chocolate and chopped nuts milkshake
Story: Crossover: Timeless and The Tenth Sage
Title: Mercy
Rating: G
Challenge: Chocolate #5: mercy
Toppings/Extras: chopped nuts, milkshake
Wordcount: 4,222
Summary: Isaac Prowse versus the daughters of the ocean.
Notes: The Tenth Sage belongs to the awesome Miyabi! This came out of nowhere and is not the original milkshake that I have half-written. It’s also just nothing to do with what we’ve previously discussed. It’s just. I don’t know. SURPRISE! And Merry Christmas!
On board the Bayonet, sailors were rushing to and from one of the lower decks, shouts of disbelief echoing across the still ocean air. A shining, well-painted vessel she was, bright in the centre of an iron-grey ocean. It was winter in the Caribbean, and although it was never truly cold-not like it had been in England-the wind carried a chill and the sky had lost some of its usual vibrancy. Night was falling and the sky bruising dark.
Owner of the vessel and captain of the voyage, Lord Edward Ashdown, was working on their route in his office when the door burst open and his aide Isaac Prowse stumbled in. For a moment Ashdown didn’t look up, tweaking his gleaming compass across the map spread out in front of him in the lamplight. After a moment, he glanced up to his aide, who looked as though he were about to explode.
“Yes, Mr Prowse?” he finally said.
“Sir,” Prowse burst out almost before he was finished. “You’ve got to come and see this. On the lower deck. It was... she... I don’t know, sir, some men were fishing because the meat was ill-salted and... in the net...”
“What?” Ashdown asked, arching an eyebrow.
Prowse shook his head slowly.
“Come and see,” he said.
-----
The sight stunned even him.
Ever since he had first heard the story, Ashdown had been of the opinion that mermaids didn’t exist. It was a silly myth invented by lonely sailors after too long at sea. So when Prowse told him that they had caught a mermaid, his first response was a derisive laugh followed by him pondering aloud whether to fire his befuddled aide or not.
Of course, though, when they reached the deck...
She lay on the slippery wood, surrounded by the seawater that had been dragged to deck with her, iridescent tail curled protectively. Intense black hair, glossy as oil, poured from her scalp and fell about her bare shoulders. Her skin was so pale it seemed lilac, whitish and damp, slim arms curled in front of her as she lay mostly on her front, propped up on one elbow to look over her shoulder through round, dark eyes at the gathered crew.
“Go back to your business,” Ashdown ordered, realising that most-if not all-of the crew had come thundering to the lower deck to gawp. The mermaid looked fragile and perhaps already injured, dark green strands of seaweed dangling over the smooth fishtail that began at her waist.
Her tail was a thing to behold indeed: a glimmering, glittering purple-blue, shimmering and delicate, scales reflecting lamplight in every direction. At the very end of the tail two paper-thin fins spread out across the deck, translucent and glowing whitish, the thin veins visible through the gleaming scales.
“Good God,” he said quietly after the crew had reluctantly dragged themselves away from the vision of beauty. Her lily-coloured face was turned towards them, expression unfathomable. She was bound in some silky material from her waist up to below her armpits, disguising where her scales turned to skin and preserving her modesty. “I’ve never seen a creature quite like it.”
“It’s a mermaid,” Prowse said, quite needlessly. “Do you think she’s cold? Do you think they need water to survive?”
“How on earth am I supposed to know?” Ashdown asked, baffled. Stringy, semi-transparent swathes of seaweed were draped over her and she continued to gaze at them mournfully. “She seems fine.”
“Fine?” Prowse turned to look at his master. “Look at her eyes! She’s very unhappy!”
Ashdown gazed down at the aquatic creature before him.
“Is she?”
“I think we should throw her back in...”
“Don’t be so bloody daft,” Ashdown snorted. “This is the first time anyone has ever caught a mermaid! It is proof of their existence... perhaps this can be the start of some sort of liaison with them, who knows what goods they could trade with us from the bottom of the ocean? And think of how the scientists will react! It will be a wonderful friendship between two species... don’t you think?”
“I don’t think she speaks English, sir,” Prowse replied dubiously.
“How many languages have you tried so far?”
