A Pirate in Time (Completed)

24

One by one, pieces of the world started to come back to me.

First was the pain. Fire blazed across my stomach, enhanced by the saltiness of all that had touched it. On top of that, my head was pounding like tortuous thunder. I wouldn't be surprised if there was blood coming out of my ears.

Next, was the tight dryness of my skin. My lips were chapped, and, unprotected from the sun, I was slowly being baked like an oversize chicken. I needed to drink something. I needed to rid myself of my sandpaper tongue.

My limbs were submerged in water, that much I could tell, but it was the hard, bobbing surface bellow me and the pressure on my wound that confused me.

I peeled my eyes open slowly, squinting as the harsh sunlight pierced through them. A groan escaped my lips and I turned my head to the side. What I wasn't expecting was for the weight on my stomach to be a hand keeping pressure on the newly wrapped gash. The hand was attached to a man. Jay, I realized. His head rested on the floating cargo barrels beneath me, and while one hand kept me from rolling out into the sea, the other was wrapped around the length of rope holding the barrels together. He was almost fully submerged in the water, and appeared to be asleep.

"Jay," I croaked. Barely any sound came out, so I tried again, a bit louder this time. "Jay."

His eyes fluttered open and immediately latched onto me. "You're awake."

I groaned at the stinging in my stomach, really wishing that I wasn't. "What happened?"

"Mutinous bastards took my ship from me," he muttered under his breath, glancing off in some direction of open ocean. Everywhere around us was open ocean. Usually that was a comfort, but in this scenario it was far from it.

"There was a mutiny?" I asked, pulling his attention back to me.

"They no longer see me as fit to captain the Marauder's Phoenix."

"So they threw you overboard?" I asked incredulously.

"No," he grumbled, "I jumped. If they'd had their way, I'd be quite dead right now."

"So would I," I said, staring up at the vast blue sky. What a mess my life had become. After a few moments of silence, I turned my head back to him, "How long have I been asleep?"

Jay shrugged, water lapping around his bare shoulder. It must've been his shirt wrapped around my wound. "Day and a half, give or take."

"You've been in the water for a day and a half?" I asked, looking at him worriedly, "Get out of the water, Jay. Dry out a bit."

He shook his head, "Only one person can be up there at a time."

"Then I'll come down," I said, already trying to get into the water. Jay's grip on my stomach tightened however, keeping me where I was.

"No," he said, "You're still bleeding. If you get in the water, you might end up attracting something to us. Then we're both doomed."

I looked down at the soaked red cloth binding my stomach and part of my arm, "It's not bad anymore. If it is still bleeding it's only a little bit."

"You're staying up there. That's final."

I studied him for a few moments before finally relenting. I looked back up at the sky as I tried to think about how we would get out of this. Something hit me then.

"Oh my god, the children!"

"Thomas will take care of them," Jay said absentmindedly as he put his head back onto the barrel. "They'll be fine."

That seemed to ease my worries a bit. Thomas was a good kid. He would make sure they were fed and cared for.

"What about us?"

"What about us?" Jay asked as he lifted his head from the barrel again to meet my eye. He looked exhausted. He probably hadn't gotten any sleep these past few days.

"Will we be fine?"

He looked away from me for a bit as he answered, "I don't know."

We fell into silence again, the sun slowly sapping our energy away from us. I looked to Jay and his drooping eyelids. He needed to lay down, out of the water, without the fear of one of us drifting away or drowning.

"Elizabeth?" he asked.

"Yeah?" I spoke softly, watching him watch me.

"Why don't you have a tail?" he flicked his head towards my partially submerged legs.

I smirked, "I'm not like that."

"Not like what?"

"I'm not a full siren. I don't shift when I hit the water. I have to give the order. If you hadn't jumped, I would've drowned while I was unconscious."

"But you do have one? A tail?"

I smiled at the curiosity in his tone. "Would you like to see it?"

He didn't have to say anything for me to know the answer. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my tail. Lavender scales, soft fins, and the raw power hidden inside it. I felt the itch crawling over my skin, but it wasn't just on my legs this time. The same itch spread across my stomach.

I opened my eyes to see Jay staring wide eyed at my newly formed tail. My curiosity, however, was more focused on the absence of pain on my stomach.

Jay's hand slowly moved from resting on my stomach to hovering over my thigh.

"You can touch it. It wont bite."

At that, his fingers lightly brushed against my scales. He ran his hand over the smooth surface a couple of times before looking back up to me with a small smile, "It's strangely soft, like snake skin."

"Yeah," I agreed, running my own hand down the side.

I reached back up and started to untie the cloth around my abdomen.

"What are you doing?" Jay asked confusedly.

"I felt something when I shifted."

We both watched in silent fascination as I pulled away the sticky cloth. Our eyes widened again at what we saw beneath. Gingerly, I ran my hand across the brand new scar.

As a jumble of thoughts ran through my head, I found myself pulling the collar of my shirt over my shoulder. The stitches were gone, and a thin line was all that remained. Now that I think about it, I hadn't noticed the pain these past few days.

I couldn't help but giggle like a hysteric, "I didn't even realize this had healed the other day! Man, being a mermaid is awesome!"

Jay was watching me with a certain wonderment in his eyes. I found it funny that the son of Neptune, a technical demigod, was staring at me like I was the most amazing impossibility he'd ever come across.

"Lay down and get some sleep, Jay," I said as I slipped off the barrels, "I'm going to go look around, see if I can find any signs of land, or food."

"Promise me you'll come back?" He asked, clutching onto the barrels as he watched me bobbing beside him.

"I promise."

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A/N

Thank you so much for being an awesome bunch of readers! This early update is a celebration for reaching the top 100 in Historical Fiction! A Pirate in Time reached #98 today! Thank you for reading and keep up the votes and comments! Our next goal is the top 50!

-Megan