Archive of Our Own

Once upon a time, there was an underwater cavern home to a dreadful old sea hag. The hag had a horrifying visage, and all who looked upon her true appearance were said to lose their minds in fright. The hag knew she was terrifying, and so she disguised herself.

The hag’s favorite shape to assume was that of a beautiful mermaid with long, black hair and a tail of silver scales. She would change her voice and lure sailors close to her cavern, where the strong currents would trap their ships. Sailors trapped in this way would then either jump to their deaths or poison themselves, as that was the only way to avoid falling into her clutches. The hag enjoyed playing with the sailors in this way, devouring their fear in the way some may devour a fine dinner.

However, whenever the hag trapped a ship that had fair maidens on board, she would not permit them to jump to their deaths. She would instead turn them into beautiful fish with multicolored scales, which she would then keep within her cavern inside silver cages so they could not swim away and escape.

The hag had been doing this for quite a long time, and she had about seven thousand fish trapped in this way in her cavern.

Stories of her cavern had spread, and most sailors knew to avoid it. But there were others who sought to free the trapped fish, and even more who sought to steal the hag’s treasure. The silver cages she kept the fish in were said to be more valuable than gold, because they were forged with magic under a full moon.

This is where our story begins. Not with the hag, who is still blissfully unaware of who is about to fall into her clutches, but with a young woman taken prisoner aboard a pirate ship.

Nancy is many things. She is smart, because she has received the finest education money can buy. She is sharp, because she has continued learning even after finishing school and being told she must settle down into a good marriage. She is stubborn, because she has refused every suitor who has come to call, much to her father’s chagrin.

She is also strong, which one would not know just to look at her. Nancy is small and thin, with pointed features and curled hair that leads many to believe she is nothing but a rich socialite. But Nancy has a strength of character and an iron grip that would put any soldier to shame.

She is also tired.

But, as you already know, she is stubborn and strong, and so she will not let her tiredness show.

Her wrists are bound with coarse rope, which is then tied to one of the masts of the ship. The way she’s tied makes it impossible for her to sit down, or lie down, or even lean against the mast properly for support, and she’s been on her feet for almost seven hours now.

The captain of the ship hasn’t even granted her an audience yet, despite Nancy’s repeated requests for one. The captain’s underlings have been flitting here and there, going about their own business as if they hadn’t just waylayed the ship Nancy had been on. She knows that she should be saddened by what happened, that she should mourn those who lost their lives in the fight, but after one of them had shoved her at the pirates, saying, “Take the rich girl and leave us alone!” she can’t bring herself to shed a tear for any of them.

“I demand to speak to the captain of this vessel,” she tries again, her voice hoarse from use and lack of water, “which is my right. I have a right to know where you are taking me, and why, and what purpose my imprisonment is meant to serve.”

The member of the crew closest to her just rolls his eyes, muttering, “Whatever, princess,” under his breath as he continues on his way.

Nancy refuses to let her frustration show, because she is strong and stubborn and she will not be seen as anything other than rational and unafraid.

She is left standing for another two hours. Night falls, and the crew goes off to sleep except for a few left keeping watch. Nancy thinks that maybe they don’t even have a captain, and is beginning to panic, now that nobody is here to see her, when a door to what she’d assumed are the captain’s quarters is kicked open.

A disheveled woman stomps out, yelling, “And when were you assholes going to tell me we’d taken a prisoner, you sons of bitches?” She marches over to where Nancy is standing, drawing a dagger from a sheath at her belt and sawing through the rope binding her.

“Miss, please accept my deepest apologies for the behavior of the shit-for-brains that did this to you.”

When she succeeds in cutting through the rope and nothing is holding Nancy up any longer, she falls to her knees immediately. Or, she would, were she not caught by the woman.

“C’mon,” the woman urges, wrapping an arm around Nancy’s waist and tugging one of Nancy’s arms over her shoulders. “That’s it. Slowly now, Miss, let’s get you some food and rest.”

They stagger together back where the woman had come from, which is revealed to indeed be captain’s quarters. There is a long table laden with papers, plates, goblets, and food. There are two plush armchairs and a bed in the back corner. Another woman with short, red hair is asleep in the bed. The woman deposits Nancy in one of the plush armchairs and busies herself with grabbing food off the table, making up a plate with a little bit of everything. She is muttering to herself about the incompetence of the crew as she does so.

“Never told them to take prisoners,” she is saying, sloshing wine into a goblet and spilling half of it on the table in the process. “We’re not that kind of pirate, for fuck’s sake.”

“So you are pirates,” Nancy breaks in on the tirade, her voice a low croak.

“Hmm?” the woman turns, offering her the goblet and plate. Nancy takes them and immediately drinks from the goblet, her head feeling a little fuzzy as the alcohol hits her empty stomach.

“Pirates,” Nancy repeats. “You’re pirates.”

“Yes,” the woman waves the word away as if it’s offensive. “No. Sometimes. Look,” she pulls one of the wooden chairs that haphazardly surround the table so that it’s opposite the armchair Nancy is in and perches upon it, “we are… pirates, yes, okay, I’ll give you that. But we aren’t, y’know, the bad kind.”

Nancy laughs at this, because she’s never heard of a good kind of pirate.

“No, I mean it,” the woman insists. “When people think of pirates, they think of swords and peg legs and fighting. Especially the fighting. We loot and pillage and take anything we can, right?” Her hands are moving around animatedly as she makes whatever point this is. “But my crew, my ship, isn’t like that. Sure, we take things that we have no claim over should you put us in a court of law and ask us to prove it, but we don’t hurt people. We don’t kill. Unless it’s self defense. We’re just a ragtag group of idiots who didn’t fit in with society because we wanted something different.”

Nancy looks over towards the bed, again taking note of the sleeping woman. Takes note of how deeply she must be sleeping, to not even stir in response to their conversation. She raises an eyebrow and fixes the woman opposite her with a knowing stare.

The woman throws back her head and laughs, slapping a hand on her knee.

“What did I tell ya?” she says jovially. “The heart wants. Or, I suppose, in this case, the–”

“So,” Nancy cuts in quickly, not wanting her to finish that sentence, “why, exactly, did you kidnap me?”

