Carmilla, to her credit, only rolled her eyes at Velvette’s open lechery. “No, we have no shame around nudity either, something you’ve no doubt heard my sisters would happily use to lure men into their arms.” Carmilla paused, giving Velvette a look between inquisitive and exhausted. “I did not expect for you to be entranced as well.”
“Pfft, entranced? Don’t get a big head about it. I know a nice pair a’ tits when I see them, that’s all.” Velvette scoffed, glad that the darkness of the night and angle of the ship’s lanterns was probably hiding her blush.
“Mmmm.” Carmilla hummed placatingly, before deciding to grant Velvette mercy and allow the topic to change, though she did remain out of the water from the waist up. “What am I holding exactly?”
“Right! That’s another thing humans can make with fire. Behold, bread.” Velvette held up her own biscuit, but grimaced slightly when she caught sight of it. “Well, a kind of bread. There are a bunch of different ways to make it, but most of them don’t last out at sea without going bad. Not even a mighty pirate like myself can stop loaves from rotting.” She bit off half of hers in demonstration as Carmilla continued to eye her critically. “Maybe ya like it, maybe ya hate it, but at the very least it’s something you’ve never had before.”
Carmilla opened her mouth to cautiously take a bite, and Velvette was surprised to see the mermaid’s teeth looked similar to her own. “Huh.” A noise escaped from Carmilla’s mouth before she could contain it that sounded pretty damn close to a moan, and Velvette couldn’t stop the answering little giggle from passing her lips. “Glad to hear you like it, it’s way harder to sneak around now that Vox and Val are in one of their dry spells.”
“What is this? How is this?” Carmilla asked between mouthfuls of her hardtack. Guess mermaids don’t really have a concept of table manners either.
“It’s a plant we have up here on the surface, wheat. Harvest it, grind it up, mix the dust with a little bit of water, cook it (which is where the fire comes in) and then you’ve got some basic bread.” Velvette popped her own serving in her mouth. “Then ya basically fuck around with that process in different ways to make different types of bread. Believe it or not, this is one of the least pleasant types.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true, most breads are soft on the inside with a crust on the outside. And they’re just the backdrop, you usually have them with something else, like soup or cheese or fruit. Ah man, it’s a shame fruit doesn’t travel well, if that’s how you react to bread I’d love to see you eat an orange. Bet you’d cream your scales.” Velvette paused, before glancing at Carmilla out of the side of her eye and raising a single eyebrow.
“Not happening.” Carmilla replied flatly.
“Aw, come on! What happened to that whole ‘no shame around nudity’ thing?”
“Something tells me you’re enjoying that lack of shame to my own degradation.”
“Pfft. Fine, clutch your pearls a little tighter why don’t ya.” Velvette groused, fully aware of the hypocrisy in it because she sure as shit wasn’t gonna get naked for Carmilla. “Speaking of mermaid anatomy, what’s up with those teeth? I figured you’d be all sharp pointy fangs, but I saw some flat ones in there too.”
“We use them to eat seaweed-”
“Oh!”
“-and grind down the bones of fish.”
“Ah.” Velvette’s smile dropped slightly into a grimace. “Guess you can’t exactly cook ‘em into a stew can you?”
“I don’t know what stew is, but from what you’ve described as ‘cooking,’ then no we cannot.”
For a moment the pair just sat there, silence increasing in awkwardness the longer it stretched on.
“I have something for you.” Carmilla broke it suddenly. Velvette raised an eyebrow at her. “Knowledge is power, and you’ve taught me a lot. It felt only right to return the favor in some way.” Without giving Velvette a chance to reply, she dove back under the waves with barely a whisper.
Velvette sat there on the deck for a moment, thinking. What would a gift from a mermaid look like? ‘Cause if it was a shiny rock or a pretty shell, she’d be flattered, but would probably just throw it in her footlocker and forget about it.
