#dgray-man

I was shocked, as were most of the men, but someone had the thought to harpoon your tail to the floor. You wailed in pain. There was a smack and I jumped as if it was me that was hit. Instead, the man that had speared you crumbled. Master stepped over his fallen form and placed a hand against your bare back. He wasn’t expecting the sharp spines that shot through his palm from the curve of your back, nor a face full of nails as you swiped your clawed hands at him. He caught your wrists in his free hand, jaw clenched but face devoid of the pain he must have been feeling.

“We aren’t going to harm you,” he said. It was then that I noticed his fingers very loosely encircled your wrists. He wasn’t applying pressure. He wasn’t hurting you at all.”

“Looking back, I can honestly see how everyone in the Order can think he’s an amazing man,” Allen sighed. He rubbed the back of his neck as he met Lenalee’s dazed eyes. “That was the first and only time I had ever seen Master so gentle to someone in front of other people.”

“What happened next?” Lenalee asked softly. She scooted closer across the floor, her hips landing between Allen’s heavy boots.

Allen smiled.

“You were panting, obviously scared, squinted eyes flicking nervously between Master and the men behind him. I was staring. Your eyes were interesting. They had been completely black, from corner to corner, when you had first opened them. Now, I could see the whites of them, and the color of your irises in the dim daylight. The spines on your back slowly lowered save for the few near the junction of your spine and tail, where Master’s bleeding hand lay. You twisted to look for the reason why they wouldn’t retract.

Master pulled his hand free. His jaw clenched tighter but, still, his face was free of pain. It was soft, in fact, and, dare I say, caring. The look he gave a patron whose name he would remember even long after we’d left their homes, and he, their beds. Your back completely relaxed. I stared but I couldn’t see where the spines originated from.

“We aren’t going to harm you,” Master repeated. You looked back up at him. This time, your hands relaxed into softly curved fingers from sharp and jagged claws. His fingers tightened around your wrists as your arms sagged with defeat. He motioned to the harpoon with his dripping hand. “May I?”

Your tail flicked and pain shot across your face. Your back rippled with hundreds of sharp spines. I thought of the blown up fish in the wharf markets when I saw them. They looked just like those. Master lifted his hand away from the harpoon. “If I don’t remove it, you’ll keep bleeding,” he pointed out.

The panic was rising in you. Your chest was heaving, your eyes growing wide. You lunged from the bulwark at Master as though to throw him off balance with your weight. His arm locked around your waist instead, holding you flush against his body. He raised your arms high above your head to keep you from hitting him in the face.

“Allen,” he snapped. There was finally emotion on his face: annoyance. “Get the harpoon.”

“But—”

“Get. The. Harpoon.” His face turned towards mine with every word. If he hadn’t been preoccupied with your thrashing and screaming, he might have booted me towards the harpoon. Then again, there wouldn’t be a harpoon if you weren’t on the deck. I stepped towards it, staring at the fin it had pierced through. Scales had come free from your tail with your erratic movements and what I thought was blood pooled under the pinned flesh. I reached down to grip the shaft as close to the blade as possible and hesitantly touched your moving tail.

You froze at that, my touch. You were still breathing hard, angry and glaring eyes locked on Cross’s neutral face, but you had stopped moving. I pressed my hand against your tail and yanked the harpoon from the deck.

It came free.

“Don’ you dare le’ ‘ha’ go, Marian,” the captain spat. He stalked towards the two of you. Your tail curled around Master’s boots. His arm tightened around your waist.

“Please.” It was the first word you spoke, no, you begged. You tugged your hands against Master’s grip, shaking your head. Your eyes were welling with tears. “We don’t come back from them,” you whispered. “We don’t escape them.” Your voice was laden with an accent I had never heard before.

“Marian,” the captain shouted. He was next to me now, hands reaching for the harpoon I held. I scrambled across the deck to the other side and threw the weapon into the choppy sea.

You watched me do it.

Master hummed. His arm relaxed as he brought your hands to his chest. There was a sly smile on his face, the one I had already come to fear in the short time I had been around him. “I paid you for passage to England,” he pointed out. Master glanced at the open waters. “This isn’t England.”

“We’re makin’ a de’our,” the captain said. His voice was hesitant now.

“On my dime,” Master snapped.

I refrained from correcting him. It was my money, after all.

Master lifted your hands and pressed an open mouth kiss against your fingers. “So, I think this ‘detour’ warrants the grandest prize to be fished from the sea,” he said. He was staring the captain down, silently challenging him to a fight that the captain could never win. When the captain didn’t answer, Master crouched and slipped his arm under your tail, scooping you into his arms. He released your hands. They fell against your damp chest. Your wet hair was trapped against your shoulders. “Then we’re at an agreement,” Master said. He stood and walked towards the stairs, motioning for me to go ahead of him. I scrambled down the steps to the cabins below.

“We’ll be disembarking at the first port,” Master stated. There was a silent dare in his words.

We would be getting off the ship at first port.”

Lenalee stared as the last of Allen’s words faded away. “You actually found a mermaid,” she whispered.