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Swim. Swim. Check. Swim. Swim. Check. Swim. Swim— Sparkly rock!
Put it in the collection pouch. Would it look nice next to the fancy wooden doohickey? Yes. It would.
The fancy wooden doohickey is gone. His entire collection is gone. Badminton destroyed it. Can't go home again.
No time to dally, Stede, food is priority. Need to move.
"Stupid fucking Bonnet and his stupid fucking trinkets."
"You shouldn't collect things that fall from the surface."
"Who cares about fucking rocks and flowers from the sea floor?"
"Waste of time."
"Waste of space."
"You can't even hunt food properly."
Swim faster. Farther. Away from home.
It's not home anymore.
Swimming for so long. His tail is tired. He has nowhere to sleep. He still needs food. He's not sure what food is safe.
Lost. Too close to the surface, unable to care. Doesn't matter what happens.
"No one will miss you if you die out there, anyway."
Eventually, a light above the surface. Why is it so bright? Everything was dark, deep in the ocean's depths. Things are so much brighter here.
In the distance… is that his fancy wooden doohickey? The first one was destroyed, but it would be nice to have a new one for his new home, wherever that might be.
Getting closer to the doohickey, but it's so large. Stede's doohickey could fit in his hand. This one was as big as a whale.
Swimming up to it, stroking the side. Lots of little fish swimming around here. Could eat them, but none look familiar. Still not sure what he can eat up here.
Suddenly, something from above, scooping at Stede and the fish. Danger!
Try to swim away, caught. Tail tangled, can't pull it out. Being lifted above water.
Gasping for air. Fighting to escape. Claws not sharp enough, teeth not fast enough.
Dropped on top of the wooden doohickey. Is he being eaten? Is this what it feels like? Is he dying? There's no pain, but also no water. Stede needs the water. Needs to get back.
Suddenly being untangled, arm reaching for him. Selkie skin on the surface dweller's back. Arm is a threat. Must attack.
Bites hard, prepared to fight, but no strike comes. Trying to focus. Surface dweller is only staring at him. Stede doesn't understand.
So much noise, shouts coming from everywhere, but the surface dweller is silent. He holds up a hand and all of the noise grows quiet.
Eyes. So many eyes on him. Angry eyes. Angry eyes are dangerous. Stede learned that the hard way.
The surface dweller waves his hand and the eyes turn away. The other surface dwellers walk away. All but one.
Stede sniffs the air. A selkie, then. Just the surface dweller and the selkie remain, staring at him.
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"You're far from home, aren't you? Mermaids don't come up this far." The surface dweller addressed him, but Stede's mouth was still occupied, clamped down on his arm as if that would protect him if he was attacked. The blood was hot on his tongue, almost enough to burn him, but he couldn't let go. "Yeah, I didn't really expect an answer to that, I guess. Iz, can you go get me some bandages for when he decides to let me go?"
"I don't know about that, boss. Mermaids are fucking dangerous. Not sure I want to leave you alone with him." The selkie glared at him. Stede lowered his eyes—he didn't understand. The surface dweller had the selkie's skin. Surely it understood why Stede would see him as a threat.
The surface dweller rubbed Stede's head with his free hand. His face was very hairy, but Stede thought that he was smiling. "This guy? He's harmless. I just scared him. Go on. I'll still be here and alive when you get back."
The selkie looked skeptical, but turned away. At the last minute, he turned back, looking right at Stede. "If you hurt him again while I'm gone, I'll kill you." With that, he was gone.
Stede looked back at the land dweller, trying to discern if he was going to threaten him as well. It didn't seem like it, but Stede had been wrong before. The smile on his face became more obvious, teeth bright white against the black of his facial hair. "You're a cute one, aren't cha? You going to let me go anytime soon, cutie?"
It was surprise that made Stede open his mouth. He could hardly believe what he had heard.
The man pulled his injured arm back immediately, grimacing as he clutched it to his chest. The arm petting Stede's hair remained, and it would have been a simple matter to bite down again, but he was curious to see how the surface dweller would react if he remained peaceful. Stede wasn't violent by nature, anyway. The man had been right; he had only bitten him to protect himself. He was rather surprised by how much it was bleeding. He must have hurt him rather badly.
"Sorry." The word was whispered. It felt strange to speak without the comforting feeling of water filling his mouth once the words had escaped it.
At the noise, the man stared at him, as if questioning if he was hearing things. "Hey now, if anyone here is sorry, it's me. I pulled you out of the water. I'm sure that must have been quite the shock." Stede nodded, and the man ruffled his hair before continuing. "Now then, little mermaid, I'm Captain Edward Teach, and this is my ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. You can call me Ed, though. Who might you be?"
"Stede Bonnet."
