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O the fair sailor lad
He was handsome and free,
And he loved a gentle maid,
And his wife she would be:
O my fair sailor lad,
Come and bide here wi' me!
But the fair sailor lad
Sailed away, 'cross the sea.
A salty breeze jostles her golden hair ornaments; the sound of the wind and flapping sails are all that can be heard this early in the morning.
Tugging her coat collar higher to fend off the frigid air, the Captain stands at the bow of her ship, the Helix, murmuring her familiar and favourite sea shanty to herself as she watches the sun rise over the horizon.
One month, this week, is how long Captain Fareeha Amari has led her crew on the mission to track and take down one of the most dangerous and notorious pirate crews in all of the vast seas; the Talon Pirates. Legend says that they are a cursed crew, with abilities that no mortal man can comprehend, and their numbers and forces grow by the day.
Following the footsteps of her mother, Fleet Admiral Ana Amari, second-hand commander of the Overwatch fleet before her untimely disappearance, Fareeha joined the navy as soon she was of age.
A fierce, courageous, compassionate and loyal soldier, Fareeha quickly soared and climbed through the ranks, best known for her heartfelt sense of justice, earning the earnest respect of her crew.
And here she is now, watching the sunrise as she sings, an unsteady feeling swirling in her gut that she may be leading her crew to death’s door far sooner than they should be.
O my fair sailor lad,
Come and bide here wi' me!
But the fair sailor lad
Sailed away, 'cross the sea...
--
Cannon fire.
The clash of steel rings in the air.
Men shouting, bellowing war cries in combat to intimidate their foes.
Screaming in agony.
Wood splinters and flies.
Blood mixes with water.
A blow to the head from the butt of a sword sends Fareeha sprawling. Her world spins as the chaos continues around her. The sleeve of her white blouse blossoms with a deep crimson red.
May have well been marching my men off the plank, she thinks grimly as she lies on the bloodied deck of the Helix. Everything had fallen apart too quickly before her eyes.
They had found them. All too soon, and yet, not soon enough. Fareeha and her crew had intercepted the Talon Pirates, engaging in immediate combat, only to find themselves severely outnumbered and overpowered by the monstrous crew.
Her mind reels back to the chaos that had just transpired…
She had been locked in combat with the pirates’ captain: Gabriel Reyes, better known as the Reaper, his title famously cultivated with his witchcraft-like abilities to steal the souls of men and women alike, coercing them to join his crew. Rumour had it he was immortal, seemingly after he had returned from the clutch of death’s bitter cold after his ship exploded and sunk several years ago.
Fareeha’s suspicions were confirmed when she buried her sword, all the way to the hilt, through the Reaper’s heart. The wound oozed with thick wisps of black smoke around the blade.
She caught a glimpse of a red glow behind the soulless eyeholes of the skull mask adorning the Reaper’s face; his shoulders rumbled with a deep chuckle before he swung his blade back towards her. She pulled her cutlass free and clashed with him once more, resuming their deadly waltz.
Her beloved ship had groaned and lurched below her feet as it splintered and shattered under cannon fire. She absently noticed fire spewing from the cabins, licking the wood and spreading.
Their swords collided, freezing them in a battle of resistance.
“You’ve grown to be just like your mother, I see,” the Reaper growled, venom seeping from every word he uttered.
Fareeha, you’re just like your mother. Like mother, like daughter. My, Fareeha, Ana would be so proud if she could see you today. Voices of the past echoed throughout her mind.
Fareeha snarled in response and pushed him away. She drew her pistol, knowing full well the shot would do shit-all against an undead man.
An explosion sounded, the boat quaking and she losing her footing. Fareeha barely registered the sound of a gun going off. Not her own, no-- she’d dropped it when the feeling of a white-hot branding iron seared into her right bicep.
Another explosion. But the sounds were half-muted. As if her ears were filled with cotton. She looked down at her sleeve; red bloomed and spread across the white.
She had blinked numbly and turned to the direction of the shot; not from anyone on this ship, but further, high up in the crow’s nest of the Talon ship, she sees her. Reaper’s first mate, legendary sharpshooter, Amelie Lacroix; the Widowmaker, who pulled the rifle back down away from her face and saluted the wounded Captain from her perch.
Taking advantage of her distraction, the Reaper lashed out with his own blade, striking her temple with the hilt, stars bursting through her blackening vision as she toppled to the deck.
“Like mother, like daughter,” the Reaper had sneered, before he vanished into a murky shroud of black smoke, something like that of an octopus with its inky camouflage.
Gone.
And now here she lies on the deck of her ship. The pirates, retreated. Her crew, massacred. She, lying wounded on her own deck. They never stood a damn chance. She failed her entire crew.
Fareeha closes her eyes for what seems like only a few seconds, feeling the heat of the flames burn around her…
Before the harsh wash of cold water enveloping her snaps her into consciousness again. Her mind dives into autopilot as her lungs already scream desperately for air; she kicks her legs, pushing for the surface while manoeuvring around the wooden debris of what once was the Helix, scattering loosely through the deep.
She breaks the surface, gasping and sucking in air, arms flailing and making a grab for anything she can stay afloat on, not trusting her exhausted body to buoy herself.
Fareeha surveys her surroundings once calmed. No sign of the Talon ship; only flaming wooden debris scattering along the ocean’s surface, and bodies bobbing limply. Absolutely no sign of life catches her eye, save for the ravenous scavenger birds already circling above the wreckage.
She sees in the distance a lone row boat drifting away from the destruction, and pushes off the debris to swim for it. Pulling herself aboard the boat, noting the lone intact oar provided, she flops to her back and glares up at the sun as it makes its decent towards the horizon.
Tearing the sleeve of her blouse away, she wraps it securely around her wounded arm, stemming the bleeding, praying that the salt water had potentially dismissed any chance of infection. Cold air nips at her exposed and still-damp skin. She shudders and lays back, pulling her coat over her body.