“I didn’t,” the woman reminds her. “Those idiots did, and as soon as they told me what happened I came right out there,” she points back towards the deck, “and cut you loose.” She stands up from her chair and instead kneels close to Nancy’s seat, reaching out to touch her knee. “I swear to you, Miss, I didn’t ask them to kidnap you, or anyone, and I never would have permitted it had I been there to stop it.”

Nancy believes her. But there’s still an unanswered question that needs to be put to rest.

“So why attack the ship at all, if this was all a big accident?”

“Well,” the woman scoffs, “we are still pirates, Miss.”

“Nancy,” she supplies.

“And it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Nancy,” the woman gives her knee a gentle shake, as Nancy’s hands are full. “I’m Robin. And you should eat.” She stands up, stretching her arms above her head. “You can spend the night in here, too. I’ll take the floor.”

And as Nancy watches, she walks over to the bed and nudges the other woman awake, saying something in a hushed voice. The woman turns her back to Nancy and gets dressed, hastily taking her leave. She even offers a small curtsy on the way out, saying, “Begging your pardon, Miss.”

“Nice manners for a pirate,” Nancy comments.

“We’ve got manners,” Robin laughs. “Some more than others, I’ll admit.” She nods after the woman who’s just left. “She was probably just like you, once.” Robin then gives Nancy a rather thorough once-over, her eyes lingering on her neck (she’s wearing a golden necklace), her waist (her dress in cinched with a belt with a golden buckle), and her feet (her boots are unscuffed and have tiny, pearl buttons).

“So, privileged and vapid?” Nancy supplies, guessing what Robin must think of her.

“No, Miss,” Robin shakes her head. “Trapped and bored.”

“You think I’m bored?” Nancy asks, both her eyebrows raising.

“I think every woman who’s grown up like you is bored,” Robin shrugs, as if she hasn’t just insulted Nancy’s entire upbringing, her entire family. “You can’t own land, you can’t have a job.” She starts ticking the points she’s making off on her fingers. “You can’t run for public office, can’t hold any political power, even any kids you have aren’t really yours.” She makes a face. “Bored is an understatement.”

“Well, I’m not bored,” Nancy insists, taking another sip of wine and instantly regretting not eating something first.

“Skirting right around ‘trapped,’ then, are we?” Robin smirks.

“I’ve only ever been trapped by you and your crew,” Nancy says, her words empty.

“Sure.” Robin grabs the wine bottle off the table and drains it, tipping her head back as she drinks. A few drops run down her cheek. “Whatever you say, Miss.”

Robin leaves her own quarters after that, leaving Nancy by herself. She has half a mind to start rifling through the papers on the table to try and figure out more about this ship and its captain and crew, but her stomach growls at her. So she finally eats the food Robin had offered, finding some of it a little stale and hard but otherwise just fine. She figures that’s what happens to food that’s been sitting out on a table for who knows how long. None of it is moldy or spoiled, so she counts herself lucky for that.

Once her stomach is no longer protesting, Nancy tries to get up. She really does want to snoop around in here, to try and learn more about who has captured her. But she’s so tired from standing on the ship’s deck for hours that as soon as she’s finished eating, she nods off.

When she wakes, it’s to find a blanket draped over her. She’d curled up on the armchair in her sleep. Robin is asleep in the bed, sprawled out and uncovered by the mess of blankets still there. All of Nancy’s arms and legs protest as she gets up, having gotten used to their pretzeled positions while she slept. But she gets up, anyway, stretching out and forcing her numb feet to move forward.

Almost all of the papers on the table are records of encounters with a sea hag. Nancy doesn’t know the names of anyone aboard this ship, so she doesn’t know if these are personal stories from past crew members or if they’re all strangers, but nobody has any record of surviving the encounter. All of the stories are told by a third party, someone who recorded the date the other disappeared or was left for dead.

Underneath all the papers is a map, with a large X drawn at a seemingly random spot in the middle of the water.

But Nancy is smart, so she knows what this all means.

She tidies up the table while waiting for Robin to wake up. She organizes the papers by disappearance date, with the oldest on top and the most recent on the bottom. And she reads all of them in the time it takes Robin to wake up. So, when Robin does wake up, it’s to find Nancy back in the armchair with the entire stack in her lap, leafing through them and making tiny notes in the margins.

“What’cha got there, Miss?” Robin asks as she wakes, her voice still thick with sleep.

“I think I’m onto something,” Nancy gets up and spreads the papers back out on the table. She doesn’t wait for Robin to get out of bed or even make any acknowledgement that she’s listening before explaining. “All of these records end in death or disappearance, right? But only half of them mention recovering a body. The other half says ‘left for dead,’ or ‘vanished on’ with a date. And look at the names.” She points to one of the papers she’s marked with a M. “This person’s name was Elizabeth, and it says she vanished.” She points to another paper, one marked with a D. “And this person’s name was Richard, and they recovered his body.”

“So Lizzy is gone and Dick’s dead,” Robin yawns. “And?”

“Elizabeth was a woman,” Nancy’s eyes widen as she explains. “She was a woman, and she went missing.”

“Yes, we’ve been over this,” Robin flops back down onto the bed.

“All the men died, but the women’s bodies were never recovered,” Nancy summarizes.

Robin sits up.

“Oh shit.” She stands up, tripping over her feet in her haste to look at the papers to see for herself. “Then it’s true!”

“Then what’s true?”

“The stories about the hag. The ones that say she kidnaps ‘fair maidens’,” Robin actually does air quotes around the term, “and turns them into fish. I thought it was all bullshit, because there’s no such thing as sea hags and magic and this is probably just sexist record keeping. That, or it was some badass female pirate who was covering her tracks by pretending to be a hag. But nobody would go this far.”

“Wait,” Nancy holds up her hand. “You’re a pirate who doesn’t believe in magic?”

“Yeah,” Robin shrugs. “But show me the evidence, and I’ll bite.”

“Clearly,” Nancy gestures to the papers. “So, why were you looking into this at all if you didn’t think the hag was real?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Robin chuckles. “We want the treasure!”

“So you’re going to a sea hag’s lair?” Nancy fixes her with her most impressive look of disapproval.

“Well, Miss, we didn’t know it was a sea hag until this very moment. But yes.”

