Mysteries

[intheheart]

Title: Mysteries
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Summer gets rescued; Zack and Felipe get flabbergasted.
AU: EPIC PIRATE AU, Mermaid AU
Notes: Crossover with Isana's Tenth Sage, Mermaid AU. Follows Stitching and replaces Distress in the EPIC PIRATE AU timeline. It may help to read Isana's Land Coral, Sea Rainbows, but it isn't necessary (except insofar as it's an amazing story and everyone should read it).
Warnings: A very brief moment of possible implications of suicide.


They caught her barefoot, in grey worn skirts that drifted around her body like mist. Her chemise might once have been white, but washings and wearings had reduced it to the same worn grey as her skirts. She might have been wearing fog.

"I don't even know how she got in here," Zack said, holding the strongbox up by its open lid. To all appearances, she'd just unlocked it and lifted the lid, but Zack had the only keys.

He'd been obsessing over this all day. Felipe rolled his eyes, and said, "Do you know, Zack, I still don't have an answer for you? Any more than you can tell me how she got on the ship."

Zack, temporarily distracted from the strongbox, shook his head. "No, no, that one I figured out. Turns out we've got one more trunk on board than the manifest lists." He shrugged. "Lord knows we don't know all the dockworkers. Bet you somebody loaded her aboard at the last port, and we just never noticed."

Felipe looked towards the bow of the ship, where she sat with her feet tucked beneath her skirts, staring out at the sea. She was only a few strides away from them, so they'd let her go unchained-- or rather, he had. Zack had advocated for leg irons, and eventually refused to have anything to do with it. "She's definitely quiet enough to go unnoticed," he said, wondering if she was listening.

She turned around and gave him a bright smile before looking back out to sea. Well, that answered that.

"Yes." Zack frowned at the strongbox again. "Good thing you walked in on her or this would all be gone. What the hell did she want, anyway? We don't have enough money for that kind of effort."

Felipe could hazard a guess as to that, at least. "She said her name was Kendall," he said, thoughtfully. "You think she might be related to Captain Hirschfeld-Kendall?"

"Yes," Zack repeated, slowly. "You know, she very well might be. Doesn't the captain have a sister?"

Damn it. "She does," Felipe said, softly. And if this was the captain's sister, there was no way he could save her, no matter what she'd done for him.

"Sister, then," Zack said, and swore. "You think she was after the arrest warrant?"

Since the warrant was still in the box, Felipe doubted it. "I don't know," he said. "It does make sense, I suppose."

Zack nodded, as if he'd made up his mind. "She must have been. We're lucky you caught her when you did, or we'd have some embarrassing questions to answer."

That wrung a dry laugh from him, even through the regret and other emotions he was unwilling to acknowledge. "Embarrassing's not the word for it."

"He couldn't do too much," Zack said, but he didn't sound too certain. "Look, it doesn't matter. It didn't happen. And we don't have to explain to the governor how we lost the arrest warrant for a pirate he very much wants dead."

"That's the part I don't understand," Felipe said, still looking at the woman at the bow. "What's the governor got against the captain that every other royal governor in the Caribbean doesn't?" He frowned. "I got the impression that most of them were rather proud of her, actually."

"She's not your standard pirate, this is true." Zack frowned now, into the middle distance. "She must have taken something very valuable from him."

The girl laughed at that, then and twisted around to look at them, green eyes merry. "Ivy didn't take anything," she said.

Zack turned his frown on her. "You're not taking this very seriously," he said. "Are you aware that you're under arrest?"

She ignored him. "Ivy didn't take anything, not from him," she repeated. "Gina came all by herself."

Felipe snapped his head up and stared at Zack as a thousand things suddenly became clear. "Oh," he breathed.

"Shit," Zack finished, and went to one knee beside the girl. "Gina. You mean Regina Caravecchio."

"She doesn't like being called Regina," the woman said. "It sounds too Spanish. She prefers Gina."

Gina or Regina, it didn't matter. "That's the damn governor's daughter," Felipe said, and swore some more himself. Whatever slim chance he'd had of keeping her neck out of the noose was gone now. "Captain Hirschfeld-Kendall kidnapped his damn daughter. No wonder he's so furious."

