“Oh god oh god oh god,” Quatre panted when the finally got to his room.
Duo laid down on Quatre’s bed, exhausted.
“Duo, they saw us!” Quatre cried.
“No, they didn’t.” Duo replied shortly.
“Yes, they did.”
“No, they didn’t!” Duo insisted.
“Obviously one did.” Quatre protested.
“He was drunk. No one will believe him.”
“Let’s hope so…”
The boys sat in their cabin thinking only about what happened this evening.
All of a sudden the ship gave a frightening lurch.
Heero jumped up and ran to Trowa's cabin.
“Trowa, what was that?” he asked worriedly.
“Probably one of the drunk sailors trying to steer.”
“Yeah, probably…but let's check.”
“Fine.”
As they walked to the helm, the ship lurched dangerously again, causing the boys to stumble and fly across the deck. Heero hit his arm on the wall of the ship, and Trowa's leg twisted with the pitch of the ship against the hard wooden floor.
They got up again.
"Are you sure that really is someone steering this badly?" Heero asked again.
As if to answer his question, a low rumble and a bright flash shot across the sky.
Trowa moaned. "Storm!"
"Let's go to the helm anyway to see if Murray is there."
"Ok."
A loud bark was heard behind them, and they turned around to see Max.
"C'mon boy." Trowa said, and Max followed them.
Once again the ship pitched violently from a raging wave, knocking the boys over, but as soon as the boys started to slip, Max held onto the boys' shirt collars with his teeth.
"Thanks old boy,” Heero said, standing up, scratching behind Max's ears, and in turn, receiving a satisfied whimper.
The wind level rose very high and, mixed with the slippery deck, it was hard to stay on their feet, but they managed it until they got to the helm. As soon as they opened the door, the ship jerked, and dog and boy stumbled on the floor in a heap.
Murray chuckled and helped the boys up. "I guess you guys found out about the storm the hard way."
The two boys muttered and Max barked. A few other crewmembers chuckled.
Suddenly there was a sound of a huge wave crashing outside the helm, people yelling, and "Men Overboard!"
"Damn!" cursed Murray, running outside.
Trowa and Heero decided to follow him. Max, never wanting to leave his masters, barked and followed the two boys.
As soon as they got outside, they took a look around.
Chaos.
Large amounts of water were splashing over the edge, pulling the crew men along with it. The powerful waves had smashed holes in the ship and greatly damaged other parts. Multiple shouts of “Abandon ship!” and “Wave starboard!” cut the cold sea air, and the tension and fear was so thick you could have sliced a dagger through it. Most everyone had gotten into a boat but a few unlucky crewmembers, and the boys.
Murray, sitting in the head of a lifeboat, called to the boys still on board.
"Prince Heero! Prince Trowa! Get off the ship now or you'll drown!"
The boys located Murray, and jumped into the boat from the ship. They had just started rowing away when a terrified yelp was heard from the ship.
“Max!” Heero and Trowa shouted at the same time.
Heero and Trowa scrambled to get off the boat but Murray held them back.
“Don’t boys! You’ll be killed!”
“We need to get Max!”
Finally, the two boys ripped themselves out of Captain Murray’s grasp and swam back to the ship.
“Boys!” Murray cried.
Heero dove into the water and reached the ship, while Trowa effortlessly jumped aboard, as the ship wasn’t so far away. Trowa wondered why his brother had bothered to jump in. Although Heero was shorter than himself, he could have easily done the same and just jumped aboard.
Finally Heero (dripping wet) and Trowa got to the ship and climbed back up. They looked everywhere for Max.
Finally Trowa found him cowering behind a flaming, fallen mast. “Look, Heero! Max!”
Heero saw him, and covering his arms over his face and chest in an ‘x’ shape, he raced through the flames.
“Heero!” Trowa called out, horrified.
But Heero, apparently, wasn’t hurt. Grabbing Max, Heero hesitated before running through the flames, and then, once again, coming through unhurt. Trying to fathom how Heero had done such a fantastic feat left Trowa’s head spinning, so he decided to ignore it and be grateful his brother was safe.
Carrying Max, the two found Murray’s boat waiting for them and threw Max in. Max was safe. But just as soon as they were about to jump in themselves, a huge mast fell down right in front of Heero.
The might of the mast hitting the deck right where Heero was forced him into the air and flung him into a wall, knocking him unconscious before he could even scream. As the ship tilted, Heero rolled towards one of the broken, unguarded edges of the ship and slipped off.
“Heero! Heero!” Trowa cried, petrified out of his wits.
As he was running towards where his brother fell off, a massive bolt of lightening hit the deck. Trowa backed up so the lightening wouldn’t hit him, setting the deck in front of him on fire. Unluckily he hit some loose, half-broken masts, which cracked and fell down to the ground so hard it shook the surface of the broken ship. Trowa stumbled, trying to keep his balance, but he staggered too close to the edge of the ship, and with another jerk, Trowa too, fell off, his fate apparently no different than his brother’s.
