mizuxfem!oc
The Ningyo (人魚, "human fish") is a creature with both human and fish-like features.
Many fishermen who find these creatures caught in their nets throw them back into the ocean.
For if a ningyo is caught, she will bring misfortune and cal...
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CHAPTER FOUR: CARNIVOROUS
_______
'That wasn't your mother. That was your maid.'
'There's so much you don't know.'
Mizu awoke in the dark stillness of her captain's quarters. Although her icy eyes opened, the abyss of her dreams mirrored reality exactly. She could've very well been sleepwalking, forever lucid in her conscious nightmare.
The tiniest crack of her window gave way to the moonlight. She got up. To sleep with a binder was a habit she could never get out of. She put on her robe and slippers and went to the room beside hers.
The kimono she laid out for Sogo was still there, untouched. All these hours later. She didn't bother knocking — she opened the door silently.
In the bed, the wooly coat piled over an unmoving lump. A small, pale foot with dried blood poked out from under it.
Mizu approached her. She pulled down the wool coat slightly to find her face. She appeared rigid, either she slept like the dead or she was.
She outstretched her finger below Sogo's nose and felt a faint breath.
Alive.
Mizu rearranged the wool coat back in place and grabbed a proper duvet for her. She moved the kimono from out in the hall to beside her bed at arms' reach and left.
In the darkness, Sogo opened her eyes, having been faking being asleep once she heard the door open. Her pupils were gold like gunfire, ready to shoot.
*
Mizu followed her nautical map and compass and periodically referenced a steering book translated into Japanese by Fowler five years ago. He had translated almost all the books on this ship. All those years he had locked away made him a prisoner of time, and he was once well-versed in how to waste it.
Everything was still on course to London.
The rising sun peeked into the horizon like spilled blood over the black ocean. When it was this early, when the world hadn't woken up yet, the horrors of the night still mingled with consciousness. If one was lucky, they stayed in their nightmares, but for Mizu, a peaceful sunrise looked like a fountain of blood.
She spent the morning cleaning, maintaining the ship, and addressing any possible damages. There was a peculiar indent in the bowsprit: the slanted spar at the ship's front to aid in navigation. It jutted over the ocean like the horn of a narwhal.
There was no ladder to the edge, so Mizu climbed up, wrapping her legs around the pole and using her arms to pull herself.
It wasn't a wide surface and was slippery from the crashing water. Sometimes, fish leaped out from over the bowsprit, wetting it. One misstep...
