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The dark water was frigid as it swirled around him, freezing the blood in his veins and crushing against him in an attempt to squeeze what little air he still had in his lungs out. When the dreaded pirate captain, Gajeel Redfox, and his crew had heard about the the fabled treasure of the siren, they had been on their way to a tropical island where they could enjoy the spoils of their three years at sea. It had been a long and arduous three years too, filled with a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and an obscene amount of vomit. Gajeel wasn’t even sure how anyone on a pirate ship could even get seasick anymore.
Needless to say, they were all ready to retire with their riches when a withered man at a downtrodden pub had brought the siren’s treasure to their attention. He’d told them that it was a treasure that rivaled that of kings, a cave made of diamond filled with gold and jewels and guarded by a beautiful, blue haired siren. He’d also said that everyone that had ever gone to take the treasure had disappeared, their ships and crews lost with them.
It had all the makings of a great last score, something that his entire crew had agreed upon with sharp nods of their heads and bright eyes. If there was anything that the crew of the Iron Dragon loved, it was a seemingly unattainable treasure. So they made their way towards the fabled caves with their underwater entrance and supposed siren guard for one final score.
Gajeel had even thought that luck may be on their side when they’d arrived and found the crags unattended by anything but seabirds that squawked loudly at them when they’d seen their ship.
“After this, Fiji,” Lily had said as he’d handed him Gajeel his dagger with the garnet stone inlaid in the hilt.
“Fiji,” he’d said back in agreement, grabbing the dagger as he shot his first mate a wicked smile.
Even as he’d leapt down into the waters, blade at his hip and empty sack tied to his back, he had thought that luck was with him as he propelled himself through the waters towards the narrowed entrance carved into the side of the island. That thinking had led him headfirst into a false sense of security that had landed him where he was now, trapped amongst some perilous rocks with the frozen waters waiting for him to give up his futile fight and let it overtake him.
Black spots were popping through his vision as his chest cavity burned with the lack of oxygen as he pulled again at the sack that had become hooked on some rocks, trapping him against their sharp edges. The rest of his body had been numbed by the icy waters, the cold making his blood slow in his veins as he clawed at the fabric. Gajeel had always known that he probably would have died trying to get treasure. At one point, he’d even proclaimed it proudly before his crew and anyone that would listen in one of the many pubs they had visited on their travels. He, Black Steel Gajeel, captain of the Iron Dragon, would go down in a blaze of glory befitting any true pirate.
Only now, as the darkness ate away at the edges of his vision, he couldn’t help but fear the quickly approaching inevitability of death. They had been so close to finally making it to that beach they’d all talked about happily while laying under the stars on the ship.
As his lungs finally caved and his mouth opened against his will, trying to drag in oxygen but only inhaling the cold water, he silently wished that they had just made their way to the promised island. He should have been on golden sand with crystalline ocean stretched out ahead of him. If he could laugh, he would find the humor in the sea being his death, given it had been the only thing he’d ever truly loved in his life.
The worst part of it all, he thought as he choked on the salty waters, was that he could see the light of the entrance. He had been so close.
As everything started to fade away, inky darkness spilling itself across his vision, Gajeel thought he saw a shadow cut across the distant light. Hands weakly tugging at the sack once more, he tried one last time to free himself, nerves crying out for one last ditch effort to save his own life though he knew better. He would die here like everyone else before him, only he hadn’t died at the hands of the siren.
Somehow, that fact didn’t make it better.
The last thing he saw before his consciousness slipped away from him, was a bright streak of blue.
***
Death was… not as unpleasant as Gajeel had imagined, if he was being honest. He had thought that with what he had done in his life, he would have ended up somewhere with lots of screaming and lots of pain. Basically the complete opposite of the serene silence that had now lay in. The faint splashes of water lapping against rock were the only things that punctuated the quiet and beneath him was the soft cushioning of sand.