“No! Boys!” Murray hollered. Max barked wildly.
Trowa thrashed around in the ocean, but he lost his breath as he choked and swallowed more water from the unrelenting waves. Finally Trowa lost so much breath he blacked out. He went under.
Quatre and Duo sat in their rooms. An uneasy feeling was telling them that something was terribly wrong. Coming out of their rooms at the same time, they nodded and swam towards the surface.
When they got up, they looked and saw their world tearing up the ship.
Duo gasped and Quatre went pale.
They swam madly over to the wreck. Soon they separated. As he was passing, Duo spied something, a dark brown haired something, which seemed familiar.
“The boy!” Duo cried, and swam over, grabbing the boy. He swam over to shore, which was about half a mile away. Thanks to his strong tail, Duo got there in record time.
Quatre was swimming through chunks of the boat when he saw something—no, someone—floating on a board.
“Oh! It’s him!” He gasped, and swam over to Trowa. He grabbed him and swam towards shore.
When the two merboys got to shore, they were pretty far away from each other.
Duo laid Heero down on the sand. Heero’s lips were blue and he was incredibly pale.
Duo shook his head. “Humans are so fragile.”
After awhile the boy didn’t look any better. It was then Duo realized that the boy was dying. He hardly knew him; why did it hurt so much?
To let out his terrible pain, Duo began to sing. It was a sad but beautiful song.
Duo continued singing, and extraordinarily enough, Heero’s health seemed to improve.
After about two hours, Heero’s eyes flickered open, and a blurry face swam into view. It seemed oddly familiar, but he couldn’t figure out where he had seen it before. Long chestnut brown hair flowed over slender shoulders and was draped over violet eyes. And it was singing, singing the most exquisite song Heero had ever heard.
When it saw Heero’s eyes open it suddenly disappeared.
In truth, Duo had jumped back into the water. He hid behind a rock.
The boy on shore sat up and looked around for his rescuer, but to no avail.
Suddenly a loud squealing sound was heard. “Heero! You’re back!”
Heero whirled around. Was he home? Had he washed ashore to his castle? When he saw the person who had cried his name, he moaned.
It was Relena.
“Can you walk? I‘ll help!” The girl cried, ignoring Heero’s protest to leave him alone and mistaking his groan for one of pain. She dragged him inside the castle. This was the first time Duo had heard Heero’s name.
“Heero, eh?” Duo said.
Such a nice name.
Not too far away, Quatre laid Trowa down on the shore.
Naïve as he was to the surface world, Quatre couldn’t understand why Trowa looked so cold.
Quatre racked his brains, trying to remember something, even a sentence from his books. Finally he remembered, from his book The World Above Us, a small passage. Written on the dark seaweed it had said:
Human’s body temperatures are at 98.6º Fahrenheit and are not able to withstand the ocean’s water, as we are able to. At points, for humans, the water is so cold to them it may be fatal.
Remembering this, Quatre let out a small gasp. Why, the boy couldn’t be all that much older than him, and he might die! The thought made Quatre feel slightly nauseous, even though he didn’t know him at all.
Mermaids and merboys have fabulous, almost magical voices. Singing is a way to let out their feelings rather than whine and complain as we humans do. Quatre wasn’t sure what his voice would sound like above water, but he decided that he would rather sing than watch the boy get any sicker, anyhow. With that, he began to sing.
A beautiful sound rang out over the shore. Trowa stirred, but Quatre didn’t notice. Quatre kept singing, and finally, Trowa opened his eyes.
What was this beautiful sound? Clear, soft, and picturesque, Trowa realized someone was singing, but no normal human could have a voice like that.
Trowa’s vision wasn’t at it’s best, but he could see enough of this beautiful creature to have a feeling he had seen it before.
Golden hair, glinting in the sun, and kind, innocent blue eyes. Where had he seen this before? Just as he was about to sit up to get a better look, the creature noticed he had woken up and it’s blue eyes suddenly looking frightened, it left Trowa’s sight.
“No, wait!” he called out to the beautiful creature, but it had vanished.
Quatre had hidden behind a patch of seaweed.
“Trowa, is that you?” called a voice of a woman.
Catherine? Trowa’s head was swimming; had he washed ashore to his home? I guess so. Then his heart sunk. Catherine is here. I don’t want to see that woman…
“Trowa!” the voice shrieked.
Quatre saw a woman run out and grab Trowa, dragging him in and feigning ignorance to his yells to get off.
“So Trowa is his name? Hmmm…” Quatre said to himself.
Quatre was glad Trowa had someone who loved him, but why in the world did he feel so jealous?
Quatre shrugged it off and swam away, meeting with Duo. They swam back to their rooms in the castle.