Well, maybe if it was a really pretty shell…
Carmilla’s resurfacing interrupted Velvette’s thoughts. “Here’s a little power of your own, courtesy of the sea.” Carmilla lobbed something reflective and shiny up to her, and Velvette snatched it out of the air. When she opened her palm, she found a single gold coin glinting in the moonlight. She wasn’t ashamed of the genuine smile that split across her face as she turned back to the mermaid. “Carmine, you really know how to treat a woman.”
“So, how do you know such good English, but don’t know so many things in English like bread or guns?”
“Well, how else would we sing to you?” Carmilla purred back in response.
“Hey, I’m being serious.” If someone had told Velvette two weeks ago she would look away bashfully when a pretty woman said something sexy to her in a tone like that, she would’ve laughed in their face, asked them who they thought she was, and had them executed anyway.
“As am I. Mermaids are very adept at learning human language. We follow along under your ships, listening to you speak. I already knew the words ‘gun’ and ‘bread’, but I did not know what they were.”
“And here I was racking my brain trying to figure out stuff to show you, when you could’ve just told me any words you didn’t understand.” It was a good-natured dig, not something Velvette did all that often anymore. “Anything you wanna know?”
Carmilla thought for a moment, then with all the authority of a queen asking her advisor “Trees. What is a tree? They come up frequently, but not once have I heard one be described.”
Velvette swallowed back the laugh that bubbled up inside her at hearing a grown woman ask in such a serious voice what a tree was, because it was a fair point. Everyone knew what a tree was long before they set foot on a ship, so why bother talking in detail about what it was?
Huh. How do you talk about what a tree is to someone with no frame of reference? “It’s, uh…it’s a plant, but very different from anything you’d know.” The gears in her mind spun for a little longer, before eventually an idea came to her. “Wait, hang on. I can just draw you one!” She pulled a small journal out of her pocket, a piece of charcoal, and began to sketch.
“Draw?” Carmilla asked from the water.
“Yeah, it’s when you create an image of what something looks like. It’s…” The honesty caught in Velvette’s throat, but what reason was there to lie? It’s not like Carmilla was going to call her soft or anything. “It’s something I do for fun.” She held up the journal for emphasis, deciding to leave out that the pages were mostly full of outfit designs, and that recently several of her ideas seemed to fit Carmilla’s build and complexion very well. “Here.” She tore out the page with the finished sketch of the tree. “Don’t get it wet, paper and water also don’t really mix well.”
“I hope you’re aware ‘not wet’ is difficult for me in general.” Velvette only smiled at Carmilla’s flat tone.
“I’m sure you can manage.” Velvette held the page over the edge, and let it go, watching as it fluttered down. Carmilla’s eyes followed the motion too, but more like a cat watching the motion of its prey. She pulled one hand out of the water and shook it, getting it as dry as she could given the circumstances, and when the paper drifted down within reach, her hand shot out in a blur to grab it out of the air.
And immediately tore the corner off.
Carmilla’s eyes widened, and she quickly dropped the corner she had in favor of clutching the rest of the page tightly in her grasp, crumbling it up but saving a majority of the drawing.
“Good save.” Velvette complimented. “Guess I should’ve mentioned paper can be kinda fragile.” Carmilla shot Velvette another flat look, and she gave her a cheeky grin in response. Their go-to by now.
Carmilla carefully unfolded the page, examining the drawing that thankfully still made sense even after a part of the corner was torn off. “So…it’s composed of three parts?”
“Yep. The roots, which are underground, the trunk, that comes out of the ground made of wood, and the leaves, that are up near the top.”
“Wood?”
“Yeah, wood.” Velvette knocked on the railing. “It’s this stuff. We cut trees down to make ships, but we don’t run out because they grow back from seeds, which trees make to make more of themselves.”
Carmilla studied the drawing as Velvette spoke. “And these…lines? Off to the side?”
“Lines? What’re you going on about?” Velvette examined the drawing in her mind. “You mean the…words.” The realization hit her like a cannonball. “Oh right. Words. Writing. It’s like speaking, but on paper.”
“Speaking…on paper?”
