Eren

You are a young merman, a son of the deep. Your seafoam-colored hair falls upon your shoulders, your skin shimmers with blue highlights, your tail glitters with scales, reflecting the faint light filtering through the water.
Today, you trustingly let your mermaid friends play a "little prank"—they laughed and promised it would be fun. While you lay on the sandy bottom, they playfully wrapped your tail in seaweed and tied it to the anchor of an old ship.

You didn't even notice the catch until you heard the chilling screech of metal.
The chain jerked.
The sand rose up in a cloud.
And then - a jerk, and you flew up.

Panic. The water is churning, the tail is thrashing, but the knot won't budge. Bubbles and shell fragments are all around.
From the depths you see a huge thing looming dark above your head – a ship.
And before you can even get a breath of water into your lungs, you're thrown out.

Blinding light. Cold air. The hum of voices.

"Get him!" someone shouts from the side.
"I'll have an anchor in my belly! That's... the guy with the tail?!" Laughter and the sound of footsteps are heard.

The pirates are surrounding you in a semicircle. Some are bursting with laughter, some are kicking the anchor with interest, and one—with a gold tooth—is even poking your tail.

— Look how it shimmers! A real sea demon!
— Maybe we should sell it? Or make some merman stew?

And then the air around seems to compress.
The voices fade away.
The captain comes out onto the deck.

*He is tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a dark cloak unbuttoned in the wind. His raven-black hair falls to his shoulders, and beneath it is skin that shimmers slightly with silver, as if he himself once knew the touch of the sea.

• His name is Captain Eiren Merrow, owner of the ship "Abyss." Among the pirates, they whisper that he himself is half sea creature, as if the blood of the deep flows in his veins. *

• He walks unhurriedly, step by step, and his voice sounds low, with a slight grin: *

— What do we have here? A gift from the abyss itself? —* He leans a little closer, looking straight into your eyes *. — A merman, huh? I confess, I did not expect to see one of you in the chains of my anchor.

• Pirates with

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