All in all, it was nothing like how he would thought it would be, which was why he shouldn’t have been surprised when he felt a fist fall down into his sternum with enough force to send briny water expelling from his mouth and down his chin. Eyes flying open, the first thing he noticed was how bright the cave was, light bouncing off the walls with an ethereal shine that he might have mistaken for pearly gates if he hadn’t just been assault. The second thing he noticed was that he was very much alive, if the beating ache of his chest and the burning of the salt scraping away the insides of his esophagus as he spluttered and heaved the liquid out of his lungs.
The third, and possibly most important, was the shine of his dagger’s blade as it pointed at him, its hilt clutched in the hand of a blue haired woman with golden fire in her eyes.
Siren, his mind supplied once he had stopped wheezing around painful mouthfuls of water.
She was just feet away from him, azure tail curled beneath her, its iridescent shine catching the light the same way as his dagger did. A half blouse made of what looked like thick string and seaweed clung to her shoulders and covered her chest. Circling her neck was a golden collar that was connected by a thin matching chain that stretched across the and to an iron bracket embedded in the wall on the other end of the wall. From this close, Gajeel could see the salt crusted in her hair, creating waves that framed her face. If her features weren’t contorted into a near snarl as she glared at him, he’d think she was the most beautiful woman that he’d ever seen.
Be that as it may, she was still gorgeous.
“What is your business here?” She asked, voice sharp like the crags outside of the hidden cave yet still holding a musical quality that almost had him entranced. Her burning gold eyes cut straight through his skin as she waited for his response.
“You hit me,” he croaked after appraising her, ignoring her question all together to point out the obvious. A dusting of pink brushed over her cheeks at his words, her head cocking to the side and eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
“I saved you,” she said, tone matter-of-fact as she corrected him. “You were drowning.”
“Which would have done your job for you,” he fired back, finally pushing himself up into a fully seated position and trying his best to avoid the spit up water. Gajeel’s voice still clung to its rusty edge, his throat burning from the abuse it had taken. “But instead, you saved me and took my dagger to threaten me with.”
It wasn’t even a question, so much as a statement. The siren that had killed so many, sunk ships and sent full crews to their watery graves, had saved him from drowning only to have him face death once he was awake. Paired with the golden chain that kept her tethered to the cave wall, something didn’t add up.
“Do you wish I left you to drown? Because I assure you, human, that there is still time.” Though the words were harsh, her tone was not as it erred closer to curious. The dagger point wavered slightly in his grasp as she looked him over once more.
“Gajeel,” he corrected.
“Gajeel?” She asked, one blue brow arching sharply as she repeated his name, the sound of it on her tongue sending a single thrill through him. For a moment he wondered if sirens could use a name to bewitch their victims. Too late now, he thought to himself as he nodded.
“My name. And yours?”
Silence filled the cave again as he waited for her reply, counting the gentle slaps of the waves against the walls as time stretched out around them.
“Levy,” she finally replied, the tensed line of her shoulders easing slightly though she continued to hold the bladed pointed towards him.
“Levy,” Gajeel said, testing the way her name tasted as he bit it out through his teeth, ignoring the way his heart hammered against the back of his sternum as he did. “What is your business here?”
Her eyes widened as he repeated her own question back to her.
“Excuse me?” Levy asked curtly, the skin over her knuckles whitening as her grip tightening on the hilt of his blade. Exactly as he had intended, he had caught her off guard, flipping the tides of the conversation in his favor so that he had the upper hand. She may have had him at the business end of a knife, but he was about to back her into a verbal corner.
“You aren’t the siren that the treasure belongs to. If you were, you would have let me die. Even if you didn’t, you would have your own weapon to threaten me with,” he began, voice adopting the same strengthened tone he used when speaking to his crew and captured enemies. “That, and you wouldn’t be chained to this cave if it was your own. So I ask again, what is your business here?”
By the time Gajeel was done, his voice was commanding, the brusque sound of it bouncing off the diamond walls around them and causing Levy to wince. With a loud sigh, she finally lowered the dagger instead thrusting the tip into the sand beside her so she could grab it quickly if she needed to. Throwing once last suspicious look over him, she began to speak, weaving her story for him.
