"You seem disappointed."
Elizabeth's voice came lightly from his side as she stepped up beside him, Evelyn taking position on his other flank as if this were an interrogation rather than a casual observation.
Daniel didn't look away from the water. "Do I look disappointed?" he asked, face perfectly straight.
Evelyn narrowed her eyes. She reached out and tried to pinch his waist, only to frown when her fingers met what felt like stone instead of flesh.
"Sometimes your ridiculous thick skin makes it very hard to punish you properly," she muttered. "You don't even react."
Elizabeth leaned slightly over the rail, glancing down at the shifting fog below before looking back at him. "You're disappointed you didn't get to see half-naked mermaids, aren't you?"
Daniel finally turned his head toward them, expression wounded in a very deliberate way. "No. Do I look like that sort of man? I have the two most beautiful women beside me. Why would I need to look at anyone else?"
Evelyn folded her arms. "That was very smooth."
Elizabeth tilted her head. "Too smooth."
Daniel placed a hand over his chest in mock offense. "I am deeply hurt by the lack of trust."
"We don't trust you," Elizabeth said flatly. "If you're given even five minutes and a chance, you'll charm every woman in sight."
Evelyn nodded in agreement. "You absolutely would."
It seems they're immune to my Golden Tongue, Daniel thought. Probably because they know me too well. Hard to lie to people who've already read the entire book.
He lifted his chin. "I don't. Do you really think I'm strong enough to handle every woman? I only go after charming and intelligent ones."
The moment the words left his mouth, he realized the mistake.
"…That came out wrong."
Too late.
Both Evelyn and Elizabeth had heard it clearly.
They stepped in at the same time and each grabbed one of his ears, twisting just enough to make the point.
"No," they said in perfect unison, "you will not."
Daniel winced. "Ow—ow—violence is not the solution—"
"It is," Evelyn replied calmly, tightening her grip.
Elizabeth leaned closer. "Especially when dealing with you."
The crew watched the scene with Daniel, Evelyn, and Elizabeth and quietly came to a comforting conclusion—apparently even gods were not immune to domestic complications.
There was a faint, unspoken relief across the deck. No mermaids had appeared. No one had been dragged screaming into the sea.
At the same time, a few of the men looked mildly disappointed. They were pirates, after all. Curiosity and poor judgment often walked hand in hand.
Then the fog shifted.
It didn't roll in suddenly. It thickened—slowly, deliberately—until the horizon vanished and the water turned into a pale, endless sheet of grey.
And from somewhere within that mist, a song began.
Soft at first. Almost distant. Then clearer.
Beautiful.
Every man on deck stilled.
Hands froze on ropes. Conversations died mid-sentence. Even the creaking of the Pearl seemed to fade beneath the melody drifting across the water.
Gibbs swallowed. "Don't," he muttered, though no one had yet moved.
The song rose again, sweeter, pulling at something deeper than reason.
Daniel lifted his head slightly, listening.
"Well," Daniel said evenly, eyes on the fog, "there's your welcome party."
The sea answered at once.
Something pale shot out of the water—not rope, not net, but a long, slender hand. A mermaid's arm, unnaturally stretched, fingers elongated like living tendrils. They wrapped around Daniel's waist in a blink.
He glanced down. "Oh." His tone was mildly curious.
The grip tightened.
In the next instant he was ripped off the deck and dragged over the rail, disappearing into the black water below.
"Dan!" Elizabeth and Evelyn shouted together.
"Mermaids!" Jack roared. "Helm—turn her! Now! Unless you fancy being serenaded to death!"
Shapes moved beneath the surface—white limbs, flashes of scaled tails. More elongated hands shot up, slapping against the hull, clawing for purchase.
Below the surface, Daniel was pulled deeper.
The arm around him did not feel human. Around him, figures circled—beautiful above the waist, hair floating like silk in the current, eyes bright and predatory; below, powerful tails drove them through the water with lethal grace.
One of them tugged him closer, her mouth parting to reveal too many teeth.
'Sunlight's in the way again,' Daniel thought, squinting upward at the distorted glow from above. 'Hard to appreciate the details.'
He made no attempt to break free. If anything, there was a flicker of anticipation in his eyes.
Let's see who eats who.
As the mermaid dragged him deeper, Daniel tilted his head slightly and glanced toward the faint outline of the Black Pearl above.
Better send her away.
On the surface, the sea around the Pearl darkened without warning. The mermaids clinging to the hull hissed and recoiled as the water turned thick and inky beneath them. The ship shuddered once—timbers groaning—before the darkness swallowed her whole.
Then she was gone.
No splash. No wreckage.
One blink she was there, surrounded by fog and pale arms.
The next instant, the Black Pearl was gone from the bay.
Good. No interruptions.
The mermaid who had ensnared him dragged him down toward a jagged stretch of submerged rock.
Her grip tightened as the others circled, their beautiful faces already sharpening into something feral. Beneath the surface, their eyes were no longer enchanting—they were predatory.
She forced him against the stone and leaned in, lips parting wide, teeth lengthening.
Daniel smiled.
His features dissolved in the water like smoke. In their place, a burning visage took shape—charred bone and blue flame twisting where flesh had been. A grin split across it, bright and terrible.
"Shall we eat?" he asked softly.
The mermaid shrieked and recoiled, shoving herself backward with frantic strokes. The others felt it too—the shift, the wrongness. The thing they had dragged down was not prey.
It was something else.
They scattered.
Daniel's hand shot out, catching the mermaid who had pulled him into sea, gripping her wrist before she could slip away.
"Where," he said, blue fire flickering in the dark water, "do you think you're going?"
The ocean around them seemed to grow colder.
*****
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