Spicy water

I run to the edge of the ice with my spear in hand charging it with electricity mana. Then I throw it as hard as I can so it lands in the water by the boats bow. The spear goes into the water smoothly and then the mermaids stop attacking the ship.

"What did you do?" Asks my trainee coming up slowly behind me. Looking cautiously between the edge of the ice and open water the ship is in.

"4, 3, 2... 1." I slowly count. About 20 mermaids of all sorts of colors start floating to the top of the water. Their top half is female with long hair while their bottom half is scaly. The roots and base of their hair matches their tail color and some have natural hair color on the tips of their hair. Those are the younger ones. The more time they spend in the water the more snags cutting at their hair or it just falling out over time gives you an idea of how much humanity is left in them. 

"Did you just...?" Samantha is a little horrified.

"Oh! They are just unconscious but don't worry, they can breath in water." I reassure her as one floats by face down. Then I yell out to the captain of the ship. "Hey! We don't have long can we use one of your row boats?"

He nods frantically and kicks a guy off the side of the main ship to row the little boat to us. Poor guy must be the new hire, or no one likes him. Everyone is on edge from being attacked so I can see going down in a little boat by mermaids would be terrifying. The guy rows as fast as he can to us.

"I...!" The guy tries saying while trying to get out. I push him back in the boat and wave for Samantha to follow.

"You'll be fine. Come on let's get seals on them. Please row us around to them." I tell the poor soul while pulling out a stack of steals. I hand Samantha a small stack. I start slapping them on the mermaid's heads. Once on they glow a little and then burn to nothing. A very small patch of hair, only a few strands becomes pure white to indicate that she has a seal on her. These strands usually show up on the left side by the nape of the neck.

"I saw you do this with the Sirens. What does this do?" Samantha asks.

"Oh, its a "stop craving human flesh" seal. A Matilda speciality, to my knowledge she's the only one that can make them. Anyways, these mermaids are carnivores so we have to lead them back north where the seal and walrus population is heavier." I explain to Samantha and our travel companion.

"So there are nice mermaids, right?" Samantha says cautiously putting a seal on a mermaid.

"Yes there are ones that don't need to eat and remain eternally youthful, others need to eat meat of some sort and do age, some need to eat to remain youthful. Lots of combinations. These ones aren't the nicest but there are nice ones that will lead ships to calm waters or can even calm waters for sailors. Some even have healing powers." I explain further. A green mermaids hand twitches.

"Hold on," I say grabbing a spear, charging it with electricity and lightly tossing it into the water. Everything in the water twitches for a second and this time around a few fish float up too. Woops. "Alright did we get them all?"

We are looking around til Samantha is pulled off the boat and into the water. Screaming her name and swearing doesn't do anything but let's me express my emotions of possibly loosing her. Samantha can swim but she tires easily in the water. Throwing my hands in the air I say a blessing over her to protect her from the heavily electrified spear I'm going to be throwing into the water. I charge the spear in an instant, adrenaline is coursing through my veins. Samantha surfaces in front of me with her hands up to tell me to stop.

"It's fine! I got the seal on her! She's the last one!" She tells me. Her face says she is scared of what I was about to do.  A green haired mermaid surfaces beside Samantha her tail is purple and green. She swims around curious but not much concern in her eyes.

I lower my spear to help Samantha into the back of the boat. Other mermaids start waking up and diving down into the dark water. I begin chanting to dry her clothes while she quietly sings a melody to keep her warm. I'm not sure how but she is able to sing quiet as a whisper. I look to our guy in charge of rowing but he is whimpering about dying on the bottom of the boat.

"Did anything funny happen in the water to you?" I ask Samantha.

"I'm not sure. It got dark for a moment but I could breath under the water after that. I figured I died." She is staring off to the ocean. "I have been scared of drowning after a few close calls."

"Well you won't have to worry about that anymore." I say.

Samantha looks at me funny.

"This species, if they kiss you, you can breath under water because they are not truly cursed mermaids. Hopefully that wasn't your first kiss? Last I knew you got yourself a boyfriend." I side eye her while picking up the oars.

"No, that was not my first kiss." She says.

"Maybe your first kiss with a girl though." I giggle. Samantha stays quiet.

"Wait." I stare her down. She completely turns around in the boat to look away from me. So it wasn't her first kiss with a girl. Interesting.

I continue on with my explanation of mermaids to fill the silence as I row to the main boat. "These ones are born like this. They have natural human hair when they are born and then once they are old enough they can go on land to find a human mate since these ones only give birth to girls. Then once they have aged out of their prime their hair changes to their fin color and they can no longer walk on dry land."

"Interesting." Samantha replies.

"That it is. You would think the blood would get thinned out after a few generations but their blood is pretty potent. Some people try hunting them but they meet their end pretty violently." We are beside the main ship and I can hear them trying to repair the hull. Our buddy that got chosen to be our guide scurries up the side of the ship.

Ropes are thrown down to hoist the boat up. Names are called out by the sailors to the boy that left us in down below. I tie mine to the bow and Samantha ties hers to the stern. The men told us to hang on while they pulled the boat up. They help us onto the ship and are grateful that we helped them in time.

"I need to speak to the captain." I tell one of the crew.

"Yes'm. " He says before taking off to the captains quarters. We follow to the wooden door. The guy comes out and holds the door open for us. "This way."

"Thanks." I say striding into the chambers. The captain is throwing a blanket over a chest.

"I have no money to repay-" I cut the captain off by slapping a bag of coin on the table.

"Is this ship sound?" I ask.

"Why yes, yes it is." He says.

"Take us north." I demand.

"Why should I?" He asks.

"Fine, we can do this the mean way." I pull the bag off the table and grab a spear.

"What I ment to say was, how far north would you like to go my dear?" His smile was painfully painted on.

"I'm not your dear. We are going North a few hundred miles." I tell him releasing my grip on my spear.

"A f-few h-hundred miles?" His face looks pained as he looks between my coin bag and his map.

"Do you not have supplies?" I ask.

"Well.."

"The bag has a thousand gold coins in it buddy, it's worth your time and while." I tell him bluntly.

His tune and expressions change in an instant. "Right away my lady!" He shouts running out the door, we follow him out. "Men! Prepare to go north! Give me a report on the hull!" He barks orders.

"So how are we going to get the mermaids to follow us?" Samantha asks following me to the stern of the ship.

"With this! Another Matilda speciality." I pull out a shell and open it. A melody carries out over the water and mermaids gather around. The melody plays a few rounds then the shell breaks. "Ahh shi-"