“And you’re still going to do it, aren’t you?” Nancy places her hands on her hips, trying to channel her mother.

“Sure are,” Robin grins. “You gonna help us?”

“Do I have a choice?” Nancy sighs.

“Eh,” Robin shrugs. “Guess not.” She steps away from the table, beckoning for Nancy to follow her. “C’mon, let’s have you meet the crew. I’ll even let you punch the ones who tied you up!”

Nancy rolls her eyes, but she follows Robin back onto the deck. She is introduced to the crew, all of whom have the decency to look sheepish. When they reach the two who had been responsible for tying Nancy up to the mast, neither of them can look at her at all and instead just stare at their feet.

“Call them Idiot One and Idiot Two,” Robin says. “And it’s Miss Nancy, to both of you! You two listen to her and do whatever she tells you, from now on. Whatever she needs, you get for her. She slaps you upside the head because you’re being morons? You fucking let her.”

“What are your actual names?” Nancy asks, anyway, because she doesn’t think she’s capable of calling anyone Idiot One and Idiot Two.

‘Idiot One’ says, “Mike,” at the same time ‘Idiot Two,’ says, “Dustin.”

“Mike the Moron and Dustin the Dumbass,” Robin corrects them, cuffing each of them upside the head.

“So is she, like, one of us now?” Mike asks, still not looking at Nancy but she can see the confusion on his face anyway.

“Not yet,” Robin smirks, as if that’s some sort of challenge. “But you listen to her like she’s me. I’m your captain and she’s my guest, and you’ll treat her like the lady she is.”

Dustin snorts, which earns him another cuff to the head.

But the two follow their captain’s orders to the point of annoyance, anyway. They follow Nancy around like ducklings, Dustin pointing out other people and parts of the ship and literally everything that grabs his attention and talking incessantly about it all. Mike walks sullenly behind them both, but any time she asks for anything he dashes off as if he’s physically incapable of not completing the task.

When Nancy asks for some time alone, they flank her and glower at everyone else who comes near, which is not what she meant at all but she can’t help but feel taken care of, in some strange way.

It takes the ship two weeks to get to the X on Robin’s map. In those two weeks, Nancy is given a real job keeping a log of the ship’s journey and tracking inventory. She swaps the dress and finery she’s been wearing for pieces picked from Robin’s wardrobe. She is especially fond of the long, black coat she now wears, as it has pockets deep enough to hold her pens and hide her jewelry.

Robin refuses to let Nancy sleep with all the others in the shared quarters below deck, continuing to offer her bed every night. And every night, Nancy shakes her head and curls up in the armchair instead. The woman with red hair hasn’t returned to Robin’s quarters, and her absence makes Nancy think that maybe she’s being offered more than somewhere to sleep.

And isn’t that something to consider.

Nancy only lets herself consider it when she’s alone, because she knows how her cheeks grow rosy with a heated blush whenever she allows her thoughts to wander there. And because she is stubborn, she refuses to let anyone see that she is anything but the iron-willed young lady she’s been wearing as a shell for years.

But up here, in the crow’s nest after dark, the cool night air calms her burning cheeks. She hides the rest of her face in her hands as unbidden images dance before her, trying to snuff them out by pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes. But it doesn’t work, because it never does, and Nancy wants to scream because how dare anyone get under her skin like this, but especially how dare a pirate.

So she keeps declining Robin’s offer, and then they arrive at the X on the map and Nancy will soon wish that she’d said yes.

Because this is where the sea hag does enter the story.

They don’t drop anchor when they arrive. This is a very important piece of information, Dustin continues to say, because despite this the ship does not move. The waters are moving around them, and the ship bobs up and down and side to side, and yet the wind that fills the sails has no effect.

Robin, for her part, looks spectacularly unconcerned.

Her hair is wild and windswept, her cheeks red with excitement. Her eyes are like two coals, burning in a fire of determination. She wears a sword on her hip, which is noteworthy only due to its usual absence.

The rest of the crew is split, should they be asked what they think will be found below. Half of them think it’s just an underwater cavern with sunken pirate treasure, and the other half think it is indeed a sea hag.

Mike, however, thinks it’s a mermaid.

He tells Nancy as much in private, both of them curled up in the crow’s nest away from the others’ shouting and frantic preparation.

“Mermaids are beautiful,” he says, his eyes looking out at the horizon. “They’re beautiful and dangerous and they lure dumb sailors to their deaths. And so why does the sea hag have to be a hag? She could just as easily be a beautiful mermaid.”

“Would you like it if she was a beautiful mermaid?” Nancy asks, bumping her shoulder into his.

“It would be nice to be in true awe of someone’s power,” is how Mike answers.

Nancy frowns at him.

“Not that I think a hag is any less impressive because they’re supposed to be hideous,” he quickly explains. “It’s just, y’know, people turn mermaids into wimps, in the stories. You steal their skins and you own them. Or they’re just pining for the love of a human. It’s pathetic.” He actually punches the wall of the crow’s nest. “Mermaids are badass.”

“It’s Selkies,” Nancy corrects.

“What?”

“The ones with the stories about skin. Those are Selkies. Not mermaids.”

Mike makes a frustrated noise, throwing his hands to the sky. “See?” He runs his hands through his hair. “The stories are all the same, and it’s stupid.”

“You’re right,” Nancy decides, getting up and beginning to climb down. “The stories are stupid. So let’s not miss out on this one, that might be good.”

When they rejoin the crew, it’s to find them arguing over who is going to actually dive into the water to find out what’s down there. Robin keeps screeching that she’s in charge, but then she never gives any orders and so the whole argument just starts up again. Nancy rolls her eyes and looks over to find that Mike is wearing a similarly exasperated expression.

“How long can you hold your breath?” she asks him.

“Not long,” he shrugs.

“Okay, so you’re out.” Nancy moves to the closest member of the crew and repeats her question. She continues this quiet questioning, her progress stilling the argument as more and more of the crew become aware of what she’s doing.

Finally, she gets to Robin.

“How long can you hold your breath?”

The smirk she gets in response makes Nancy blush all the way down her neck.

“How long do you need me to, Miss?”