"No," the woman said, and this time she sounded angry. "Ivy didn't kidnap anyone. Ivy's never kidnapped anyone. Gina came and stayed because she wanted to. And she was twenty-two. No one had any right to tell her what to do."

It was their turn to ignore her. "She's been gone for years," Zack said. "Why now?"

"It doesn't matter," Felipe said, and swore some more. "There has to be something we can..."

"Do?" Zack finished, and laughed. It was not a happy sound. "You want to tell the governor he's full of it? He will kill us. No one would even blame him."

"You heard her," Felipe said, and gestured at the woman. She'd apparently lost interest in them; she'd come to her feet and leaned over the rail, gazing out over the water. "She was of legal age. Her father's got no right to stop her if she wants to go."

Zack was already shaking his head. "Maybe if she were a man, but as it is he's got every right. She's unmarried and he's her father. Besides which, he's the governor, and the king is very far away."

Felipe was seized with the sudden urge to hit something. He turned away from Zack and strode down the deck, clenching his hands at his sides, fighting the desire. "It's wrong," he said, without turning around. "It's all wrong."

"I know," Zack said, sounding unbearably sad. "But it's the law. There's nothing else we can do."

The woman laughed merrily, and Felipe turned to face her; saw Zack do the same. "Don't worry," she said. "I've taken care of it. Now, ask me your questions and I'll answer. Truthfully. A little payment for what I took. But ask me quickly; this won't take long."

Zack met Felipe's eyes briefly, incredulously, then spun around and spat words at her, rapid-fire. "Was I right about the chest? What did you take from the strongbox? How did you even get in? That's a damned good lock! Are you Captain Hirschfeld-Kendall's sister? What is even going on here? And just what the hell do you mean, don't worry?"

She frowned for a moment, then said, "Yes, I got in on the chest. I took a queen's ransom-- and you needn't look for it, I already destroyed it. I picked the lock. It isn't as good a lock as you think it is. Yes, Ivy is my sister. I don't know what's happening." She glanced over her shoulder again, and a bright, pleased smile spread across her face. "You'll see, about that last one."

Zack stared at her for a moment, mouth open, then threw his hands in the air. "Pirates!"

"I'm not a pirate," the woman said, drawing herself up. She almost looked offended. "I never was. I told you that."

"You..." Zack said, but Felipe was already stepping forward.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Kendall," she said, sounding puzzled. "I told you."

He shook his head even before she finished speaking. "No, not your surname. Your Christian name."

Beside him, Zack froze. "Oh, Felipe," he breathed. "Oh, Felipe, no..."

She looked back and forth between them for a moment, then met Felipe's eyes, and held them. "Summer," she said, softly. "My name is Summer."

Summer. It suited her.

"What did you take from the strongbox?" Zack demanded.

She glanced over her shoulder again, and shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice cheerful. "I've run out of time. Goodbye."

Before either of them could stop her, before either of them could even move, she pivoted neatly on the ball of her foot and dove overboard, into the ocean.

They stood frozen for another moment more, then Zack said "Shit" and they bolted forward. Felipe very nearly managed the same neat dive she'd performed, but Zack grabbed the back of his jerkin and hauled him back over. "Too late!" he shouted. "Damn it! What the hell did she think she was doing?"

Felipe wasn't listening-- he hung over the railing, scanning the water frantically. "I don't see her," he said, panic making his breath come short. "If she can't swim..."

"Wait," Zack said, putting a hand on Felipe's shoulder. "There she is, hundred yards off the bow. There's..." He fell silent, suddenly, then pulled his spyglass off his belt, snapped it open, and stared for a long moment.

"What?" Felipe asked. When Zack didn't respond, he snatched the spyglass away from him and trained it on the red spot so far away.

It was the woman-- it was Summer, all right, her hair slicked back against her head. She was laughing, floating easily as a feather. And beneath the water, for half a breath, he saw a shimmer of violet-blue scales.

Scales?

"I saw," Zack said, quite levelly, "someone else. Another woman. But that's insane, because there's no one else in the water."

"I saw..." Felipe trailed off. Violet-blue scales... "I don't know what I saw."

In the distance, Summer Kendall disappeared beneath the water.

He didn't see her again for years.