Archive of Our Own ^beta

Every new member of the crew has to be told. It is only a matter of time before any new sailor asks, usually softly and under their breath to another crew member. The question itself is always the same. “Is the captain’s earring a mermaid’s scale?”

“Yes,” is the answer they get, also at a whisper, because one musn’t talk about it too loudly. “But never, ever mention it to him directly. You see, when the captain was very young, he lost his dear mother to a storm. The storm was so vicious that the captain’s father, the pirate king, was convinced that only the sea king could have conjured it. He declared war on all merfolk, and pirates have been warring with the sea ever since. However, our captain insists that he was saved from the clutches of that wicked storm. He claims he fell overboard during all the chaos, and he swears that he was rescued.”

“By a mermaid?” asks any new crew member without fail, their voice filled with awe. 

“Perhaps,” is the answer they get, usually with a shrug and a knowing grin from the crew. “That scale is all he has to prove it—that, and a fabled scar that no one has ever laid eyes upon. He wears the scale now as an earring, something like a good luck charm. It drives his father mad, but Arthur commands his own ship now. Soon, he will be the Pirate King, and then he will command the most dreaded fleet the seas have ever known. What then will become of the war on merpeople remains to be seen…”

And with that, the new crew members are usually satisfied. From there, they keep their mouths shut, not daring to bring up the earring within earshot of the captain, or to speculate about his hidden scar. After all, the captain is as fierce as a maelstrom himself when he wants to be. Tall and broad-shouldered, he often stands poised at the bow, peering through his spyglass with his many rings glittering in the sunlight and his cutlass shining at his side. It isn’t long into any new pirate’s service that the Red Dragon wins a new prize, hunting the waters for vulnerable merchant ships. It is then that the new pirates first witness the captain with his sword in hand, wicked-fast and deadly precise as he boards a ship and takes its treasure. Every pirate knows, sooner or later, that Arthur Pendragon is not one to be trifled with.

But then, one fateful day, a new crew member joins the Red Dragon— the first in quite a while. He’s the new cabin boy, as the last one was forced to leave due to a sickness in need of treatment. They take on this new pirate at Port Royal, a gangly teen with dark hair and bright blue eyes. He looks young, innocent, and all the older pirates on the ship chuckle when he boards for the first time. “Doubt this one’s got his sea legs,” murmurs one pirate to another as the new cabin boy nearly trips over his own boots stepping off the gangplank. “The cap’n will have a field day with him.”

They aren’t wrong, and it doesn’t take long to see the fruits of that prediction. Within hours of weighing anchor and setting sail, the captain shoves a mop and a bucket into the unsteady boy’s arms, leaving the water sloshing dangerously. “Time to mop the main deck, cabin boy,” the captain orders with a wagging finger, his rings shining on his hand. “And swab the poop deck while you’re at it.”

“Yes, captain,” comes the boy’s reply, even as the crew laughs at him. The pirates return to their work, their amusement had, but then the boy opens his mouth and commits a sin that no other pirate on the ship has ever committed. 

“Is that a merfolk scale?” the cabin boy asks innocently, pointing to the captain’s earring as it sparkles in the sun. The boy’s fingertip brushes the dangling jewelry just slightly, but the captain pulls away, startled by the advance. 

The crew immediately all fall silent. The ship itself seems to cease to creak, the sea going still. No one speaks, everyone sucking in their breath and holding it as the captain stares at the new cabin boy, the first person ever to mention the earring in his presence.

The cabin boy seems to realise he’s made a mistake. “I-I’m sorry,” he tries to backtrack, but it is too late for that now. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything, I—it must be important to you. It’s just… it’s very pretty.”

The captain merely stares. It is an unreadable stare, and a stand-off that lasts for an insufferable amount of time as the crew looks on, waiting to see what the captain’s reaction will be, and how severe.

But the captain merely says five words. “Don’t speak of it again,” he instructs, and then he stalks away with his red coat swishing in the wind. He disappears into the captain’s cabin with a slam of the door, and that is that.

The poor cabin boy is left there, standing rigid with a dripping mop in hand. He looks bewildered, and it isn’t long before one of the kinder crew members fills him in. Understanding slowly enters the boy’s face. “I see,” is all he says, and then he jumps to his chores as instructed. 