“Oh my god,” Nancy’s eyes widen unbidden and she has to look away. She turns her entire body away from Robin, catching the sniggering of several of the crew as she does. Her eyes find Mike, who raises a questioning eyebrow at her.

Clearing her throat loudly, Nancy points to the person who claimed they can hold their breath for five entire minutes.

“If you’re not lying,” her eyes narrow at them, “you can hold your breath the longest. So you can go down and look.”

They immediately try to get out of it, flapping their hands and making protests. But Robin intervenes, smiling wickedly.

“You heard the lady,” she slings an arm around Nancy’s shoulders. “Go down.”

“Oh my god,” Nancy breathes.

The member of the crew does, however, ‘go down.’ They dive into the water, taking a deep breath before submerging. And Nancy holds her breath, too, suddenly terrified that she’s just doomed this other person to their demise. When she does finally have to breathe, it’s a shallow intake of breath that doesn’t fill her lungs.

“Careful, Miss Nancy,” Robin squeezes her shoulders. “Don’t you go passing out on me.”

When the crew member resurfaces, Nancy is so relieved she sags against Robin, her arm winding around the other’s waist.

“Thank god,” she breathes, and then breathes normally.

“So what’s down there?” Robin asks, waiting no time at all after they are hauled back up on deck, still panting.

“Nothing,” they shrug, clutching their chest. “Wasn’t worth the time. Nothing to see.”

“What?” Robin removes her arm from Nancy’s shoulders, extricates herself from Nancy’s grip, and stomps closer. “There can’t be nothing! We’re in the right spot! The ship refuses to move!”

“Nothing,” they repeat. “‘M not lying.”

“Fuck!” Robin curses, stomping back towards her quarters.

The crew looks a little lost, which Nancy understands.

“What’s the big deal?” she asks Mike, once it’s become clear that Robin is either sulking or plotting in her quarters and won’t be coming back immediately. “Why does she care about this sea hag, or whoever is down there? I thought you guys were just here to loot some treasure.”

Mike’s eyes get dark, and he pulls Nancy away from the others.

“It’s her sister,” he explains, when they’re far enough away. “She’s been missing for a year, no witnesses. But before she went missing, she said she was coming here.”

“So Robin thinks her sister’s down there?” Nancy asks.

“I don’t think so,” Mike shakes his head. “She doesn’t believe in all the magic stuff. She just thought there was another pirate holed up here, hiding their treasure, and Stevie had found them and gotten killed. So I think… I think it’s a vengeance thing.”

“Shit,” Nancy shakes her head. “Can’t say I blame her.”

“Maybe they missed something,” Mike says. “Maybe they swam in the wrong direction, or if it’s really a sea hag or a mermaid they’re hiding themself with magic. I mean, the boat,” he smacks a hand down on the side of it, “won’t move. But the sails are full!” He points up at them. “This isn’t normal!”

“There has to be something,” Nancy agrees. “So let’s find it!”

“What?”

“Let’s find it,” Nancy repeats. “We’ll take turns diving down, so we’re not alone.” She catches sight of the remains of the rope still around one of the masts, the one that Mike and Dustin had used to tie her up. That all seems so long ago, so inconsequential now. “We’ll tie ourselves to a rope. You at one end, me at the other. Then we won’t get separated, if something does happen.”

“Or whatever’s down there gets two dinners for the price of one,” Mike crosses his arms.

“Fine, then I’ll go alone,” Nancy sheds her new coat and begins climbing over the side of the ship.

“Whoa, whoa, wait,” Mike reaches out to grab her. “Hang on, no, you’re not going by yourself.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ll… I’ll go with you. Just, let’s tell the others first. So they know what’s going on.”

“Okay,” Nancy agrees.

Dustin helps them tie themselves to the rope and the crew lowers them in a rowboat so they can take turns sitting in it when they’re not diving down into the water. Nancy’s heart starts hammering in her chest, getting faster and faster the closer they get to the water. She can’t hear anything but its beating, as if it’s moved up between her ears instead of staying where it belongs in her chest.

When they hit the water, they each take an oar and row away from the ship. Nancy wants to ask Mike if he can hear her heart still beating, too, but the words are lost as soon as she looks towards him and catches movement in her periphery. Nancy turns towards it, spotting a glint of something metallic as whatever is there disappears into the water.

“Shit,” Nancy hisses.

“What?” Mike follows her gaze. “Is something there?”

“It went under, but I swear I saw something.”

“Hey!” Mike calls back up to the crew. “Did you guys see anything in the water over there?” He points to where Nancy is still looking.

There are general noises that mean ‘no.’

“Shit,” Mike repeats.

The two of them start to look around, trying to spot whatever it had been. Nancy is about to give up and say it was just her mind playing tricks on her when something appears at the edges of her periphery again, this time on the opposite side of the rowboat. When she turns to look properly this time, it’s to see a long tail with silver scales disappearing into the water.

“That looked like–”

“–a mermaid,” Mike finishes for her.

They look at each other, and Mike reaches out and grabs one of Nancy’s hands.

The mermaid – or whatever it is – appears two more times, diving back below the water just as they catch a glimpse of it.

“It’s circling us,” Mike realizes.

“And it’s getting closer,” Nancy adds.

“We’re not here to hurt you!” Mike yells. “So, uh, whoever’s there… you can come out and talk to us!”

“Talk to us?” Nancy quotes. “Really?”

“Maybe it’s nice!” Mike gestures wildly in his frustration, rocking the boat. “Shit,” he reaches out to stabilize himself.

“Fine,” Nancy grumbles. “Yes, talk to us!” She calls out, louder, feeling stupid. “We want to know why you’ve trapped our ship and if you could please let us go.”

Two humanoid hands reach out of the water and grab onto the side of the boat. There is webbing between the fingers. The creature that pulls itself out of the water looks human enough, but it has gill-like openings in its cheeks and its eyes are set more to the sides of its face than in front. The scales start on its shoulders and travel down its back, reaching around the sides of its torso. Its skin is pale and gray, and its dark hair shimmers like moonlight.

Nancy feels Mike grip her hand tighter.

“H-hello,” she greets the creature, her voice timid. She swallows, because she is strong and smart and she is not timid. “Hello,” she says again, this time with confidence. “Are you the reason our ship is stuck?”

The creature looks at her with intelligent eyes, even as it does not respond.

