Mermaid Day

 

Ah the legends of mermaids and not the Little one.  Though Disney’s version is not the Hans Christian Anderson one.

Mermaids/Sirens have been in myths and legends for thousands of years.  Are they real?  Are they stories made it up as a cautioary tale for sailors?

We may never know.

But for Sylum … of course they’re real.   Sparrow want’s nothing to do with them, but there is a crab fisherman who can parley with them.

Randolph sighed when he heard the high pitch scream from his newest crew member.

There was only one thing that could cause a hard bitten thirty year old crab fisherman to get that high pitch of a scream.

He glanced over to Cam, his Second, who sighed as heavily as Randolph.  “Your girl must be visiting.”

“She’s not my girl.”  Randolph heaved himself out of his chair signaling for Cam to take over.

“Sure. We’re the only boat in the Bering frozen ass straight that has mermaids appear.”  Tone indicating he wasn’t taking his captains bullshit.  “Liefr who has weird shit happen all the time, doesn’t get mermaids.”

“Beauregard does.”

Cam just gave him a look, before dismissing him.

Randolph got no respect.  

He headed down to the deck, carefully walked across the wet and frozen surface.   When he got to the crew, most of them were chatting with their guest while the new guy was staring at them like they were all insane.

They are crab fisherman who go out into an unforgiving sea, with temperatures under 0 on good days.  Of course they were insane.

“Hey Syrena.”  He glanced over the edge to see her gnawing on a crab sitting on one of the pots.  “Out for a swim?”

“Enki has business down the coast I thought would come say hi.  I never see you.”  She tossed the crab into the water, then plucked another out of the pot.  “You look old.”

It had been a rough season, and his feeding schedule was shit.   Plus he hated being away from his Mate, it’s rare they split up but for this season they needed to.  It was a good thing they stopped televising their runs, or this would awkward. 

“We’re planning a trip further south, see the old islands.”  Randolph assured her.  

Her expression stated she didn’t believe him.  “Promise?”

He knew what a promise to a mermaid was, and had learned that listen.  “I will do all that I can to make it south this summer.”

Syrena rolled her eyes, but grinned at his clever wording.  “Fine.  We’ll have to go swimming.”  She tossed the dead crab into the water.  “By the way if you go south you’ll find a good crop.”  

And now he owed her, the sneaky bitch.   There was a reasons Mermaids weren’t messed with in history.

“Run off.  See you in a few months.”  

She pushed upwards and gave him a kiss on the cheek, then dived into the water.   The new guy may have yelped when he realized there was more than one in the water.  

“Okay guys you heard the lady – lets get these up and head south.”

“On it Captain.”  Jose his foreman ordered the men back to their posts then grabbed the new guy.  “So what do you know about Mermaids….”

Randolph was going to have to contact Richard and let him know they were going to the Caribbean for vacation, or the mermaids would have their soul.