The boy doesn’t mention the earring again. He doesn’t breathe a word of it, and not even when the captain emerges from his cabin the next morning and the scale has inexplicably turned a brilliant, glittering gold.

Before long, that earring is the talk of the ship again. None of this comes within earshot of the captain, of course, but below decks, or tucked away in the rigging, then the talk happens in hushed tones. The scale has always been blue, and now it’s gone gold. But why? 

No one seems to have an answer. No one, that is, except the cabin boy, who overhears one of the whispered talks and provides an answer. “A merperson can change the colour of their scales at will,” he explains. “Did you not know that?”

“No,” came the answer. “How do you know?”

The cabin boy shrugs. “Saw a merperson once,” he says simply, and then the talking shifts. Now the pirates whisper about how the captain has achieved the merfolk power of changing the scale’s colour. What other powers can he achieve? If it’s one thing the crew has learnt, it’s not to underestimate the captain. Gwaine swears he once saw the captain emerge from the fog on a raid and take out four armed men with a single blow. Now, Gwaine might have been drunk on rum when he’d told this tall tale, so who was to say what was true, but some of the crew firmly believed it. Magic, after all, is rare but known. Anything can be true at sea.

Eventually, the gossip dies down. The golden scale becomes nothing more than another known fact on the ship, and if the captain himself questioned the change of colour, he never voices it. 

However, what the captain did voice was his displeasure at the new recruit. The cabin boy soon proves to be the worst one the Red Dragon has ever seen. Whenever the boy is tasked with relaying a message, he almost always delivers it to the wrong person—assuming he remembers to relay it at all. Twice the boy is caught stealing bits of the captain’s food before delivering it to him, and during the one night he is tasked with steadying the ship’s wheel, he falls asleep and everyone awakes to the ship several degrees off course. All this, and not to mention the one time the boy accidentally dropped the captain’s favourite hat overboard while mending it. It is unsurprising that within days of the boy being on board, some of the crew have started bets as to when the poor boy will finally cross a line with the captain and get dropped off at the nearest port without pay.

But, for some reason, that day never really does come. Despite his ire and his grumblings, the captain doesn’t seem to have a line with the cabin boy. In fact, despite his staggering incompetence, the cabin boy and the captain develop an excellent rapport that none of the crew could have predicted. Leon even reports that he ran into the captain and the cabin boy out on the deck one night, leaning on the railing of the starboard side and chattering away like old friends. When Leon had asked what they were doing, the cabin boy said they were discussing poetry. “Poetry?” Elyan exclaims at this, disbelieving. “I didn’t think the captain read anything other than maps.”

“Apparently he does,” Leon says with a shrug, and from then on, the crew simply accepts the cabin boy’s presence. He is useless with a sword, but the crew protects him on their raids. He seems to trip over his own legs half the time, having face-planted on the deck more than once, but the crew always helps him back up. He has a terrible habit of getting sunburnt, turning as red as a tomato, but the crew makes sure to give him breaks from the sun below decks. Before long, nearly every pirate on the Red Dragon sees the cabin boy as their little brother, and if any crew member tries to bully him, they are quickly shut down. Eventually, the cabin boy—who calls himself Merlin—is merely another integral part of their ragtag family of criminal misfits. By a few months in, the pirates have forgotten what life on the Red Dragon was like without him.

So perhaps that is why it was such a shock to them all when the secret came out. It was on a day like any other, with the crew preparing to weigh anchor and set off for a new prize. The deck was being cleaned, and Merlin had made one of his usual snarky remarks, leaving the captain to playfully retort by taking up the mop bucket and plopping it over Merlin’s head. 

The mop bucket, unfortunately, was very full. Soapy water streamed down the cabin boy’s raggedy shoulders, soaking him in suds. The captain grinned, still roughhousing as he rapped his knuckles on the top of the metal bucket and the crew laughed. It was all in good fun, and within seconds, Percival is striding forwards to remove the bucket and help Merlin clean it all up. 

But Percival only makes it about one step before Merlin starts to glow. Every pirate on the ship sees the captain’s eyes widen, all of them watching as their expressions go slack. Before their very eyes, the cabin boy’s skin goes from a ghostly pale to a brilliant gold, shining brighter than any doubloon the pirates have ever laid eyes upon. Within seconds, Merlin’s legs have collapsed, giving out underneath him, and the pirates have seen the cabin boy fall so many times on the ship that it shouldn’t be shocking. But they’ve never seen him fall like this. 