As it turned out, Levy wasn’t a siren at all, but a mermaid that had been sent by her people to fight and kill the beast that actually resided in the cave.
“Toa,” she hissed venomously, grabbing a handful of the golden chain in her fist and pulling against it roughly. Toa had stolen the scepter of her clan’s queen, effectively stealing her powers and leaving her on her sickbed. Without it, she would die, and so would her people. So Levy was to kill him and bring it home. What should have been an easy victory ended with her chained and added to Toa’s prized collection.
“My most beautiful jewel,” she mimicked angrily, baring her teeth as a growl rolled through her chest. While he had hidden away the rest of his treasure from the eyes of the world, he had decided to display her, as both a trophy and a warning. Toa thought of himself as invincible and the proof of it was that he had captured the warrior princess of the mermaids and made her his crown jewel.
“So there was never a siren,” Levy finished her story as her voice deflated. The weight of what she had been through rested against her shoulders, pushing them downwards as she sat before Gajeel as her mouth turned down with defeat. “Just me. This entire time, it’s only been me.”
Gold flashed as she looked up at him, jaw setting.
“Until you showed up. No one else has ever made it as far as you.” It sounded more like an accusation than a fact. The earlier suspicion burned in her glare again as she waited for him to speak up. Whether to defend himself, or reveal himself to be in league with this Toa she hated so much, he wasn’t sure.
“Me and my crew just wanted to make one last score before retiring to a nice beach,” Gajeel said, raising his hands as if to show he didn’t mean her any harm. A small voice in the back of his reminded him that if they’d just went straight for that beach instead of the treasure, he wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
“I have a proposition for you,” Levy said after a thoughtful moment, her shoulders relaxing further as she spoke in a sign of trust.
“And what is that, Blue?” He didn’t miss the way her eyes widened at the nickname.
“Help me get free of my chains, and help me kill Toa,” her voice grew fierce as she leant forward, the light sparkling off the scales of her tail with the movement. Authority rang with each of her words as Gajeel caught a glimpse of the warrior that she truly was. “And I will take you to his treasure, and help you get out.”
“And if I refuse?” Gajeel wouldn’t, but he had learned from his years as a pirate that one should never die in to propositions and deals so quickly. From his own experience, it almost always ended with someone caught in a trap.
The space between them fizzled with unseen electricity as they held each others glares. Levy’s hand flew to the handle of the dagger as she pulled if free. With a quick flick of her wrist, she flipped it over in her hand so that she held the blade balanced between her thumb and forefinger and offered him the hilt.
“You won’t.”
***
It was silent again in the cave as Gajeel sat beside a large rock in the corner, watching Levy carefully as they waited for Toa to appear. The mermaid had glamoured him to blend in with the area surrounding him, transforming him into a rock to all others that might look at him. He still wasn’t entirely convinced of the magic, unable to prove that the camouflage worked when he was the one that had been hidden. Even after she had rolled her eyes and glamoured her own tail into legs that she could walk on, he still wasn’t quite convinced he would be invisible to this beast that had trapped her.
The only thing that had kept him from calling the whole thing off had been the hatred that had burned in her eyes as she laid out her plan.
First, he would pick the lock of her collar, leaving it around her neck but unlocked so that when Toa returned, he would think his prize was still securely fastened to the wall.
Second, Levy would disguise Gajeel and wait for her signal once she was certain they would be able to catch him off guard.
Third, they would kill him.
It was simplistic, and left much room for error, but it was the best they would be able to do when they both were only there by fate and not by any sort of bond. So he waited, leaning against the large rock and praying the mermaid’s magic would hold up and keep him from looking like a sitting duck.
What felt like hours had passed as they both sat together on opposite ends of the cave in silence, leaving Gajeel with nothing better to do than trace the soft lines of Levy’s face with the hardened gaze of his eyes. There was a kind beauty there when she wasn’t snarling at him. If they had met under different circumstances, he might not have even suspected her strength and station. Knowing what he had of her story, he picked out the faint scars that riddled her body, adding lines over the map of her body. Lean muscle rippled under her lily petal skin as she shifted with anticipation where she sat, careful not to disturb the collar that was balanced around her neck to look as if it was still clasped.