“Yeah. There are a bunch of different languages, but specific patterns of straight and curved lines represent a spoken sound, and so you can basically speak to someone over long distances as long as they can still read what you wrote. Look,” Velvette started, gesturing to the page still dangling from Carmilla’s grasp. “The one in the middle, pointing to the long thin part of the tree? That says trunk. Then the one at the top says leaves, and the bottom says roots.” Velvette grimaced as her perfectionism flared a bit. “It would probably make more sense if we went with words you actually know. Here.” Tearing another page out of her notebook, Velvette scribbled out a few words before dropping it down carefully to Carmilla once again. Carmilla caught the new message with much less damage to the page this time, instinctively dropping the older one. She watched it flutter down briefly, and her eyes widened when it hit the water and instantly saturated, edges already beginning to dissolve. “Mm-hm. Be careful with that.” Carmilla delicately unfolded it, and held it up. “The word at the top there is ‘moon’.” Velvette pointed at the moon for emphasis. “Then the next one is ‘ship’.” She patted the railing she was leaning against. “Then water.” She gestured to the sea all around them. “Then human.” She pointed to herself. “Then mermaid.” She finally gestured to Carmilla.
“This…this is not a joke? You’re not just lying to me, and these are random scribbles?”
“No!” Velvette’s denunciation was laced with a chuckle and filled with amusement. “I could probably write your name, though I’m not sure how to spell it.”
“This is amazing, I could have never imagined anything like this.” Carmilla breathed, eyes still glued to the paper in front of her like it was teaching her the secrets of the universe.
“Yeah, bit surprising honestly.” Right as the words left Velvette’s lips, it occurred to her that mermaids may not even have a civilization, let alone a young one. For all she knew, mermaids as a species could have existed for only a few generations. In fact, maybe even only one generation. Carmilla talked about mermaids like a species, implying she wasn’t the only one, but they may not have been around for very long at all.
“How could we have written? Paper and water, remember?” Carmilla replied tartly.
“You don’t NEED the paper to write.” Velvette waved a hand through the air. “The writing is the words. Humans developed writing before they developed paper.”
“What? How?”
“Rocks. They first started with spreading paste over big rock surfaces to leave markings on it, then when people got smarter they started using smaller, sharper rocks to scratch bigger rocks in specific ways. Curves and lines,” she gestured to the page Carmilla was still holding “words. Sure you can’t use paper, but I bet you’ve got a whole lotta rocks you can work with down there.”
By the end of her speech, Carmilla was looking at her like she plucked one of the stars from the sky and placed it in her open hands. Velvette felt her cheeks warm against the biting chill. “I don’t…this is…” For the first time she had seen, Carmilla was at a loss for words. “Thank you.” She eventually settled on, the sheer earnestness and gratitude hitting Velvette square behind the ribs.
“‘Course Carmine. Any time.”
“Captain…”
Velvette’s brow creased in her sleep, but otherwise she didn’t stir.
“Captain.”
“Mmmhhh.” Velvette groaned, scrunching her eyes even more and burying her head further into her pillow.
“Captain!”
“WHAT?” Velvette shouted, rocketing up into a sitting position in her hammock. A lesser pirate would’ve flung themselves out onto the floor, but not her.
Melissa let out an “Eep!” and ducked back behind the door, but then carefully peaked her head back into the room. “It’s Vox and Val captain. They’re fighting.”
“When aren’t they?” Velvette hissed. Half the time she couldn’t tell if they were fighting, fucking, or both.
“It’s worse this time, captain. Much worse. They’re on the deck, and…” Melissa’s voice trailed off. It was clear she couldn’t put into words exactly how it was worse, but the rest of the crew were probably just bitching about it and told Melissa to come get her, because she was the one Velvette was the least likely to shoot for bothering her.
“‘F all the nights when I’m trying to catch up on my sleep…” Velvette groused, running a hand down her face. “Fine! Give me a minute to put on something warm, but if I get up there and nothing is happening someone will be swabbing the deck until their hands bleed.”
“Thank you captain!” Melissa bowed her head, and dashed off. Velvette rolled out of the hammock and donned a simple outfit, not her usual captain’s attire but something more presentable than her nightgown. Something she could smack the shit out of Vox and Val in if necessary.
