"The moon is full Oh, love of mine. And I've come back for you."

Soft and sweet, the words floated across the ship. Every soul aboard the ship stopped mid-action, transfixed. All but Eleanor, who recognized the sound. She wondered if there had been words the night before or only the melody. Not that it mattered, in all honesty. She heard them tonight, loud and clear. It had not been a dream, and now they would be face to face again.

Shivers went down Eleanor's spine, spurring her into action. She turned from the wheel to search for her first mate. He needed to keep the men calm while she dealt with the creature. Raising her voice to try to reach him wouldn't work. She would need a way to break their trance before she got in front of them full force.

Time seemed to move in slow motion at that moment. The edges of the ship, cannons, ammo and men all flowed past her vision as she moved. She could feel her body turning, but the motion wasn't syncing up with the signals her brain was sending. The creature's song continued to stream into her ears, although the beats were coming further apart. No matter how many times she tried to tell herself the truth, she couldn't shake the sensation.

When her body finally stood still again, she blinked. She spotted Nathaniel a few feet away when her eyes opened again. He was standing in the middle of the deck when he looked over at her, his head moving with the same underwater quality the rest of the world had taken on. Eleanor closed her eyes once more and took a deep breath. She counted to three and opened her eyes again.

Whatever had caused the slowing of time had passed. When she looked in front of her, Nathaniel appeared frozen in his spot, a curious look upon his face. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. No longer seeing as if in a fishbowl, Eleanor moved as quick as she could manage to close the gap between them. She came close to knocking him over, her hands landing on his chest as her feet found their breaks at the last second.

"It's here," she sputtered as she pulled herself back together. "You all need to keep moving. Grab the tenders and get a couple of men on them. It doesn't matter who. Load the cannons and spare the ship — but every capable man should be armed. Do not let a single one of our crew stand transfixed by this siren.”

Eleanor turned back around, expecting her orders to get handled without question. Gulping breaths came in and out of her chest to make up for her panicked and rushed commands. Isabelle would make a dramatic entrance, Eleanor was sure of it, and it would be soon. She didn't move back to the wheel. With no land on the horizon and no time to dig around for current maps, she saw no need to steer. They were stuck on the water, and that's all that mattered. When the whole thing was over, the survivors would have plenty of time to decide as a crew where to go.

With no further warning, a circle of dark ocean water flew above the ship. Foam and water particles fell onto the wood of the Zephyrus. Eleanor imagined most of the water leaking back through the cabins underneath her in her mind's eye. It would drip through the wooden boards and end up right back into the ocean itself. As the water followed its favored path, so did the ocean's creatures.

Before the water had a chance to do anything it was destined to do, Isabelle appeared. The mermaid had jumped out of the cold, salty water and flipped her curious body through the air.

Eleanor thought that the creature seemed to be working hard to appear at ease. She supposed that the thing would be less panicked in the odd scenario. A monster would have much less to fear than the humans who scurried around the boat. But the theatrics cried the opposite.

As Isabelle landed on the deck, her tail coiled around her. She looked serene as she leaned back onto the edge with one arm. The other lingered by her side with its elbow crooked so that her right hand sat near her navel.

Eleanor held her ground the best she could, with shivers going up and down her spine. Nerves hit every inch of her body as she faced down what she had once hoped was a simple drunken dream. In that instant, she was unsure if she should call out, charge with a sword, or stay still and wait.

It turned out that she didn't need to make this choice herself. Isabelle took in the scene around her, but only for a brief moment before locking her eyes on her prey.

"Eleanor."

The words scraped against Eleanor's skin like they had crawled their way out of the mermaid's mouth just to assault her. She saw out of her peripheral that the trance her men had been in was now broken. They were beginning to move. One came close enough to notice that the slack-jawed wonder had transformed into narrow-eyed concentration. Eleanor lowered her eyelids into a squint, hoping it would help her focus.

"Oh, sweet Eleanor," Isabelle said. "I see that I gave you plenty of time. Loads of warning."

The smile that crossed the face of the creature made the captain's skin scrawl even worse. A sudden impulse to scrub herself clean crossed her mind. To rid herself of everything that the horrid air surrounding her had touched. Every nerve in her body was raw.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"If only you had given me more information yourself. The lead time may have been more fruitful. I have respect for the fact that you kept your word and didn't come this morning or when we may have been asleep." She could hear the voices from her childhood coming out of her mouth. Nannies rewarding her for basic human decency as if she were a dog being housebroken.

Nathaniel had crossed by the helm, looking forward as if he saw right through her. She could hear swords scraping out of their scabbards throughout the deck.

Isabelle let out a low laugh. It was dark and quiet and seemed to bounce between the two of them, echoing as if they were in a cavern and rather than floating on the ocean. Nothing about the situation seemed natural. "The fate of all in front of me is already sealed. I fail to see how this knowledge would have helped."