“Spanish and French. And a little bit of Dutch.” Prowse gestured somewhere behind him. “That’s as far as the crew’s combined knowledge goes.”
“Perhaps Latin? The most classic of all languages...”
Isaac Prowse had a bad feeling about all of this.
-----
Deep underneath the Bayonet, the sea was writhing with life of the angry sort. Particular among these was one member of the merfolk with an orange, polyfaceted tail that glimmered and effervesced, brightly catching the sparse moonlight that managed to pierce the waves high above them. Coffee-brown coils of hair rippled and whipped through the cool ocean around her as her strong tail propelled her along.
“I told her not to go too close to the surface,” Yuyan said the moment she reached a large cavern beneath one of the many Caribbean coral reefs. There was a general bustle in the air and the merfolk were darting to and fro. Yuyan was anxious but plastered over it with steely determination.
The cavern was impressively formed, the coral within polished until it gleamed and the natural structure of their pinkish, living home carved into pillars and archways. Tunnel-like doorways were open from halfway up the wall all the way up to the ceiling and a constant rush of harried-looking merfolk were swimming their way through them.
“You are supposed to be Setsuko’s bodyguard,” the Queen said down to Yuyan coldly as she reached the centre of the chamber where the Queen had curled her long tail around a carved piece of coral that served as a throne. Her fine, straight hair drifted out around her head like a halo. “How could you let this happen?”
“I didn’t let it, Your Highness,” Yuyan said, suddenly meeker than she had been. She bowed her head. “You know that the Princess has a will of her own.”
“See to it that you retrieve her,” the Queen said, the pale bluish skin of her face becoming contorted in equal measures fretfulness and anger. “Sink the whole ship if you must, and kill everyone on board! She must be retrieved.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Yuyan said with a little bow. She worried for her friend-in the long centuries since the sea-humans and the land-humans had last had contact, they had been demonised beyond belief. Hundreds of years ago, when both races mixed, the land-humans had hunted the sea-humans with relentless cruelty, killing them by the dozen, leaving great purple trails of their blood in the clear ocean. Since then the mermaids had hidden themselves from them, elusive yet always remembered, and the chasm between the species had grown.
Yuyan thought that she would have no problem killing them. She had been raised-like every mermaid-to believe that they were devils, slaughterers, soulless destroyers of the sea. Every time one of their great wooden vessels ploughed through the waters above them, mermaids looked upon it with disgust.
She fetched her sword.
-----
Well, Latin didn’t work.
Noticing that she was shivering, Prowse had gone to fetch her a blanket and advanced on her nervously, not wanting to frighten her. Among vastly different strangers and with a langue barrier between them, he could only imagine what on earth the creature before them was thinking. Putting her palms to the sopping deck, arms weak against the gravity of open air, the mermaid had managed to prop herself up against the banister surrounding the ship and let him drape the blanket loosely over her. When he stepped back, she pulled it tighter.
“Do you think they are intelligent, Mr Prowse, or closer to animals?” Ashdown asked, tilting his head.
“Intelligent, sir,” Prowse replied faithfully. “She seems very aware of her surroundings.”
Ashdown looked back towards the young mermaid. He noticed when she opened her mouth that she had very small, very sharp white teeth. He had to agree with his aide on his answer-and even further when she suddenly tilted her head and gave a curious chirrup.
“If only we could understand,” he sighed. “They could be such useful allies! Imagine if there are hundreds of them, thousands-an obscure society-hidden in the depths of the ocean... they could help us to locate and sink ships, perhaps...”
Typical, Prowse thought. We find a mermaid and the first thing he thinks of is the war against piracy...
“Well, what are we going to do?” Prowse asked. The thought of taking this ocean’s daughter away from the sea seemed intrinsically wrong to him. Ashdown considered for a moment, tapping his cane against the wooden deck. With a soft slither, the mermaid curled her tail back towards her and looked up at him. Prowse was crouching down and Ashdown was stood loftily.
“I think we should take her back to land,” he replied. He noticed Prowse’s expression. “We could bring her back if she seems unhappy,” he added quickly, “and that is a further kindness than most people would allow.”
The striking creature sat at the apex of their triangle made a hesitant sound and said... something. It was one of the most captivating languages that Prowse had ever heard and although he was clueless about what it meant, he enjoyed the sound. The mermaid didn’t seem frightened any more though she was still cautious.
