Dawn's Dusk on the High Seas
Chapter 15

Lord, we pray to thee to carry the souls of those that fell last night under the starry sky from cursed foes. We have done wrong, and so have they. But we ask for your forgiveness and to allow them passage into paradise. In thy name, we pray.” Jack said, his hands clasped behind his back, his hood and mask gone, the sun glaring down on them from the beach.

“Amen,” everyone else droned, their gazes downward.

Colton, Laura, and Madilyn were not with them on the beach as the prayer was spoken. Instead, while Laura fed Madilyn, Colton stood out on the bow of the ship, a slight breeze brushing past him, rustling his clothes. His face was grim as he looked th the congregation of the crews on the beach. Jack was closest to the water and was apart from the rest. He could make out Alice and the children standing with them. Then, the group slowly made their way to the boats and gathered their supplies for building. Jack was amongst them while his family followed him into the forest. He’d said something about adopting mermaids as his family. Frankly, he was curious, but didn’t care much to replace out.

“Where are we going Papa?” Vivian questioned as they followed him along the path he’d made.

“There is a glen up ahead with mermaids. They are very kind, but are new to much. And, I have adopted them into the family. While they possess no blood ties, they were still happy to be part of our family, and I hope you can feel the same. Also, they don’t own any sort of clothes. So, this may be a little strange. And here we are,” Jack explained before moving a large leaf out of the way.

The mermaids were up to their usual fun, but became excited once more upon seeing Jack. Jewel had shifted quickly and was soon caught by Jack before she pressed her lips to his. Setting her down, Jack introduced his family to them. When he spoke their name, they raised their hand and gleamed.

“We were worried about you Jack. We felt the things come after you, but we were to scared to come near,” Jewel began.

“Don’t worry Jewel. It was good that you and your sisters stayed where you were. You could’ve been hurt or much worse if you tried to come to the ship when the zombies were there. You did the right thing,” Jack soothed.

Jewel glanced at the ground as she shyly smiled.

“Jack? May I talk to you privately for a minute?” Alice muttered before taking his arm and pulling away.

“You happened to forget that these mermaids you adopted looked to be full-grown women that wear absolutely nothing!” she hissed.

“You said that you believed that you’d like them! Alright, they don’t wear anything, but look at Christopher and Vivian. They don’t even care, and they’re friendly enough to them. The mermaids are like children that have been trapped in adult bodies, and they don’t know anything. We can teach them, or we can let them be themselves. They aren’t essentially doing anything wrong. Remember, Eve ate the apple and found out that she was naked. Before then, she didn’t know any better and didn’t mind. So, let’s give them the way they want to live. Not ours. We can adjust. They’re curious, but they have great amounts of compassion and love flowing from their hearts. They’d give their lives for one of us. So, just give them a chance. Maybe try being like one of them. You might like it,” Jack whispered.

They looked to their kids, and found them to be sitting with the rest of the mermaids, cross legged and chatting. All of them looked to be intrigued with what another said, and listened without a thought against another. She had to admit it, the mermaids looked to be truly caring and compassionate to Jack and his family. Not to mention, incredibly happy to truly be part of a family. Looking to Christopher, she saw that he looked them in the eyes. His gaze never diverting for an instant elsewhere. Finally, Alice gave in, she couldn’t replace anything that she truly disliked about the mermaids. Jack had gone and joined in the group to talk, and she watched them laugh and whisper. Alice sat down next to Jack, and Jewel was across from him.

“Now I’m going to leave for a little bit, but I’ll be back. No swimming in human form until I’m sure that you can do it by yourself. Alright? Happy conversations,” Jack announced, standing and beginning off to where the shrine had been.

First, he’d work on clearing away any extra stones before beginning to smooth the land over. Shadows from leaves and trees slithered to large chunks and began lifting them off before Jack began hefting stones away too. He couldn’t let the shadows do all the heavy lifting. The stones were out in about fifteen minutes, before a large wall of shadow settled on the most even point in the ground, at just the right height, before extending in all directions and pushing anything extra away to the trees. A smooth area was packed down in less than a few minutes. Now for some real fun. Jogging to an area of closely packed trees, Jack created long scythe blades of shadow from his hands before whirling and cutting through wood like it was warm butter. The trees fell, and he was soon hauling them back. His power was speeding up what normally would take days. After measuring the wood, he set up a rather circular pattern that reached upwards before he took the ropes he had off his shoulder and tied them all together. He now had the posts for the walls. All that was needed was a roof, a door, and walls. And, he couldn’t just build the entire thing, the rest of his blood family should help too. The mermaids, slept underwater, so they never needed a shelter like he did. Although… they wouldn’t be much help. Oh well. With a thought, shadow rotated the foundations to make it sink a bit into the dirt to keep it stable. Then, slivers of shadow came hurtling through the trees with large clumps of leaves. Next, moving like flying needles, the shadows wove the leaves into large tarps before weaving them through the frame and leaving a doorway. Once that had finished, the shadows wove leaves into a large but wide cone and settled it on top. A nice shelter if he did say so himself. Marking trees on his way back, what he returned to made him halt in his tracks. The mermaids were swimming around in their aquatic forms, but that wasn’t what caught his eye. Alice swam with them, utterly naked, and when she saw him, a tail lifted itself out of the water where her feet should have been. Christopher and Vivian were looking in equal amazement. When she spotted him, Alice swam to shore before crawling up the sand and gleaming.

