The Speechless Sea

Chapter 2

The sea rose and swells and crashed like a wave. Spark split the sky brightly with flashing spears of lightneing. Guttering screeches of sea birds and men pierced the night sky which hung like death veil gurded by the kaylyx from which came sceaming demons of hell.

Arthur's ship - the Maria Sué - tossed on the brink of the braking waves like a toy lashed by water. All the happiness and light on deck was gone- snuffed out like light in a gust of wind- replaced by feat and dark seriousness as all the men tried to save the ship. But they couldn't. Ropes was ripped from their callosed hands as they tried to put the sails up and with a great tearing sound the fore sail tor in half and flapped in the wind like a wound. They bailed out pail upon pail of fruitless water but still the ocean lashed against them: like a foe.

Merlon swam strungly against the raging torrents of the storm, heart in his mouth as he watched the scene before him unfold and he bobbed impotently as the wings of the storm engulfed the ship, tossing it too and fro in violent chrism. His blue eyes shone a fearful reflection of the sailors' panicked cries.

"Sire we need to abandon ship!" a handsome young man cried from the poop deck to the prince, his dark skin flushed pale in fear as his gaze fixed on the chaos of the night. The blonde royal hesitated assessing the situation. He hair was plastered to his head a dark gold colour, and he was soaked through with sea wter and rain. Suddenly he nodded, decisively, his eyes stealy as he shared a look with the other man.

"Gwaine!" Lower the lifeboats!" He called to his dark haired quarter master, his usually smiling attractively stubbled face now serious with the situation, through the chaos and the flames he sensed the buring peril in which they stood. HE nodded and became shouting quickly, Irish lilt dancing over the storm to get into the small boats, to get into the water and to get the men into the rickety boats.

Suddenly a giant crack rent the air in two like the tearing ferocious tooth of a wild animal made of rage and wind and sharp knives of rain and howling like a wolf, and with an almighty claw it struck the main mast splinting it into tiny fragments and bursting into flame that danced and crackled their spiteful way down through the dark sky, pitering mites of fire across the for sail and igniting it in a burst of flame. The sky was fill of smoke.

Merlin swum alongside the boat, pacing up and down on the ungulate sea, looking desperately for a way to help the men. His heart was fixed on the beguiling blond, who even in the midst of the panic and catastrophe gleamed like an angel, muscular and lean, the merman was drawn to him. An invisible profound sense set into his cartilaginous bones and he knew that come what may he could not allow harm to before the effulgent prince who battle valiantly against weather nature, and the deadly sea goddess herself.

"Get to the boats!" Arthur called, his voice strung with command, over the sound of crackling flames making his hair glimmer and the saltwater shine like oil on his face.

"Sire! Where are you going?!" yelled Leon, curly haired in concern.

"I need to get Gaiuse!" he refferred to the kind eldery physician who had beena close family friend since childhood, had been sent below desk when the storm started for his safety. With a graceful leap he leapt across the mean of the flmaing mas now lying perpendicular to the boat, with the graceful flow of a dragon fly, lighter on his toes than the brush of silk on sunburned skin, and pulled open the door to his quarters to reveal his old friend.

"Gaiuse get to the boats!" Arthur pushed him firmly and helped him in to the life boat before stepping back to look around. Al of his men were safely off the burning ship now, their boats bobbing away except for one.

"Sire!" Leon called from the boat, but before Arthur could jump down to safety, the fire spread along the rigging reaches up to the fore mast, and a great gust of the sortming beasts howling breath brought it crashing down before him: he was trapped. The lightning chimed again, discordant through the night, striking rudely and hard like a tilt hammer or a mace.

Fire burns on every side of him except for a split second a small gap on the opposite side of the deck, without a moment hesitation, the prince arthur sprinted across the slippery wood of the deck, jumped up on to the creaking bannister, and lept into the the waiting jaws of the deep black ocean, arms and legs flailing as he flew, cutting a gracefull figure through the hot air of the burning night, until he bombed into the depths with a splash of water that hit his veins like ice in its coldness.

Above him the Maria Sué exploded, the gun power room finally catching a spark, and the sound reverberated mutedly through the freezing black ocean. Arthur tried to swim up but the great waves held him under and tossed him around, like a boneless ragdoll, crashing into floating flotsam that forced the air from his lungs. As his vision faded to blackness and he shnk into the depths of the dark seas, he felt a firm reassuring arm around his wait and then an inky nothing.

***

Merlin watched torn as the storm enraged and tossed the boat around like a toy, striking it with lightening and setting it on fire. He saw the prince working with his men and ordering everyone to abandon ship, the flames making his hair aglow with the golden light as he surely commanded everyone to safety. The merman's heart soared at the sight, watching the man who carried with him an ineffible sense of home for Merlin. Even across the distance, he made Merlin feel a sense of rightness that he had never felt in all his years swimming the languid ocean.

Suddenly The golden haired prince Arthur plunged into the water - ice cold and dark and raging in waves. MErlin knew there was no way he could survive - no human could. With a flash of his blue scaled tail he dashed into the water his eyes evolved for seeing underwater able to see through the bitch black of the sea, he located the figure of the young man suspended in the turgid surf as he desended into the depths below, the breath of his life leaving his in bubbles of precious air that fled from his mouth and his hair floating gently in the raging water around him- a moment suspended as the young prince sat on the border between life and death- his gasps hung like the broze halo of his hair lit softly by the burninck wreckage above. Merlin had to save him.

He used a burst of speed to shoot through the ocean and wrapped his arms around the Prince's waist, pulling him up to the surface but away from the burning ship. Fear sat squatly in his chest and burned his throat, the gnawing thought cutting through him as he dragged the other man's lifeless form from the chaos, scared that he hadn't been quick enough, he hadn't done enough. Merlin quashed the fears that sprinkled through him as he pulled the prince towards the hopeful shoreline, leaving the storm to rage behind them.