With the adrenaline finally wearing off, her body grows heavy; sleep pulls her away all too quickly.
Captain Fareeha Amari, lone survivor of the Helix crew, is set adrift into the abyss, with only her cutlass, a pistol with only a few shots remaining, a single oar and the clothes on her back.
--
Two days.
Two days, Fareeha has been drifting. The maddening effects of dehydration and ravenous hunger has begun to take its toll as she sits against the side of the boat, withering under the harsh sunlight beating down on her.
At least the waves have been calm thus far. The bullet wound aches, but it has stopped bleeding.
Two days she’s had to mourn for her crew, and yet no tears would fall. She sits in her small row boat, herself and her thoughts trapped together. Memories flood through her mind, keeping her preoccupied.
They’re sitting at the King’s Row Tavern back at their local port, herself and her crewmates. Ale is flowing free and spirits are high after returning from a three-month-long voyage. The men and women raise their drinks in a toast to celebrate their return before promptly chugging their entire mugs.
Fareeha sits quietly; nursing her drink and watching her friends--no, her family--laugh and sing together with arms linked over each other’s’ shoulders, swaying and chanting along with the band playing on stage, swinging their mugs (and making a proper mess while doing so). Eventually Fareeha loosens up enough to join in the singing, despite preferring to sing privately.
A seagull’s screech rouses her from her thoughts, and she realises she’s drifted off again.
--
Three days.
Three days, Fareeha has been drifting. Her thoughts drift to her academy training days. More specifically the lessons outlining what to do when stranded at sea.
“Three days,” ex-Lieutenant Reinhardt began, addressing his class. “Three days you can survive without water before your body begins to deteriorate from dehydration. In a life and death situation, drinking your own piss might just be enough to tide you over. It ain’t gonna give your body any sustenance other ‘en potentially keepin’ your kidney’s working.”
The entire class had collectively ‘eeeewwww’d at the very thought of doing so. Reinhardt just boomed with laughter.
She wonders how that old lion is doing.The idea of trying that would be tempting… had she not needed to go to the bathroom since the first day, with nothing left to give.
Without the strength to even sit straight anymore, she slumps against the side of the boat, sinking down.
I’m going to die out here, she realises grimly. She’d always imagined, in her career as a soldier, going out in a blaze of glory, cutlass and pistol drawn, fighting to the bitter end. Captain always goes down with the ship, after all.
Would her mother be proud? Or disappointed, for her dying so pitifully? Ana had adamantly protested against her daughter joining the navy to begin with. Her heart was in the right place, but there was never a chance of keeping her daughter away from the ocean. Especially when she would watch Fareeha’s face light up with determination as she sat on her mother’s knee in front of their fireplace, both of them on her wooden rocking chair while Anatold her great tales of her adventures, tales of the strange creatures she would find, both wonderful and dangerous.
Fareeha’s eye cracks open and glances at her pistol, tucked into the discarded holster on the floor beside her.
She wonders. Maybe… maybe it would be quicker than letting her body painfully deteriorate, as time passes agonisingly slow—
No.
Absolutely not.
Fareeha Amari is no coward. She has never taken the easy way out and she’ll be damned if she starts now. She squeezes her eyes closed and forces the thoughts from her mind, ashamed to even consider it.
She continues to drift.
For what feels like an eternity.
She continues to drift on waters so calm and maddeningly still.
She covers her face with her coat, blocking the harsh rays of the sun, and begins to sing hoarsely. Her favourite shanty, one her mother would sing while tucking her into bed at night.
O the fair sailor lad
He was wae and forlorn:
I maun see yon gentle maid
From whose side I was torn.
Tho' he sailed that very tide
Her he saw not again,
For that fair sailor lad
Sleeps for aye 'neath the main.
The boat bobs slightly beneath her. She clears her throat of its parchedness and continues;
O the fair sailor lad
He was handsome and free,
And he loved a gentle maid,
And his wife she would be--
O my fair sailor lad,
Come and bide here with me .
…that wasn’t her own voice.
She pulls her makeshift shade from her face, to be greeted by the brightest pair of blue eyes she’d ever seen glancing down at her curiously. She could be staring at the blue sky for all she knew, and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in her state of mind.
A woman. A woman with skin as fair and white as the sands of the most beautiful tropical islands, dripping wet pale blonde hair sitting above her shoulders. A woman is clinging to the side of her boat, watching her intently with those eyes.
Fareeha might actually be looking at an angel, she thinks. Or she’s going mad.
She rasps a chuckle. She lays back on the floor of her boat, continuing to snicker to herself. Blessed by the presence of a dripping wet angel. Absolutely lost, her bloody mind; she laughs harder and the angel in question shrinks away cautiously. Fareeha stops at the reaction, brown eyes meeting blue.
Fareeha blinks back. The hallucination doesn’t cease. She glances around her surroundings. Still nothing but bloody horizons and nothingness as far as the eye can see.
“Human?” Fareeha thinks she hears the woman speak quietly from her hiding place behind the boat.
“Uh--” Fareeha clears her throat, still raspy from disuse. “Aye, I am,” she croaks.
The mystery woman raises herself up once more, perching her bare arms and shoulders over the side of the boat to hold on to the edge.
“You are the one who sings. You sang the song of the fair sailor lad on the big ship, some days ago, no?” Her voice is heavily accented, as though from some European country. Though Fareeha cannot place why or where from, for many do not even border the coast.
“Aye, that’d be me,” Fareeha admits bashfully. She shifts to move closer to the stranger, who flinches and pushes away from the boat in response, sinking into the water up to her chin.
Fareeha holds her hand out, “Wait-- I-- don’t go, please!”
Angela regards her carefully, unspeaking.