“We didn’t mean to disturb you, and we are so sorry if we did. Do you live here?”

She doesn’t receive an answer to this, either.

“What do you want with us?” Nancy tries instead.

“Nancy!”

Robin’s voice breaks in on whatever quiet moment they’re having with the creature, and all three of them look up just in time to see Robin dive from the side of the ship into the water. She hits it gracefully, her arms extended above her, and disappears beneath the surface for mere seconds before reappearing, arms pulling her closer as she swims towards them.

The creature meets Nancy’s gaze, and its expression turns into a wicked smile. It uses the side of the rowboat to push itself up into the air, flipping backwards and diving back into the water as well.

“Robin!” Nancy yells, seizing one of the oars and beginning to row towards her. “Robin, get into the boat!”

The creature resurfaces in front of Robin and grabs her, attempting to drag her under the water. Robin manages to shake loose, but the creature grabs her again. The two of them wrestle, dropping further beneath the water with each second. Nancy thinks that if they submerge fully, the creature will win.

“No!” She drops the oar and poises to jump in herself, but Mike grabs her, pulling her back.

“Nancy, you can’t!”

“I can help!” she insists, struggling against him.

“Then we’ll lose both of you!”

Robin and the creature continue to struggle, and it even looks like the tide is turning when Robin manages to unsheathe her sword. But she can’t wrestle with the creature and try to injure it with a weapon and tread water to stay above the surface, all at once.

The creature fixes Nancy with another wicked smile before it drags Robin under fully. Nancy blinks, and the creature resurfaces, clutching a fish in one hand. It shows them the fish, snarling and making a nasty hissing noise, and then it dives beneath the water.

And then nothing happens.

There’s no change in the way the water is moving, and there’s no sudden expulsion of bubbles or blood or anything else to indicate that a person who is fighting for her life has just been dragged under the water. Rain doesn’t start falling, and clouds don’t block the sun from shining. Time continues to move, even as Nancy stares, motionless, at the spot she’d last seen Robin and the creature. Something begins to roar in her ears.

“Did… did it turn Robin into a fish?” Mike asks, his voice breaking in on the roaring.

“Yes,” Nancy says through gritted teeth. “We have to get her back.”

“Nancy, no!” Mike clutches her, desperately, trying to hold her in the boat with all of his might. “It’ll just get you, too.”

And Nancy knows, because she’s smart, that he’s right.

She lets Mike row the boat back to the side of the ship, lets the crew hoist them back up. She lets Dustin give her a hug, his body trembling with sobs against hers. She lets the woman with short red hair drape her coat over her shoulders and guide her back towards Robin’s quarters. She lets the woman talk at her, not listening to any of her words.

But Nancy doesn’t let anyone sleep in Robin’s bed.

She knows that there will be talk about who will replace Robin as captain (because she’s sharp) but she intends to head that off for as long as she can (because she’s stubborn). So Nancy spends the first evening sitting against the door, glaring at anyone who comes close. The following evening she pushes the armchair against the door so nobody can get in and she sits there, instead.

It’s on the third evening that she finally sleeps.

Nancy sleeps because she is exhausted and can’t keep her eyes open any longer. Sleep takes her swiftly, and it’s gentle enough to give her a few hours of dreamless rest. But that doesn’t last throughout her slumber.

The dream Nancy is given doesn’t feel real. She’s underwater, but she can still breathe. The water is warm against her skin, making her feel cocooned and safe. It’s dark, with only small glints of light from above the surface reaching down this far. There is sand beneath her feet, slippery and slimy. Somehow she is able to walk as if above the water, but she supposes that this is what dreams do. They take little bits and pieces of what you’re used to and throw it all together in a way that makes the dream work differently than reality.

Dream Nancy is walking beneath the surface of the ocean, and she isn’t afraid. She’s looking for something, if the way she stops to examine the coral and seaweed is any indication. Any time she reaches a large clump of seaweed or leaves, she pushes them aside to look between them. A few times she startles the fish who had been hiding in there, who swim away in a rush of bubbles.

When she comes across a patch of seaweed that has red leaves, she stops. Pulling back the leaves reveals a small flower with pink petals. Dream Nancy snatches the flower and feels at peace.

Nancy awakes with a start, finding that her hand is clenched in a fist as if she really had just been at the bottom of the ocean picking flowers.

She shakes her head. Looking over at Robin’s empty bed, she feels the hope of the dream fade away. Why should she feel hopeful because of a silly dream when Robin is gone? It’s just a flower, and it’s just a dream, and none of it is real. Robin’s absence is very real.

But when she tells Mike about her dream, his eyes light up.

“That’s gotta be it,” he declares.

“Mike, I’m looking for a little commiseration here, not a conspiracy theory,” Nancy groans.

“But all the stories, they say there’s some charm or talisman or something you need to defeat a sea monster,” Mike barrels on anyway. “And when do heroes find out what they need?”

Nancy stares at him, blankly.

“In a vision!” he answers, opening his arms as if it’s all obvious and everything makes sense.

“I’m not a hero,” Nancy shakes her head. “And it was a dream, Mike, not a vision!”

“But what if it was?”

“It wasn’t,” Nancy’s words are shorter than her patience.

“But what if it was?” Mike repeats, nonetheless.

Nancy scoffs, crossing her arms. “You’re enjoying this.”

“No!” Mike’s voice cracks on the exclamation.

“You are,” Nancy shakes her head. “You’re enjoying this, because you think we get to be in a story or a fairy tale, but in reality Robin is dead and there’s a sea monster trapping our ship here until we run out of food and die, too.”

“So why not try everything?” Mike actually reaches out to squeeze Nancy’s shoulders. “We’re stuck here. You said it yourself. So let’s try everything we can to get out of it, and if everything includes following a dream you had, then why the hell not?”

Nancy breathes out heavily through her nose, feeling much like a bull snorting before it charges. But before she has a chance to do anything, much less send a charge of words at Mike, she notices a few members of the crew coming out of Robin’s quarters.

So she charges at them, instead.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yells, stopping them in their tracks.

“Cutting our losses,” one of them says, shrugging. All of them have handfuls of trinkets, no doubt stolen from somewhere in Robin’s quarters. “Nothing to stay here for, so we’re taking the rowboat, a fair share of the loot, and – what’s the phrase? – fucking off.”

