the sunken

[groundrules]

Image source.

THE SUNKEN

The silent, dark, opaque seas briefly clear for a short stretch, as the Pariah and Queen Zanyra advance into the Crossing.Below sleeps a graveyard of sunken ships in various states of decay — including the beautifully preserved Vernalis.

Sailors say she was the crown jewel of an army fleet and the fear of every sea she traversed, sinking at least three pirate ships. One day, she disappeared. Caladan Kreil, who met and survived the Vernalis in battle, swears her leader Oscar Santorini was a spartan rule abider who would never have neglected the dutiful upkeeping of his captain’s logs.

A school of vicious mermaids has briefly blocked the paths of the Pariah and Queen Zanyra, orbiting around the sunken ships below. They will dispel naturally, sailors say, when the tides turn within three days. Until then, the ships only make slow advance — and Caladan Kreil sees an opportunity to settle one of the sea’s deepest mysteries.

✘ OBJECTIVE: search the Vernalis’ captain’s cabin for his logs.

■ Characters who accept Caladan’s mission are lowered down in lifeboats and supplied pale skin-tight suits that are membrane-thin, adhesive and transparent. They settle comfortably once the wearer hits water, feeling weightless and emanating light signals — red for danger or injury, white for alert or fear, yellow to broadcast the wearer must return to land, and a calm greenish-blue otherwise.

■ The suits protect wearers from temperature and pressure drops and enable them to fully breathe underwater for four hours at a time. Suits must dry for at least two hours between uses.

■ Suit lights are visible underwater. The green light does not attract other sea creatures, but the red and white lights repel nearby marine life, except for mermaids.

■ You can magically speak and be understood underwater, although in a short range, as sound carries with more difficulty here.

■ Mermaids patrol near the Queen Zanyra and Pariah and swarm the wrecks of the sunken ships below, including the Vernalis. Many lair up in the hulls or raided cabins of the downed vessels.

■ To safely enter the waters, spill a little blood on a bait or make a lure out of fish entrails, toss it, then dive when the mermaids give chase. Alternatively, wait until the midday sun is at zenith and the sirens have been lulled listless or asleep for an hour.

■ Careful: swift, sharp-toothed and long-clawed, mermaids have an exceptional sense of smell and will pursue anyone who scrapes or bleeds beneath water. Although not entirely blind, many have a diffused vision and respond quicker to sound than to sight.

■ The mermaids are largely starved and reactive. Some help guide strangers, if they are offered food or help from natural predators, such as sharks, unfriendly large octopuses and strange tendrils of dark water that appear more prominently, the deeper you sink down. Bring a knife.

■ The Vernalis sits about one-hour’s dive beneath water. It seems to have been caught in a net of dark coral-like matter, without reaching the ocean’s floor. Beware the tendrils of this strange ‘plant’: those trapped within will find their energy gradually depleted. Some of the strings of corals have snagged pieces of preserved parchment or cloth, littered with the names of sailors or the verses of sea chants.

■ Those who reach the Vernalis may notice the ship has only been deceptive preserved — many doors, hinges and pieces of furniture have rotted from within, threatening to collapse upon wanderers. All mirrors, pieces of glass and reflective or metallic surfaces have darkened and become opaque.

■ Those who enter the cabin or hull of the Vernalis will find the quarters eerily silent, but for a methodical, rhythmic pulse — like the drumming of an unnatural, but living heartbeat. Time passes much faster here — keep track that your costume doesn’t flash yellow, and help swim up with those who can no longer transport themselves.

■ The Vernalis affects visitors differently: some are entirely immune, others are overcome by a deep, animal and inexplicable and paralysing fear, or by the urgent wish to flee. Others still feel sluggish, lost and comfortable, for the first time in years, starting to fall in a deep, unstirring sleep (that breaks once they return to surface).

■ Searching the cabins will reveal there are no bodies or bones aboard the Vernalis. The door of the captain’s cabin locks after each entry, both in and out, and must be heavily forced open — once inside, rummage through Oscar Santorini’s wealth of books and correspondence to recover some of the loose pages of his torn captain’s log, then return with your discoveries on land. Drop a thread link with your characters’ good work to receive a summary of the contents of the page they’ve uncovered.