“How did you… who are… you’re here, aren’t you? You’re real? I’m not seeing things?”
A quiet pause before the woman softly speaks “Aye,” in response.
“Do you… have a name?” Unsure of how to start conversation with this stranger in the water.
“… Angela,” she responds curtly. “And what is your name, sailor?” The shyness begins to dissipate from her voice.
Fareeha straightens, remembering who exactly she is for the first time in days. She moves to stand at attention—but her legs wobble and cave beneath her, weak from days of malnourishment and disuse. She falls to her knees and grumbles under her breath before straightening to her full height on her knees instead.
“I am captain of the Helix and her crew, comrades to the Overwatch Navy; Fareeha Amari, daughter of Fleet Admiral Ana Amari. I’ve… I’ve lost my crew and ship in battle…”
Her voice wavers and trails off when the realisation punches her in the gut. The first time she had uttered what happened aloud made it feel so much more real.
Angela hums in contemplation. “I’ve never met a human before.”
“Are you not… human?” Fareeha raises an eyebrow, recovering a degree of boldness as she speaks.
Angela hums again, laying back atop the steady lapping waves, her pale and very much naked abdomen and chest exposed to the sky, a pair of gills lining either side of her ribs.
“Not entirely,” she says all-too-complacently as a large tail, adorned with golden and orange scales and detailed with fins, splashes the surface of the water along with her paddling along.
A mermaid.
A mermaid.
Angela casually paddles in a figure-eight pattern--seemingly unfazed by Fareeha’s realisation--and dips underwater backwards, resurfacing beside the side of the boat once more to prop herself up on its edge once again. They find themselves face to face once again, too. Angela rests her chin on the edge of the boat and tilts her head to the side, smirking.
“It’s nice to meet you, Captain Amari.”
--
Fareeha was eight, sitting on her mother’s lap in her favourite wooden rocking chair, listening intently to her tales of the ocean. She’d tell Fareeha great stories of wild storms, flinging Ana’s vessel like that of a toy boat in a bathtub with a rowdy child. Stories of heroic battles with pirates and villains. Stories of creatures that lurk below the surface. Some of her favourites were the myths and legends of said creatures like the Kraken, the Lernaean Hydra, the Sea Witches and Merfolk.
Ana would spare her young one the gritty details, of course, when telling her of the merfolk that are known to be such beautiful creatures… and yet so dangerous. How they would seduce sailors with their ethereal voices and beauty, before dragging them to the depths of the ocean.
Death awaits those who consort with mermaids. Few have lived to tell the tale.
And yet here she is now, twenty-four years later and face to face with a live mermaid, one with the most gorgeous and gentle-looking (and slightly flirtatious) eyes looking back at her.
Fareeha catches her thoughts drifting and snaps back into reality, shifting away from Angela slightly, suddenly wary.
“Are you… I suppose you’re here to take me, aren’t you?”
Angela cocks her head curiously.
“… Uhn… Have your way with me and drown me?” Fareeha stutters out, gesturing vaguely. Embarrassment creeps over her features. Angela looks almost offended.
“Heavens, no! I--no! I heard your voice… your singing called to me and I followed. I wanted to see… and it led me to your boat.”
“You like my singing?”
“Yes, very much so! Your voice, your accent is not like those from these seas.” Angela readjusts her grip on the boat. “We merfolk love singing.” It was her turn to blush.
Fareeha hums in contemplation. “And you don’t drown sailors?” Unable to hide the suspicion from her voice.
Angela chuckles warmly. “No, no we don’t. But perhaps you are thinking of sirens, hm? Merfolk, like ourselves, but so much more cunning and vicious.” She looks out towards the horizon, and her eyes grow distant but thoughtful. “Merfolk live in harmony with the ocean; we care for it and protect it where we can. Including those who love and respect it as much as we do.”
She turns back to the sailor and winks. Fareeha coughs and smiles nervously, nodding.
Angela lingers with the boat. She asks of what happened to Fareeha’s crew and ship, and how she had ended up here, and listens intently when Fareeha repeats the story. It had only happened three days ago, but feels like a lifetime.
“Goodness… You poor thing. You must be starving!” Angela’s expression had changed from placid to concerned during the retelling. “Please, I think I can help. Will you stay here?”
Fareeha chuckles and gestures around the open waters. “I’m not sure I have much of a choice.”
“No… no, I mean,” the mermaid reaches a hand across the boat and touches Fareeha, deep blue eyes piercing into her own, “I mean, hold on a little longer. Please. I’ll return as soon as possible, Fareeha.”
Before Fareeha can ask questions, Angela pushes away from the boat and disappears beneath the surface.
Alone.
Again.
--
“…eeha… Fareeha? Wake up, sailor.”
A gentle and kind voice rouses her from a slumber she hadn’t realised she had slipped into. Fareeha rubs her face and opens her eyes to see the angel--no, mermaid---Angela looming over her, gently shaking her shoulder. Angela sighs with relief and sits back when Fareeha comes to.
The sailor looks around; the sun is rising. She’d slept (passed out?) the entire previous afternoon and night. She realises Angela is sitting beside her, in the boat, a hessian rucksack on her lap.
“H-how’re you out of the water?” Fareeha slurs lethargically, brown eyes drifting to the golden-scaled tail pooling water on the floor of her boat, fatigued mind yet to fully wake up. The morning sun gleams off each individual scale, shifting with the slightest movement Angela makes, casting sunlit patterns along the wood of the boat.
“Merfolk can for a short period of time,” Angela smiles, “until we become too dry and dehydrate.”
“Oh.”
“But listen,” the mermaid shuffles a little and produces the rucksack. “I brought you something,” she exclaims excitedly, opening the bag and dumping its contents between them.
Two coconuts, several pieces of fruit and fish.
Food. Real food.
Fareeha’s eyes widen and look up to Angela, who wears an impishly proud smile on her features.