He could see how anyone would be foolish enough to mistake her for a siren, for something that beautiful and strong was most certainly dangerous.
Molten honey flashed as her gaze caught his momentarily from across the cave, sending a spark racing up his veins and his heart which began to beat in triple time.
“There is my precious gem.” The unexpected sound of the singsong voice bounced off the walls, ricocheting off the rock as it danced around them ahead of the body that it belonged to. Several moments passed before the speaker appeared. Contradicting the melodious tone of his voice, Toa was a hulking beast of a man with wide set shoulders and long, corded arms that ended in sharp blue crab claws. Over his back was a hardened shell that served almost like a cape, gilding running over the surface and shining in the light as he walked. His skin was a muted shade of blue, almost like the murky waters that had almost drowned him just hours before.
From where Gajeel sat, he saw Levy go rigid under Toa’s blackened gaze.
“You look lovely as ever, my dear,” he soothed as he moved closer. There was something about the cold, gleaming light of his eyes and the muted rage in Levy’s that had adrenaline running through Gajeel’s limbs. His fist tightened over his newly returned dagger as he shifted from his seated position to a crouched on, careful to not shake off the glamour that still clung to the space around him. Levy’s hair shook with the small movement of her head.
Not yet.
“I suspect you enjoy when I put you out there for everyone to see,” Toa crooned, his menacing claw reaching forward as he dragged it’s sharpened tip over her cheek and leaving behind a thin red line.
Maybe it was the way Levy shuddered under the touch, her back hit the hard diamond surface behind her as she attempted to fall back away from the touch. Maybe it was the way she glared up defiantly as Toa as she squared her jaw at the offense.
Maybe it was the bubbling anger that had erupted in his belly like lava.
Whatever it was, it blinded Gajeel with a thing veil of red as he pushed himself from beneath the glamour, the tickling of Levy’s magic falling away from him brushing goosebumps over his arms as he he ran toward the hybrid.
Toa’s head swiveled quickly as it snapped his attention to the pirate, his black eyes zeroing in on him as his lips pulled over his teeth revealing a fanged snarl. Moving quicker than Gajeel could anticipate, he threw his claw out towards the exact spot he had launched himself, the pincer closing around his throat and stopping him abruptly in his attack.
“And what is this, my darling,” he sighed as he licked his lips hungrily and squeezed gently on Gajeel’s neck. “Did you really think a silly pirate could kill me?”
The man’s voice was almost bored as he added more pressure to his grasp, the strength of it just shy of crushing his throat as it cut off Gajeel’s air supply. Rage was reflected within the depths of Toa’s black eyes. For the second time that day, he found himself fighting for air as darkness began to pop around his vision. With as much strength as he could must, Gajeel drove his blade into the man’s arm only to be met with the scraping sound of metal against the hardened surface of his skin.
“No,” Levy’s answer was matched with his tone. Gold flashed as the chain that had kept her trapped to the cave whipped around his neck, the momentum of the weighted collar causing it to wrap twice before the circlet landed at his back. Gajeel struggled against Toa’s grip as he watched her stand behind him, her tail replaced by the glamoured legs as she gripped the chain in one hand and the collar in the other and began to pull.
“But I think I can.”
With a sharp tug, the chain pulled Toa back, his head snapping upwards towards the ceiling and revealing the soft skin of his neck where the hardened surface of the rest of his skin didn’t touch. The force of it sent him reeling as his hold on Gajeel fell away, his claws instead coming up to grab at the chain that was all too fine for him to grip.
Dry coughs racked Gajeel’s throat as he tried to breathe in as much as as his lungs would allow as he was freed, free hand instinctively coming up to rub the inflamed skin of his throat.