As she made her way through the ship to the main deck, voices began to float down to her. At first it was just volume, but as she got closer the miscellaneous noises slowly began to form into words.
“...-ONE WHO’S OUT TO SINK ME!”
“SINK YOU?? BITCH I LIVE ON THIS BOAT TOO, WHAT DO YOU MEAN SINK YOU?”
“I BET YOU NEVER EVEN LIKED ME DID YOU, JUST WANTED TO LEECH OFF ME LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!”
“HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MALDITA CABEZA?”
Velvette turned the last corner to see Melissa peaking around the door similarly to how she did with Velvette’s room, but this time she was looking out onto the deck where Val and Vox were in each other’s faces, fingers pointing and faces drawn tight in ire. Other members of the crew were scattered around, well out of the blast radius, watching on in trepidation. Their captains fighting almost always meant more suffering for them. Velvette spared her vice captain a quick nod as she passed by, she was right after all. This was much more intense than normal.
“What the fuck is going on here?” She called out as she strolled across the deck to stand with them. When they turned to face her, she was happy to see relief in Val’s eyes, but concerned with the borderline mania in Vox’s.
“And you! You bitch, you neve-!”
“Ex-fucking-scuse you??” Velvette cut Vox off. They weren’t exactly the most stable of trios on a good day, and Vox calling her a bitch definitely raised her hackles a bit. “Don’t you call me a bitch!”
“What do you even do around here?” Vox spat, and Val sucked a breath through his teeth besides them.
“What do I do? What do I do? I keep this damn ship in the water is what I do!” Velvette fired back at him. “When was the last time one of you had inventory taken before arriving at port, so we could restock the kitchen? Who goes out to recruit new crew when we’re running low? Who patches the holes in the damned sails so we don’t end up floating dead in the water?” Though she was talking to both of them, Vox was the one who started it with her, so it’s his face she was getting into. Despite being a whole foot shorter than him physically, her presence was easily towering over them both. “I’m the backbone of this boat, and don’t you fucking forget it!” She finished off her point by jabbing a finger into Vox’s chest.
But of course, Vox wasn’t one to avoid being a whiny baby when the option arose. “Oh, so I guess you don’t need me at all then?” He harped. “Guess I might as well just get off at the next port and let you run this ship yourself!”
Ugh. Fucking manipulative prick. Velvette thought as she couldn’t stop a sigh from slipping out. She could see what he was doing a nautical mile away, but she would still grit her teeth and do it anyway, because somehow she was still the bastard’s friend. “That’s not wh-”
“Sure, why not??? Why not go crying to that loco actor you never got over!” Val interrupted, dashing Velvette’s plans at de-escalation against the rocks.
“I’m not into him!”
“Bull shit cabron!” And just like that they were off again. Velvette groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose, looking out into the darkness outside the ship’s torchlight, already feeling a headache coming on.
It was probably only her familiarity with the sight that made her eyes sharp enough to spot it. Many times over the past month had she looked out into the darkness of the ocean, straining to see a pair of silver eyes glinting back at her. And once again, there they were, now. At possibly one of the worst times.
Vox and Val’s bickering faded into the background as she went to shake her head, raise a hand, some subtle but interpretable gesture that let Carmilla know to get away. The rest of the crew would not be so kind as to miss their shots on purpose if they spotted a mermaid. But she paused, because now that she was looking for it, she noticed a second pair of silver specks in the water.
And another.
And another.
And another and another and another and another and…
Velvette let out a silent, stunned gasp, and her breath fogging up in the air in front of her jolted her brain. All the puzzle pieces she didn’t even know she had started to fit together. Their route wasn’t supposed to take them anywhere near this cold. Mermaids following along underneath boats as they sail. Vox and Val getting more and more distant and unstable. All of it coming together into a picture that made her eyes widen in dread.