“I, um… I know of some ports that… they keep their fresh produce by the docks, after unloading them from their ships. The fish were caught by yours truly. The coconut water may help as well.”
“You got all this for me?” Fareeha asks in disbelief. Just twenty-four hours ago, she’d have brushed off the thought of a mermaid as nothing but a wicked sea-dwelling creature.
“You were dying. I could not watch you suffer so slowly,” she admits.
“But… why me?”
Angela is quiet, considering her words.
“You are different, Fareeha Amari. You are a good person who fights for what is right. You protect the seas from wicked forces, it seems. Going after the most dangerous pirates...” She reaches out with a tentative hand, stopping just before Fareeha’s cheek. Fareeha bows her head slightly, giving silent approval for Angela to trace her tattoo with ice-cold finger tips.
“And I would miss your voice,” Angela whispers almost too quietly before withdrawing her hand; a wet trail lingers on Fareeha’s cheek. She clears her throat and shuffles away.
“Please, eat, Fareeha. You need it,” she says before diving back into the water, rocking the boat.
--
Four days.
Almost four days, Fareeha has been drifting. The overwhelming sweetness of the first bite of an apple nearly makes her gag as the juices punch her tastebuds. But by the gods, if she isn’t thankful for that feeling she never thought she’d experience again. They were finally smiling down on her after the last few days of agonizing trials and tribulations. They sent an angel to watch over her.
She’d be lying if she wasn’t still questioning her sanity, that any of this was even real. She could still be passed out in her rowboat, alone and starving for all she knew.
She had carved a hole into one of the coconuts with her sword to drink from. It wasn’t fresh water, but it was something. New life was returning to her body.
“Thank you, Angela, for doing this.” Fareeha wipes the juices from her chin and leans back against the side of the boat, Angela perching herself on her usual spot over the other side. “I… I don’t know if I’d have survived if you weren’t here. Let’s face it, land seems to be more of a reach every day.”
Her eyes drift to her pistol, and she thinks how quickly this could have ended if she surrendered to the seas with a bullet. Fareeha wipes at her chin again, this time for the tears that had trickled down her cheeks.
“Thank you,” she chokes. The mermaid smiles and watches on as Fareeha finally breaks down. She not only cries for herself, but she mourns. She mourns for her crew. She mourns for all her comrades, her family, brave men and women alike that she had failed. She mourns for her ship; though it was just a wooden vessel, it was her home away from home. Her very own ship she had acquired the day of becoming Captain.
She dimly registers Angela’s voice murmuring softly in a foreign language. The mermaid later tells her it was a prayer to the seas to watch over the souls of her crew it has claimed.
--
Angela stays with Fareeha. She waves off any of Fareeha’s concerns of returning to her merfolk friends and family.
“You look like you could use the company, and I very much enjoy yours, Fareeha.”
The pain in her arm still persists, and seems to be getting worse. Fareeha spares a look beneath her makeshift bandage; though healed over, the wound looks angry, red streaks spreading from it. Warmth blooms and spreads through her bicep around it. It’s definitely infected, and her body is fighting adamantly against it.
Angela usually disappears only to feed herself and rest, before returning without a moment to spare.
--
Six days.
Fareeha has been drifting for six days. She and Angela lay under the stars, Fareeha in her boat, Angela floating on the surface of the water beside it.
Fareeha could almost laugh at the bitter irony at how perfect the weather had been while she was adrift. Not an ounce of grey cloud or rain fell to provide her with fresh water. And yet strangely, she felt at peace for once as she lay on her back in the boat, gazing at the millions of stars and galaxies glittering the night.
“Mmm... Ah! There’s another.” She points her finger to a group of stars above.
Angela follows the direction of her finger. “What is that one?”
“My mother used to tell me tales of these constellations when I was a child,” she told Angela. “This is Argo Navis. A massive fifty-oared galley. A crew of Argonauts, fifty of the greatest Greek heroes, sailed to fetch the golden fleece from King Aeëtes, on the eastern shores of the Black Sea. Even Heracles interrupted his labours to join the crew,” Fareeha explains the tale, just as Ana had told her several years ago. It was one of her favourite constellations. “And after their return, Jason left the Argo beached at Corinth, where he dedicated it to Poseidon.”
Realising she is rambling, she sits up and looks down at Angela who is still on her back, studying the stars and soaking in all this new human information.
Angela hums in thought and looks back at Fareeha. She can’t help but smile at the child-like wonder this tough captain is radiating.
They both realise they’re staring at each other, and Fareeha coughs and moves to lay down again, a blush creeping over her features. She feels the boat tip slightly when she looks over to see Angela pulling herself up the side of it so that she can look down at Fareeha.
“Tell me more of your mother, Fareeha. You speak of her often, about what she has taught you growing up. She sounds very wise.”
Fareeha’s expression sours slightly and she turns her gaze back to the stars.
“She was,” she agrees. “She was a fleet admiral for the Overwatch Navy. Do you know of them?”
“I do, yes. They took the seas back from the pirates during the Great War.”
“She was one of the greatest marksmen in the entire world! Could shoot an apple off a sailor’s head on another ship from her very own crow’s nest, even during the wildest of storms.” Fareeha taps her head and squints with one eye closed, like she would while aiming a gun.
“My father is from a far-off country, so I grew up not knowing much of him. My mother raised me alone, even though she would spend so long at sea. I practically grew up with the Overwatch fleet’s crewmen. They were my heroes! They’d tell me stories of their adventures and great battles with pirates. And I wanted to grow up to be just like them. My mother was staunchly against it all, scolding them for filling my head with stories and dreams. She only wanted a better life for me…” Fareeha sighed, still looking up at the stars.
