Heart of The Sea

2

The sky was bright and blue.

White cotton clouds floated above. The sun was out again.

And the White Pearl was back at sea for its next voyage.

The crew was doing their tasks on deck. Some were attending to the mast, rigging, and sails. Others were just out and about.

"Erza, take over for me," the Captain handed the control over the ship's wheel to his first mate. She dutifully did as told.

It was already past noon.

They'd been in the middle of the sea for some time, headed towards unknown destinations.

Island to island.

Treasure to treasure.

Gold to gold.

T'was a pirate's life indeed.

Natsu went to the side of the Captain's platform, looking over the horizon where the sea and the sky met. His distinctive coat wasn't worn, leaving him in his brown boots, pants, and loose white shirt.

"What's bothering you?" Gray, the raven-haired, spoke with arms crossed. Shirtless.

He had noticed the Captain distracted over something since they left the port of Magnolia.

"Nothing."

"If it's nothing, then he wouldn't be carrying a long face from morning till now," Laxus, the 'scarred blonde', commented somewhere on the deck. Apparently, he had a good hearing.

A small framed girl went up the wooden stairs and to the platform, her blue messy hair bouncing along.

A bright smile was on her face as she handed a bottle of rum to Natsu.

Her name was Levy.

"Is there such a thing as a woman who calls herself 'the sea'?" Natsu asked no one in particular as he got the bottle of drink.

"Oh...that's a good one. Mermaids? I guess," Gray answered dismissively.

Remembering that the woman he saw that night had feet, Natsu shook his head,

"No. Other than that."

"Well, there is this story...," Now Levy decided to join in on the conversation.

He turned to her short height, urging her to continue.

"What was that about again...?" Levy thought deeply, "Ah! The Goddess of the sea."

She beamed at the recollection of it.

"Psh...fairy tales," a man with metal piercings ridiculed, he was folding the fishnet. He had forgotten to tidy it up before leaving the ship back in Magnolia.

The girl rolled her eyes at him. She always wondered why he would pick on her all the time. He was her personal bully.

"If it's just a fairy tale, then why are there real rumors about her? Huh? Huh?" she intentionally made herself look buff in the process, challenging the bully to say one more word.

"I have heard of myths about that...back when I was a child," Natsu remembered.

"Care to share?" Gray directed to Levy, reminding her that he was listening.

"Well, they say she's beautiful," she spoke so dreamily.

"They?" Erza was curious enough to listen in and steer the ship wheel at the same time.

Levy nodded.

"People who claim to have laid eyes on her...especially pirates," she clarified.

Glances were being exchanged among them.