Merlin slams onto the deck flat on his back. The bucket rolls off his head, revealing his face. It is glowing too, his dark hair having gone gold as well, and then—suddenly—the shimmering stops. The light fades from Merlin’s skin, and what remains leaves every pirate reeling in shock. From the top up, the cabin boy looks the same. He still has his fluffy, dark hair, his bright blue eyes, his skin as pale as milk.

But from the bottom down, the boy now has a shining, beautiful blue merfolk tail. Long, slim, and as deep in colour as the sea itself. The translucent fin sprawls across the worn wood of the deck, and it takes a moment, but the boy’s large ears shift to form pointed fins that frame the stark cheekbones of his face. 

For a moment, all eyes on the ship remain on that tail.

Then, all eyes shift to the captain.

The blue irises of Captain Arthur Pendragon are fixated on Merlin’s tail. He seems to be drinking in the sight of it, memorising its every detail, and slowly, carefully, the captain’s hand glides up to the side of his face, stroking his thumb across the smooth surface of the merfolk-scale earring. Just like he has done countless times over many years. 

It is in that exact moment that Merlin first flicks his tail. It is the slightest of movements—a tiny rise and fall of the fin, with it hitting the floorboards and emitting a wet thwap. But it’s enough. With that movement, the ethereal scales of the merman’s tail transform from blue to gold, shining like coins in a treasure chest before shifting back to blue. 

Gasps filter amongst the ranks of the crew. Suddenly, they all remember how the cabin boy had told them about the merfolk’s ability to change their scale colour. Now they understand how he knew. Shivering and terrified, Merlin draws his tail into him, clutching it protectively to his chest and looking up at the captain. The merman opens his mouth, as if to say something in his defense, but no words come out. He just slumps, looking pale and scared in his little puddle of soapy water.

“It was you,” the captain whispers, and his voice shatters the silence. “You are the merman who saved me all those years ago?”

Merlin swallows, terrified, his blue eyes still glassy with fear, but he nods in confirmation. “Yes,” he chokes out, and that confession causes murmurs to break out amongst the crew. “Yes, I was. I wasn’t sure if you remembered, but I promise you, Neptune did not summon that storm. We tried to save her, your mother. We really did try. We weren’t fast enough, but I was fast enough to save you. I am so sorry that I hurt you, but you were already so cold and I needed to warm you up. I wasn’t sure it was you until I saw the scar.”

At this, Merlin tentatively raises his hand, his eyes glowing gold. To the crew’s further surprise, the captain’s chest begins to glow beneath his white tunic. Arthur looks down, shocked, and slowly, he raises his shirt. It is then that every pirate in the crew realises they have never, ever seen the captain without his tunic. They had always assumed it was to hide his wound… the secret scar. A reminder of that fateful night that the crew had long whispered about, speculating what it might look like.

But not a single crew member had predicted that the scar would be in the shape of a hand. It was a small outline, the size of a child’s handprint and placed exactly where the merman must have held the young Arthur, dragging him to safety and warming him magically so that he would not freeze to death. The scar itself pulsated a soft gold now, recognising the merman’s presence. 

Merlin lowers his hand after a second—the same otherworldly, elegant hand that had produced that mark. As he did so, the scar ceased its golden glow. It returned to a light pink and Arthur let his shirt drop once more, staring at Merlin with a newfound fascination. It was clear the captain was only just now realising that this merman had not only saved him from the depths, but that he had breathed air back into his lungs. That he had warmed Arthur from the deadly cold with his magic touch, leaving behind the branding of his hand. 

At a loss for words, the captain doesn’t say anything, and it is then that Merlin dries off enough to transform. He glows again, but less intensely this time, and his legs return, his black trousers and worn-out boots reappearing. His thin blue tunic and ragged red neckerchief flash back into existence, and he looks so unlike a merman now that it’s hard for the crew to believe they’d all just seen him with a tail.