Without a word, she shoved bodily past Vox and Val, ignoring the “Hey!” from behind her as she rushed over to one of the lanterns hanging off the rigging. Practically sprinting, she ran forward to the bow, and flung the lantern out into the dark (normally one could see the stars, or at least the moon this far out into the sea, but the moon was new and the sky was cloudy, allowing no light through. Perfect conditions for-).
Everyone on the boat watched the light sail through the air. No one knew what had gotten into Velvette, but they all sensed the gravity in her actions. For a long moment, the lantern arced silently through the air, before splashing down into-
Before crashing and shattering against something hard and unyielding.
Ice.
“THE WHEEL!” Velvette roared, spinning around. Everyone else on the ship stared back at her dumbly, and in her mind she cursed them for their stupidity, for their slowness, even though realistically she knew it was far, far too late to do anything.
The gut-wrenching, horribly wrong sound of wood splintering and shattering on something hard and unyielding jolted everyone back to their senses. Unfortunately, it also jolted the ship itself to a sudden, violent stop. Velvette lost her footing and tumbled forward, blinding pain and a loud ringing noise exploding behind her eyes as her temple connected with the corner of one of the cannons.
S_r__ms fi_l_d __e _ir lik_ a __xi_ sm__ as p__ic ___pte_ __ross t__ _ec_. Fe__ th_n_er__ an_ ha___ __ll_d and s__ve_ a_ __ie_d _u__ed on f_ie_d, doi__ _h_te__r it t_ok t_ _ec_r_ a s_ot on ___ of _he l_fe__a_s.
Sh_ cou_d d__ly h_ar _he __und_rin_ of b_ots acro_s th_ de_k in o_e _ar a_ the cr_w rac__ a__oss t_e wo_d, _nly o_erpo_ere_ by the s_dde_ screa_s of _error and pai_ th_t cut t_rou_h the _ig_t lik_ g_ns_ots. And wi_h the sc__ams ca_e t__ _wful s_und of __es_ rend_ng _nd bon_ s_ap_ing, horr__le s_un_s th__ wo_l_ not be _r_sent in _ c_ll__ion li_e thi_, u_les_ the__ _ere _reda_ors _n the _ater.
Fr_ezing co_d liq_id bit at the skin of Velvette’s lips, and shocked Velvette back into clarity. She couldn’t tell if the blood she tasted on her lips was hers, or mixed in with the seawater she nearly drank. She staggered to her feet, head still spinning and black spots dancing at the edge of her vision, but she forced her way through it. Now was not the time to lose focus. Looking out over the wreck of the ship, she saw it was mostly abandoned. All the lifeboats had already been launched, and she took a few shaky steps towards the closest one, until she watched a scaly clawed hand punch clean through the bottom. The crew within the boat hacked at the arm of course, maybe even cutting it off, Velvette couldn’t tell. But it didn’t matter, their deaths were already sealed. She watched as the lifeboat got lower and lower into the water, until more silvery claws erupt from the water, dragging the people over the side, never to surface again.
She felt the same cold water licking at her toes through her boots. Time. I need more time. Hopping up onto the wooden railing of the ship, Velvette slowly and carefully walked across it until she got to the rigging lines. Gripping the ropes in her frozen fingers like they were her only lifeline (because they were), she began hauling her way up to the crow’s nest.
The climb felt like hours, even though it couldn’t have been more than ten seconds. She rolled gracelessly into the small wooden bucket, banging several limbs on the sides as she did. For a moment the exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she considered just lying there. Letting her eyes slip closed, spending her last few moments before the end letting go.
But she refused. If she was going to die, she was going to do it standing. She clawed herself into a standing position, and was immediately darkly glad she did so.
The ship was sinking fast. Only her little haven and the stern of the boat were above water, and she watched as that part dipped below the cold blackness of the sea. There were no other lifeboats she could see. She was the last man standing.
And there, in front of her, were a familiar pair of silver eyes, elevated out of the water above the rest. Shock white hair cascading down her back, lithe arms and slender jaw belying hidden muscle, muscle that was clearly visible in her abs toned by decades of swimming. Body impossibly raised out of the water, like she was standing on a solid surface just out of view. Cruelly, inhumanly beautiful.
