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The Sun Divers were becoming known as quite the…interesting crew.
Founded by captain June, her along with her first mate Carmen, sailor master McCoy and quartermaster Vonnie fixed up a boat that looked like scraps all by themselves. Their goal was to become one of the most well known crew across the entire seven seas!
They had been out on a new quest ever since docking at a seaside town a couple days ago, catch the sea monsters rumoured to be spotted near here. The bounty was high, and while they normally didn’t spend long in a town, they didn’t care how long it would take until they found a beast!
Plus, they needed the money, their ship could use the repairs (because despite McCoy being the fucking sailor master he sure had a hobby for crashing the boat into rocks) and supplies weren’t gonna last forever.
They had spent AGES searching for one, but they never seemed to get their hands on one of them. They used sketches drawn by the locals for reference, intimidating, horrifying drawings of scaly creatures with long teeth protruding from the giant fleshy chasm in their face called a mouth.
But they came up short. They were all exhausted from staying up day and night on the hunt for one of these fucking fishes. In the end, they decided that these were just rumours from the townsfolk and that they were gonna head back onto the waters first thing tomorrow.
They had already checked out of the inn they were staying in so they just resorted to sleeping in their sleeping quarters on the ship for the night.
———
McCoy woke up.
He needed to take a piss.
He groaned sitting up from his bottom bunk, with Carmen sleeping above him, and he made sure to he quiet so he didn’t wake anyone else as he made his way out onto the deck.
He walked over to the plank (honestly it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he fell in as they were still docked) and did his business in peace, quietly whistling. Just as he lifted up his pants and was about to head back inside, he noticed something.
In the darkness of the night, he swore he could faintly see a shadow in the water, it was the shape of…
Something that wasn’t human, but not entirely fish either.
Holy shit.
He…he had to be imagining things right? It’s late, he’s tired and it’s probably just a trick of the light!
But the harder he looked, the shadow slowly crept along the side of the ship, its tail flicking back and forth occasionally.
Oh my god this was real.
He hurried back to the sleeping quarters.
“Guys wake up! I found one!” He whisper-yelled as he burst through the door, detangling the catching net he got on his way here.
“Ah!-…McCoy what the fuck are you on about…?” Vonnie asked groggily. “I found one, a real sea monster! I’m not imagining things I swear! Hurry!” He ran back out onto the deck, and the others really had no choice but to follow him.
They all carefully and very quietly leaned over the side and sure enough it was still there. They had to hold back gasps when they realised that these creatures, or creature was actually real. “Holy shit…! They’re…they’re real!” June mumbled under her breath. She turned to her crew and signalled for them to throw the net.
They all nodded and threw it into the water. It instantly trapped the creature and they could see it’s silhouette begin to thrash around and try to swim it’s way out. It took brute force from all of them to pull it onto the deck, and after a lot of struggling it finally did with a wet thud.
The force of the pull also caused them to all fall back, so they watched as the monster thrashed around in the net like an animal in a cage, they also took in its appearance.
It was tan, possibly olive coloured skin and wet dark brown hair that ran down to its shoulders, and they could even see it’s piercing yellow eyes through it’s hair. Dark green scales were found on the lower half of it’s body and arms, with a massive tail being there instead of legs and fins of sorts of the same colour was on the sides of it’s head instead of ears.
For a moment nobody moved, and then when Vonnie tried to reach her hand out it bared it’s fangs at her in retaliation it quickly. McCoy instinctively went to grab a harpoon and that’s when a switch seemed to flip in it him.
Instantly he froze and scrambled back, gripping the thin rope of the net. His already terrified looking eyes began to get glassy as he let out distressed noises and whimpers, eyeing the weapon down.
June noticed this and hit McCoy in the arm. “Ow!- what the hell?!” He asked. “Put the fucking harpoon away you’re scaring him!”
“Since when was it a him now?!” she heard Vonnie say, but June was too busy carefully making her way over to the creature to answer. Sure just twenty seconds ago she considered selling him for money, but the sight of him thrashing terrified and looking like a scared little kid almost immediately broke her.
She was just too much of a sympathetic bastard like that.
They made eye contact, not saying anything for a moment until June finally spoke up.
“Hi there…” she said in a voice soft as silk, “hey, hey, hey…I promise me and my friends aren’t gonna hurt you…I swear…” she put her hands up carefully, making sure he knew she wasn’t a threat. “Now…do you have a name…?”
“…’yan…”
June leaned closer. “Sorry what was that?”
“…Ryan…” he mumbled in a voice so low yet raspy, almost as if it was his first time talking in a while. Now up close she noticed a few more things about his character.
She could see his fangs poke out a bit again when speaking, and she realised that there were two jagged looking scars along the bottom of his breasts.
June smiled. “Well hello there. I’m June, that’s Carmen, that’s Vonnie, and that’s McCoy. We’re a pirate crew.”
Ryan’s eyes seemed to slightly soften at that, but still seemed hesitant. “Let me out now?”
June nodded, taking out her knife from her pocket almost immediately, beginning to cut up the net. One of the others finally fucking did something with Carmen helping take the net off of him.
Once he was finally freed June decided to ask:
“Sorry we scared you with the harpoon, McCoy just thought you were gonna hurt us. He’s really a gentle giant.” She gestured back to a McCoy who was trying his best to look friendly.
Ryan seemed a bit nervous before responding.
“‘S ok…when I was kid, bad people hurt my mama, had to watch them hurt her, with that.” He pointed at the box of harpoons.
…
”Oh.”