QUESTIONS

PLOTTING

Comments

eda

[sansdoute]

( They catch her starving. The weak succumb, the strong triumph. She knows, her teeth know. Tried them on rope and the hard belly of the great, slow beasts that drift. They come from them, the two-legged fiends, come and throw glinting hardness down and catch her or her sisters in the sharp edges.

Today, they trapped her in braids of hard coral. Perhaps not the name. Cuts herself on the edge of it. They dress their slow-meandered creatures in it. The brown and the greys. In the water, she bled and her red nearly called a sister, whose starvation drove her to forget herself. They pulled her up before she could be swarmed.

And now she sits here, in a small round sleeve — "Shove'er in the barrel, aye!" — and she woos them with sweet blinks and song and the slow, coaxing flash of her generous tail. They say it is beautiful, that she is beautiful. It is fat and full and catches the light, and has only been bitten once at a corner, when a shark meant to have her, and the fin was not distorted.

Now, they one of of their two-legged vermin to her, and this — woman? — brings fish. She comes to the edge of her barrel, nearly lifting, mimicking the strange wide cleaving of the mouth they show her, when they mean her to be gentle. 'Smiles.' )

Feed? Feed. Why here? Feed? Feed.

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda is looking out at the sea when she hears the commotion and quickly turns toward it to see what's going on. She watches as the pirates heave something big on board -- oh, hey, whoa, that's a mermaid. For a bunch of men so afraid of human women, that's pretty gutsy, she's got to give them that.

Then she watches them shove the poor creature in a barrel, and yes, she feels kinda sorry for it. So she decides quickly to maybe make the creature more amenable to... not eating them all whenever she escapes and provide her with some food instead, so she dips into the kitchens to retrieve some of the fish stored there. Raw should be fine, right?

She then elbows her way through the crowd. ]

Hey there, get outta my way!

[ Finally, she approaches the mermaid and holds out a fish to her. The "smile" the creature gives her is impressively creepy, but well, coming form the Boiling Isles, Eda is pretty unfazed. ]

Yes, here's some food for you. You eat fish, right?

[sansdoute]

( Raw is fine. Strong stench, good, cutting. She catches the scent of it from where she swirls in the barrel's depths and crawls closer to the edge, claws hooked on the rim.

If she propels herself over, she'll topple the container — she knows, and so she does not. But her tail waves left-right, and the lightless beads of her eyes chase the shape of the waiting fish with unambiguous interest.

A webbed hand slowly creeps out, swatting at the fish. Closer. )

Yes? Yes. Yesss... yes! Yes... feed. ( Now, an hour ago, when the day was born. Always, she wants feeding. )

ota.

[inferus]

A

Wrath sinks down into the depths of the ocean without fear. Little can effect him, and so he does not worry as he slides further into the depths of the water. He does watch out for those who exist within his team. There are many traps within, and he is ready to assist any who are vulnerable to it whether it is a physical trap or the trap of the ship below.

He leans forward, grips hold, speaks in the commanding tone of the devil, difficult if not impossible to ignore.

He's calling you out of whatever mental control has attempted to wrap around your mind. The devil is stronger.

B

Within the ship itself, Wrath has been careful not to disturb anything that might fall to pieces. He takes a chunk from a mirror nearby if only because mirrors have been a recurring theme throughout their stay. However, his main focus is the captain's quarters where they've been told a secret may await them - the answers to years old questions.

His dark gaze zeroes in on the door as he levels his fist toward it.

C

Wrath can sense the magic is more at the root of this coral. He intends to go deeper still, but few mortals can withstand it. It's his second trip down, and he stares down at the length of it.

His gaze turns up toward the person nearest to him.

"There's more to discover below, but you won't survive it." Feel free to disagree with him, but that is Wrath's impression. "Stay or head above and wait for my return."

C

[downswing]

At this depth, the maws of the nether-sea's pressures tighten and clench and grind around him, pressure like prickling that fissures the inner linings of his lungs. He thinks it foolish — nothing has changed, but the instinctive, coring certainty that to slip steps or heartbeats farther southbound is to propel himself into the orbit of disaster.

Below, he cannot see more to discover.

Below, he blinks and thins his gaze, and the cracked round gasp of his surprise is a mute, sketched disturbance. He watches. Something watches back, in the way of predators that slither and prowl at the forest's edge, before their violence seeps over your skin like an oil's spill. He feels light-headed, as if the membrane of the suit has entombed him — as if he has far too long not been hunted before.