“When the mermaids changed to their tails, I thought it would be fun, and guess what?! My powers gave me a tail that I can change into when I want! And when I first changed, I discovered I can do this too!” she chirped before her body became crystal clear water and it splashed into a puddle and reformed her body, and then returned to being skin and tail.

Jack stood baffled, before pondering something. Walking to a large cluster of shadow, Jack touched it, and his body became an intangible shadow that morphed to whatever he thought of. His shade of a body lowered until it was a flat silhouette on the ground and he flew over the ground in a single smooth motion. It felt liberating to go anywhere like that. Focussing himself even further, he rose from the ground, but when he looked to his kids, they were quaking in fear. Going over to the water, Jack gazed at his reflection. A wrapped and tattered cloak with glowing red eyes stared back at him. The cloth was black and grey, as if a long ruined funeral shroud. His arms were pure shadow with long, almost talon like claws. The arms themselves looked to have a slim amount of torn gray cloth over them and when he looked to see his feet, none were there. He was completely floating.

“Don’t... worry… It’s… me..,” Jack’s voice rasped from beneath the hood.

Christopher and Vivian were also shivering. He hadn’t noticed it, but he’d sucked all the warmth from a three foot radius around him. Floating down next to his children, they continued to stare, but less out of fright. When Jack reached forward to put a hand on Christopher’s shoulder, his hand passed through and made him shiver violently. Closing his eyes and concentrating, the warmth that he’d stolen flooded out and returned to the surroundings. Apparently, he’d accidentally also turned some blades of grass beneath him to ice. When he’d reached out to the area around him, Jack could feel every dream that whispered in everybody’s’ heads. He wanted to go through every one of them, and when he opened his eyes, there were several doubles of him floating and looking around. On Jack’s thought, they all melted away. Oh he liked his new abilities. He liked them a lot. Shifting back into his human form, Jack looked about. Everybody seemed taken aback at seeing something that looked like death itself, sighed when he changed.

“Am I able to do that?” Christopher and Vivian asked.

“I don’t know, try,” Jack responded.

Christopher scrunched his face in concentration before nothing seemed to happen. He looked sullen and picked up a pebble to toss through the trees in sorrow, but when he threw it, it soared like a bullet and left a hole in the tree it would have bounced off. He was gawking in disbelief.

“My turn! My turn!” Vivian chirped.

She mimicked her brother, but instead of nothing seeming to happen, two enormous butterfly wings grew from her back and she was flying a minute later. She was hollering in delight as she took off over the trees and landed five minutes later.

“A crew mate with a bottle saw me, and when he rubbed his eyes, he threw the bottle over his shoulder!” she giggled before her wings shrunk away to nothing.

The siblings continued to focus until their bodies hazed and Vivian became a living creature of wind that appeared in her form as a blueish white mist. Christopher’s skin, also became hazed, and when he focussed, his body was made of the toughest stone on the planet. They looked surprised to each other.

“Look at you! You’re made of stone!” Vivian’s voice exclaimed.

“Christopher looked to himself before returning, “You should see yourself! You’re made of mist!”

They shifted back, and looked bewildered.

“How?!” they gasped in unison.

Both Jack and Alice raised their hands and shook their heads.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Jack answered.

“Also, I’ve made a small hut for us to gradually build up as we live here. I’m guessing that with powers like yours, farming will be much easier than normal. Why don’t we go see it and come back before going to the Vitae and checking on Colton, Laura, and Madilyn?” he added.

“Sure!” Vivian agreed.

She changed into her mist form and a large gust blew past them in the direction of the hut. Jack chuckled before walking with everybody, mermaids included, to the hut. It wasn’t as large as a house, or as small as a tent, but it was about the size of a moderate living room. The mermaids were as curious as ever, and Alice was gawking at how he’d built the entire thing in about an hour.

“How did you? Never mind,” she quickly ended, answering her own question.

The mermaids were savoring and inspecting every sensation that they felt. The grass and dirt on their feet. The roughness of the tree bark. The smoothness of the woven leaves. The cool caress of wind over their bodies. The heat of the sunshine warming their skin.

“Christopher. After seeing what you were able to do with stone, do you think that you can shape a large and smooth piece of rock to come up as a floor and move the rest of the dirt out of the way?” Jack suggested.

Christopher put a hand to the dirt and his features again concentrated. The ground began to rumble and dirt slithered out of the hut like snakes before going into the ground. When the shaking stopped, a large slab of stone outlined the floor of the hut perfectly. And, it was quite smooth.

“Great job. I couldn’t have done it better myself. Mainly, because I can’t,” Jack laughed.

Christopher snorted slightly in amusement, finally feeling he had something he was better at than his father. Jack guided them back from the unassuming hut before having the mermaids practice swimming again. They performed admirably.

“Alright, I’m feeling that all of you are proving used to swimming in your human form and holding your breath. If you at all start to choke, shift to your mermaid form immediately. Don’t swim alone, and if you feel tired, rest where you would if you were in human form,” Jack congratulated but warned as well.

The mermaids nodded, heeding every word he said before saying that he’d be back in a few hours. Waving Jewel over, he whispered something to her that made her blush, and she nodded. He left, with his blood family close behind, to Colton’s ship.