Chapter Text
It was ordinary, it was normal, Captain Philza had a schedule to keep him and the crew in line. And right now, it was time to go and try to find more food in a desert of water.
“Net’s at the ready captain!” Yelled the navigators.
“Cast it!” He yelled back.
And on the other side of the ship, he heard the sound of splashing and the white foam that rippled off the impact. The fishing net was cast, hopefully, they would have a good catch, the aids in the ship were telling Captian Philza of low food levels.
“I should discuss any near islands that the crew could have a pit stop with Dream. I’m cutting supply too close.”
Speak of the devil, Dream comes up to the thinking captain and has brought something to his attention.
“Captain Philza the net is ready to be pulled up. Do you want me to give orders on your behalf or do you want to say it yourself?” This time when Philza faces Dream, he was a warm smile on his face, the smiley mask he usually wears discarded. Philza reciprocates the same smile and spoke.
“I’ll say it myself, but I would like you to accompany me so we can discuss a couple of things if that’s no issue?”
As Philza starts walking toward the Quartermaster, he agrees to the small conversation. The two good friends start walking towards the other side of the ship to see what they might have cast in. When they get closer, they hear and see some commotion going on between the sailors, Philza is quick to jump into the panicky conversation.
“What seems to be the matter here, what’s all this squabble?”
One of the gunmen had a worried look on his face. “Captian, I believe we caught something that might be too big for the net.”
“Too big for the net?” the captain thought “Maybe it could be a smaller whale, that wouldn’t be fun to be stuck in that.”
“Pull it up, if you can’t then that’s alright just let it go, I’ll think of something else.”
“Aye aye Captian!” Everyone said in synchronization.
“I guess we’ll see what happens next Captain.” Dream said with uncertainty. Grunts and heaves emit from people pulling the net up. Even from where he was standing Philza knew that whatever was in the net, was struggling hard, the rope net was shaking like crazy. Water and white sea foam came onto the wooden planks of the ship. Finally, after an eternity and no time at all the net was finally pulled up. Of course, there was the fish that were captured but also something larger too, what is this creature? Everyone stepped away from the net while Philza went closer to inspect it. His eyes went wide when he heard hissing and trills, some of the crew gasped in shock. Crouching down, he cut the net with the dagger in his small trenchcoat pocket to possibly free whatever was struggling so hard in the net. At the opening where Philza cut he sees hair poke out, and then the creature collapses on the edge of the net casting hole with its hair and (arms?) out. The body starts to fall back into the dark waters below but he quickly grabbed its arms and pulled it up over the edge.
"Captain, do you have any clue what that is?" The taller of the two navigators says.
"I'm going to be frank with you Ranboo, I have no clue what this creature is, but get Niki, she'll have some sort of an idea on how to actually take care of it or even know what it is." Philza sits down and cradles the creature's head in his lap as the two navigators rush to go get Niki. Looking at it, it looked just like a human, but with a fishtail, its ears replaced by fins, scales covering the creature's cheeks and around the chin. The colors of the scales were nothing like a tropical fish, they were dull maroon and non-vibrant reds. But it had blonde hair that Philza knew would be like the color of the sun if it was properly cleaned. He had no clue what color eyes it had, but he was hoping that maybe they could learn more about said creature to properly care for. Philza moved his hand and started finger combing through the dampened hair and going through tangles. And sea plant’s that seemed to be weaved in as well. But then he stopped to ponder over it.
“They look very intricate weaved into its hair, that means it was on purpose, I shouldn’t mess with it.” Speaking of things being weaved into the hair of the creature. It has a plethora of golden and silver chains and jewels all over itself. Philzas attention was broken and he turned to see Ranboo, Tubbo, and Niki sprinting towards him. He shifted and turned completely to face Niki as she crouched down to inspect the creature.
“What is it?” Asked Tubbo.
Niki poked and prodded the (still) unconscious creature, and stood up to announce it.
“Everybody, on the Esempii ship, we have caught a Siren.”
People gasped, and others went to go and look for themselves, people whispered amongst themselves, Philza and Dream seemingly the only ones who still had neutral looks on their faces. The captain and quartermaster gave a look and nodded. Dream spoke and faced Niki.
“What would we need to do to create a good environment for this Siren?”
“First off, something that’s just like the sea. A big body of water, with plantation and some sort of valuables.”
“Done.” Dream said matter a factly. Philza added onto it.
“Sapnap, Karl, Quackity, go and help Niki set up a living area for the Siren. Try and have it done as quickly as possible!”
“Aye aye Captian!” The three men run off onto another part of the ship. Niki also walked off, presumably to make sure that it was safe for the Siren. Sirens, were such rare creatures, that researchers were sure that hunters finished off so much of the population that only around 600 of them remained. In captivity and in the wild, which was an incredibly saddening fact. But Philza wanted to make sure that the Siren they had caught today wouldn’t be of any danger to poaching.
“Captain, I see something on the Siren’s neck.” Ranboo had softly spoken, the two navigators still standing near them. Philza turned the Sirens' head to see if there was something truly around its neck, and low and behold, there was. And it was an unnerving scar that Ranboo saw. There on the side of the Sirens neck were letters and symbols that were engraved into the skin.
It read HB_T0/!\3.
“Oh, that poor thing.” Philza had a worried look in his eyes, those symbols meant that the Siren was held in captivity, not a good environment though. And the more Philza had looked, the more scars and injuries that loitered the unfortunate creature's body. He stood, carrying the Siren in his arms, and gave orders to Ranboo and Tubbo to figure out where the new guest was going to be staying. And off the two navigators went.
“What are we going to do now Philza? We’re not sure if we can properly take care of this little guy. Well, okay a little more than little he’s kinda tall.” Philza laughed a little at the Quartermasters' comment, and he responded.
“One thing for sure Dream, we’ll be much better at treating a Siren like how they should be treated. Living breathing beings.”
Dream smiles sadly, “Let’s hope we can do a better job at providing that.” He continues, “Do you think we can name this Siren properly? Because I’m going to be real with you Philza, I don’t really like calling him just ‘Siren’ or the weird code on his neck.”
“Well, since you mentioned it do you wanna give this Siren a name? We aren’t going to keep the Siren as some sort of a pet though.” Philza’s face darkened a little.
Dream reassured the captain that he would do no such thing, and started pondering. His eyes and smile widened, indicating that he had a name. “The code has T, 0, and three other symbols before ending in three, it looks like it spells out Toms. How about Tommy?”
Philza also brightened at the name, he said it out loud to taste it on his tongue.
“Tommy. I like that.”
“Captain Philza! The Siren will be kept in room 5 in station 2!” Tubbo yelled. At the loud sound, the Siren stirred a little in its sleep and went back to a neutral expression. Philza looked over at Tommy’s face as he started walking.
“I promise to you Tommy, that I will treat you better than wherever you got your code from. Welcome aboard, the Esempii.”