And this strange abstraction of power made man, Wrath, wishing to head alone. Lan Wangji remembers, distantly, a king among his blood-drenched creatures. Remembers Emilia pronouncing no fear of him. Remembers he is an observer, a companion, a stranger — superfluous. Do not barter in gossip.

"Half an hour's escort down." A simple compromise. Past that, he cannot lay claim to venture. This, he can offer — must offer. And to sweeten the agreement, "Emilia would wish it done."

[inferus]

There is a familiarity to these depths.

The magic hums and calls to him, but so do the predators which surround. They are not like the ones in the Underworld. He has yet to catch glimpse of anything more than the mermaids, but he understands hunters and monsters. Given he keeps one chained inside of him at all times, he understands them - the claws and teeth.

Wrath stills at the voice. His gaze lingers on Wangji, and he knows the truth of what he says. This world has proven to have an effect on both his powers and what he is capable of withstanding. She would worry even if she is also aware (more now so than ever) of how nearly impossible it is to kill him. This world changes everything, and Wrath has no intention of taking unnecessary risks, but the group deserves the best chance it can have in a world so stacked against it.

He intends to find out what he can. So he nods simply at the answer.

"You should not go further than what is safe for you." Wrath is aware few could survive such depths - thirty minutes is a reasonable amount of time to follow but no more than that. There is a longer pause. "Emilia would wish that as well."

B

[traaaaaash]

Eda swims along, taking in their surroundings with curiosity. She's been on ships before, sure -- mostly to rob them -- but a shipwreck is new. Not that there's that much to see. Mostly stuff you'd find on a regular ship, just falling apart and overgrown with sea life. She does note the mirrors, and before they entered, she snagged some pieces of parchment from the coral.

When they reach the captain's quarters and the guy next to her seems to want to punch it open... well. "You sure you wanna do that? You're gonna catch splinters."

[inferus]

Wrath does stop and then turn toward the voice. As much as he should like to rip the door from its hinges, there is another reason to be concerned especially due to the state of the ship itself.

It looks as if it's barely holding on.

"I worry more about destroying the ship than splinters."

ota!

[downswing]

i. ahoy, vernalis

( Beneath, water whispers him tame, easy. As if, limbs like lead, inertia lulls him with listless inevitability. Water roils thick, fricative. When he breathes, the costume’s membranous skins nearly choke him — then he settles, between artless dives, body forgetting the natural paranoia, the instinct to drown.

When the sirens abandon their posts for the distant blood-bathed bait, he heads for the Vernalis.

You’re an animal thing, aren’t you? Magic suspends priorities of physics and order, but biology remembers. Hand drifted to his throat, to his temples — above him, water spumes and coils. Beside him the wreckages of ships sprawls like an empire of hungry mouths and scoured rib cages. He breathes in shallow, measured heartbeats.

Beside him, his day’s companion is a burst of diffuse light, the pale greened jade of proper functions. This, from night hunts, he remembers — there is strategic advantage in two persons pursuing the task of one. Caution and efficiency are both satisfied.

He accepts person as his shadow and seeks, sinking down, to make no nuisance of himself, when they dissect the old bones of ruined vessels in their path, then make a corridor between a galleon’s crossed masts, then stumble, at long last upon the Vernalis — where Lan Wangji nudges, and a cabin door howls and creaks loose, rust-ridden and strong, before it nearly topples over.

He dashes back, blind to his companion behind him, to the force of his own retreat, to his shoulder striking a nearby wall —

To the cabin spilling dust, rattling, threatening disintegration —

To the mermaids that swarm, then erupt out of it, evacuating the premise with such haste and conviction that they spare Lan Wangji not a beady glance —

While the entire cabin starts to gently, patiently crumble beneath their eyes, Wangji’s hand hovering by the knob. The rest of the door may or may not have nictated into ashes, infesting the water beside them.

...well, then. )

The path is clear.

ii. there goes the shark neighbourhood

( There is a shark.

Statistically, the apparition sits — drifts — in the liminal space between marine inevitability and an extraordinary spectacle of Lan Wangji’s particular misfortune. It shimmies, gallantly cutting through water with the natural grace of any sharp-toothed menace who has decided to make its next meal your purgatory.