“No, you aren’t!” Nancy tells them. “Because that belongs to Robin, not you, and you can’t take it from her!” She grabs at one of their fists, loosening their grip and spilling shiny baubles across the deck.

“What’s she need it for?” another one sneers. “She’s dead.”

“Then show a little respect,” Nancy spits back, making another grab for another fist.

Mike and Dustin appear at each of her sides, flanking her.

“You really should put that back,” Dustin chimes in.

“Yeah,” Mike nods. “Nancy’s right. It’s not yours, and you should show more respect to your captain.”

“We don’t have a captain,” one of them reminds them.

“Yeah we do,” Dustin corrects. “Robin’s our captain, and she’s not dead. She was turned into a fish. And before that happened, she told us to listen to Nancy as if she’s her. So, technically, that makes Nancy the captain, now.” He holds out a hand, expectantly. “So hand over the captain’s possessions and scram.”

They stand off against the mutinous crew for a few more moments, waiting to see who will break. And when the crew does, they throw their stolen items down on the deck like toddlers throwing a tantrum. They even stomp off like toddlers, too.

“Thanks for having my back,” Nancy says as she bends down to pick everything up.

“Anytime,” Mike says, at the same time Dustin says, “You got it, cap.”

“No, not ‘cap’,” Nancy shakes her head. “Robin’s the captain. I’m not in charge of anything.”

“Would that be so bad?” Dustin asks. “Being in charge? Being our new captain if, y’know…” He trails off, clearly not wanting to voice the worst case scenario.

“No, it wouldn’t be so bad,” Nancy decides, smiling fondly at him.

“Good, because I think I found it.” Mike’s eyes are wide, and he’s holding out a hairpin so Nancy and Dustin can see it.

It’s a delicate little thing, so delicate that it looks like it could barely hold back hair at all. But Nancy recognizes it as something purely ornamental. She’s worn pins like it before, laying them carefully atop the plainer, more functional hairpins that are actually keeping everything in place. This one is gold, with tiny pink jewels set at one end to make a flower.

“That’s it,” Nancy breathes. “That’s the flower!” She drops everything else she’d picked up and takes the pin from Mike, holding it carefully in both hands. “How is it here?”

“It’s just a hairpin,” Dustin says, because he doesn’t know about Nancy’s dream. “I think it’s one of Robin’s sister’s.”

“This belonged to Robin’s sister?” Nancy feels lightheaded, already shocked by the flower’s existence on a hairpin but now even more so since it has such a personal connection.

“Yeah,” Dustin nods. “I remember her wearing it.”

“You remember?” Mike sounds doubtful.

“Yes, I remember, Mike,” Dustin snaps. “Because Stevie was nice to me, and this one was her favorite.” He looks away from both of them when he adds, “Sometimes she would do my hair, and she would let me wear it.”

“So this has gotta be it,” Mike ignores Dustin’s confession completely. “It has to. Why would Nancy have a dream about a flower that’s on Robin’s sister’s favorite hairpin if it doesn’t mean anything? This is the key!”

“The key to what?” Dustin asks, looking back at the pair of them.

Nancy clips the pin in her hair.

“To getting Robin back.”

Mike and Dustin don’t let her dive into the water immediately, even though Nancy wants to. They force her to take a few safety precautions, so a rope is tied around her waist and a dagger is hooked onto her belt. Nancy thinks the rope is rather silly, because if she’s truly going to find an underwater lair, she doubts they have a rope long enough to reach that far. But she agrees to come back up should she reach the end of the rope, and not to untie it and keep going.

“Nancy, don’t be stupid,” Mike pleads.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she chides.

“I’m serious!” Mike whines. “I believe in you, but I believe in monsters, too. So please be careful.”

“I will,” Nancy promises.

Mike actually hugs her, and Dustin dithers beside them as if he wants to join in, too.

“Come here,” Nancy removes an arm from around Mike to haul Dustin in, too, hugging both of them.

When she dives into the water, it’s nothing like her dream. It’s still daytime, and sunlight streams through the surface to light her way. The water is bitterly cold, and at first Nancy is afraid that her limbs are going to seize up and refuse to move. But she presses on, because she is stubborn, and she forces them to work.

Everything looks faintly green and blue under here. Nancy knows better than to think it’s the water making it look this way. There must be something about the way the light is reflecting, or maybe it’s the sea hag or whatever the creature is. She reaches up to feel for the hairpin, feeling warmer and stronger when she feels it still clipped in her hair.

She doesn’t see anything for a very long time, long enough that she begins to grow tired of swimming. Mike and Dustin are waiting for her at the edge of the ship each time she resurfaces, and they ask her if she’s okay or if she needs to come back up. It’s as if she’s a dog on a leash they let out to do its business, and Nancy might have laughed had the situation not been what it is.

But then she spots it.

There’s a crack in the ground. From a distance, it looks small and inconsequential, nothing but a tiny fracture. But when Nancy gets closer, she realizes that it’s large. From above, it seemed like nothing, but from this closer angle she can tell that this is the entrance to something.

Because she promised to be careful, she doesn’t keep going. She resurfaces and tells Mike and Dustin what she’s found. Then, she takes the deepest breath she can, and dives.

She swims as fast as she can back down to the crack, determined to push beyond it before her air runs out. She has to at least see what’s in there, and even if she can’t hold enough air in her lungs to go the full way, there must be someone back on the ship who can. When she slides through the crack, Nancy feels a chill that has nothing to do with the temperature of the water creeping up her spine.

Immediately she falls, because somehow there is no water on this side. She falls far enough that the rope grows taught, catching her with a jolt that feels as if it could have snapped her body in half. Nancy coughs, touching her ribs and stomach to make sure she’s still in one piece.

Then she looks down.

This is indeed an underwater cavern, and it’s living up to its name. She can’t see the bottom, which means it must be much further down. So she’s stuck here, suspended in midair, unable to swim back up and unable to keep going down. She supposes that she could climb back up the rope and through the crack, but Nancy is too smart to think that this initial intrusion will go unnoticed.

“Sorry, Mike,” she murmurs. “I’m not coming back without Robin.”