“We grew apart as I got older. I joined the naval academy as soon as I was of age, against her wishes. I think deep down, she knew she could never convince me to follow a different path. I’m much too stubborn, just like her. But… to the world, I was always Ana Amari’s daughter, not Fareeha Amari. But I forged my own path and worked hard to be where I am today,” Fareeha grinned at Angela, who smiled softly.
“She surely must have been proud,” she said, remembering Fareeha’s use of past tense.
“I was barely out of the academy when she went missing at sea,” Fareeha sighed. “She never got to see the sailor I became today…”
Feeling the sudden mood dip with the conversation, the sailor rolled on her side to face Angela.
“Would you tell me about your family?”
Angela traced a finger over the wood idly, averting her eyes. “I don’t have much to tell, alas. Both of my parents were killed when I was still young. The seas were a dangerous place during the wars.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, Angela, you have my condolences.”
“No matter, it was decades ago, now. Although I miss them greatly…” Angela hums, eager to change the conversation to dispel the heaviness brought with the memories of both of their families. Instead, she pulls herself over the edge and into the boat, repositioning herself to sit beside Fareeha with her back against the side of the boat, tail and fin dangling over the other side, barely grazing the water’s surface.
Fareeha shuffles a little, bashfully averting her gaze from Angela’s naked torso; a task that becomes seemingly more difficult as she reaches across and cups Fareeha’s cheek, turning her head back towards Angela. Cold fingers caress and trace the black ink of Fareeha’s tattoo below her eye. She finds herself leaning into the touch subconsciously; her deprivation of human contact is enough to stop her from pulling away.
“So warm,” the mermaid muses aloud to herself. “Tell me, what does this mark mean here?”
“I got this tattoo when my mother vanished. This udjat is to honour her memory. She told me it was a symbol of protection. At the time, I assumed that it meant that she would always watch over and protect me. Now I know that it means that I protect.”
Her gut clenches as the words leave her mouth. Cannon fire and the agonised screams of her crew flash through her mind.
--
They continue to share stories to pass the time. Fareeha would be lying to herself to say the idea of Angela being a figment of her imagination had gone away. She could very well have just lost her mind and be talking to herself.
Her body grows feverish, no matter how cold the temperature dips to at night time; no doubt her body is trying to fight infection.
--
“I’d like to hear you sing the song of the fair sailor lad again sometime.”
“Is that so? Alright, then.”
Angela always seems to fall into an enamoured trance when Fareeha sings; closing her eyes and swaying to Fareeha’s voice, softly humming to herself
They sing together, Angela eventually chiming in to the call and response shanty
Fareeha thinks that Angela couldn’t possibly look more beautiful than she does when she lets the music take her away.
--
Fareeha has lost all sense of how many days she has been stranded at sea.
Gods be damned, the wound on her arm is getting worse. The pain is becoming too difficult to ignore and for Angela not to notice her discomfort, Fareeha waves off any concerns she brings up, always insisting she is okay.
It hurts Angela to see this human fading away before her. The sailor’s spirit is dwindling by the day. Her body has visibly begun losing mass from malnourishment. Angela can provide as much food that is needed but… Her sailor is still dying somehow. She can see it in those strong, brown eyes.
Angela’s heart aches to see somebody suffering, albeit in silence. Not once does Fareeha complain.
--
Fareeha is laying on the floor of the boat; the sun is setting.
“Angela?”
Water splashes and the boat tips to the side as Angela props herself up on the edge. “Mmm?”
“I’m so tired.”
Her heart squeezes at the double meaning of those words.
“Then you should get some sleep, lieb,” she coos, touching a cold hand to Fareeha’s feverish forehead. “Sleep and I will return in the morning with something to eat.”
Fareeha nods quietly and wraps herself in her coat, returning to lie on her side under the stars, as the mermaid gently pushes away from the boat.
“Angela?”
“Yes?”
“If I… die… out here... will the ocean watch over me like my crew?”
A long silence stretches and Fareeha thinks Angela is already gone, her eyes beginning to droop.
“I’ll be watching over you, always,” comes the mermaid’s gentle voice from where Fareeha cannot see.
She slips into a deep, feverish sleep.
--
Angela stops mid-conversation one day and tilts her head slightly, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully and scanning the horizon. “I think it will rain today, perhaps mid-noon.”
Fareeha perks up at this and follows Angela’s gaze, only to see small white clouds dotting the clear blue skies. “How can you tell?”
“Call it a sixth sense, if you will. A trait among merfolk. We can sense weather long before it becomes apparent.”
“Huh… Some fresh water and a shower will do me good, methinks,” Fareeha chuckles to herself. A good night’s sleep had done her a world of good. Her fever had noticeably receded, although the exhaustion still lingered.
“I agree, not even a siren could want to pull in a smelly human such as yourself.” Angela waves her hand in front of her face and winks. Fareeha mock-gasps in offence and clutches her heart, swaying on her knees.
“I am wounded deeply by your words, Angela. I was under the impression that you very much liked my smelly allure, since you’ve stayed with me this long already,” she jibes back.
Angela giggles and lays back with a mischievous glint in her eye, and Fareeha pauses her dramatic monologue.
With a powerful kick of her tail, Angela splashes an almighty wave upon the boat before Fareeha can protest, effectively soaking the sailor and sending her sprawling with enough momentum to capsize the tiny rowboat.
Fareeha surfaces seconds later spluttering and choking, gripping onto her overturned boat and resting her forehead on it as she gets her breath back. Unbelievable, winded from just a quick dip in the ocean. Her physical stamina has really plummeted.
Angela resurfaces besides Fareeha, giggling as she places a hand on Fareeha’s back, rubbing it slightly.
“I am sorry, lieb,” says Angela gently, although her playful lilt suggests otherwise. “You got your bath pre-emptively though.”
“Har har.” Fareeha turns to the mermaid, batting the water with a free hand and splashing her in return. Her eyes betray her mood, for there’s mirth shining from them for the first time in days, and Angela finds herself unable to look away from them.
