Saoirse had no illusions of noble pirates with hearts of gold. Nor did she have qualms about stealing, or killing if it came to it.
Reka had put her to reloading all the broadsides, which was one of the worse jobs she had been assigned. Cannonballs were heavy, she would be sore later, and Reka planned to use them on a ship that had already surrendered to her.
The regular gunners had boarded the other ship to carry off what their victims were willing to give in what they thought was exchange for their lives. She remained, to load the cannons, and Reka remained to watch. Her fun would come later, scouring the wreckage for what goodies were left behind.
"This seems needlessly cruel." The selkie grumbled, both at Reka's murderous plans and at her making her do this when she could do it herself trivially.
"There's plenty need for it." Reka said, counting off the reasons for it on her fingers. "One: Nobody ever gives us everything when they surrender. They hide things away. They think I will be appeased with portions. They have treasures they'd rather die than part with, and so they will."
"Right, I forgot you were a greedy bitch, of course this is reasonable then." Saoirse said under her breath, lugging her crate of cannonballs to the next set of cannons.
"Two:" The captain continued, ignoring her. "I don't need them bitching to the navy that there's a shark woman robbing them, and I don't need people thinking they can cross me and live to tell the tale. No survivors."
"And I am..?"
She shrugged. "Unpaid labour? A kidnapping victim twice over? An attractive nuisance?"
"How wonderful for me."
"And three: If the weaklings wanted to live, they should never have entered my seas. Any questions?"
"Permission to be insubordinate, Captain?" Saoirse panted, breathless as she set her crate down.
"For my favourite swabbie? Always."
"You know how sharks eat seals?"
"Aye."
"I think I'd prefer that to working for you."
"Well, shame you aren't a seal then."
"Fuck you." Saoirse spat. "You're going to kill them all just because you happened to come across them?"
"And because I want what they have."
"You're a monster."
"That I am, and you're loading my guns. Which you could be doing faster, by the way." Reka said smugly, grinning wide to show off her monstrous teeth. "Unless you want to drown with them."
She did not.
The cannonade was deafening. Saoirse's ears rang as Reka made her watch their cannons tear the other ship apart, cackling the whole time.
"I love a good shipwreck! Watch them squirm!"
The sailors that escaped the wreck thrashed about in the water, struggling to latch onto anything that would aid in their survival. Reka just kept laughing and shot at them, until they all fell still.
"You really are having fun with this, aren't you?" Saoirse asked, monotone.
"Of course!"
"I don't get it. Do you hate the humans?"
"I love the humans! I love their drinks, their weapons, I especially love their women!" The shark guffawed. "Do you?"
Saoirse watched the corpses slowly sink beneath the waves.
"The sailors, maybe." She said.
"Aye?"
She certainly didn't like the sailors. They trawled her waters with nets, they tried to catch her with harpoons, they stole her fucking skin-
"This is excessive." She said. "You're sick."
"I'm strong, and they're weak, and that's all that matters in my seas, lass."
"I suppose you think me weak."
Reka shrugged. "You still live, don't you? Enough slacking-" She said, tossing off her coat and directing Saoirse to a hauling rope. "I will loot, you will wait here and haul whatever I bring up onto the deck to dry. Feel free to steal any baubles you desire, I'll just add them to your debt."
She stripped off the rest of her clothes and dove into the water, harpoon in hand.
Saoirse grunted, hefting the net at the end of the rope overboard. The fuck was she to do with baubles.
She waited, and waited, and every so often she struggled to haul up a crate full of whatever treasures Reka had collected, because she could just carry it the slight distance further to the deck herself, but then she wouldn't get the satisfaction of making her do it.
She spread the captain's clothes out and arranged her ill-gotten gains atop them to dry, deciding that I didn't want anything to roll overboard was a plausible enough excuse to inconvenience her slightly.
Reka was either truly consumed by greed or just fucking with her. Piercings still attached to chunks of skin, rings with broken off fingers still inside, gold teeth that Saoirse had to sort from the regular ones.
Whatever.
She wasn't squeamish. She had tried to pry secrets from living flesh, she could pry gold from dead. Reka would need to try harder if she wanted to make her balk. The refuse went overboard and a ring went on her finger, to show her defiance.
Then came the real treasures. Sacks of coin hidden away from their first looting. The few miraculously intact barrels of supplies from what they were left with to make it ashore.
Neither appealed to her, she had nowhere to spend any riches and could hardly sneak a fucking barrel in with her scant possessions. However- A jeweled dagger caught her eye, some officer's trophy. She unsheathed it and inspected the blade in the sun, a thin, needle-like thing.
Any baubles I desire, eh?
She sheathed the blade and stowed it in her sleeve. It would pay for itself, in time.
Nothing else was of any use to her. She kept hauling and laying things out until Reka finally climbed back aboard.
The water on her skin glistened in the setting sun as she stretched and slowly cracked her neck, her naked body on full display. Saoirse felt a terrible pang of want deep within herself, of envy towards the women Reka loved instead of treating like this.
She pushed the feeling down.
"Good, you cleaned the meat out." The shark rasped, squatting down to inspect her loot. "And you took the knife I got for you. Very good."
For her?
"Now, what you gonna do with that, hm?" She asked, grabbing Saoirse by the chin and making her look into her soulless eyes. "You gonna kill me?"
"If I have to." Saoirse said coldly, holding her gaze.
They stared into each other's eyes for what felt like forever, until Reka laughed and clapped her on the back.
"That's what I like about you, lass!"
She got up and walked away, chuckling.
"Oh, I'll make you a terror of the seas I will, just wait."
Saoirse watched her cross the deck and enter her cabin, carefree. She was indebted to a madwoman. A madwoman that saw something in her, something horrible, and wanted to cultivate it.
Something that Saoirse worried really was there, as her heart pounded and she held her new dagger tightly. She would do anything to survive, to get her skin back.
Anything.
