Leave her, Johnny, leave her! Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her! For the voyage is long and the winds don't blow And it's time for us to leave her.

The seamen sang, voices slurred and bogged by rum. The sun was beginning to set on the horizon, signalling it was time to turn back their ship. It had been a long day with a contrastingly small amount of catches. Alviran Shorthair, the arrogant young pirate who ran the ship, was beside himself. He held his hat to his chest, looking outward onto the foreboding sea. Millions of creatures were alive beneath him. So why couldn't he catch a single one?

One, in particular, he had been chasing all his life. A mermaid. It was silly to think about, they were extinct- if they had ever really existed in the first place- but he grew up on the legends. It couldn't hurt him to dream, could it?

Leave her, Johnny, leave her

He wanted more than anything to see a mermaid, even for the smallest segment of a second, if only to prove they were real. To give something of mirth back to his villagemen who were running out of hope. Hope at outliving the changing earth around them.

"SHORTHAIR, QUICK!" A seaman shouted out from the edge of the boat, wrestling with the net pulley. Alviran was quick on his feet, helping him pull it out of the water. And when he did... he couldn't believe it.

There, tail clashing against the ropes, you laid.

He stuttered, "Y-you're a..."