The trouble isn’t the shark’s daily excursion to bask in its territory, the latest catch of the currents, the braids and nets of coral that have dexterously shielded Lan Wangji from animal threat so far.

It’s just that this shark is so very, overwhelmingly… pathetic.

Too slim, to start. Angular and unwieldy, its eyes mismatched. Maws fully armed, but the back of its teeth lame. Its colours splendiferously… beige. The fish it petrifies out of its path appear comically complicit, like a veteran courtesan coaxing a fresh patron that she is a virgin suited for the bridal veils.

As it prowls, the shark appears to sneeze.

It’s… heart-breaking to watch.

Lan Wangji, who has never encountered an animal he would not draw to his chest, feels at once compelled to flee as a matter of the shark’s dignity, embarrassed to witness its floppy advances, and privately confident that to end its ungainly life now would be to do it a kindness. Even the Vernalis, a house of ruins below and behind him, seems belittled by the shark’s presence, like a tavern’s reputation destroyed by vocal drunks.

Gaze either thunderous or cataracted, the shark dashes towards the general vicinity of where Lan Wangji and his nearest, dearest companion are hidden —

And nearly blunts its nose against the coral net, sparking the pulses of the plant’s magic and depleting itself of vigour. It seems even more tragically foolish and wayward than before, now.

And Lan Wangji, shame-bound to behold this: )

Its... life is yet struggle.

( Look at this shark. Heavens above, it’s somehow alive, but floating miserably on its back now. )

iii. the deck meet-cute interlude

( After, he is a dragged thing, tattered and torn and ruined. He knows himself — an agglomeration of silks and bruises, stuffed and corseted in the glistened, sidereal skin of the membranous suit. He divests it no sooner than he has writhed back on deck, like a fish cleaved from stormed waters.

Perhaps he is.

Imprecations greet him, the roiling zest of tempers run ragged and thin, their ends fraying. Captain Kreil metabolises the sight of him with a smile all red-ready teeth, then spits him out with clunky, callous instructions to strip him of any paper he carries, then of the diver’s garments.

Sailors scavenge him: the suit, his parchment. The crew would even claim the trinkets born of Wangji’s negligent exploration, but Caladan Kreil sees the dewy swell of fat fresh pearl in his hand, the catch of snagged reddened coral, the roof of abalone, its shell oily and dark, and rounds Lan Wangji’s fist around them. He keeps his loot.

Then, they abandon him, alone on the deck like a homely courtesan or the babe of a misalliance.

When he falters, prey to the sudden, imminent sickness of understanding what they witnessed below, at the Vernalis — when his pearls and sea findings spill from his hand to spatter on the deck like constellations — he’s slow to stay their course.

Too slow, by far, and dazedly lethargic to collect them on his knees, when they roll beneath the step of a passer-by and nearly trip them. )

Apologies.

ii.

[traaaaaash]

[ And Eda is there to behold the creature with him. It truly is a unique sight.

Or, well. Truthfully, Eda doesn't know. She's not exactly too familiar with marine life. But hey, you know what? Eda is a weirdo, and an outcast, and if there's one thing she respects, it's creatures who are the odd ones out.

Which... means that she has the compulsion to defend the shark's honor. ]

I don't know, is it? Maybe you're just assuming that.

[downswing]

( Do not gossip. Do not speak with malice. Do not assume ugliness of truth or heart, where ignorance and misunderstanding may have painted a matter in false colours.

Of course, he may be mistaken.

But then, the shark majestically rolls over halfway, until it appears to drift on its side, as if neither gravity, nor the currents, nor common sense can prevail upon it to resume the motor functions that do credit to its biology.

A school of rattled fish swarms, seemingly troubled that the shark might have fallen into catatonia. It shivers a fin in their direction, either urging them to scatter, or to push it over. They flee, perturbed.

Lan Wangji, astounded, drags a hand to shield his mouth from the temptations of vocal horror. )

...perhaps. ( He could sound less dubious, if he made attempt. )

iii. the deck

[blackscales]

[ Wrathion watches Wangji scramble for his dropped belongings with detached curiosity.

This is, after all, a much less polished version of a man who was usually so... aloof. Together. Primly turned out, dignified.

