It wouldn’t hurt just to stay a few moments longer, would it? It was only to make sure his precious cargo was alive (if not well - Silverfin suspected there was something amiss with the man to have thrown himself to the waves in such a careless fashion).
Did he still breathe? Silverfin traced the contours of the man’s face with his fingers, lingering around the scratchy beard and the surprisingly soft lips. Yes, yes, there was air coming out of his mouth.
The man turned and coughed, sending Silverfin into the water and under the boardwalk again. But he couldn't leave. Carefully, he crept back up to the surface, craning his head and coming faceto face with the pirate as he sprawled at the edge of the board, eyes open, staring at him.
Silverfin's heart caught in his throat.
“Lucas,” the man muttered, his gaze unfocused, his voice hollow. It sounded the way that the ocean sounds inside a conch when you press it to your ear: so enticing, yet so far away.
"My Lucas," he sighed again. Undoubtedly one of the strange names that bipeds had, and undoubtedly someone who was very dear to his handsome pirate. A beautiful maid? A handsome man? Someone dear. And perhaps, from the despair at its uttering, someone who was no longer.
That, certainly, would be a reason to give oneself to the sea.
“Forgive me, Lucas,” the pirate whispered, so close to Silverfin’s own lips that he could almost taste the sorrow on the man’s breath. “You saved me for nothing. You died for nothing. I am nothing.”
Silverfin opened his mouth to protest, but stopped. He could speak the pirate's language well; he and his brothers and sisters had always prided themselves on picking up the language of the local lands with their constantly shifting settlements, and Silverfin was better at tongues than most of his siblings. But to speak might reveal himself too much.
It might reveal his feelings too much.
A cold hand clutched at his wrist. Along with the sorrow, Silverfin could also smell the telltale scent of rum on the pirate’s breath. There was a good chance he would not remember any of this come morning. Relief and disappointment warred equally inside Silverfin at the realization.
But how could he bear to leave knowing his Pirate thought so little of himself?
“You are far from nothing,” he dared to whisper back. “You are so much, and everything I desire.”
The man’s eyes seemed to focus momentarily, searching Silverfin's gaze in the moonlight. His lips parted in confusion.
Silverfin knew there wasn’t much time; he had to act quickly. He had no illusions about what he was: he had always been a thief. He had stolen this prize from Mami Wata, and now, he was also going to steal a kiss.
He pressed his lips to the Pirate King’s own, soft and warm. Under his questing lips, the Pirate King's mouth opened, sweet with rum under the salt of the sea. He responded to Silverfin's clumsy caress with a soft, needy noise, tongue brushing against Silverfin's, hot and eager.
His mouth was so hot and sweet and good, a searing heat that spread through Silverfin like he'd found a thermal vent. The heat left a strange, unexpected ache in its wake, left him yearning to press closer. He'd been leaning over the side of the boardwalk, but he couldn't stop himself from hoisting his body up onto it again, pressing closer. Arching against the Pirate King's strong body, he stroked his chest eagerly through the water-logged shirt, relishing the surge and flex of his muscles.
A soft groan, and the Pirate was surging closer to him. Clutching for him, pulling Silverfin closer. Did he feel that same aching need in his core? His touch was as hot as his lips, stroking hungrily over Silverfin's flanks, then down his back and over his ass.
"Wha..." the man mumbled against his mouth, hand tightening on his ass. On his scales, Silverfin realized, and jerked back in a rush of panic.
Then, before the drunken biped could fully come to his senses, he dove back underneath the docks and swam out to sea.
2
Mara the Ondine
“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more."
? Hans Christian Anderson
THERE WERE ALWAYS SECRETS WHISPERED in the house of whores. Secrets skillfully pried from the lips of men by way of the bottle, by the way that a smile and a bat of an eyelash could empty men's heads as effectively as they emptied their wallets.
Mara was queen of all of those.
But even she needed no skill to learn the news the morning that one of Port Royal's most notorious pirate captains mysteriously washed up on the docks. Washed up minus his entire ship.
She could imagine easily how such a thing may have happened. Long before her days of whoring andlegs,she had been an ondine, swimming merrily with her kin in the warm and soothing waters of the Caribbean. She'd seen many a sailor go overboard in her time, torn from the deck by wild storm winds to be lost in the raging sea. She'd seen even more lost to a sinking ship, blown apart in great battles or even greater storms.
She could have easily brought them to land, if she'd wanted to, these sacrifices to the sea. But the bipeds had never interested her.
Not until she'd heard a queen singing on the shore of Port Royal.
