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Dante watched with one eye half open under his hat as the woman entered his boat. He didn’t think she realized he was there. He smiled, and wondered how long it would take her to notice him in the pile of supplies. His ship wasn’t all that large after all.
He decided to wait until they were a bit at sea until saying something. She was pretty cute after all, and dressed well. Probably a story and a half why she was stealing a ship from the harbor.
She knew her way around the boat at least--interesting. And then he spied what looked like a pistol in her skirts, a dagger too. From how she handled the boat, Dante imagined she could use them as well.
Once they were away from the harbor, a large wave rocked the boat, and the woman lost her balance, falling into his lap.
“My kind of rain,” he commented, pleased that the woman was cuter on closer look. She had hastily chopped hair, and a healing scar across the bridge of her perky nose. Most unique were her eyes, one a warm brown, almost a red, the other a greenish blue.
She immediately stabbed him in the thigh, which was rather rude.
Dante tackled her to the ground, removing the knife and throwing it behind him. He got a hand on that pistol and fired it into the sea and threw it behind him as well. Before he could properly pin her, she wriggled out of it and pulled out another pistol. Before he could do more than smile, she pulled the trigger and caught him in the head.
He stood there, waiting for his head to heal. The woman stared in horror.
“How did you--” she asked, and Dante grinned.
“Am I going to need to strip you to find all your loaded pistolas Lady?” His eyes flickered down her body. “I wouldn’t be opposed.”
“I didn’t--” she started.
“Didn’t mean to shoot me?” he asked, “Or steal a ship with her captain still aboard?”
“What are you?” she pressed.
“I,” he emphasized, “am wondering what a woman of means is running from?”
“Who are you?” she asked.
Dante sighed. “Look Lady, I am being very nice about the fact that you shot me, shouldn’t you tell me your name first?”
“Doesn’t matter what you call me,” she said, and glanced back towards the island. “I’m running from my father.”
“And what did dear papa do?”
She leveled those eyes on him. “Something unacceptable. He was going to sacrifice me to a sea spirit.”
Dante whistled. “You stumbled into the ship of the one man who might be able to help you with that?”
“You’re a miracle worker?” she asked in disbelief.
“Names Captain Dante, You… may have heard of me?”
She stared at him without recognition.
“Well, be prepared for that name to be well known,” he finished, “I’m going to do some crazy things.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“I’m gonna kill a devil,” he promised.
Her eyes went wide. “Maybe you can help me then.”
Before she could say more, she flinched from another wave.
“What’s your deal?” Dante asked, as the woman dodged another splash of water.
“What do you mean, what's my deal?” she asked.
“Are you afraid of water or something?”
“No!”
“Can’t swim?” he guessed.
“I can swim better than you!”
“Oh can you?”
“I know I can,” she bit.
Dante leaned over the side of the small boat and sucked in some ocean water.
“Are you throwing up?” she scoffed.
Dante faced her and spewed the water into her face. She screamed and collapsed to the bottom of the small craft.
“Asshole!” she shouted.
“What just happened?” he asked.
Beneath her skirt, a fin flopped, scaled and dark cool gray in color.
“You’re a mermaid?” Dante asked.
“On my mother’s side,” she huffed, “what about you? how can you survive getting shot in the head?”
“I’m half demon. On my dad’s side.”
“Huh.”
Dante inspected her tail closer. “Never seen a mermaid with legs before.”
“Yeah well it turns out if a mermaid receives communion she can become human… which my ancestor did, and then somehow my crazy bastard of a father figured out a way to reawaken it so he could have immortality!”
“Just become Catholic again then.”
“I tried!” she cried, “It just made it so when I’m dry I’m human.”
Dante grinned and sat down. “Guess you probably are a faster swimmer than me in that case. Your dad is after you then?”
“Guess I’m the only mermaid left. Or at least the easiest one to catch. I could just live in a cave somewhere, but that’s pretty boring.”
“Tell me about it! That’s why I started sailing. Had to get away from it all.”
“Sure you didn't break a few laws?”