She removes the pin from her hair.

“You’re the key,” she tells it. “So what do I do?”

As soon as the words leave her, Nancy feels stupid. But she isn’t stupid, she’s smart. So mere moments after she’s asked for help, long red tendrils of leaves and vine come out of the darkness beneath her to greet her. A small, pink flower just like the one on the hairpin is directly in the center of the leaves.

“Thank you,” Nancy whispers as she grabs the vine. She replaces the pin in her hair, cuts herself free of the rope, and climbs down.

The bottom of the cavern, improbably, is full of water. It comes up to Nancy’s torso, and unlike her dream where she could walk unimpeded, the real water slows her down. It’s so dark down here that she can’t even see where the walls of the cavern are, but she does see what appears to be a faint light at the end of a tunnel. Without any real choice, Nancy heads towards it, reaching out with both arms until she finds the cavern’s wall and letting her hands trail along it as she goes.

Wading through the water somehow feels like more effort than swimming did earlier, and yet Nancy can’t bring herself to let go of the wall or lift her feet off the ground so she can swim. She needs to know that the cavern is still here, that she isn’t lost in an endless tunnel of water. Every so often she reaches up to touch the hairpin, a sightless reminder that it is still there.

As she continues down the tunnel, the faint light splits. Nancy can tell that the tunnel doesn’t fork or bend, and she squints at the still distant light, trying to figure out why it’s changed. Her steps become more hesitant, and she tries to slow her own movements so the water doesn’t splash around her and make noise. She’s listening, hard, for any sound that isn’t the water flowing through this tunnel.

But there are no other sounds. And there is no other light.

So Nancy continues, and when she gets close enough to identify the source of the light she realizes that what she’s been seeing isn’t a source of light, at all.

It’s the reflection of light on thousands and thousands of silver cages, suspended improbably in midair. The tunnel opens into a huge cavern, the rock walls illuminated by the reflections from the cages. The floor slopes upward into a spiral that clings to the walls, leading all the way to the top as if stairs had been carved into the wall. In the center of the cavern’s ceiling, impossibly high up, is a hole through which moonlight is shining.

Nancy knows that this moonlight is magical, because it was daytime when she first dove down here. She knows that this entire cavern is probably magical, and that whoever lives down here must be very powerful. It would be smart to turn around and leave, because how can she even hope to succeed where so many others have failed?

But Nancy is stubborn. So she begins walking up the spiral, because she needs to get higher up so she can see what is inside the cages.

Nancy has only just begun what is sure to be a long ascent when she hears a cackle. The sudden noise causes her to sink back against the wall, one hand clutching at her chest and the other pulling the hairpin from her hair, her fingers tangling in her curls in her haste.

“Who’s there?” she demands, once she’s managed to extricate her hand from her hair and is clutching the pin in a closed fist. “Who are you?”

From beneath the water, the creature that had tussled with Robin and dragged her into the ocean appears. It lifts itself up, and then keeps rising, growing to much larger than it had been before. It stands on two legs, the limbs covered in the same silvery scales that had made its tail the last time Nancy had seen it.

The creature lets out a scream that sounds guttural and primal, as if the sound isn’t coming from its mouth at all but its soul. It forces Nancy back even further, as she slumps against the wall, her knees knocking together as they tremble.

The creature’s shape shifts again. Its long hair becomes matted and gray, seaweed tangled in its tresses. The definition of the scales smooths into skin. Its eyes shift from the sides of its face to the front as it takes on a more humanoid visage. But the eyes continue to move, sinking in deep and becoming little more than red pinpricks. Its webbed hands turn into defined claws, yellow and bloodstained. When it grins, its teeth are pointed, the canines elongated.

It screams again, this one coming out more like a howl. Nancy feels the howl reverberate around the cavern. She can feel it within herself.

So she answers in kind. Nancy lets loose a scream of her own, clenching her fists even tighter and feeling the delicate hairpin break the skin of her palm. She launches herself at the creature, tripping over herself as she runs toward it.

The creature just crouches down and opens its arms, as if she’s a child running towards her mother for an embrace. For a fleeting, wild moment Nancy wonders what would happen if she allowed herself to be enveloped in this way.

But the moment passes, and instead Nancy pulls the dagger from her hip, brandishing it wildly. The creature doesn’t even attempt to move. It permits Nancy to slash the dagger across its skin, which knits itself back together as soon as she opens a wound.

A frustrated noise leaves her, and Nancy tries again. And again. And again. Frantically, she slashes at it, and each time the dagger hits its mark the skin heals itself. There’s no blood, no scars. And the creature begins to laugh.

Hysterically, Nancy laughs, too.

Her arms fall to her sides.

The creature draws her into its embrace. Nancy’s arms come up to rest against its chest, and she drops the dagger. The other hand opens into a loose fist, pressing the hairpin against the creature as she begins to flatten her palm and fingers against it.

The creature hisses and recoils. The skin where the hairpin had touched it is smoking. Nancy can see a smear of blood there, too. Her own blood.

The hairpin is the key.

Nancy follows the creature, brandishing the delicate hair ornament as if it is a weapon. The creature cowers, throwing its arms over its head as if to shield itself. So Nancy touches the hairpin to its arm. The skin reacts immediately, blackening and smoking. The creature cries out in pain, trying to struggle backwards.

But Nancy doesn’t give it a chance to leave, or to go anywhere at all.

Cupping the pin in her palm, she grabs the creature’s arm and hangs on. It screams and writhes and fights, its other arm flailing wildly as it attempts to hit her. A few blows find purchase, but Nancy just hangs on. She can feel its arm shrinking, the creature returning to its smaller size, which has to mean that whatever this is doing is working.

“I just want Robin back,” she tells it, as they struggle. “Why did you take her away?”

If the creature can speak, it continues to choose not to, as it doesn’t answer. It isn’t screaming now, and is instead making small whimpering noises that remind her of an injured animal.

“Why couldn’t you just leave us all alone?”

The creature is the size of a small child, now. It lets out one last whimper, its entire body seizing up. And then it opens its mouth in a silent scream. From its mouth comes a shower of tiny stars. Nancy watches as these tiny stars shoot upwards towards the cages, easily fitting between the bars and exploding into bursts of light inside. Then, the cages begin to float downwards, each of them growing in size.