A sailor mutters something as they nearly slip on the pearls, and the dragon watches one slowly roll closer to him and the corner of the deck that he's sat in propped up against a crate. He picks it up, examines the pearl curiously. In his lap, a notebook is open with sketches -- the ship, a few of the sailors, their partner ship, the 'island' they stopped at. A small pouch is laid in the middle of it, half obscuring some of the drawings, with a small number of blue stones tipped out to examine. ]

Not a bad specimen. If we ever find our way to a place with a decent market you could probably sell those.

[ He offers it back, cradled in an open palm. ]

[downswing]

( The deck is uneven. No, the ship's currents drag the great, wailing beast and angle her, trembling. Thoughts scattered, he watches the great, laughing tumble of the beads at leathered feet, sees the round, greedy swell of one tickle the underside of Wrathion's heel.

At the last moment, he steals his hand away before a pirate's broad step can crush it. And beside him, Cleanse the decks, strip'em sails, come, lads, come from a coarse mouth, then pirates setting to the first mate's task. The heartbeat of a ship doesn't still for Lan Wangji's graceless inability to secure his treasures.

He strains himself to catch the lion's share of his beads, sinking them in the pooled nest of silks that straddle his lap, as if he were a laundry woman recouping drenched sheets before giving them their second rinse. Light assists him, still enough of the moody, hungry midday pallor left to wash the deck seen.

Sell these, Wrathion speaks, and Lan Wangji at last raises his gaze limpid, glacial, slow. )

They will make unworthy gifts. ( And the reprimand, light, invisible: Not all that glistens is gold to gain. Not all bears a sale price. ) You are learned in their cleansing?

( Guts of seaweeds in thick rivulets still bathe some of these pearls, and Lan Wangji fears, as all men should, to scratch their veneer, if he works coarsely.)

I.

[northerndragon]

Seven hells.

[He mutters the words as the whole place seems to crumble. The only comfort is that it won’t crush them if it collapses, because it’s quite far along already.]

He expects the logs to have survived this?

[downswing]

( An unseemly, rasped, childish thing is the discourtesy of a teeth-ground mutter. Somehow, past the visible constraints of his blinding-jade-lit suit, Lan Wangji prevails to make his petulance known: )

They expect us to survive this.

( And Lan Wangji, reduced to a stiff nod and the smell of burned dust in his drenched surroundings, drifts quietly to inspect the remains of the toppled cabin. Residue brittle in his hand, like paper scorched. What candour matter has, that it should return to the same primitive qualities, no matter what environment houses it.

He had expected, at wild sea...

But it stills something in him, to wrench out the viscera of one semi-preserved lining from the door frame and find the piece of wood — )

...husked?

iii. the deck meet-cute interlude

[reaction]

( being a newcomer, damon's got absolutely zero interest in volunteering to go down to the vernalis. firstly, he's still unclear as to what the heck is even going on here, except for the fact that there's a lot of doom and gloom and more of it incoming apparently. secondly, he doesn't care enough about anything or anyone here to justify trying to be a hero. thirdly, he doesn't need an excuse to not want to do what he doesn't feel like doing. )

None needed. ( he'd stepped on the pearl on purpose to stop it from rolling away. damon crouches down in front of the ninja looking person, dropping what passes off as a blanket over his shoulder. it's clean. he sweeps his hand across the floor, collecting a few more of the pearls before depositing it back in the man's hand, making sure that he's not going to drop it again before he lets go. ) You look wrecked. ( totally not an exaggeration even. ) Was it worth it? I'm thinking, maybe a few more, and you might be able to make a bracelet for an infant.

( he's been watching the dive efforts, occasionally helping to pull people out of the water, assist with distracting those pesky mermaids; just trying to listen in on conversations and things like that, but honestly, he's not getting much information from anyone. still, this beats taking on another shift in the galley. )

please sir, help this men find his balls

[downswing]

( Weight-warmth on his back, where old scars burn taut under layers of silk bound tight like a wet knot. He feels it soft-scratched against his leaning cheek, before his skin tastes the quiet, flinched indifference of coarse linens, arming him the cold.

No need. He thanks with a mute mouth, gaze diffuse — pressure finally released of his lungs, each breath a calculated progression. The slow drip of water from his hanging hair fits the gauges and ravines of old deck boards, foot-battered.

One of the pearls slips back into a wooden crevice. He looks up, and — ...ah. No. In his hands, now. )

Retain them. ( Rasped, fighting its way out of him. ) They were... residue. Not the cause of submersion. Hundreds of dead sleep below.

