Archive of Our Own ^beta

I pulled the net up the port side of the ship and watched the last of the tuna wriggle out one of the many tears that now graced my net. My sigh was audible, unfortunately. A man of the sea doesn’t show frustrations like that, even in trying situations like these. Fortunately, the laughter that broke out behind me entirely drowned it out.

“Oh, not again, Gurathin!” Ratthi giggled. “We’re never getting fresh fish for dinner, are we?”

I felt my jaw tighten. I tried to take all the ribbing good-naturedly, but there is a limit.

“How long did you spend mending that net last night?” Volescu asked innocently as he passed by with a barrel. 

It took me all night to mend the net. All. Night. And all my work was ruined. I had very little to contribute to this expedition besides my familiarity with the ocean: its dangers, ways to protect the rest of the crew from them. And now…

I watched a head emerge from the water, just the silver petals of a cap that could be mistaken for a shimmer of water, and a pair of dark eyes with pupils like a cuttlefish watching me. Less experienced sailors would run for their captain, but I didn’t. A merrow is one of those dangers I know all about. 

At least, I thought I did.

“I suppose you’re proud of yourself,” I said, lifting my ruined net.

It didn’t respond. This was pointed: I knew it spoke our language.

I sighed. “Here, Merrow…” I forced my tone into something more polite. I had a bit of salted pork in my jacket pocket, the only meat we had since this creature decided to make a game of ruining my fishing nets. I took it out and waved it over the side. Its odd pupils followed the movement. Waves shifted as it drew closer. Yesterday, Arada managed to get the merrow to eat from her hand, but I wasn’t fool enough to dangle myself over the side. I just leaned on the railing, tore off a piece, and tossed it down. It landed with a plip! in the water as the merrow darted away. It returned a few moments later, looking offended as the pork sank away into darkness, to be snapped up by some fish that didn’t mind soggy rations.

“Ah, so I can punish you just by getting your treats wet?”

“Stop being mean to it,” Ratthi called over, “That might help.”

I ignored him and tossed another piece in a high arc, so it would have to leap out of the water to catch it.  

I got a faceful of squirted water for this attempt to turn it into a performing acrobat. Another bout of laughter erupted from my friends; the merrow darted back into the depths.

“Salted pork never fails with the hippocampus,” Ratthi said as he came over. He leaned his elbows on the railing beside me. “Even the sea serpents. You must have really pissed it off.”

I suppose I had. But hadn’t we all? We took the merrow aboard the Preservation Aux at the very start of our voyage, when the trading company that controlled these shipping lanes made it a condition of our safe passage. The merrow was meant to be a sort of captive guardian to our motley band of doctor-naturalists, guiding us through safe channels and protecting us from sea monsters while we studied the uncharted islands. Superstitious folk on the coasts say that merrows are magical masters of the oceans, to be revered and sought for blessings. Those more educated surmise that they are some advanced species of octopus, taking mimicry to such an extreme that they copy the human form. Both say that merrows use their power to charm hapless humans into the dark depths of the sea, never to be seen again. The only merrows I’ve seen had gotten tangled in fishermens’ nets, stripped of their cohuleen druith caps, and turned into slaves like the one the trading company forced on us. We all considered the practice barbaric, as a merrow without its cap cannot return to its watery home; however we had no power to free it. Surely, it hated all of us for this cruelty.

Of course, I’m the one who discovered that our merrow had its cap in its possession all along. I first suspected it when it seemed to disappear from the confines of the ship for hours on end, only to return and claim it had been ‘below decks’ or ‘in the crow’s nest,’ which no one could concretely verify. Then I caught it slipping into the water from the bowsprit: a merrow without its cap can’t swim.

What can I say in my defense? I understand, better than anyone on my crew, the dangers that sea monsters such as a merrow can pose. My friends are peaceful academics; their idea of conflict is an academic debate on the floor of the natural history museum. I had to protect them at all costs.

A chance encounter with a whaling vessel provided the perfect opportunity to do so. We had been responding to a signal of distress from another ship in the area, only to find the crew dead and under attack from supposed whalers. The merrow was gravely wounded by a harpoon while defending us, and went overboard. A storm descended; we lost the whalers in the rain and crashing waves. I thought perhaps that the storm might carry away the rogue creature, as well.

Then Captain Mensah dove into the roiling sea after it. Several of us naturally dove in after her. Between us we somehow managed to rescue the creature before it drowned, or we were lost in the storm ourselves.