“Nah, there's just some… land demons I guess you could call them. Oceans demons are a whole other animal. A lot less concerned with politics and who’s dad shoved who into a metaphorical locker, more concerned with conjuring storms and drowning people.” He grinned, “but I can hold my breath for a while, and it sounds like you’ll be fine.”
“If my crazy father doesn’t catch me. He’s probably got the whole English armada after me.”
“Armada?” Dante asked, and then cursed.
“What? I thought you weren’t worried about humans.”
“I’m not. My brother is maybe something of a privateer and he would sell me out for nothing.”
“Some brother.”
“Yeah he’s a real dick. We need to get to my ship, then we can go lay low on an uninhabited island for a while.”
“You have a ship?”
“I do,” Dante said. “Well, I should have a ship. If a certain she devil hasn’t absconded with it.”
”What are you even doing out here?”
”I’m trying to find Mallet Island,” Dante said.
”The island where the demon king is sealed?”
”You’ve heard of it?”
”Of course I’ve heard of it,” she said, “I told you, my father was obsessed with the occult. He wants immortality.”
”What good is that?” Dante asked.
“On a fallen earth, I’d agree,” she replied, “Why do you want to go there?”
“Found out that that demon king killed my mother.”
“Oh,” she said. “A demon killed my mother too.”
Dante didn’t know what to say to that.
“Or at least I think it was a demon,” Lady went on to explain, “I couldn’t see it quite clearly.”
“Yeah, well maybe I’ll help you with that once I’ve killed the demon king.”
“I don’t need your help,” she denied.
Dante glanced around and gestured to the boat they were currently on.
“I won’t need your help, but I guess I might accept it if we’re both still alive by then.”
Later in the day, Lady complained that she was thirsty.
“Do you not have any water?” she asked.
“We’re surrounded by water,” he said.
“You can’t drink salt water,” she argued.
He filled a cup with sea water and downed it, grimacing. “You forget I’m not human.”
Lady glared at him.
“And I think you’re forgetting that you’re not human either.”
“Do you think…”
“Can you breathe underwater?”
“I can,” she said, “You think that I could drink salt water?”
“Mermaids can,” Dante pointed out and then asked, “can you drink water on land without growing a tail?”
“As long as it only touches the inside of my mouth,” she said, but then added, “But I’ll transform just in case.”
That seemed fair, and she lay down before reaching over the side of the ship to cup some water into her hands. Her tail manifested before she drank some.
“It… doesn’t taste bad,” she commented.
“Lucky,” Dante said, “I think it’s just because I can survive poisons that it doesn’t kill me. But it doesn’t taste good.”
With logistics taken care of, they continued on towards his boat.
After a few days at sea, and finding that they got along better than anyone would think, Lady spotted a ship in the distance. From the flags, Dante cursed, and tried to readjust their sail to get them moving in a better direction.
“How did they find us?” Lady asked.
“I don’t know, but we don’t have much time until they catch up.”
Lady helped with the sail, which Dante appreciated even if it was ultimately a move in futility.
“Lady, you could swim away, they wouldn’t be able to catch you,” Dante pointed out.
“I don’t want to do that!” she exclaimed, and seemed to pale at the thought.
“You are afraid of the water!” Dante accused.
“Now isn’t the time,” she hissed, “and not wanting to swim through the ocean is completely reasonable. It's scary down there. I don’t like it at all.”
“Well, I’d ask you to take me with you, but I’d probably drown unless a mermaid kissed me,” Dante finished, “but where would we find one willing to do that?”
“How can you be joking now?”
“I’m not joking, legend says that a mermaid’s kiss can let a man breathe underwater… mermaids just would rather drown them.”
“I can see why,” Lady snapped, but her eyes widened, and Dante could see tears in them. He tried to think if he knew any folklore about mermaid tears…
The larger ship gained on them, holding Vergil no doubt. Perhaps Lady’s Father as well. “Look,” Dante said, “you slip out now, and you can go get my boat, find this woman named Trish, and you two can bust me out of wherever Vergil puts me!”