When the first cage reaches the bottom of the cavern, it shatters as soon as it touches the ground. Where it had been, a woman now stands. Cage after cage falls and is destroyed in this same manner, each revealing the woman who had been trapped inside.

When Robin’s cage disappears and Nancy sees her, she lets go of the shell of the creature and runs towards her. She flings herself at Robin, grabbing her around the middle and pulling her into a tight, desperate hug.

“M-Miss Nancy?” Robin doesn’t respond immediately, stiffening at the contact at first. “How did you–?”

“It was your sister,” Nancy explains, pulling back but still keeping one arm around her. She opens her other hand to reveal the hairpin, smeared with her own blood. “Her hairpin. This was what did it.”

Robin carefully picks the pin up, rubbing her thumb across the jeweled petals. Her thumb comes away red.

“But why?”

“Why what?” Nancy shakes her head. “Why did I save you? Why did it work? Why did any of it happen at all?”

“Yes,” is all Robin says, searching her face for answers.

Instead of answering, Nancy just kisses her.

Robin actually squeals against her lips when she does. But then Nancy feels her relax, feels Robin’s arms loop around her own waist and pull her closer. When she kisses back, it’s all softness and sweetness and Nancy thinks that maybe this is what the words ‘thank you,’ feel like.

They break the kiss and just stand there, holding each other, until someone asks, voice trembling, “Robbie?”

The cavern is full of women, now. Some cages are still falling, and Nancy thinks it’s going to take quite some time for everyone to be freed. But the ones who are here, free, have already started moving towards the tunnel. After being trapped in cages for so long, it only makes sense for them to seek freedom as soon as it is offered.

All except one, who is standing close to Robin and Nancy, staring at them with wide eyes. Her eyes look just like Robin’s, and her long brown hair is the same color, and her nose comes to the same defined point.

“Is that–” Nancy starts to ask, but Robin screeches, “Stevie!” before she can finish her question.

Nancy watches as the sisters collapse on top of each other, dissolving into tears and whimpers. They sink to the ground as if all of their bones have left them. Half-questions and half-answers are all they can get out as they try to piece together what happened and what led each of them here. And Nancy just watches them fondly, feeling like she’s won something she didn’t even know could be won at all.

When the sisters have finally composed themselves, Nancy introduces herself to Stevie and promises to explain everything once they’ve left. The three of them hold hands the whole way out, and eventually have to fight their way through the bottle-neck that’s happened at the beginning of the tunnel.

“I need the hairpin again,” Nancy tells Robin, who hands it over immediately. She plants it into the ground, asking it for help, and the large vine with red leaves sprouts up from the ground again. This time, it is large enough to carry everyone aloft, bursting through the crack Nancy had squeezed through. The water still doesn’t seep through, and as the vine pushes them up into the water it feels much like passing through a bubble.

They are all shot up to the surface, the vines spreading and growing until it looks like a tree, improbably growing in the middle of the ocean. Nancy, who knew something like this would happen, is already calling out to the ship to get their attention. The others are still in a state of shock, staring at the plant with open mouths.

Eventually, Nancy, Robin, and Stevie are hauled up onto the ship. There isn’t enough room on their vessel for all of the seven thousand women who had been turned into fish by the sea hag, but the vine tree keeps growing and growing until, finally, there is a whole island. Nancy thinks that if anyone should ask it to grow a bridge to the nearest actual land, or a boat to take them wherever they want to go, or even a thriving ecosystem so they can live here, the hairpin would listen.

“I feel guilty leaving,” Robin admits, hours later after she’d gathered the entire crew together so she, Nancy, and Stevie could tell their story to everyone, in full. “But we can’t stay here, in the middle of nowhere.”

“We can come back,” Stevie reminds her. “There’s no sea hag anymore. We can come back with more ships, and take them all home. If they want to leave.”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Robin agrees. “But only if Nancy wants to.”

They both turn to her, waiting for her verdict.

Nancy grins.

“Well, we obviously have to get Stevie’s hairpin back eventually.”

The three of them stretch out on the deck of the ship, lying so their heads are together. They talk long into the night about their plans for the future, now that everyone is a human again and their ship can move through the water unimpeded and there are seven thousand other women to take home.

Eventually, Stevie gets up and heads below deck, yawning. Nancy watches her go, sees how Dustin is waiting in the doorway to greet her. She watches them hug each other before going down to sleep, Stevie ruffling Dustin’s hair fondly as they go.

“Tired?” Robin asks her.

Nancy shakes her head. “I feel like I could stay up for days.”

“Me too,” Robin agrees. “Not much to do as a fish in a cage.” She rolls onto her stomach, lifting her torso and leaning into Nancy’s space. “Come to bed anyway?”

Nancy sits up, meeting Robin’s questioning gaze with a determined one of her own, and answers her with a kiss.

Once upon a time, there was a pirate captain who had the fairest maiden in the world as her first mate.

The first mate was said to be the smartest woman in the world, in addition to being the fairest. And because she was smart and fair, whenever people would see a pirate flag on the horizon they would hope that she would be aboard the ship. For their ship did not pillage or plunder needlessly, or do horrific things to the people they came across.

Instead, it was said that they would return lost people to where they belonged.

And so people came to rejoice when they saw a pirate flag flying, because they hoped that it meant that someone they thought was gone would soon be brought back to them. This caused much confusion and many disasters, and so the pirate captain decided that they needed a new flag to fly whenever they would be bringing people home.

The first mate, because she was smart and fair, decided that the flag would be white. But since it was not an act of surrender, the white flag would have a black skull on it. And so people would look for the white pirate flag, which could not be confused with a regular pirate flag or a flag of surrender.

This white flag flew for an impossibly long time, as the pirate captain and her first mate were rumored to have seven thousand people to return home. Many who had seen the flag first as children would recall seeing it in their later years, too. And yet the pirate captain and her first mate never seemed to age or change at all.

When the last of the lost people were returned, the pirate captain and her first mate moved to an island in the middle of the ocean and were never heard from again. They were married by a mermaid, and the first mate turned the white flag into her wedding dress.

And that is the story of Robin, the pirate captain, and Nancy, the fairest and smartest maiden in all the land.