“That’s what this was, wasn’t it?” Velvette gasped out, hopeless. It wasn’t really a question. “That’s all this ever was. You never really even ca-” She cut herself off, swallowed the words back even as they tore up her throat on the way back down. “I guess it’s my fault.” She laughed bitterly. “Everyone knows not to trust the words of a siren.” She spat the word like a curse, like she hoped the barb of it would lodge onto her skin and burn her, brand her with their betrayal.
Carmilla said nothing, just continued to stare at her, indecipherable look in her eyes.
“Oh, back to the silent treatment again huh?” Velvette spat off to the side, not sure if the darkness within it was just her imagination, or blood from her mouth. “Fine. I have nothing more to say to you.” There were only three or so meters left of mast before her safe zone made contact with the water, and then it was over for her.
She wasn’t going down without a fight though. Drawing her cutlass and pistol, she felt a twisted sort of joy to see Carmilla’s eyes widen and flick over to the ringing steel blade. We never did get around to metal and smelting did we? She thought distantly to herself. The joy quickly burned away as she took shaky aim at Carmilla, furious to see the mermaid not moving to duck back into the water for cover even now that she knew what the weapon did. The shot echoed through the deathly quiet night like a clap of thunder, and nothing really changed at all. It went wide, splashing harmlessly into the water and sinking beneath the waves.
Velvette howled in frustration, flinging the pistol to the side and gripping her cutlass tight in front of her. When only a few feet separated her and the surface of the sea, she lunged.
To call it a fight would be a lie. Not even Velvette, in all her arrogance, could call it a fight. She leapt from the crow’s nest with nothing but her cutlass raised above her head and a battle cry. And that would prove to not be even close to enough. Carmilla easily caught her raised hand by the wrist as she swung it down, and wrapped her arm around Velvette’s back in a tight bear hug, and just like that it was over before it ever began. Velvette wriggled and struggled futilely, even though she knew deep down it was pointless. Even if there was no hope of surviving, she was going to go out fighting.
Velvette felt the cold water rising quickly as they sank beneath the waves, and had just enough time for a panicked, shallow breath before she was fully submerged. The hand holding her wrist twisted expertly, and the cutlass was wrenched out of her grasp, slinking to the bottom along with the rest of her life. And in the most infuriating move of all, Carmilla wrapped her other arm firmly around Velvette, and waited. She didn’t squeeze as Velvette’s fists flailed ineffectually against her back and shoulders. She didn’t squeeze as Velvette’s boots kicked against her muscled tail. She didn’t squeeze as Velvette felt her breath beginning to run out, as the black spots returned to the edge of her vision and her attacks morphed into shoves, desperate to break the iron grasp around her waist and swim for the surface. One arm shifted up her back, clawed hand coming to rest between her shoulderblades as her movements slowed to a stop, as her vision failed her completely and her body drifted limply in the tide as her last gasp of air bubbled out of her mouth against her will. From far away she felt the hand pulling her body closer.
And her last thought before slipping into blackness was that, in the frigid chill of the water, the lips against hers actually felt warm.
.
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.
Velvette shocked into a sitting position with a gasp, immediately regretting it as she coughed and hacked up seawater. Her senses returned to her slowly, warm sun on her face, gritty sand beneath her skin, soothing white noise of waves lapping calmly at the beach. Her head pounding like it was being hit with a sledgehammer from inside her skull.
Eventually, her lungs cleared, and the coughing subsided. Wiping the strand of spit left hanging out of her mouth on the back of her hand, she took in her surroundings. She was on solid ground, a beach. An island by the look of it, a small one, barely larger than a town of 50 people. As her eyes scanned off the land and into the water, they stuttered to a stop, caught on the familiar figure there, staring at her.
Despite all that had happened between them, the first thought through both of their minds was You look different in the sunlight.
Edit: Thank you to rainbow-tomato-draws for the fantastic fanart of Carmilla and Velvette!
And thank you to Ready4u for more amazing art of how it started v. how it's going!