With that, her curvy tail began to move. Isabelle propelled herself toward her target, moving toward the middle of the ship.

Eleanor kept her eyelids lowered, hoping it would help provide security to men that had caught her attention. Like the two that began to move around the creature, hoping to ambush from behind. They both had their swords out. Eleanor assumed they didn't want to draw them out too close. Doing so would risk the creature hearing the sound. Hands clasped around the hilt. They inched forward.

Pirates were not usually tasked with being stealthy. They were loud and boisterous. They didn't try to hide it, knowing that they were not getting away with boarding a ship and stealing goods without someone noticing. These men, however, had found their feather footing. Neither of them had made a single pounding step by the time they were within a foot of the stand-off.

Isabelle leaned her human torso forward, allowing her tail to shift its weight and take a momentary break it flicked back and smacked both pirates down, sprawling backward and away. Without even so much as a glance at her attackers, she shifted her weight back down, lifting her head ever so slightly.

"I will continue to repeat myself if that's what you need. For this, and for you, I have a modicum of patience. It is the thick-skulled decision-makers who somehow have control down below that I have none. But you will see all that for yourself." Isabelle smiled and resumed her movement forward.

Eleanor took a single step backward. "The queen and her court. You take issue with them, yet continue to do as they say."

She was aware that she had limited room to keep distance and needed to take advantage of every inch of it to buy time. As she landed her second foot in its new place, she spotted three more men eyeing her direction, but she didn't look long. She kept her eyes in front of her the best she could.

Isabelle smiled a sickly grin. Her fangs were bearing over her lips, and her eyes were darkening with some twisted humor. "Your tidbits will not help you here," she spoke, continuing her slow movement forward.

As soon as silence fell, the three men were in place with swords drawn. They had done an equal job to the two before them. Stealthy for pirates, but not stealthy enough for the creature they faced.

She slapped the one behind her the same as the two that had come before, hard enough for him to careen into the air. He got enough to lift to flip over the edge of the ship and into the darkness below. It was too far for Eleanor to watch if he came back up.

Isabelle turned to her right, coming face to face with the sharp end of a sword. Undaunted by the weapon, she swung her tail backward. The motion allowed her to hit the third man even though she had not seen him. Her tail connected hard enough for him to create an echoing smack against some piece of wood. As she had swung her shimmering tail, she ducked her head, moving underneath the sword coming at her. She lunged with both of her hands, knocking the man off his feet and sending his sword flying. It clattered against the wood, furthering the chaos of the night.

The mermaid stared down at the human form below her and licked her lips.

"If only I had time," the creature said. Her voice was deep and greedy.

"If only," Eleanor repeated. "Yet you have other things you ought to be focusing on."

She wanted to keep Isabelle's attention, even if it hadn't helped so far. The captain took one more step backward, not yet daring to turn and see how much further to the edge. Looking away for a moment meant the potential to miss an action- Eleanor didn't think it would take many to change the course of her fate.

Isabelle didn't look up immediately. She kept her eyes locked on the man that lay beneath her. Eleanor was certain unspeakable things would happen if the creature had the time it longed for. The only chance they had was to not give up that time. She took one more step backward. She hadn't hit the edge yet, so she kept her head forward still. She decided to keep silent a moment, though, and looked over at the deck to see if anyone else had been trying to sneak their way over.

One man was rushing over, not attempting to sneak at all. Perhaps He had seen what happened to his more experienced crewmates - their fates had not been bettered by going slow. So he held his sword with both hands, bolting toward the nightmare on his ship. He had his head bent low, waist tilted. He seemed to be trying to take away any room Isabelle had to go underneath him.

The youth almost succeeded in his goal. His sword hit home on the body in front of him. The sharpened tip pierced into flesh, at the place where a blue-tinted skin met watery scales. Unfortunately for all of them, only the very tip went in, and there it stopped as if hitting a stone.

Isabelle straightened, screeching. It was well beyond a scream. It was angry, primitive, and pointed at the offending pirate. The sound of the scream traveled across the boat and somehow carried weight with it. The sound wave knocked over everyone Eleanor could see and then herself as well.

Eleanor watched as the baby-faced member of her crew was grabbed around the neck by a nightmare. She watched as Isabelle tore at his gut before throwing him across the Zephyrus. She listened as he landed with a loud splash in the deep ocean.

Eleanor watched as the men around her went sprawling backward as if each of them had been hit by the strength in the large fishtail. More than one was unable to catch their balance, their heads knocking into wood or whole bodies falling over the edge. Then in slow motion, the creature turned back to her and began her slithering sprint forward.

'I guess her patience ran out,' Eleanor had time to think to herself before she finally felt her own body moving backward.

"No," she bellowed as she realized the truth.

Her body had been moving the whole time. That strange and powerful scream had shoved her backward, and she had been closer to the edge than she had hoped. What she finally felt was not her body begin moving. She felt her body begin the fall from ship to water.

She had fallen overboard.