The cabin boy attempts to stand then, unsteady. His spindly legs are shaking and he almost falls. Percival catches him, and suddenly it makes sense why Merlin is always falling on the deck. It makes sense why he is terrible at sailing, or always hungry, or always sunburnt, or even terrible at relaying messages. He isn’t used to walking, nor is he used to the sun or sailing. He is accustomed to eating whenever food presents itself to him, and he’s used to speaking telepathically with his kin, not out loud. He’s from a different culture, a different species, hunted down ruthlessly by… well.

By them.

Slowly, Merlin peels himself from Percival’s grasp. He makes his way to the rail of the ship, looking like he’s poised to throw himself over it and into the sea. “I’ll go,” he announces with a broken, wobbling cadence. “I don’t want to come between you and your father. I know the pirates are at odds with my kind. I don’t want to make things worse.”

He moves, about to dive overboard, but Arthur reacts. “Wait!” he calls, and Merlin freezes. As always, he listens to the voice of his captain. “Don’t go,” Arthur continues, and for once, his voice is just as watery and shaky as Merlin’s. “I don’t want you to go. Stay. If you’d like.”

From across the deck, Merlin’s lip quivers. He stays where he is, unsure. “I don’t know…” he wavers, and the pirates can hear the conflict in his tone. “I just wanted to see what it all was like. Sailing. Being a pirate. I’ve watched you all from afar for so long, but I don’t belong here.”

“But you do,” Arthur insists, and the crew members all mutter, the shock having turned to agreement. “You do belong here, Merlin. This doesn’t change anything.”

“It doesn’t?” Merlin whispers, astonished, and he is further overwhelmed by the cries of approval that come from the crew. Shouts of “Aye!” filter through the crowd, as if votes are being cast, and Arthur grins.

“I’m not my father, you know,” the captain reminds the merman, and he outstretches his hand. It’s an invitation. Acceptance. “I have no quarrel with the merfolk. If you tell me that Neptune did not summon that storm, then I believe you. If anything, I should quite like to make peace with him. I think that is long overdue.”

It is shocking, really, how beautiful Merlin’s smile is. It spreads across his face, radiant as the sun, and perhaps they all should have realised he wasn’t quite human. That this is the smile of a merperson, born of magic and a child of the sea itself. “I think my father would quite like that,” Merlin tells them, and more gasps flit amongst the crew.

“Y-your father?” stammers Arthur, his face dawning with the realisation that he’s had the prince of the merfolk on board his ship all this time. “Your father is Neptune?”

Merlin’s eyes flint gold. “Oh, yes,” he says, and the wind suddenly picks up, propelling their ship forwards at the perfect pace along a pristine, glass-like sea. “Why do you think you’ve not encountered a single storm since I’ve joined your crew? It’s taken some time and some training, but I have now mastered my father’s powers. You will never again encounter another storm like the one you suffered, Arthur Pendragon. That is something I can promise you this time.”

As the sun shines down on them from a cloudless sky, reflecting off the magical sea, it is Arthur’s turn to smile now. His grin is just as radiant as Merlin’s, even more rare to see than a merman. Merlin strides forward to accept Arthur’s outstretched hand, and the golden earring shifts back to blue at Merlin’s touch, activated by the merman’s fingers on Arthur’s skin. The scale is Arthur’s now, a part of him, and it is the colour of the sky, the colour of the sea. It is the exact shade of Merlin’s eyes.

“Merlin,” Arthur says then, emphasising the front of Merlin’s name for the first time, and he gives a fond chuckle. “I should have known. With a name like that, how could you not be a merman?”

Merlin laughs too, grinning from ear to ear, and then Arthur is pulling him into a tight hug, making the palm print on his chest glow once more. “Merlin,” Arthur whispers in Merlin’s ear again as he holds the merman close to him, the sea mist rising and kissing their bare skin. “You know, I want to say something I’ve never had the chance to say to you before… thank you.”

Merlin’s eyes water. He nods in recognition of Arthur’s thanks, and then he leans in and plants a gentle kiss to Arthur’s ear, right on the earring. The scale glitters and changes back to gold, responding to the will of its original owner. “You’re welcome,” whispers Merlin, prince of the merfolk to the future Pirate King, and from that moment on, the golden age of the seven seas began. Peace was known between pirates and merfolk forevermore.

And as for Merlin and Arthur? Well, they sailed on gentle seas and never encountered another storm again.