( To the victor go the spoils, and there's blood with this gain, for all Lan Wangji's hands come impossibly, impertinently clean. Fingers curl, white knuckled, around the pearls Damon had positioned in his hands. Fists release. He feels like an immaculate ghost of himself, solicitously beholding the music box gears of his body winding, unwinding. He does not own this flesh. It screams at him unanswering.

When he clutches what he can catch of Damon's limbs beside him — an arm, the joint of a knee, indifferent — it is to anchor himself in rise and speculate, at the last moment, that the mean, ached sway of the ship, fighting fresh currents, will not break his footing.

A fool's gamble. One, dead weight, fell seamlessly. This round, he seems intent to also coax Damon down. )

meet-cute meet-cute

[cairhien]

( she doesn't see the trinket coming but with the voice that comes with it she can't be angry at the carelessness. instead, she crouches by him, helping him gather his things back up, a hand reached out towards him as if to gently check him over, concerned about those bruises )

You're safe at least.

Eda Clawthorne | The Owl House

[traaaaaash]

1. talking to herself

[ So one thing Eda has found out is that the water has mermaids, and the mermaids are hungry. Therefore, it might be beneficial to bring some fish on her journey into the waters below. Might make the mermaids less troublesome.

Which means that she's sitting on deck now, eyes closed brows furrowed in deep concentration, as she tries to convince her inner Owl Beast to help her catch some fish. ]

What? No? [ A pause. A flurry of expressions plays on her face. ] Can't you make an exception?

[ And the same happens again, this time shorter. Finally, Eda's eyes shoot open and she groans. ]

Fine, I guess I'll get a fishing net.


2. a many-legged friend. or foe.

[ Okay, so this diving suit thing is kinda cool. She guesses. The lights are certainly something. She actually spends some time just swimming around and exploring, because she's never been under the sea. The sea in the Boiling Isles is, well, also boiling. Even the steam can give you burns.

Which means she's gonna be taking a bit of advantage of this opportunity to sea what the ocean is like, okay. So she will be seen drifting among corals, wide-eyed, admiring their beauty.

Until, that is, she is rudely disturbed by a mermaid zipping by in a rush, closely followed by a giant octopus. She is obviously being chased. And, well, maybe Eda has developed a bit of a soft spot for the mermaids, or maybe she just wants revenge for being disturbed -- either way, she swims after them and takes her staff out, which she then promptly swings into the octopus's side. ]

Take that, tentacle boy! ... or girl. Or other gender. Can't tell what you are and don't care.

[ Except, uh oh. The octopus is angry now. But hey, it's quite distracted from the mermaid. That counts for something, right? ]


3. the living room

[ Eventually, though, Eda makes it to ship. She swims along the outside, nothing the dilapidated state everything finds itself in, until she finds an entrance that seems just about stable enough and swims inside.

Behind her, some wooden planks fall and crumble, but she's safe for now.

Then she hears it.

The drumming sound, quite similar to a heartbeat. As if the ship was alive. ]

Wow, it's just like home.

[ Okay, Eda. Don't let the homesickness hit you. Not too hard at least. Still, for a moment, she just stays there and listens. ]

Spock | Star Trek

[intermingled]

Do the Panic
[ Though diving poses dangers no worse than a space-walk in a suit, this is quite different. Technology is something Spock can understand and he can therefore trust in the statistics of its likelihood not to fail him. These suits are something else and Spock finds himself uneasy even as he swims through the water towards the wreckage below. It appears to be working, but he cannot help the skepticism he feels.

It's once he gets into the wreckage that he feels something wash over him. It's fear like he's never felt before, heart pounding at his side and suddenly he wonders if the suit has failed him. Is he breathing water now?

In a panic, he gets turned around in the fallen ship, swimming deeper rather than back the way he came as he slaps and punches at the wood of a door only to find it's a long-pilfered storage area. ]

Turn the Page
[ He can still feel his heart pounding as he as he works to pry open the cabin door and he's using every ounce of Vulcan control he has to not let it overwhelm him. He's found a few pages and once the door is once again open, he takes a moment to steady himself before he makes his way out of the wreck. He's careful of the dangerous plants outside, mindful of the local wildlife, but the mermaids are faster than he is in the water and before he knows it, one of them has caught up to him as he ascends, lured by the smell of blood from a scrape he hadn't noticed along one of his knuckles.