Their laughter dies out into silence as blue eyes study brown. Angela’s hand moves from Fareeha’s back to cup her cheek and trace the tattoo with her thumb, as she has so done before. Fareeha, who had been paddling with one hand to stay afloat while the other held onto the boat, lifts her swimming hand tentatively closer to Angela.
Her eyes flicker to the hand; being so used to always initiating contact with the human, but being yet to receive it. Fareeha hesitates, halts her movement until Angela visibly relaxes, granting silent permission.
The sailor’s rough and calloused hands meet the softest skin she had dared to dream of in this world, resting on Angela’s own cheek. They bob and drift quietly with the waves, drifting in each other’s gaze, drifting closer. The mermaid’s tail brushes against Fareeha’s legs, treading water as Angela leans in, resting her forehead against Fareeha’s; closing her eyes as rough hands stroke her cheek, she begins to murmur.
O the fair sailor lass,
Fingers thread through wet hair and tug just that little bit closer.
She was handsome and free,
Fareeha tilts her head. Their noses brush.
And she loved a gentle maid,
Shy lips brush slowly, experimentally.
And her wife she…
Cold lips press against warm, and the mermaid’s voice dies in her throat. Though Angela is holding on to her, Fareeha dares not let go of the boat as her free hand explores golden locks. Sensing Angela’s tentativeness, she allows the mermaid to explore this human at her own pace.
Angela’s left hand remains on Fareeha’s cheek as the other moves to the small of her back to pull them flush together, bare breasts pressing into her as Angela deepens the kiss against Fareeha’s mouth, her tail entwining with Fareeha’s own flesh and blood legs.
Fareeha can’t help but think back to the warnings of mermaids seducing sailors, despite Angela ensuring her that her kind did no such thing. She lets out a breathy chuckle against Angela’s lips. The mermaid opens her eyes and cocks her head curiously. Fareeha only smiles and reaches out to push a stray lock of Angela’s wet bangs behind her ear, before wincing at the pain flaring in her infected arm and dropping it back into the water.
They flip the capsized boat back upright, and Fareeha climbs back in with Angela’s assistance.
She looks down at the mermaid, who has her attention turned to the looming grey clouds on the horizon; unease is etched onto her beautiful features.
--
“Angela!”
Deafening thunder booms overhead and the boat lurches above the furious waves, threatening to toss Fareeha overboard for the umpteenth time that night. Howling winds whip her hair, her golden ornaments clacking viciously against her cheek. The rain pelts her face with the sting of thousands of tiny needles as she grips the edges of the boat, eyes searching frantically over the waves for any signs of life.
“Fareeha!”
She catches a glimpse of Angela resurfacing in the distance, before diving under once more. Fareeha palms the water out of her eyes, once more looking for her mermaid as another wave throws her to her knees.
Angela reappears beside the boat, gripping onto the edge, her golden tail kicking against the surface to hold her there. Fareeha shouts something only to have the harsh winds tear away her voice, deafened by nature’s forces raining down on her. She grips Angela’s forearm with her functioning hand and leans closer to be heard.
“You need to swim away, Angela! Leave me! Get somewhere safe until this blows over, please!”
Angela shakes her head furiously, blue eyes filled with determination. “I am not leaving you--!”
“Go! Please, Angela—please!” Fareeha pleads.
The mermaid’s mouth presses into a thin line, and Fareeha thinks she can see tears trickle down Angela’s cheeks, if not masked by the rain pelting them both. She scrunches her eyes, clearly torn, before lurching forward to meet Fareeha’s lips briefly. They allow themselves precious few seconds before Angela pulls away, eyes never leaving Fareeha’s. Her mouth moves, but Fareeha cannot hear what she says before she disappears below the waves.
Alone. Again.
Fareeha releases her iron grip on the boat and sits back with a huff as the waves continue to toss and churn.
“Water way to go,” she mutters to herself, almost too calmly brushing her wet bangs from her eyes.
Of all the times to make a fucking pun. She can almost hear the collective groans from her crew--
She’s suddenly airborne as the boat is thrown, limbs flailing to grab at nothing as she plunges into the water’s surface.
--
It’s so dark, she realises.
It’s so calm down here.
She is so tired. Her body is so heavy. Her injured arm refuses to cooperate, drifting limply beside her.
She dimly registers wooden debris swirling around her; she’s struck by grim déjà vu, the Reaper’s skull mask flashing in her mind.
It’s no ship, but she’ll go down with this one, like the captain she is.
Her vision fades and blackens around the edges as the water carries her limp body through riptides.
Fareeha feels something grab underneath both of her armpits before blacking out completely.
Water way to go indeed.
--
O the fair sailor lad
He was handsome and free,
And he loved a gentle maid,
And his wife she would be:
O my fair sailor lad,
Come and bide here wi'me
But the fair sailor lad
Sleeps alone 'neath the sea.
--
The first thing she registers is the heat of the sun beating down on her skin; like she’s going to wake up on the floor of the rowboat once again. All one big delusional nightmare.
It’s so hot, but she realises her body is shivering.
She can hear laboured and heavy breaths, not of her own. A distant, muffled voice is saying something.
A soft, familiar cold hand on her cheek rouses her.
“--ha… Fareeha, lieb… Wake up, Captain… Please.”
She groans, and another hand cups her other cheek.
“Fareeha?”
It takes every ounce of strength left in her sodden bones to crack her eyes open, only to be blinded by the intensity of the sunlight above her; and then there’s the most beautiful pair of blue eyes--bluer then the clear skies behind them--she has ever seen looking down at her, the worry etched into their features slowly fading into relief.
Her angel is watching over her.
As Fareeha’s senses return, she realises she’s on a beach; damp sand underneath her, waves lapping over her boots.
