Merformers Arcee

As they dragged Orion across the ship, he tried to listen in. It was something he'd heard, somewhere- if you've been blindfolded, try to use your other senses, but frankly, everything was just a confusing mess as he staggered, pushed and pulled roughly. The smell of fish and viscera and salt and blood. THe sounds of a dozen men shouting and cursing at each other. The sun was so goddamn hot, the handcuffs were biting into his wrists-

"The fuck are we gonna do with him?"

"He's just some researcher brat, okay? We trash his boat, and he disappears. Real sad.."

He cringed and bit on the rag stuffed in his mouth. They were talking about him.

"Toss him in there for now, we'll dump him when we chum the sharks to stir up the mer."

"That's fucked up!"

"Makes for a pretty good reason as to why he died. Kinda impressive, really- like, less than one person dies a year because of sharks, statistically."

"Really? Weird."

"Yeah, you figure it'd be more, but honestly sharks are pretty harmless-" As they talk, they shove him onto something soft, and the sounds all close off. He's in a...closet? A storage room? He can't tell, but at least he can tell he's landed on a pile of netting, and he holds onto it as the boat rocks, everything muffled.

Robert will realize he's missing, someone will notice when he doesn't check in tonight. He just has to hold out until them, he thinks.

Turns out when you can't do anything but sit up and scootch around, time passes in a strange way. He managed to get the rag tied around his head out of his mouth at least, and to find a position that made the way his arms were kept behind his back hurt less, but he couldn't tell the difference between ten minutes and an hour- it felt like his thoughts jerked along at different speeds, one moment racing and the next dragging.

When the door opened again he tensed, snapped from his stupor, and waited.

And it was quiet.

"Silly Orion, you get stuck." Arcee chattered, laughing, and he was torn between relief and confusion as the sound of a mer dragging herself along came to him, and her familiar hands patted his leg. "You get up, follow me. I take you home."

"Arcee- poachers-" A lack of speaking made his voice croak. She chattered in dolphin-laugh again, helping him to stand and nudging him forwards. "Wait, I can't see-"

"It's fine. You don't need to see." bumping him forwards. She led him across the deck- it was cold, the wind cutting and icy- nighttime. It'd been all day. And it was...quiet. Nothing but the gentle sounds of waves rocking the boat.

Leading him to the edge, she pushed him off, getting a yelp in return before he landed on the soft plastic of an inflatable raft- a lifeboat! And she fell down after him, finally pulling the blindfold from his head. He blinked a few times, adjusting, eyes stinging even in the dim light of the boat and a full moon, and she hummed, arranging herself to drape over one edge of the lifeboat, powerful strokes of her flukes pushing them away.

"Arcee?"

"Yes, Orion?"

"...where's everybody who was on the ship? Where are the poachers?"

She gave him a look, the kind that made her pale eyes look dark, and just kept smiling as she pushed the lifeboat further and further away from the boat in the distance, still and quiet. There were biolights in the water, the unique glowing patches mer always seemed to sport, regardless of species, but he couldn't make them out. Arcee's own were small, faint, a little flicker of pale blue near her hips, but some under him were red, or orange, and he tried to make out the larger silhouettes they belonged to.

He stopped looking so hard when a shark's fin sliced through the water inches from his face.

It wasn't until they came near the lights of another ship, and a spotlight was turned on Orion with blinding intensity, that Arcee trilled. "Boa noite, Orion. Tchau!"

When he looked back, she'd disappeared under the water, and Robert's voice boomed over a megaphone. "Orion! We're going to throw a line to you, kid, grab on!"