“It speaks,” Ashdown said, eyebrows raising.
“She, sir,” Prowse corrected him. Ashdown sighed quite deeply.
“You know, Mr Prowse, you have a tendency to get far too attached to the various waifs and strays we encounter. This is not a useful trait in a bodyguard.”
“If you don’t mind me saying, sir,” Prowse replied a little reproachfully, “this could be the beginning of a...” How to put it so Ashdown understood? “Political relationship between these... sea-folk and humans. We should treat them with respect.”
Ashdown looked astounded.
“When did you become so sensible?” he asked. “I remember you when you were still an ignorant young serf with a lot of training to do. How far we have come...” Prowse wasn’t fond of being condescended but decided to ignore it. “You stay here with this ‘honoured guest’ of yours, then, and I shall change our co-ordinates. I assure you this... merperson will be treated with respect. All right?”
“Sir,” Prowse muttered meekly.
-----
Setsuko had been nervous at first-being wrenched from the cool ocean by a sudden tangle of ropes had been frightening and somehow sickening, as though an organ was being ripped from her-but she became more used to her surroundings soon enough. What had then been her fear was that the land-humans would kill and eat her, as she had always been told they did.
When there had been a mass gathering of male land-humans gawping down at her from every direction, fear had turned her brittle and stony inside, shivers rushing down her slender arms and the small, silky fins growing from her elbows. It was only after they were all ordered away by the two strangers and a blanket was brought to her that she realised perhaps death wasn’t imminent after all.
And whether it should have or not, that only made her curious as opposed to suspicious.
There were two of them: Auburn, she called the auburn-haired one in her mind, and Smallman was the slimmer, shorter and better-dressed of the two. They didn’t seem too bad: Auburn acted as scared of her as she had been of him to start with, and Smallman had soothing, grey-blue eyes and a very serene expression on his face.
She tried communicating with them but it didn’t work. She could tell that they were trying too. Unfortunately, the tongue of the sea and the tongue of the land had split away from each other vastly over the past few centuries and there were no similarities at all; although an expert would notice that its closest relative was one of the Chinese dialects, where they had originated from, before this particular colony of sea-folk had decided to migrate to the warmer waters of the Caribbean generations ago.
Pulling her blanket tighter around her narrow shoulders as Smallman left, Setsuko turned to Auburn and decided to try again.
“I’m hungry,” she said; shyly, because she knew it was rude to demand things of-well, hosts, she supposed she should call them.
Auburn half-smiled nervously and looked around as though expecting her to have been speaking to someone else. Setsuko looked at his legs, which she found fascinating. She’d never really seen a person with legs before, aside from the occasional corpse that fell deep into the ocean after a raid. It wasn’t the same on a living person. She could see how they worked.
Clearly the land-human felt the same way about her because most of the time his gaze was on her tail, especially the delicate fins at the end. The next time his gaze drifted to it, Setsuko raised it a little from the damp boards and moved it up and down as though waving at him, marvelling at how it caught the light when it was out of the water. Auburn laughed slightly, in that awkward way of strangers.
He said something and she couldn’t understand a word of it. This was annoying. With her backside on the deck and her back against the rails, she was probably sat as comfortably as she could be-though she still didn’t like it much. She tried to shift herself and flopped to the deck, unused to needing the support of the ground. Setsuko was used to floating, flying: she didn’t know how land-humans survived, being trapped on the ground all of the time.
It must have been awful.
-----
Because she had never faced humans before, Yuyan wasn’t sure what to expect. She was also nervous because she would be at a great disadvantage: merfolk were not known for their grace on land. In fact, they were known for falling and flopping like fish did in the same situation, although the sea-humans were capable of surviving on land, unlike their gilled counterparts.
Streaming up through the inky black waters, Yuyan had no idea what to expect. A finely-crafted sword that seemed to glow in the darkness, blade thin and rough yet exquisitely pointed, whirled through the ocean behind her, clutched in one hand. Fine muscles rippled underneath the gleaming orange scales of her tail, sending her hurtling further forwards with every movement.
