Good Morning!

[maderr]

Paid all my bills this morning. I prefer to do it when I'm not quite awake. It dulls the pain.

So no more spending money for me until next paycheck ^^;;

Hmm, lessee. Anyway to make the Monday less painful for my home slices?

Want a glance at merman story? I was pondering using it to get a feel for lulu, once it was finished. Also started my Halloween SMP story (and am nearly done with the bonus story I am writing for those that donated to the cause - that's dwtd ^_^). Sammikins, your SMP idea is definitely working, so thanks.



"What is it?"

"Body?" The first mate considered the thing in the water. "Pretty sure it's a body. Captain."

Rolling his eyes, he ordered his men to haul the body up. "We can't leave him to rot, can we?"

"Depends, Captain. That damned storm has put us pretty far off course. We got food enough?"

"For one extra mouth? Yes, and I’m about to throw Crane overboard anyway."

"Aye, Captain." His first mate turned his full attention to ordering the men about.

"Bring him to my quarters when he's fished out."

He strode briskly back to his quarters, tugging up the collar of his thick wool coat. The Northern runs were the most lucrative, but there were very good reasons precious few were willing to them – never mind regularly.

Only minutes after he was inside, the door banged open again and a sopping wet figure was deposited on his bed.

"Out," he ordered, motioning for his first mate to stay. "Maine," he said when the door had closed, leaving them alone, "what say you?"

"He should be dead," Maine said flatly. He was damp from sea spray and supervising the retrieval, but if the cold water bothered him he made no show. Bits of black hair peeked out from beneath his dark blue watch cap. "It's fucking freezing, Captain. He's breathing, if only just, and look at him laying there. He's not getting worse, even though we're not treating him." Dark green eyes met his unflinchingly. "I say toss him back."

Striding over to the bed, he bent over the unconscious man and examined him thoroughly – but it only took a moment's glass to see the telltale livid scarlet bite low on the man's throat, right where it met his shoulders. "He may not be completely gone. Depending on how far off course we are, we may be able to reach an antidote in time."

"Captain Ice…"

Ice looked up, and green eyes flinched from his pale gray. "I will keep an eye on him; if he starts to prove a danger I will kill him myself."

"It's your ship of course, Captain," Maine said with a sigh. "Should I inform the men?"

"Aye," Ice replied. "They'll suspect it anyway; no good will come from hiding it. No panicking or misbehavior or I'll make them work without their coats."

Maine gave a sharp nod. "Aye, Captain." He turned sharply on his heel and strode from the room. The door closed on the sound of him barking orders.

Ice sighed and looked at the headache in his bed, then slowly began to strip and clean him.

When he finally finished some time later, the man was warm and dry and looked much better – minus the lurid mark bite on his neck, but there was nothing to be done for that, so far out in the middle of nowhere. Mermaid antidotes weren't something even he could obtain easily.

Sighing again, he stowed the supplies he'd dragged out and laid another blanket over the unfortunate young man in his bed.

Not all that young, really Ice was thirty-five, the stranger couldn't be much below that. It was hard to tell, for he was handsome enough to almost be pretty. Finer features, more delicate than was normal for Northern natives. The coloring was all Northern though – skin weathered by sun and cold, the ebony hair, and very likely his eyes were green. Maine was the only native Northerner amongst his crew – the rest preferred to keep their origins vague, though Ice could pick'em out if he really felt like it.

Which he didn't. In their line of business, not asking questions was the height of courtesy and promoted camaraderie – and obedience. Not that anyone would dare to disobey him anyway.

Raking a hand through his own sandy hair, Ice moved to the table and retrieved the book he'd been reading before the watch had called man overboard. He sipped at his brandy and read quietly, looking up occasionally to check on his unexpected guest, pausing only to eat the supper brought to him at half past eight.

The bell was marking a quarter past the tenth hour when his guest stirred, groaning and whimpering. Ice set his book down even as the noises subsided, but by the time he'd crossed the few short steps the bed, the man's eyes were flickering open.

Green, but a cool mint rather than the darker pine of Maine's eyes. They were hazy, distant – but rapidly came to focus.

"The storm – mermaids –"

Ice grabbed his hand before the man could reach up to touch the wound that was no doubt stinging and throbbing on his neck despite the ointment rubbed into it. "Yes," Ice said, as gently as he could even knowing gentle wasn't really something he did well – or at all. "You were bitten."

The man closed his eyes. "I had been hoping it was a dream." He slowly opened them again, the shadows in his eyes running deep. "Why did you bother to rescue me?"

"I will not leave a man to drown if there is the slightest chance of saving him," Ice replied, slowly letting go of the man's hand. It was warm, soft against his own sea-roughened hand. "Do not touch the wound, that will exacerbate it. Before that storm struck, we were but two weeks from Port Rayne."

A glum nod was the only reply.

Ice shook him. "Do not give up just yet; that helps nothing."

"I was bitten by a mermaid," the man said bitterly. His mouth twisted into what should have been a smile but somehow wasn't. "I don't even like fish."

Letting his hand fall away, Ice stood and strode back to the table, picking up his brandy and carrying it back to the bed, pressing the glass into the man's hands. "On the bright side, when this is over and you are alive and well and living on land, you will have learned to like fish."

The man looked at him, startled and blinking – then laughed weakly, but truly. "I suppose that is one way to look at it."

"My name is Niles Morgan. Pretty much everyone calls me Ice." He smiled. "Or Captain."

"Thank you, Captain Ice, for rescuing me," the man said quietly. "My name is Beau Delmar." His fingers twitched, no doubt he wanted badly to touch the wound on his neck, but they remained twisted in the blankets.

Ice tried to keep him distracted. "What were you doing at sea?"

"Trying to get home, actually," Beau said with a sigh. "My job in Black Wood was…terminated unexpectedly, and that left me with precious little funding. I decided it was better simply to return home than starve to death on the streets in Black Wood."

Curious. "What did you do?"

Beau laughed, but it was a sad sound. "I was an artist."

"Was? Have you lost your talent?"

"I've lost my stupidity," Beau said, voice going abruptly flat. "My family has been urging me to give up my nonsense and return home ever since I left – they will be delighted to know I have at last seen reason."

Stranger and stranger. "I…how does an artist lose his job to the point he must go home?"

Beau gave another one of his sad laughs. "It doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore. I am doomed one way or another." He smiled, and for a moment Ice almost thought he was on the verge of tears. "Who knows? Perhaps I will luck out by turning into a mermaid after all."

Ice frowned, and reminded himself this stranger's problems were not his own and he should not really care anyway. His involvement ended with getting the man to shore; and even that he did not have to do – no one would hold it against him for tossing a bitten man overboard.

He wouldn't, couldn't, do that though. Not so long as there was any chance to help – hopefully they would reach Port Rayne swiftly.

Meanwhile, he would do what he could for his forlorn guest. "You're aboard the merchant ship The Wicked. We deal mostly in textiles, perfumes, and spices, but dabble in various other things." He smiled. "Up this way, no one refuses whatever shipments make it to port."

That earned him a brief but genuine laugh, and the moment of levity did great to make Beau's face truly pretty.

Ice shook off the wayward thought. "Are you hungry?"

"A bit," Beau replied.

"I'll have something brought." He winked. "Not fish."

"Yet," Beau said, expression one of resignation.

"Cheer up," Ice replied. "It's not over 'til it's over. You shouldn't give up."

Beau shrugged and did not reply.

Ice moved to the door to call for food.