“Ange… la,” her voice cracks, tired and weakened.
She turns sluggishly to see Angela now lying beside her on the sand, panting and exhausted, but otherwise unharmed. The sunlight gleams off and illuminates the golden scales of the mermaid’s tail. Fareeha wonders how long they’ve been out of the water… on shore…
On shore!
She tries to bolt upright, only to find her body is no longer responding to her commands. Angela gently shushes her before glancing down to Fareeha’s arm. She follows Angela’s line of sight to the wound, and her heart skips at the sight. It’s bleeding once again, gnarled and infected, a mixture of red, clear and some horrid colour oozing and seeping down her arm and into the sand.
Her entire body is wracked with tremors and her head lolls again onto the sand, light-headedness returning to her. Dark spots fill her vision; Angela’s hands grasp her cheeks again, shaking her.
“Fareeha!”
--
“Fareeha.”
She’s floating under water.
The sunlight is filtering in from above and cascading on the surfaces, casting light patterns on her skin.
She feels so weightless, humming her favourite sea shanty to herself.
“Oi, Captain!”
“Capta--in!”
She whips her head towards the direction of the voices, and a chorus of cheers from the Helix crew swims towards her.
Everyone… They’re all here… They’re all okay…
Her crew surrounds her, chattering excitedly, patting her on the shoulder, ruffling her hair.
“Habibti.”
The crews’ antics die down into silence as they all part to reveal a woman standing—no, floating--before Fareeha, shoulders squared, wearing a pristine and crisp military uniform. The unmistakeable tattoo belonging to…
“Mother?” Fareeha whispers.
She realises her crew have vanished, leaving mother and daughter alone in the watery abyss together.
After all these years, she had so much she wished she could have said to Ana, and now that Fareeha is before her… Everything is blank.
Instead, Ana opens her arms and allows her to drift into them, embracing her daughter. Fareeha melts into the touch, closing her eyes in contentment.
“So proud… I am so proud of you, little one,” Ana murmurs in her native tongue.
Fareeha moves to return the embrace, opens her mouth to finally say something back.
She opens her eyes to be greeted by the vast nothingness of the ocean once again, alone.
“Fareeha—”
A shadow moves above her, blocking the sunlight. A pair of hands cups her cheeks, a pair of sky-blue eyes beaming down at her softly; platinum blonde hair fans and waves gently with the ocean surrounding them.
The angel--no, mermaid--Angela. Fareeha smiles back at the figure hovering above her and reaches out to cup the woman’s face in return, pressing their foreheads together. She moves in and meets her lips gently.
“Hello,” Fareeha breathes.
“Hello there, sailor. Come, it’s time to resurface.”
Resurface? But everything is so calm down here… so peaceful…
Angela tugs at her hand to coax her along and begins swimming. Fareeha quickly realises she cannot match the mermaid’s pace; she throws a look over her shoulder before swimming further away.
“Angela, wait!”
Fareeha kicks, she paddles. Her previous weightlessness is suddenly replaced with the feeling of lead. Her body is sluggish. She watches the mermaid disappear in the distance, yet Fareeha pursues, chasing the light filtering from above.
“Angela!”
--
“An...ge…la.”
Fareeha awakes in a bed, laden with soft, crisp sheets covering her.
A gentle breeze blows though the open window of her room, of what appears to be a hospital. She can hear the hustle and bustle of townsfolk going about their daily lives outside. To her left is a bedside table with a pitcher and glass of water, a small bell and a vase filled with a bouquet of flowers.
She makes the effort to sit up with a grunt, her body protesting adamantly, still lethargic. Staring longingly at the rivulets of condensation dripping from the pitcher, her mouth feels dry and sandy.
Instead she opts to reach for the bell to call for a nurse who arrives within the minute, whipping around the door frame, relief lighting up her features.
“Welcome back, Captain Amari,” she says. “You are a very lucky woman. Some guardian angel you must have I reckon. How are you feeling?”
Angela… she’s gone.
Fareeha snaps back to the present, the nurse now standing by her bedside pouring a glass of water, waiting for an answer. She assists Fareeha into a propped up position against her pillows to accept the water, while feeling her forehead and fussing around with some medical products on a nearby tray.
“Can you tell me what you remember, Captain?” the nurse finally asks, stopping to finally talk with the patient.
Fareeha shakes her head, accepting a second glass of the freshest water she’s had to drink in… well she lost track of how many days.
“You were found on the coastline by a docked fishing crew. They said they had seen somebody with you on the beach that they thought may have been another of your crewmates from a distance, but upon approaching, they were gone. You were lying unconscious in the sand alone and near dead.”
The nurse sighs and looks sympathetically at her. “I solemnly apologise, Captain. We did everything we could to save your arm. The infection had spread far too much throughout. You’d have died f…”
The nurse’s voice dims into white noise; Fareeha can no longer hear. My arm?
The thought hadn’t even entered her mind to check on her bullet-wounded arm since awakening as the pain was almost non-existent. The right sleeve of her white hospital blouse had been tied into a knot just below the now-stump of her arm, amputated just below the shoulder.
She sucked in a breath at the sight, blood chilling to ice, fisting the sheets with her only hand. She felt the phantom agony of the bullet piercing her flesh all over again, that damned smirk on the sharpshooter’s face… Damn them. Damn them to hell, she spat internally. The Talon pirates who stole everything from her.
“Begging your pardon, Captain. I’ll give you some time alone.” The nurse interrupts Fareeha from her thoughts. She fills Fareeha’s glass once more and leaves some medication for her to take on the bedside table, before replacing her dressings and leaving the room.
Leaving Fareeha once again alone with her thoughts. Thoughts of a mermaid with a brilliant golden tail and the kindest eyes she’d ever met; thoughts of the mermaid who had saved her life; who had befriended and stayed with Fareeha for almost the entirety of her time at sea, who had kept her from the brink by scrounging food for her, who had saved her from the storms.
