Stranded Together | Hermitcraft Mermaid au

Chapter 1: Change Of Pace

Doc sat in his "Captain's quarters", as he liked to call it, reviewing a map of what was supposedly the surrounding area. He rested his forehead on the palm of his hand and leaned on his desk letting out a sigh as he continued to stare at the map. The room swayed slowly and calmly with the waves of the ocean, allowing Doc to relax and his mind to wonder.

Not long ago, Doc had gathered some of his close friends and they set out on a large ship, sailing the seas in search of treasure and adventure. Mostly treasure. However, the group hadn't encountered much of either of these things over the past couple of weeks they had been sailing. Sure, they had come across some small patches of land, but nothing of interest or value. To say the least, the crew had had some pretty terrible luck so far.

Doc was quickly shaken out of his thought process by the loud slam of his cabin door hitting the wall. He flinched, pulling his head away from where it was resting on his hand and quickly turned towards the open door. In his doorway was Mumbo, looking slightly disheveled and breathing heavily. The black sleeves of Mumbo's dress jacket were rolled up to his elbows and his black tie, which he always insisted on wearing, was loosened around his neck.

"You might want to see what I just caught in the fish net," He said through heavy breaths, implying he had just sprinted to Doc's quarters or something of the sort. Doc raised an eyebrow at Mumbo as he pushed his chair away from his desk, stood up, and followed the mustached man through the door.

"I was trying to catch something that we could eat fresh, like some fish, instead of the stuff stored in the hull..." The two adventurers stepped onto the deck of the ship and the sea breeze ruffled their hair. 

The same breeze filled the off-white, open sails of the ship, propelling the boat through the calm ocean waves. Doc followed Mumbo around the corner of the "Captain's quarters" towards the back of the ship where the fishnets were cast into the ocean.

Mumbo continued explaining, "And I uhh- I suppose I kind of half succeeded..."

Confused, Doc started to question how one could only half catch fish, but he was caught speechless by the sight of some giant, bright red thing in the fishnet suspended in the air.

The fishnet was obviously damaged and a lot of the ropes that made up the net had been undone or cut, but that wasn't what shocked Doc particularly in this moment. The first thing to properly grab his attention was what looked like a massively over sized goldfish tail. 

The tail was colored a gradient from a peachy light color to more of a pinkish-red. His eyes moved from the tail along what seemed like the body of a giant fish, appearing covered with red scales. Doc also observes a few smaller fins along the fish like body as he continued to look over the thing caught in the fishnet. 

Strangely the bright red scales tapered off, becoming the pale skin of a male torso. Doc took some cautious and curious steps towards the creature caught in the netting, deciding it was some kind of half fish, half human.

"Wha...What is that?" Doc inquired to Mumbo while keeping his eyes focused on the fish creature.

"I-I don't know." Mumbo responded. The human half of the creature had a head of blonde hair soaked with water, red scales lining its cheeks, it had some strange amphibian ears or something, and what looked like gills on its neck. 

To add to the insanity of this moment, the creature looked like it was in pain and one of the creatures webbed hands was gripping at its side which dripped with blood from some kind of wound. 

 Breaking Doc's concentration on the creature was a recognizable voice with a southern accent calling out tho the two men, "Hey, I heard ya'll talking about something over here what's going o-...oh..."