"Stede Bonnet, it's a pleasure to meet you. What were you doing so close to the surface, hmm? Doesn't seem particularly safe. Not that I'm in any position to judge. Nothing pirates do is particularly safe." The man waved the arm Stede had bitten as he spoke, and while it was covered in blood, Stede could see many more old scars lining the appendage, covered by black marks that looked like they had been etched into his skin.
"Looking for… looking for a new home, I suppose." Stede was regaining his usual eloquence the more he accustomed himself to breathing in the air of the surface, but his voice was still rough, sounding completely different than its underwater tambre.
The explanation earned him a sad look from Ed, and he shifted to sit closer to Stede. "Yeah. That's why anyone goes to sea, I suppose. As good a reason as any."
"Why do you wear your selkie's skin?" Stede knew he had to ask. The sight of it had made him distrust Ed immediately, and he still felt his defenses up, worried about what such a thing implied about the character of his potential captor.
"Why do I… what? This?" He nodded his head at the selkie skin. "This is just a seal skin. Izzy gave it to me when I made him my first mate."
Stede couldn't believe it. There was no way he didn't know. "That's a selkie skin. The man who was here before. Izzy? He's a selkie. I can smell the sea on him."
Suddenly, Ed's hand was no longer on Stede's head, playing with his hair. It was ripping the selkie skin off his back, staring at it in disbelief.
When Izzy returned, holding bandages and a towel, they were still sitting like that, side by side, Ed too caught up in shock to respond to anything Stede said to fill the air. He was clutching at the selkie skin like a lifeline, staring at it like it contained all the mysteries in the world. Izzy didn't seem pleased at the situation.
"What did you do to him, you fucking fish?" Evidently he had brought Stede the towel, and he threw it at his face in his anger. Stede accepted it, though he didn't appreciate the attitude. Selkies were always so angry.
"Nothing that you shouldn't have done yourself." Stede replied primly, starting to dry his hair. If he was going to be stuck on top of this ship, as Ed had called it, he might as well be dry. It was a novel sensation, not being surrounded by water, and Stede wanted to be able to appreciate it fully.
Izzy didn't seem to know what Stede meant, and he crouched in front of Ed, tilting his head up to look him in the eye. "Captain? Did he hurt you?"
"Iz… did you trap yourself on my ship?"
"Trap myself? No. What do you-" Izzy looked at the skin in Ed's lap, darting a glance Stede's way before putting the pieces together. "I suppose I did, just a bit. I did it willingly, though, Edward. You have to know that."
Ed thrust the skin into Izzy's hands, and it was clear that despite his reluctance to take it, he relaxed immediately upon having it in his possession. "I won't have you here against your will. I want you here, but not if I have to make you. You're my first mate, Izzy. My fucking best friend. Why didn't you tell me what you were giving me?"
"Edward, you have to understand. I didn't know how to tell you. What did you want me to fucking say? 'Ah yes Ed, here's my skin, if I don't have it I can't be whole, I'll be stuck on land, never feeling completely like myself.' Is that what you wanted to hear?" Izzy looked heartbroken, and Stede almost felt bad for outing his secret. He hadn't known what he was doing. He had assumed that Ed was intentionally keeping Izzy trapped.
"Why would you give it to me if it trapped you, you crazy idiot?!" They were starting to draw the attention of the other people on the boat, but Stede didn't know how to make them go away. He attempted a glare, which made some of them flee. He supposed that would be good enough.
"Because that's what selkies do! When we…"
Stede watched in horror as the silence stretched. It seemed that Izzy couldn't explain himself, and Ed didn't know. The plight of the selkies was well known underwater: it was common that land dwellers would steal a selkie's skin to force them into a relationship, as a selkie would be trapped on land without it. Many a selkie went on land just to explore the world, only to be trapped away from the sea, away from their homes and families, because they drew the eyes of land dwellers with their beauty. Those who stole their skins would promise its eventual return if the selkie would only love them. Of course, the skins were never returned, and those selkies wasted away on land, often dying of grief.
A skin stolen had a very different meaning than a skin freely given. Selkies would give their skins to their paramour as a confession of love and a promise that staying with them was more important than anything else. Generally, when a skin was gifted in this way, it was given back immediately as an acceptance of the courtship. If the suitor kept it, the selkie would be trapped with them, knowing their love was unrequited but still able to remain close to the one who held their heart.
If Izzy couldn't tell Ed what the skin meant, Stede could. It was the least he could do for opening the topic of discussion in the first place. "It means he's in love with you."
Ed's head whipped to the side, staring at Stede in shock before turning back to Izzy. "Is that true? Izzy, you have to know I-"
Izzy and Stede both stared at Ed, waiting for what he was going to say, but suddenly he topped over.
"Oh fuck! He's been bleeding this whole time. Fucking self-sacrificing idiot." Izzy was a blur of motion, suddenly stitching together the wounds from where Stede had bitten him. He was so quick that Stede didn't even see him pull the needle and thread from his pocket. Movements efficient, it only took a few minutes for Izzy to finish his stitches, starting bandaging the wound as soon as he bit off the end of the thread.
