2 CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST ENCOUNTER

One clear morning, Marina was swimming in the outskirts of her community when a shoal of fish quickly swam towards her. The siren stopped her swimming and allowed the fish to get closer to her; she was worried that something bad was happening if the fishes were swimming so fast.

"What is going on little friends?" Marina asked the fish. Although they could not speak in the same way they did, sirens could communicate with all the animals in the ocean, and thanks to this Marina was capable to understand the fish when they told her somebody was pushing their friends out to the surface.

The girl followed the fish to the site where the captures were taking place, and once she arrived she was surprised with what she saw: a strange group of things similar to thin seaweed intertwined with each other created a type of barrier that captured the fish and pulled them up to a strange oval-shaped object floating in the water surface.

Attracted by this peculiar object, Marina swam towards it. She pulled her head out of the water and looked upwards. She was much more surprised with this new object: it was very big and she could not find the words to describe it; it was colour brown, similar to some corals she had seen before, and when she touched it, she felt it was scratchy, something she had never felt before.

While she was distracted contemplating the object, the thing made of thin seaweed started moving up and out of the water. Marina did not notice this until she heard some shrieks come from her left side. She looked over in that direction and was horrified with what was going on: her friends were being pulled out to the surface!

"NOOOOO!" Marina screamed by this sight.

"Hey, did you hear that?" a male voice asked.

Marina looked in the direction of the voice and she could see a man and a woman standing on top of the brown object, and she could also see they were the ones controlling the object taking out the fish from the ocean. Marina wanted to scold them for their actions, but she submerged instead. One of the lessons she received since she was a little mermaid was that no one from the surface should ever see her, and that was why she refrained herself from scolding the humans, but once she was underwater she made a plan. She swam to the fish, grabbed some of those intertwined seaweeds trapping them and started to pull them with all of her strength. She thought that if she pulled hard enough, the seaweeds would break and her friends would be free; but her efforts were useless, as these things did not break and started to pull her out of the water as well.

Marina felt a crushing sensation in her fingers, and she noticed she was being pulled up as well and all the fish were now crushing her hands with their weight. She tried to let the seaweeds go, but the weight of the shoal did not let her open her hands. Marina got scared by this, as she could only see how she was pulled slowly out of the water and started to comprehend that she would share the same fate of the fish. The fear paralyzed her and did not let her notice the moment she was up on the brown object.

"What is this?" a female voice asked surprised.

Many people started gathering around the girl who had spoken, and everybody was seeing the same creature with the same expression on their faces: surprise. The sudden sound of a woman shouting took them all out of their trance. "What is going on here!? Why are you not working?!" All the people stepped aside to let the woman pass and get to the front of the circle of onlookers, and once she made it through, she was as surprised as everybody else with the image before her eyes.

She had a real siren right in front of her.

Marina stayed still the whole time keeping her head down, listening to the people around her talking to each other; but when the voices stopped, she raised her head and looked at the crowd surrounding her: there were many men and two girls who looked like her except they did not have a fishtail. Marina looked at every single person trying to understand what was going on, and when she laid her eyes in one of the girls she was mesmerized, as she was one of the most beautiful living beings she had ever seen. Unfortunately for the siren, her moment of bliss would only last few seconds.

"Quick! Get the ropes! Do not let her get away!" the second girl shouted, making all the men be on alert and follow her order.

"What are you doing?" Marina asked scared by the fuss taking place around her. Suddenly she felt she could not move her arms, as if they were glued to her body; the next thing she felt was somebody pulling on her tail, gradually taking her up until she was hanging upside down.

The girl who had given the order of getting ropes got closer to Marina and looked at her to the eyes while caressing the siren's cheek with her index finger; then, she turned around to face the men and exclaimed: "Gentlemen, this creature will make us rich!" Everybody started shouting in excitement, scaring Marina with all the noise they were doing. The siren was so scared she did not hear the men being ordered to take her down to the prison, and the following moments occurred in a blur of darkness, a couple of bumps in her head and finally a room with a solid wall and another three made of bars. When she saw them, Marina understood these people would do something bad to her and she started crying as this idea dawned to her.