When she reached the bottom of the boat, she dodged beneath it and streamed along underneath its barnacle-crusted hull, sizing it up. She could remember exactly where Setsuko had been snatched: her eyes settled on the place and she pressed her lips together tightly, the extra layer of skin over her eyes to prevent the water from damaging them gleaming.
The run-up (or swim-up, as it were) was vital. With a delicate arch of her spine, Yuyan curved backwards and rocketed down towards the sea floor again, hair streaming behind her, delicate and feathery in the water. The moment it seemed she would plunge into the seabed she twisted herself upright, tail stirring up a massive cloud of silt that almost covered her as she began her race to the surface.
Water screaming in her ears and blood pounding, Yuyan flew straight and true as an arrow, tail whipping powerfully as she surged towards the top of the ocean, chin tucked down into her neck to allow for the fastest speed possible-
And then she was out with a great spray of water and foam that cascaded gleaming over her body, shooting like a missile into the air and far above the banister. Twisting herself over, she noticed Setsuko was right there on the deck, and there was just one of the land-humans with her-though he stood dangerously close.
Yuyan didn’t even think about it: it was instinct. Elbow drawing back and sword snapping into aim, she curled through the air towards the land-human to deliver the deathly blow even as he looked up.
He shocked her by staggering away just in time for her to miss him-her sword nicked him in the leg as she sailed past but she had no time to feel triumphant about it as she landed heavily on the deck. Muttering a curse-word under her breath, Yuyan whirled on the sopping wet deck and lashed at the man with the most powerful weapon she had: her tail.
A mermaid’s tail was doubtless the strongest part of her body. In order to propel itself and a human torso through the water at high speeds, it needed muscular strength far beyond that of any ordinary fish... despite which, Yuyan trained a lot. The dainty-looking fins at the end were not much use for clobbering anyone, but the bone of the tail was hard and it delivered a blow to the land-human’s head that split the skin, sending him tumbling back against the opposite rail with a gasp.
Cold determination filling her up-as little as she liked it, these land-humans had been the enemy of the sea-humans as long as she could remember-Yuyan grasped her sword tight and began crawling across the deck towards him, tail kicking against the deck to push her forwards, fingers digging into the wood, propelling her closer to her adversary-
“Yuyan!” Setsuko’s voice called from behind her. The land-human had grasped at a belt going across his chest, hand curled around the ivory hilt of a knife, but he did not take it out. He looked frightened and stared at her with wide, dark eyes. Setsuko glanced over her shoulder at the stolen princess, sword still pointing unwaveringly towards the land-human. “Leave him!”
“What?” Yuyan asked, frowning.
“He hasn’t... done anything wrong.”
Not yet, Yuyan thought.
-----
Prowse still felt dizzy from the impact of the tail against his head. It had been like being whacked with a sack of bricks. His hand had slipped to the hilt of his knife automatically but he couldn’t do anything but hold it as the newcomer dragged herself over the deck towards him. It was probably the most frightening experience of his life so far, but at the same time the merfolk were so hauntingly beautiful. He had been quite certain he was going to die before the first mermaid intervened.
There was a short conversation between the two of them, during which the sword did not move from his throat for one second. The second mermaid, this one with lighter hair and an ember-orange tail, turned to scrutinise him once they had finished their exchange. Prowse eased his hand from the hilt of the knife and swallowed as the sword point edged closer.
Then, with an uncertain look on her face, the attacking mermaid lowered her sword and let it come to rest against the damp deck before wriggling her way back across to her-friend? Whatever the relation, the orange-tailed mermaid moved back towards the dainty lilac-blue-tailed one and a short discussion in their own language ensued.
Blinking stars from his eyes, Prowse wiped his blood from his face and considered getting to his shaking legs. The few crewmembers up on the riggings, keeping an eye on their position during the night, had witnessed the whole thing but clearly didn’t want to intervene. The orange-tailed mermaid could easily have killed Prowse if she had wanted to. He clasped his hands over the deep cut in his calf and took a deep breath.
He was thinking of giving into the blackness and just having a short nap when he noticed that the lilac-tailed mermaid was beckoning him over.
-----
“The land-humans dragged you out of the sea, Princess!”
