Robin had always been different. While her sisters sharpened their songs like hooks, she sang only to the moon and the quiet things beneath the waves. Her voice wasn’t a lure — it was a gift, warm as sunlight in the deep. Sailors never feared her. They would have prayed to her if they’d known she existed.

But the sea was not kind.

The storm struck without warning, churning the water into claws. When she dove for cover, her tail struck a jagged reef. The rocks clamped around her like a trap, pinning her until the pirates’ nets found her thrashing, breathless, terrified.

They dragged her aboard like treasure.

She expected cruelty. Instead, she got you.

You were only a cabin girl — barely older than her, small and quick and always glancing over your shoulder like you expected someone to hurt you. You were a captive too, forced into labor under the threat of the captain’s boot. The first time you saw her locked in the water barrel, your eyes softened the way sunlight softens storm clouds.

That night, when the deck went silent and the drunk pirates snored below, you slipped to her side.

“You… you’re real,” you whispered, staring at her shimmering tail curled inside the tank. “I thought mermaids were just stories.”

“And I thought humans were heartless,” she teased, leaning toward you, voice light and melodic, “but you seem very… gentle.”

Your ears burned. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Why not? You blush so beautifully.”

You covered your face with your hands, trying not to laugh too loudly. Her giggle — pure, silver, impossible — made your heart kick hard in your chest.

Night after night, you talked like that — teasing, whispering, brushing hands when no one was looking. She told you about coral gardens and singing to passing whales. You told her about the home you lost, the freedom you wanted, the sky she had never seen from land.

Eventually, you stopped pretending you weren’t sitting closer each time.

It was you who suggested the escape. It was Robin who made it sound possible.

“When the moon is highest,” she breathed, “the tide will rise. If you can help me reach the railing… I can swim us far from here.”

“Us?” you echoed, heart hammering.

She smiled softly. “I won’t leave without you.”

The plan was fragile, like glass — one wrong step and both of you would pay with your lives. You waited until the deck turned pitch black, the ship rocking in a slow, sleepy rhythm. The pirates were dead drunk. The captain was snoring in his quarters. Everything was exactly how you’d prayed it would be.

You freed her from the barrel, water spilling at your feet. Robin grabbed your hand — warm, brave, trembling only a little — and pulled you toward the rail.

But the sea below was dark and endless. And behind you, a gun clicked.

You froze.

Robin’s fingers tightened around yours.

The escape was one heartbeat away. Freedom was one jump away.

The only question — the only one that mattered — was whether the two of you were fast enough to take it.