With whom she had fallen in love.
Her head hits the pillow again.
--
Weeks later, Fareeha is healed and has been discharged from the hospital’s care. Overwatch locate her and return her to her home town, where she confirms that alas, she is the only survivor of the Talon attack. A grim day for the fleet.
They hold a ceremony and mourn for their losses. They celebrate the lives of the soldiers, a toast to their memory at the King’s Row tavern. They celebrate Fareeha’s survival, though she feels she does not deserve such praise, and tells them as much. They are eager to hear her tale of the battle and her time spent adrift.
She tells nobody of her encounter with Angela.
Every afternoon, Fareeha walks along the shoreline of her hometown. No matter how cruel and unforgiving, the ocean will forever call to her. She steps and hops along the rocks before perching on one to watch the sunset over the horizon, alone.
She does not wish to retire from the navy so young; however, she has been put on leave until further notice for her recovery.
Thus, she finds herself returning to her place by the ocean every day to sit and think as the sun sets.
The waves lap and crash against the rocks she sits upon, and she begins to sing.
O the fair sailor lad
He was handsome and free,
And he loved a gentle maid,
And his wife she would be:
O my fair sailor lad,
Come and bide here wi' me!
But the fair sailor lad
Sailed away, 'cross the sea.
Fareeha whips her head around to see nobody else among the rocks, save a few seagulls pecking and scavenging.
“Hello there, sailor,” the voice comes from below. Fareeha looks down to the source and suppresses a gasp at the figure clinging to one of the rocks, beaming back up at her.
“Angela,” she breathes. The mermaid giggles.
“It is good to see you again, liebling.”
“I--you… Oh god. You’re really here.” Fareeha all but stumbles off the rock, scrambling down each one to where Angela bobs in the lapping water, waiting for her. She plunges into the water, meeting Angela’s embrace, returning it as tightly as she can with only one arm.
She’s here. She’s really here.
Fareeha kisses her and Angela returns it with fervour. Their noses brush, teeth clash, seawater splashes their face. It’s messy and hasty but oh, god, it feels good to have this woman in her arms—arm, again.
They eventually pull apart, and Angela urges Fareeha to get out of the water and dry off a little before the sun sets. Angela props herself out of the ocean and perches on one of the rocks, her tail still dipped in the water. Fareeha unbuttons her wet shirt and peels it over her skin to dry over a sunny rock, leaving her shirtless, save for the bindings around her chest and the bandages over her stump.
She hears Angela gasp behind her, and turns to see her covering her mouth, eyes trained on where Fareeha’s arm once was.
She tells her not to worry. An arm was a small price to pay if it meant she could continue living, though it does little to set Angela’s mind at ease.
Fareeha grabs her coat from a nearby rock--still dry, for she had removed it earlier--and moves to drape it over Angela’s shoulders before taking a seat beside her. Angela accepts it with a grateful nod and shuffles closer to rest her head on Fareeha’s shoulder, tail splashing idly in the water below.
“And do you know what?” Fareeha asks. Angela cocks her head curiously.
“Now I can look into getting a magnificent hook for a hand, just like a pirate,” she jibes, twisting her torso to make the stump swing a little. She scrunches a single eye shut and covers it with her hand as a makeshift eye-patch. Angela huffs and bites back a giggle at the sailor’s ludicrous sense of humour.
“I’m thinking gold? Oh, maybe I can just replace my limb with a sword, rather than learning to wield with my non-dominant hand—oof--”
The mermaid nudges her in the ribs, and they both crumble into bouts of laughter.
Their giggles peter out eventually into silence. Only the sound of the waves lapping at the rocks below their feet, the ocean breeze ruffling their hair fills it. Fareeha sobers up at the thought about her arm once more.
“I never… expressed how grateful I am… for all that you did for me,” Fareeha says, after a long stretch of silence.
“You don’t need to, Fareeha,” Angela responds, turning her head to plant a kiss on Fareeha’s bare shoulder. “You have become very special to me. I’m glad you are still here today, well… most of you,” she adds, sheepishly glancing at Fareeha’s stump.
“You’re very special to me too, Angela,” Fareeha adds softly, wrapping an arm around her waist and tenderly kissing the top of her head.
They sit and talk as the sunlight dims over the horizon. Fareeha must reluctantly part ways as the last light in the sky threatens to go out, with the promise that she will return every evening as long as she remains on land.
--
True to her word, Angela spots her walking along the shoreline every afternoon, approaching the rock pools towards the cliffs at the end.
“I’m leaving soon, Angela. Returning to Overwatch to sail once again,” Fareeha declares as she straightens her shoulders. “Bring some justice back to these waters, I reckon.”
Angela takes her hand and cups her cheek with the other, tracing the tattoo, the symbol of protection. Fareeha threads her hand through Angela’s blonde tresses and bridges the distance to meet her lips.
They kiss slowly, revelling in each other’s taste and feel, neither wanting to let go. Fareeha’s hand drops to Angela’s waist to pull her in closer, leaning over her and tilting her head to deepen the kiss. One of Angela’s hands move to thread through Fareeha’s soft, dry hair, the other falling from her cheek and down to her chest, feeling the human’s heartbeat as a grounding reminder that she is still here and alive.
They pull away reluctantly; Fareeha chuckles breathily, licking the salt from her own lips before stealing one last peck on the mermaid’s cheek.
Angela blushes, eyes still half-lidded as she looks into Fareeha’s own.“I’ll be watching over you always, my sailor.” The hand on her chest, feeling the steady thump beneath jump at those words.
--
Captain Fareeha Amari has escaped the clutches of the ocean, having cheated death by drowning. Or so she thought, until she looked into those blue, blue eyes…
But the fair sailor lad
Sleeps alone 'neath the sea.