The Grace of a Thousand Stars (PREQUEL)

Chapter 17- A Witch's Curse

--Ines POV--

Mermaids are beings that keep to themselves, we don't interfere in the businesses of any other species unless it somehow involves us, that is how its been since the beginning, and it's not something that would be changing. 

But every now and then, we'd get curious and travel up to the surface. With no intention of speaking to any other species, we'd simply look at the world from an unfamiliar perspective.

But if we saw a drowning man or woman, we'd save them. How could we simply watch as someone was about to lose their precious gift of life? Back when pirates were more prominent in traveling over the seven seas, their beliefs often led to many women being thrown overboard, and I remember saving as many of them as I could.

But on that day when I first met him, it was different than the rest. He wasn't thrown or pushed into the water; He was the first person I met that had willingly put themselves to the mercy of the Ocean.

The first time I met Malachi was on a day he wished were his last. 

And I now wish that I had let him die.

I thought it may have been too late, but I held his heavy body in my arms as best I could, swimming up to the surface where I gently lay him down on the rocky sands, curiously looking at him for a long moment as I wondered if he had already been taken by death. 

And eventually, I hit his chest, and we both jumped, me into the water, and him to the side as he coughed and spluttered out buckets of water, eventually calming down as I hid underwater, cautiously staring at him with half my face above the surface.

But he noticed me, and I went on high alert, ready to swim away if he so much as took one step closer to me. But he didn't.

He was just as cautious as me, sitting on the ground, soaked in water with crystals of sand stuck to his clothes and body.

"You saved me?" He had a deep voice, and it was only then that I realised that he was the first male human who I held a conversation with. But I didn't respond to his question with words, slowly nodding my head instead.

"...Why?" And his eyes narrowed, seeming like he was holding back anguished tears, the deep voice breaking as he whispered.

Somehow, seeing him like this made me think he wasn't all too dangerous. While he may have been a large, muscular man, he wasn't anything to the point that I would struggle killing if he proved himself to be nothing more than an enemy.

So, I swam forward a little until the water was just above my breasts, and I opened my mouth, speaking to him in the language of humans.

"Should I... not... have saved you?" I asked, wondering if I worded it right when he raised his head to look at me as if he'd never heard the voice of a woman before.

"You... What are you?" He whispered, not answering my question.

"If I tell you that, will you answer my question?" I swam closer, curious. It dawned on him that he didn't answer my question, and he released a deep sigh, running his fingers through his damp brown hair.

"I didn't jump into the water for a swim." He spoke.

"No? Then why?" I went closer, his eyes running up and down my body which slowly crept out of the water as I sat on the shore.

"What are you?" He whispered the same question from before, more fearfully this time.

"A mermaid. What about you?"

"...Human." He spoke in one quick breath.

"But then why did you jump into the water if you weren't going to swim back up when you ran out of air? Don't humans need air to survive underwater? Do you not know that? If you weren't going to swim, then why did you go in the water?"