February 23rd, 2019 at 08:44pm
@ Shadow Moon;
Cecily sat at the bottom of the salt pool looking up through the glass ceiling at the intense start night. It was like someone put out all the lights in the town and the stars glowed for it. She could feel the strain of the journey to get here taking it's tole on her tail. Cecily ran her hand down her irritated scales over her whitening tail. Normally it was a pale lavender, the most beautiful violet but not now. Her nearly black hair sat floating around her in the stagnant water reminding her that she wasn't in the ocean. Her hazel blue eyes tracked over the sky as if trying too map were she was ow relative to where she had been. Cecily was just proud she hadn't lead them to her home, that she had gotten far enough away that they would never be able to find the hidden treasure were she rested her tail. The memories of the pirates that caught her still stung her eyes.
Cecily was swimming with as much speed as she could gather, swimming away from the approaching net. Her tail was not built for speed but this boat was. The mesh of skin cutting fabric rushed in behind her tangling her tail and slicing it up as it slowly began to drag her up. Cecily twisted and dug her fingers into the holes both trying to free her tail and relieve the pain that the net caused by dragging her up onto the boat. She whimpered as the men reached out pulling her into the boat before the net finally released. The men laughed as she thrashed. She flicked her tail causing several men to fall and one even to fall over. They stopped laughing then before forcing her into a tiny box that just barely fit her tail. "Look at the tail on this one boys!" One pirate called. "What a price we will get for it too." Said another older man. He rapped on the glass and she snarled at him. He laughed and closed the lid sound blocking her in. Her voice was a weapon and they knew it with became the problem because then they could protect themselves against her hypnotizing songs. Cecily's own blood slipped into the water which she would be kept in until they reached land. The filthy land pigs were going to sell her to the highest paying freak, or medicine woman that wanted to use her in one horrible way or another. She spent three weeks in that container her water only being refreshed once a week. It was awful and inhuman but what did they care.
Cecily was in her new captive cage, a small pool where she would stay until she was sold. She overheard the men and knew it would be soon. She watched them and knew they were constantly guarding her outside the room. They kept all their "merchandise" separate for fear of their complained abilities and they had a right to be fearful, enough mermaids and you were facing a cosmic power that could control the oceans, a natural force that would destroy anything that they desired. Cecily was desperate and she had one last ace up her sleeve. As the moon rose over her little pool of water Cecily began to her song. The water started the music lifting and dropping like strings on a violin before she began to sing. This song that was crying out for the purest soul to come to her. Anyone on the docks or near the water would hear her song and be convinced they had to see her at any cost. This song would tare at the heart inspiring courage, desire even revenge. It spoke to the darkest and deepest of desires any heart but a greedy heart could hear.
Billy was on the ship laying in his hammock and eating with his eyes closed his breathing even until he could hear the even breathing of all his crew. It was the zenith of the night when he slowly rose from his hammock and creeped around the creaking boards of the ship. He crept past the captains quarters up onto the deck of the ship and hopped off the ship onto the dock. Billy moved quickly and quietly up to were they kept her. He had never been so completely captured by anything in his life as he was the mermaid that his captain and the crew had brought up from the depths of the sea on their last voyage. They were going to be selling her in the morning to a group of shady people at first light. Billy had been trying to seem apathetic about the entire ordeal but would wince when no one was looking and he knew she had caught him staring on his watches.
Billy snuck past old Joe and into the mermaid's holding container. He had com without his protection gear knowing she would kill him with even a little pool of water if she choose to. Billy closed the door behind him pressing his back to the door in the dark room letting his eyes adjust to the starlight. He moved slowly to the side of the pool and lowered himself so he sat beside the water looking into the inky election of the sky above. "I wouldn't blame you for not coming out but I had to come. They had caught her a few weeks ago and ever since she had been the only thing on his mind with her angelic face and dark hair over her pale skin all the way down to the scales on her tail that made her as dangerous as it did beautiful. He wondered if she had anything to say. She had to know that her time was coming soon that her entire life would change.
"I would help you if I could but what can I do?" he asked the silent room. There was no way he saw this working out. How in the world would he get her out without having to kill his crew and challenge his captain? Not to mention he was just a pirate, no one would help him even if he did get her out by some miracle, he would be a wanted dead man. It was true in more noble circles mermaids were still a myth but how could he get out of the life he had always known? Billy sighed. "I am sorry to have bothered you at all." he admitted feeling like it might be time to leave and he began to rise but leaned over and just touched the water hoping she would understand the struggling war inside him and how he wished he could save her from this fate.