“Gajeel!” Levy cried as Toa twisted against the chain that was choking him. With just his name and a shifting of her hold so that both the chain and collar were collected in one hand and her other reaching out, her command was clear. Snarls and rasps filled the cave as Toa fought against her hold, his movement becoming more desperate as Gajeel tossed the dagger to her outstretched hand.
“No,” Toa choked as he tried one more futile tug against the chain. Light danced off the blade as Levy brought it down into the soft expanse of his bared throat with swift precision. Crimson ran down his blue hued skin as his face twisted in open shock, his darkened eyes boring holes into Gajeel where he stood before him.
It was over quickly as his body slackened and his eyes dimmed, but that wasn’t where the pirate’s attentions lay. He had said much death in his time. Had been the hand that served the death blow more often than he cared to admit. But this had been the first time he had ever been the one to stand on the sidelines as someone else plunged the blade into the flesh that ended someone’s life.
He looked over Levy as she let Toa’s body fall to the ground, his blood soaking the white sand as she pulled the dagger from his neck and wiped it clean on the ground beside him. She was a fearsome thing, standing before him beautiful and strong as she made sure the blade was free of any blood before she looked up at him with a small smile curling the edges of her lips. Her eyes were bright, freedom and happiness softening her features as she stepped over the body and walked towards him.
Gajeel’s heart hammered itself into his ribcage as she extended the knife to him. Fingers brushing over hers with the quick zing of electricity, he took the blade and returned it to its sheath at his hip.
“You used me as a distraction,” he said, voice a shade away from accusation without any real heat behind it.
“No, you made yourself a distraction,” Levy said as she kept herself close, drawing barely closer as she spoke, her eyes filled with curiosity and an emotion he couldn’t quite place. “But thank you. For helping me.”
Heat filled the space between them as he looked down at her, committing the exact shade of gold in her eyes to memory.
“Anytime,” he said lowly, only managing to get out the one word as, for the third time that day, he found himself breathless.
“Now,” Levy spoke as her smile stretched wider. “Let’s get you to that treasure.”
***
Lily’s eyes were filled with confusion and questions when Gajeel finally burst from the water, a new sack clung over his shoulder filled with gold and jewels and a blue haired woman at his side. Yet he bit his tongue as he lowered a rope ladder to let them up, watching carefully as Gajeel helped her get onto the ladder first.
“Is that the siren?” Wendy squeaked from beside him, her short frame struggling to look over the high side of the ship.
“Metal brain would bring back a siren,” Natsu quipped as he helped keep the ladder steady.
“She doesn’t look like she wants to kill anyone,” Lucy spoke up from beside Wendy as she studied the woman climbing up the ladder with unsteady legs.
“I can hear you,” Gajeel barked up to his crew as he made his way behind Levy, careful not to shimmy the ladder too much with his movement. They fell silent as their captain and the stranger pulled themselves over the wooden banister. Without bothering to answer the questioning gazes of the four pirates standing around them, he pulled the heavy sack from his back and thrust it into Lily’s hands.
“Go make yourselves useful and go through this, would ya,” he said brusquely, the dismissal clear. Throwing a meaningful look towards Lily with a curt nod of his head as to say We’ll speak later, Gajeel turned his attentions to Levy.
“So what are you going to do with your newfound freedom?” He asked, dropping his hand onto the banister beside her and relaxing fully for the first time that day. Gajeel was back to his ship, back to his crew and he was finally going to make it to that island to relax. The only thing marring his otherwise happy attitude, was the small pit opening in his stomach as he waited for the inevitable goodbye from the blue haired mermaid.
He watched as her eyes dragged over the dark wood of his ship, pausing momentarily on his crew as they all stood around the sack, picking through it and making sounds of excitement and appreciation as they made new discoveries in its depths. After a moment of quiet, she returned her roaming look to him, her lips stretching into a wide smile and her eyes dancing with a happy light that made his pulse leap.
“I was thinking I might retire to a nice beach,” Levy said, her voice colored with mirth as she echoed his statement from the cave. “Know of any?”
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