“How many times have I told you to call me Setsuko?” replied her companion idly. “Anyway, Yuyan, they have been... well, perhaps kind isn’t the right word, but acceptable towards me. That one even gave me a blanket when I was cold, see?” She showed the fluffy blanket to her bodyguard. In all honesty she had been very impressed with the blanket: under the water, ‘fluffy’ was not something one could exactly experience, and she loved the feel of it beneath her silky fingers.
“If they’re so kind, why didn’t they throw you back in?” Yuyan asked uncertainly. The rumours and myths they had about the land-humans were deeply ingrained, although she was starting to feel a little guilty for the shot to the head she had landed the man on the other side of the deck. Now that she thought about it, he been crouching next to Setsuko in more of a companionable way than a threatening one...
“I think they were curious,” Setsuko said, and lifted her dainty chin. “And I was too. They’re very strange, but I suppose that is what makes them interesting.”
“Your mother is very worried,” Yuyan sighed. “It’s time to go home.” Her gaze moved to the tall railings at the side of the ship and she found herself chewing on her lip. Although she was very good at propelling herself from the water, on land it was a different story. Just as she had witnessed land-human sailors flailing and floundering among the waves, on land she was close to helpless.
“Oh, all right then,” Setsuko said, seeming disappointed. It had been a most unusual adventure for her. “They didn’t mean to catch me, I think. They were fishing.”
Yuyan struggled to buck upwards and tried to clasp her hands around the top of the railings but ended up slithering back down, sword leaving a long gouge in the wood of the Bayonet. That was when Setsuko decided to have faith and prove to her that these land-humans weren’t entirely evil.
-----
It didn’t take long for the lilac-tailed mermaid to tell him what she wanted. She beckoned him closer with a smile-and he limped towards them warily, feet dragging, head aching. Flapping her tail against the deck, the jet-haired mermaid pointed up over the rail and cocked her head, blinking her eyes at him. He would have to have been a fool not to understand. She wanted to go home.
Prowse scarcely had to think about it. Mechanically, he leaned down and scooped her up like a doll. Although strong, the mermaids were both fairly small and very slim. Scales slippery against his bare arms, he tucked one arm under where her knees would be had she been a human and one arm against her back. He could see black at the edges of his vision from the force of the hit, still rebounding through his head as he leaned out over the railings with the mermaid in his arms.
That’s one lesson learned the hard way, he thought. Don’t mess with mermaids. The lilac-tailed mermaid smiled sweetly at him and then wriggled from his arms, landing in the glinting dark ocean with scarcely a ripple, absorbed lovingly back to its depths. Turning back to the one that had attacked him, he lifted her in the same way and heaved her out over the railing too, muscles straining.
The orange-tailed mermaid touched one finger to where his face was cut and murmured something that sounded like an apology.
“S’fine,” Prowse mumbled, and she slithered through his arms and slipped back into the ocean to join her companion. Taking a deep breath, Prowse rubbed his sore head and sighed, wishing that he’d at least been able to understand something they had said. Now there wasn’t a single clue they had been there at all.
He turned around and found himself face-to-face with Lord Ashdown.
“I think,” he said softly, “you have a lot of explaining to do.”
-----
“They’re not evil, I’m telling you,” Setsuko was telling Yuyan later in the same night as she brushed her hair. There had been a lot of excitement and kafuffle when she had returned home, with talk of having the ship blown up or seizing it and dragging it down to the ocean. It had been done before: the Queen wanted their presence and their location kept secret.
“That one wasn’t evil,” Yuyan said from the other side of her chamber, floating on her back and drifting across the room. “You can’t speak for all of them. They could have met a very evil sea-human, for instance, and then they would think all sea-humans are horrid.”
“Like you,” Setsuko replied with a grin.
“I was only-!”
“I know, Yuyan,” Setsuko replied in a sing-song voice, peering into the mirror and nodding to herself, the final knots from her time on the vessel teased from her straight, jet-coloured hair. “I just really think... we should try to befriend them. We were almost communicating just before you interrupted. I had no idea what he was trying to tell me, but... given time... we could have understood each other.”
“Probably,” Yuyan replied, pulling a face. “But that needs to be done somewhere the sea-humans and the land-humans can be comfortable. Not on their ship.”
“Yes, well...” Setsuko smiled. “One day.” When I am queen, she added in her head.