Chapter Text
Cold water lapped at the girl’s feet. The sun beamed down hot rays that dried the wet sand into her hair, caked into her clothes.
Unaware, she was, asleep. Peaceful? Not exactly. Restless and twitchy, looking troubled even in rest. Though the rest wasn’t voluntary, maybe that was the issue.
Oh, what’s this? Her fists clenched, arm jerking, then going slack. She turned over on her other side, effectively getting dusty sand all over her once more. Her eyelids squeezed shut, relaxing a moment later. Telltale signs that she was to awaken soon.
Finally, she tensed up, relaxed, then gasped, panicky. She shot up, unintentionally shaking sand off, and proceeded to cough water onto the sand. Gross.
Dizzy and confused, chest heaving, the girl almost tried to get up. She was smarter than she looked, it seemed, as she quickly deducted that was a bad plan.
So she sat there for a few minutes, observing her surroundings while still sitting, legs spread out in front of her. What could she do now?
The human babbled to herself, staring down at her hands.
She then attempted to stand again. With a bit of stumbling, she steadied herself, stepping forward.
She cupped her hands around her mouth and called something out. Her shouting continued for a few minutes as she wandered around, seeming to be searching for something.
A little ways away, a curious young siren watched from afar, monitoring. Her eyes peaked over a rock, hair was dark, wet and clinging to her neck. Said siren was the one to bring the girl to shore, curious of the entertainment she might bring.
Hey, maybe the siren would even end up with a little pet! Wouldn’t that be fun? She’s love to show it off to her friends. Pearl! The mer with a cute little human pet! It’d be adorable.
Hold on, that might be a bit weird. Somewhere in her lessons, Pearl was sure that they had mentioned that humans were highly intelligent creatures. Like, multiple times.
Though Pearl thought that was a bit inaccurate, she’d seen many humans who maybe weren’t the best example.
This one, though— Pearl glanced back to the island where she just saw the human a minute ago. It was gone. Shit. Where had her little pet gone? She swam closer.
—
Gem didn’t know where she was, where her ship was, or the location of her crew.
She had woken up on a strange island with sand in her nose, the only thing she remembered being the panic of a huge storm and ultimately falling overboard.
Where was her crew? Well, it wasn’t much of a crew, but 5 people total counted, right?
Gem looked up at the sky, the was roughly halfway between overhead and the horizon. So, it was evening, that was something. She had something like 3 hours left of daylight.
While it was good info, she scowled nonetheless, unhappy about her situation. She trudged on.
So far she’d found just about nothing. She left the area she had first arrived, called around a bit, but it was all inconclusive.
She would’ve admired the island if she wasn’t so tired and pissed to be on it. It was quite pretty, once you got off the sand. There were palm trees, rocks, hills, a few flowers blooming in bushes.
It seemed as if the island was a big semicircle? Once Gem had gotten to higher ground, she discovered that the island was half wrapped around a huge divot of clear blue water, the shape almost like a crescent moon.
It seemed untouched, too. Huh. As fascinating as the island was, Gem needed to find her crew.
So she stumbled about, pushing past branches and narrowly avoiding tripping over rocks in the mud. Everything was sore. She was sore, hungry, tired, and her head hurt like hell. Maybe she should just sit down a minute.
So she did. On the bottom tip of the crescent moon island, she sat against a rock to rest, feet just barely touching the water. Had she forgotten to mention that she lost both of her shoes in the water, and the sand was hot? Rocks and seashells weren’t pleasant to step on, either.
She glanced up. If the pirate had to guess, she had been on this island for about an hour. The time was ticking. She needed to find her crew. But, she had common sense. She shouldn’t go wandering about in the darkness. It was already starting to get colder.
Gem closed her eyes, hugging her knees up to her chest and thinking. She needed food. She had been wasting time. She could find everyone tomorrow.
She better hunt some fish or something. It was the easy option, Gem didn’t trust herself to be able to tell which berries were safe to eat and which ones would kill her in under a minute. A dead captain was a useless captain.
The redhead groaned and opened her eyes. For a split second she swore she spotted something in the water. There was a small splash where she thought it was. A good sign, was it not? Weren’t fish most active at dawn and dusk?
Gem continued on to find a good stick to turn a spear, digging in a pocket of her trousers to find that, yes, she did still have her small pocket knife. Good. It was a gift to her, made of bone.