Stede wasn't expecting Izzy to scoop Ed into his arms, but once his wound was taken care of, that was exactly what happened. He looked far too small to be that strong, yet he didn't seem to have any problems. In the wake of the pair leaving, Stede wasn't exactly sure what he was meant to do. "Once you're fully dry, you can follow us to the captain's cabin. It's at the end of the hall."
Once Izzy was gone, Stede pondered over the order. He wasn't sure how Izzy intended him to follow. Crawling on the ground was a possibility, he supposed. It just didn't sound particularly pleasant. With the other surface dwellers ignoring him and Ed and Izzy gone, Stede could haul himself over the side of the ship and swim away, if he wanted. He wasn't being trapped anymore. But fleeing didn't have the appeal he thought it would. Ed was sweet to him, and it was clear that Izzy was kind in his own strange way. Stede had always wanted to know more about the surface, and this was the perfect chance to do that.
Weighing the pros and cons of staying, Stede continued to dry off. He didn't know what counted as "fully dry," but once he reached a certain point after quite a while spent in the sun, his tail started to feel strange. It didn't hurt, exactly, but was more like the entire appendage was vibrating. Stede started to panic, looking for water to fix whatever was wrong with him, but before he could do anything, he looked down only to realize he had legs.
He screamed.
The other land dwellers were looking again, glancing between themselves as if trying to decide who should go see what was wrong with their Captain's mermaid, but Izzy burst back onto the deck before they could make any moves.
"Get back to work!" The order was loud and the men scrambled to obey. Even Stede flinched away from the noise, but when Izzy turned back to look at Stede, his expression was calm. "Did they touch you?"
Izzy crouched down in front of him much the same as he had crouched in front of Ed earlier. It served to make Stede feel protected, but it also made him feel all the more nervous. "No. They. No! But. I have legs! Why do I have legs?"
"What?" The question seemed to catch Izzy off guard. "Have you not been on land before?" Stede shook his head, and Izzy's expression turned pitying. "Ah. Alright, come here then, little fish. Edward seems intrigued by you, but there's no way you'll be able to walk if you've not been on land before. It's even harder to learn how on a ship, or so I've been told."
Before Stede could ask what Izzy meant, the selkie's arms were sliding behind his back and under his legs, scooping him up. He squeaked, not expecting the sudden change of perspective from Izzy standing, and wrapped his arms around Izzy's neck, afraid of being dropped.
"If you choke me, we'll both topple to the ground, and that won't help anyone." His voice was even more hoarse than it had been previously, so Stede reluctantly loosened his grip. The walk to Ed's cabin was quick, and Stede was surprised to see Ed sitting up in the bed, using Izzy's skin as a blanket. Izzy sat Stede down beside the captain, who immediately wrapped an arm around him, tugging him closer. It looked as if Izzy was going to move away, but Ed grabbed him by the vest with his free arm, tugging him onto the bed to join them. Stede really wasn't sure what was happening, but he remained silent as Izzy settled on Ed's lap, spreading his skin over all three of them.
"Everything okay on deck?" Ed looked between the pair of them. It didn't seem to matter who answered the question, but it was clear he needed some sort of response. He was jittering with nerves.
Izzy rolled his eyes. "It was fine. This one just got spooked by seeing his legs for the first time." He nodded his head in Stede's direction, but he didn't seem upset that he'd been forced to go get him. In fact, he seemed much more calm than he had been when he was carrying Ed below deck. They must have had time to talk things through while Stede was getting dry. That was good. These kind strangers deserved happiness.
"First time, huh? What do you say to sticking around on the Queen Anne for a while then, Stede Bonnet? You said you were looking for a new home, and I figure our ship is as good as any. You could swim beside us whenever you wanted. Would be nice for Izzy to have someone to swim around with, now that he can use his skin again." There was a strange pink tint to Ed's face as he made the suggestion. Stede wasn't sure what it meant, but based on the fact that Izzy seemed to be silently laughing at him from his place on Ed's lap, it could likely only be a good thing.
Stede bit his lip. There was no harm in saying no, even though he felt like there was more to Ed's offer than what he was really saying. He could figure out what his intentions were as he went along, and if he had a good time and learned more about the surface while he did it, that was all the better. When he thought about it, the decision was an easy one. "Yes. I'll stay. I'd love to."
"Good. First order of business is getting you some clothes. Otherwise I think Ed is going to combust before we even get out of bed."
Stede didn't know what it was about that statement that made Ed tackle Izzy to the bed, the two men roughhousing and grappling at one another, but he looked forward to finding out. Really, he looked forward to finding out a lot of things during their time together. For the time being, however, he launched himself into the fray, laughing as he was accepted into the scuffle with open arms.