“Why is he so hell bent on finding you?” she asked, “What did you do, really?”
Dante held up his amulet.
“You stole from him?”
Dante scowled, “No! He needs my amulet to find a lost treasure our father hid somewhere. I also may have quite a few debt collectors after me.”
“Of course you do!”
The waves started picking up, sky darkening with clouds. Lady cursed, and Dante laughed at hearing such words come from a lady.
“Are you sure your brother won’t kill you?” Lady asked.
“Reasonably,” Dante said, “I can’t work off my debt if I’m dead.”
She looked at the sea, and shook her head.
Before they could discuss more, a great shadow loomed over them, and a sharp voice called down, “Little brother! I should have known it was you who ran off with the good magistrate’s daughter!”
“More like she ran off with me!” Dante called back. On the deck Vergil stood tall with a fine blue coat, and a large black bird on his shoulder.
The bird flew down and circled them, cawing in a mocking tone, “ran off! Ran off!”
Dante nearly shot the damn thing, but it seemed almost pitiful.
“Hand the girl over, and I won’t add kidnapping to your charges.”
“How about this, you let us go and don’t add anything to your charges?”
“You’re a terrible negotiator,” Vergil sneered.
Dante smiled his most charming grin, but before he could say another word, a wave capsized their smaller boat. It wasn’t just a wave--it was a kraken! Dante watched as the tentacled monster wrapped itself around Vergil’s ship and wanted to laugh before he remembered he needed to swim. Lady seemed to be a bit stunned to be submerged so fully in water, but Dante figured she wasn’t in danger of drowning.
As he worked towards the surface, his progress was stopped by a tentacle around his ankle. He slashed at it with his sword, only to be yanked downward before the blade could connect. Air was pushed from his lungs, and he accidentally swallowed a mouthful of water.
So this is where it ends, he thought with a broken sort of resignation. He tried one more swing, and connected, but his vision started to black out while his lungs burned. His last sight was Lady swimming towards him. And his last sensation was her lips on his.
…
Lady couldn’t believe she was actually kissing the man, but the truth was, she would rather kiss him than let him die. After a moment, he kissed her back, and opened his eyes. Lady was too relieved that it had worked to dwell on how hot his hand was even through her clothes. He pushed her back suddenly, Lady opened her mouth to scold him, but then saw the tentacle woosh past. Right, a sea monster was attacking…
Lady worked in tandem with Dante to stop the beast. Between the ship’s canon fire, and their own hacking and slashing, soon enough sharks in the water were helping their cause.
At that point, Lady tugged Dante away, slightly amused with how, despite his incredible strength, it seemed her tail was just better suited for the water. The water rushed against her face, and she was amazed she could keep her eyes open at all.
When her muscles started to burn, Lady surfaced, holding Dante up as well. Vergil’s ship was still visible as a tiny speck on the horizon. Dante must’ve enjoyed the actual air, as he didn’t speak, merely panted and held tightly to her.
“Dante…” she started, unsure of herself, only for him to lean in and kiss her.
It surprised her, but she didn’t pull away. No, she kissed him back.
When he finally pulled away, he smiled, “Well, that could’ve gone better,” he quipped, “You know, I’d say he’s usually not like that… but I’d be lying.”
“I’m just relieved my father wasn’t there,” she confessed, then glanced around. “What now?”
“I guess we swim to my ship?” he suggested, “We’re almost there actually.”
“You really have a ship?” Lady asked.
“Of course I do!” he said, “you’ll see!”
“Who’s Trish?” Lady asked prudently.
“My business partner--well--” Dante paused, and repeated, “you’ll see.” He looked up at the sky and measured with his hand from the direction of the setting sun. He pointed east and said, “You even swam the right way! Let's get going!”
Lady had been terrified of the ocean, angry at her father, and confused as to what she was, but now as she swam away from the sun, pulling Dante along, such things felt far away. She smiled, letting herself enjoy the sensation of the water sluicing around her, and Dante’s hand in hers.