Carving away at the spear, she was quickly able to make it sharp enough to pierce a fish with enough force.
Swiftly disrobing, Gem put all of her stuff in a pile on the sand, left only in a linen shirt and brown trousers, hiked up so they wouldn’t get soaked.
The pirate ventured into the water, slow and careful as to not scare anything away. She waded knee deep water until it went up to around her lower thigh. Gem didn’t go any deeper in fear of making a ruckus.
Instead, she waited. Patiently, quietly, staring down at the clear blue water surrounding her legs.
Eventually she spotted fish swimming close, but didn’t dare try it just yet. She held her spear at the ready, pointed down at the fish and… Strike.
Sand blew everywhere in the water, Gem couldn’t see what had happened, but she could make a bet. “Damn it…”
It turned out that Gem wasn’t the best at this, and actually it took practice to be able to aim and impale a fish! Gem couldn’t be a natural at everything.
Oh wait, she could. Third time’s the charm was right. Gem even surprised herself with it. Blood clouded the water. She fumbled, lifting the spear back up to see the fish she skewered on the wooden stick.
It’d surely be big enough of a meal, one of the only reasons she had been able to catch the fish was probably because of its size and how lazy and slow it was. That and Gem always being the best at everything, of course. This even proved it, though it wasn’t like anyone was there to prove it to.
That made her think of her crew for a good long moment, trying not to worry too much, then brought back to her current situation when her stomach growled. Well, on the bright side she finally had food!
Gem fiddled with the fish as she traversed back to shore, sliding it off the spear and holding it tight as it flopped in her hand, its last desperate attempt to escape. Gem didn’t show mercy, fishing something out of her pocket.
She stabbed the bone knife into the fish’s skull to end it, bleeding it out in the water and gutting it once back on the shore with details that we won’t specify.
Basically, in short, Gem was surviving. Now huddled around a fire she made, grilling the fish over it. The pirate was currently located in something of a cave, spotting it while she was out fishing. It was mostly just an overhang of a giant slab of stone with rock surrounding it, but for now, it was shelter.
The redhead sat there, eating while watching the sunset. She never thought she’d be in this situation. How was she being so calm and normal about this??? Well, It was a great view, at least. The sunset on a random deserted island was beautiful.
And soon, night fell. Rain along with it. Bed situation? palm leaves, grass, foliage. It wasn’t luxury, but it was the best she could do here. Not the most comfortable, but it worked, and she managed to doze off.
Dozing off meaning sleep. For at least 6 hours. Gem was tired.
Too tired to even notice the little fishy trailing her all the while.
—
Rustling. Thud. Scrambling.
Gem’s eyes shot open. Her guard was high, it had to be. Despite still being groggy, she pulled herself up to sit, scrabbling backwards and glancing around. She was dazed, vision blurry and noises not processing right just yet, but she tried to stay alert. Was her pile of things always that scattered?
There was a weird, slick sound, like scales sliding over wet rock. Gem’s head jerked in the direction. There was a broad slab of rock in the way, easy for someone to duck under. Hold on, was that a flick of blue, or was she seeing things?
“Hello?” The pirate called, hopeful, voice still strange and thick from sleep.
Gem paused. If there was someone, it had to be one of her crew, no? There was no one else on this island, as far as she was aware. But if it was, wouldn’t they have shown themself? Maybe it was an animal…?
She tried to reassure herself with that last thought, but her heart was beating hard in her chest, breaths short and frequent. It smelled of rain. That helped a bit.
“Hello…?” Gem repeated, weary. She as getting more nervous by the second.
There was a long stretch of silence, Gem glancing around, then back at that rock. The sharp patterns of warm grays were practically sketched into her brain by the second minute.
The rock was weirdly placed so that if there was anyone hiding behind it, they wouldn’t be able to leave without being spotted by Gem. It was kinda out in the open.
The redhead almost considered getting up to see if anything was there, or if she was just crazy. Was she being too paranoid?
Curiosity eventually did win out.
Shaky, the pirate stepped one foot forward, pushing herself up to her feet. Another step. Her boots clicked on the stone. A pebble flicked across the jagged stone floor. Gem froze. It came from behind the stone tablet?