I wasted no time. Once we had it aboard, I seized my chance. I bound the merrow in my best net, told my crewmates what I knew, and while it slept I learned its true name, a magic deeper and more powerful than even its cap. I had to plans to re-enslave the creature, of course. I merely thought we could take it south and release it into one of the warmer currents. But I underestimated its power. It had soon torn through my net, and nearly killed me in the process. I still bore its scratches concealed beneath the collar of my sweater. Its eyes still haunted my quiet moments. But it didn't kill me.

Now, it lurked in the ship’s wake, talking to no one but Captain Mensah. Well, sometimes it spoke to the others.

Alright, it only refused to speak to me. Unless petty destruction, regular soakings and general harassment count. It certainly communicated something.

“I told it I was sorry,” I said, loud enough for it to hear (I knew it could hear me).

Ratthi squinted. “Did you, though?”

“Well—alright, not in those exact words. Its natural language is different from our own.”

“What is its language?”

I admit I hadn’t thought about it that way. I looked out at the sunset shining on the water, with yet another night of bland salt rations before us while my stomach longed for fish roasted over an open flame, and allowed myself another small, unheard sigh.

The next day found us ashore on a new island. I watched Ratthi exclaim over wars waged in tiny forests of lichens in green and gray and gold on the rocky shore. Arada rode on the back of a gigantic tortoise while she took field notes of its habits. Mensah sat in the shade and drew detailed sketches of the birds that trolled the seashore for crabs with fantastical beaks. Volescu took samples of volcanic rock while Bharadwaj and Overse discussed weather effects on the terrain. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the sunshine. Meanwhile I stumped around the island perimeter in my own personal stormcloud, dark coat buttoned up in spite of the warm weather. I was ostensibly keeping an eye out for the emerald sea serpent that had threatened to swallow Ratthi whole a few days ago, or the ‘whalers’ that attacked us. Captain Mensah heard reports of unscrupulous trade companies patrolling these waters, searching for a fabled cache of treasure. Any one of us could have told them that our treasures were our notebooks and samples, not gold or jewels.

Of course there wasn’t much I could do in the face of danger, not compared to the merrow. I watched for it, to see if it still planned on protecting us despite what I tried to do. But it seemed intent on hiding itself from me.

A large smooth boulder arrested my attention on my third circuit around the island. It’d make a fine place to spread my ruined net. It was better than wandering around ‘patrolling’, anyway. I fetched the net from the ship, threw it over the boulder, and once again started the meticulous business of repairing the holes. That merrow really tore it to shreds, and I admit I gave a few fisherman’s curses as I tried to bind up the tears.

“Are you trying to capture boulders, now?”

I looked up and found none other than the merrow sitting in a nearby tidepool, glaring at me.

I instinctively looked away, hands up in defense of another water attack. Still the image had been carved and stamped into my mind like a woodblock print. Its powerful arms and legs, toned muscle covered in glittering scales, were sprawled akimbo like a child that never learned how to sit properly in a chair. A couple of knobbly starfish crawled over the driftwood-and-seaglass spears strapped to its arms. I suppose it could be mistaken for a human wearing flippers, except for its pale green skin. And of course I noticed its cap, a pretty fluttery thing like a flower-petal swim cap, reminding me it had the freedom to devour me whole if it chose.

“Are you speaking to me, now?” I asked. It didn’t answer, but it didn’t squirt me, at least not right away. I drew myself up. “Listen, Merrowbo—”

“Don’t say it.”

“…Fine, Merrow.” I had half a mind to go back to work and ignore it, let it tease me all it liked. But there were dangers out here no one on my crew had been prepared for. We needed this…Merrow.

I glanced over at the nearest tide pool to me. It was small but it would have to do. Merrow watched me with thinly-disguised suspicion as I knelt painfully on the sharp rocks. Then I held my breath and dipped my face below the surface. I startled a couple of crabs as I started to speak into the water.

Merrows arent the only ones that can speak the language of the ocean. Some humans possess the gift, too. I’ve sung my fair share of fish into my nets (maybe that’s how I was able to capture Merrow for a time), even if my vocabulary is smaller and my power much more limited. Still, I used it as best I could, requesting that Merrow continue to bless and protect us in the face of our enemies. I respected its wishes and didn’t evoke its true name. I even dropped a coin into the water, like some ignorant sea-worshipping bumpkin. I felt like an idiot. In the interest of my crew, I did it anyway.

When I came to the surface, it was laughing at me, because that was the kind of week I was having. I didn’t even know a merrow could laugh.

“I barely understood half of that,” it said, then, “And you didn’t apologize that time, either.”

I felt my ears go pink. “Sorry.”

It laughed again. I wiped my face and shook the water at the annoying creature, which of course it took as an ultimate offense. It glowered at me, and I thought it’d leap into the water and let me get back to work. And we would all be slaughtered by whalers trying to make a quick profit or eaten by sea creatures in a much more timely manner.