There's another light approaching, but Spock can't warn them until they're close enough to hear him and as he kicks away the mermaid that has tried to latch onto him, the light is only growing closer. ]

Look out!

turn the page.

[inferus]

[ Wrath is aware of the mermaid even from a great distance. He watches as it rushes forward, and he can smell the blood in the water himself, knowing it is what draws them near to the individual trying to return aboveground. He moves supernaturally fast even within the water, and then takes hold of the mermaids hand in a vice grip, followed by her hair as she attempts to lean forward to bite him.

His grip on her hand tightens, and the mermaid screeches out in pain as her claws crunch beneath his grip. She may be a monster, but so is he, and he is far worse than her, worse than the sharks that pursue her. He lifts his gaze toward the individual near. ]

There are entrails in my bag. Grab some and toss it as far as you can. [ It would be easy to kill the mermaid, but he does not, for the moment unless she proves to be a continued threat - a creature of hunger and violence which knows little better. ]

[intermingled]

[ Spock is not particularly interested in violence and the force he's used so far is more about his own escape than hurting the mermaid, so he doesn't hide the way his eyes harden at the sight of the mermaid's scream.

He steels himself against any sort of reaction and reaches for man's bag, though, pulling out entrails and throwing them with all of his Vulcan strength. It's better for them all that the creature gets away to eat and lick its wounds away from them and then they can escape. ]

Release her.

Daenerys Targaryen | A Song of Ice and Fire

[song_of_fire]

I.

It was midday by the time Dany was lowered into the waters. There was no sign of the mermaids for now, but Drogon circled not far above Dany's head. His red eyes watched the waters for the first ripple or indication that one of the creatures had woken up from their sleep. He was a precaution, though she doubted that her dragon thought of it that way. Mermaids were his preferred meal, this voyage solidifying it.

Dany would only be able to count on him for a time. Nearing the quarter point, she was certain that her dragon could no longer dive in after her. There were shadows from what she could see, mermaids stirred awake by the presence of others in the water. Had someone bled? How were they awake already?

Dany moved as quickly as she could while trying not to draw attention, but the sudden shift in color of her suit had her stopping, searching frantically for the danger nearby. The mermaid knocked into her, the claws tearing at the suit but missing Dany as she tumbled backwards in the water. It was near on top of her, grabbing at her with its mouth wide open, gleaming teeth ready to tear at her.

There was a flash of black and red. The mermaid was snatched up before Dany understood how near she had been hurt. She wouldn't see Drogon, but she could imagine him bursting from the waters with his prize between his teeth.

The dragon wouldn't be full yet, she hoped.

II.

In the wreckage, the ghosts of the dead seemed to be painted on the walls. There was no sign, no sound, only the overwhelming sensation of fear. Where Dany never feared such things before, she found herself jumping at every shift in the wood around them. There had been instructions where the notes might be, but in the heat of the moment, it slipped her mind.

She circled around, checking the same rooms in her anxiety. When finally she found the desk, time was running out. She could only bite her cheek to keep from panicking, digging through the desk hurriedly, overturning contents as searched through.

It would take an hour to swim up, not counting the now awake mermaids. Time, time was something she didn't have, but still she searched.

II

[northerndragon]

They’ve made it down here well enough with Drogon’s aid, but now that they’re here, Dany seems more skittish than she had on the way down. Might be that them coming down together wasn’t a good idea, but it is harder for one of them to stand on a deck for hours waiting for the other to return — so he’s gone down with her.

“At least this one isn’t full of mermaids,” he says, blandly.

In her suit, she would be a strange and pretty one, but the mermaids are so vicious that he does not like to think of her that way. He joins her in searching the desk.

[song_of_fire]

She had been glad for him, if not extremely worried about his safety. Jon was comforting and grounding, something she needed as they descended further and further into the depths. But now that they were in the ship, she was anxious, her chest so tight she almost couldn't breathe. The time limit and the sense that something might be there, she could feel her skin crawling. She wanted to be done, but that meant she wasn't searching as carefully as she could be.

"Not yet," she murmured, rifling through the papers, only giving them a cursory scan.

"We shouldn't linger. If mermaids are distracted, we have sharks to worry about. Drogon can't reach us here."