There was a tiny bit of more rustling. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears, she stepped back.
Finally, progress was made. A pair of cerulean blue eyes popped up from behind the rock, wet brown hair along with it.
Gem flinched hard, jumpy. “What…” she muttered. A human? She pretended she wasn’t shaking like a leaf.
Then she noticed the hand that settled on the top of the rock. Why was there…? Were those webs between her fingers? Claws? What?? “What the hell” She breathed, taking a step back.
The thing pushed themself up more, curious, revealing their clothes. Dull red fabric clung to the person’s torso like a second layer of skin. It looked something of a sleek, sleeveless crop top, ending just below the ribs from what Gem could tell.
…Were those scales on their upper arms?? Patches of shimmery blue scattered across their skin, mostly on the neck and upper arm, some near their jaw, too. Gem stood frozen.
And the final shock was when they crawled out from behind the slab of stone in the ground, struggling. Gem soon learned why once she saw the tail. Connecting to their midsection with scales that went up either side of them, there was a tail made up of deep sapphire blue scales.
Gem nearly passed out. “What the fuck is that thing”
She scrambled to check her pockets, looking for her pocket knife. It wasn’t there. Not on the ground, either. The redhead was panicking, her mind going 20 miles a second.
An interruption came. The creature— merperson? Yeah, whatever, that thing yelped, surprised at her panic. The real interruption was when it spoke.
“Ah- I am…“ They looked down, thinking hard. “I not… not danger?” They pronounced words weirdly, like it didn’t fit right in their throat. “No fear!” They concluded, smiling at the human with their teeth.
Gem froze. Then slowly swiveled around to face the merperson. Holy shit they had huge fucking sharp teeth. They? Her? Gem couldn’t tell.
The thing held up Gem’s knife. Not pointing it, even wielding it correctly. They looked like they were just curious about it and were currently showing it as proof of their innocence. It wasn’t helping.
“What.” Gem said, dumbfounded and still a bit terrified. That was her knife. Her knife that the creature just put away somewhere. But she didn’t have time to dwell.
“Me…” The fish started, then corrected. “My. My name…” She seemed to be having a hard time. “Pearl.” She remembered. “My name Pearl.” She nodded many times, feeling proud. Definitely not feeling like she probably should’ve paid more attention in class!
“Pearl,” Gem repeated, weary. She continued to try to communicate with the merperson. It was worth a shot, was it not? She seemed to know a little bit of english!
“I’m Gem, I am a human.” Gem pointed to herself at the words ‘Gem’ and ‘human’, trying to make it clearer.
“Human.” Pearl repeated to inform Gem that she knew that word.
“I am lost. I need to find my friends.”Gem slowed down her talking when ‘Pearl’ tilted her head in confusion.
“Other humans.” Gem said hopefully. “Have you seen other humans?”
“More me?” Gem restated, pointing to herself again and then gesturing around her.
Pearl blinked at the pirate, something close to clueless.
The human glanced around, spotting the fire she had made the night before.
She grabbed a piece of charcoal, previously a branch, and crouched down on the solid stone underneath her.
The mer clambered over, Gem had decided that she seems harmless enough, but still tried to keep a bit of distance.
The redhead used the charcoal to make a messy drawing of a human. She jabbed at the drawing, speaking. “This is me. Gem. Human.” She wrote her name in the middle of the human silhouette for clarification.
She went back to scribbling. Four more humans appeared next to the first. “Friends,” Gem said, referring to the other humans. “More humans”
Pearl nodded, and Gem decided that meant she could continue.
Gem kept working, drawing a boat beneath all the humans. She put a finger to the picture and looked at Pearl. “Ship.”
Pearl deduced that this was all probably important information.
The pirate circled the whole drawing with her finger, saying her goal again.
“I,” Gem put a finger on the human labeled ‘Gem’. “Need to find my friends” She pointed to each of the other human figures. “And my ship.” She finished, emphasizing the ship drawing.
Gem looked back at Pearl, trying to be optimistic.
The mer nodded a lot, then turned around and scrambled back into the sea, disappearing with a splash.
What was that supposed to mean? She stepped closer.
Gem had no choice but to remain hopeful. Maybe the fish understood her…?
Wait. Gem stepped forward to look behind the rock. Nothing.
That thing took her knife!!!