“I don’t like you,” Merrow said. “But I like the rest of them, and for some reason I don’t understand, they like you.” Its eyes took on a fairy-gleam that I didn’t like.

Then it grabbed me.

I really should have been more prepared, given our previous encounters. I screamed, which escaped in a stream of bubbles as it dragged me down into its tide pool—which was not in fact a shallow divet in the rocks, but a deep, dark shaft of water that disappeared into the very heart of the island. Its claws held me easily as I struggled, pulling me down, down, down. In my panic I almost gasped on seawater—Merrow’s webbed hand came up over my mouth and nose. I saw black spots. The water pressure became almost unbearable.

Suddenly we broke the surface, and I sucked in air. It was impossible. It seemed we’d been dropping hundreds of feet below the surface. There was no possible way we ascended again, so quickly.

Merrow ignored my confusion and just dropped me on an unfamiliar sandy shore. I managed to catch my breath and look around. We were in a cave of sorts, carved to form a bubble of air above the shore that I lay half-submurged in. Bioluminescent fungi dotted the ceiling. By their faint light I saw the cave was entirely filled with human trinkets. Adventure novels, mostly, as well as a stunning collection of paintings and sculptures and other artwork. Harps and accordions and harmonicas lay in careful arrangement along one side. Oh, and there were dozens of chests of gold.

“Captain Mensah is right, there’s a rival trade company after you,” it told me, while I stared. “They killed the other scientists sailing in these islands, and now they’re coming for you. They won’t stop until these islands are clear and they can search for the treasure they’re after.”

I squinted and picked something out of the sand. It was my silver penny whistle—my initials carved in the side and everything. It had gone missing in the first few weeks of our voyage. I thought it fell overboard in the storm. “Where did you get this?”

“I like music,” it said, overly-casual. “And books. And art.”

I pointed at the treasure chests overflowing with gold and jewels.

“…Sometimes humans leave me things when I help them. If humans wouldn’t bother me so much, I’d—” it suddenly put its hands on its hips and glared at me. “You don’t have to look at me, I’m not a mermaid!”

I again turned my eyes to the sand. I heard of the different kinds of merrow, of course: the beautiful ‘mermaids’ that lonely lighthouse keepers plucked from the ocean and forced to marry them. Then there was the other kind. The terrifying kind that killed with the cold calculating intent of an automaton. Of course, that distinction between the two kinds implied that our Merrow was some sort of ugly monster, and…well…

“You look a bit like a mermaid,” I admitted.

Merrow made a face, and jumped in the water with a splash. I worried it planned to leave me there, but then its voice filtered up through the water:

The fish in the area should know where the enemy ship is and when it plans to attack. But fish notice too many things and I don’t want to parse the information myself, it’s really boring. So you’re going to help me.

A fish leapt out of the water and landed in my submerged lap, tail slapping. It was followed by another, and another, all gathered around me in the shallows. An octopus tugged eagerly on my hand with a suction-cupped arm, while a battalion a crabs crawled up my knee. Soon I was buried in sea life.

I heard Merrow laughing at me through the water. I admit the situation was so preposterous I laughed as well, and the water seemed to swell around me for a second, almost affectionate. I think I might have blushed.

Then Merrow snapped, Did I use small enough words for you to understand? Get started, we don’t have all day.

…So I started speaking to them. Each sea creature provided a slightly different perspective of their undersea home over the last few cycles of the days and tides, painting a different tiny picture. It was a lot of information, most of it useless, but I took it and collated it bit by bit, shoving more talkative fish out of the away to make room as dolphins and sea turtles and sharks swam forward to give their reports.

The crabs that took up residence on my shoulders didn’t answer my questions; they just watched me. I think they serve the Merrow somehow. Its eyes and ears, perhaps?

I flicked one off my arm, and the Merrow flinched. I had to work hard not to grin, and continued my task without complaint. Soon I forgot all about the time I was losing to mend my net, or my concerns about the dangers my crew faced. After all, if you could help a merrow, even one that hated you—well, all the legends agreed it would help you in return.

When we finished the Merrow snatched me back under the water (by my leg, no less) and dragged me back through the tunnel to the surface. It dropped me unceremoniously on the beach before it disappeared, presumably to share our findings with one of my crewmates it liked better.

Still, when I stood up to brush the sand from my trousers (not that it did much good, there was sand everywhere), I noticed that my net had been mended. Strands of translucent green seaweed or algae stretched over where the holes had been, and it seemed to render the net even stronger than before. Of course I had no doubt that Merrow would tear it to shreds just as easily if I tried to fish in these waters again.

I found myself smiling anyway. Maybe the legend about Merrows charming humans under the sea is true, after all.