A couple of hours later, the captain was in her quarters making plans to show off her prisoner in different towns around the world and earning a lot of money with the exhibitions. The sound of someone knocking at her door pulled her out of her thoughts. "What do you want?!" the captain shouted mad with the interruption.

"Captain, may I speak with you?" a female voice asked on the other side of the door.

"Come on in," the captain answered once she noticed it was her shipmaster, who went inside once she had the permission.

"What do you want to talk about?" the captain asked trying to sound calm.

"I would like to talk with you about the siren," the shipmaster answered. The captain smiled noticing her most loyal sailor was interested in the same topic as her.

"Capturing the siren has been the very best thing that could have happened to us," the captain said with slight emotion.

"No doubts about it, captain. But… are you sure is it a good idea to exhibit her?" the shipmaster asked.

"Of course it is a good idea!" the captain exclaimed. "Just think in all the money we will earn by showing her off to the world. We would never have to risk ourselves and attack other ships anymore. We would live like queens."

"I know, but… What if something goes wrong?" the shipmaster asked with slight trepidation.

"I have been planning all this carefully. Everything will be okay, Charlotte. Trust me," answered the captain confident of her words.

"I hope so, Anna," Charlotte said. Captain Anna cleared her throat, a sign she used to point out something was wrong. Charlotte got the message quickly and corrected her mistake.

"I am sorry. I hope so, Captain Anna."

"That is much better," Anna replied. "Now, leave." Charlotte did a small bow with her head and left the quarters.

Once outside, the shipmaster went down to the prison. She had to cross the level in which the crew slept without waking up anyone, and once done, she only had to go through the storage level and she would make it to the prison.

When she arrived, Charlotte walked slowly and carefully to not make any noise that might wake up the prisoner. As she was getting closer to the cell, she could appreciate the siren better. When they had crossed sights on the deck hours before, Charlotte was mesmerized not by the fact of having a siren in front of her, but by seeing the most beautiful girl in her life. She found it hard to believe such a beautiful living being lived deep in the ocean.

Charlotte stayed looking at the siren for a while and then decided to leave. She started walking backwards slowly so she would not make any noise, but her efforts were in vain when she hit a tin cup with her heel. The cup made a noise loud enough to wake Marina up, and the siren started looking around her groggily, laying her eyes on Charlotte who was hidden in the shadows. The shipmaster noticed how the siren was getting scared with her presence and how she was trying to curl up in a corner. Charlotte raised her hands in front of her to show she was unarmed and had no intentions to hurt her; then, she started to walk slowly to the cell.

"Do not worry. I am not going to hurt you," Charlotte said while getting closer to the cell. Marina just kept looking at her with fear. It was hard to believe the human girl would not hurt her considering just how hours ago she did not help her when the other humans were taking her down to the prison.

Once she was close enough to the cell, the shipmaster kneeled and looked at the siren directly to her eyes. "See? I just want to talk with you," Charlotte said while keeping her open hands in front of her. Marina was still unsure about the girl's intentions, but noticing her efforts to show she was harmless, the siren decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and started to crawl to the bars. Once both girls were close enough to each other, Charlotte could see better how Marina was still tied up with her arms pinned to her sides and her tail had a shackle with a chain that went to an eye bolt on the wall.

For a few minutes, the two girls looked at each other intently, studying the physical features of each other. Tempted by curiosity, Charlotte passed her left hand through the bars and approached it to Marina, who closed her eyes out of fear. She was expecting to be hurt by the pirate, but instead, she felt a rough hand caressing her cheek and her hair. She opened her eyes and could see how the pirate looked at her with fascination as she continued petting her.

"You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen in the ocean," Charlotte said keeping her eyes on Marina's. The siren blushed with the commentary, and she also had to admit the pirate girl was one of the prettiest living beings she had ever laid her eyes on. Sure, back at home there were beautiful sirens and stunning merman, but Charlotte had something that made her more beautiful than all of them. This thought made Marina felt confused. Why was she thinking that the human girl petting her was more beautiful than other sirens if she had just met her? Why did she not feel rage or disgust towards the pirate if thanks to her the other pirates captured her? It was hard for Marina to understand these thoughts, so she just tried to block them and focus on the here and now.