Toothiana was a child of the ocean. Her essence was the sea foam that bubbled among the fish and the coral, her soul flourished in the gentle undercurrents of the tides, and her heart sang along with the brightness of the sunlight that made the water sparkle. Every tear that dripped from her eyes added a gram of salt to the ocean, and for every laugh that she uttered , a small, joyful wave skipped across the surface.

Tooth only knew the sea and the sun and the fish. She had read, once, on a seaweed scroll that her mother, the leader of their tribe, had given her that there was a whole world outside of the sea. She had received more hints about this world from the fearsome stories Aster would tell her about the pirates that had battled and captured many of her kin. And sometimes, when she would lounge in the sun on the outcrop of rocks near the North Shore, careful to stay out of sight, she would catch small glimpses of creatures that had long limbs instead of tails, who ran and walked across stone and wore strange things at the bottom of these "legs." They spoke the same language as her, and the ones that she could see wore the same coverings as her. Their faces weren't very different, but it was the bottom halves that set them apart. Well, that and hair.

Tooth liked her kin's hair much better than the humans'. There were a thousand different shades and lengths of hair merfolk could have. Tooth's mother had shoulder-length turquoise hair that could look yellowish in the sun, and Tooth herself had waist-length dark brown hair that had brilliant streaks of light and dark green and yellow. Humans, the ones that she observed, had boring mud-brown or light yellow hair. Occasionally, one would have a rusty ginger head, which would get them lots of teasing from the others.

Tooth took pride in being able to observe quietly. Well, actually, not very quietly. In general, Tooth couldn't lay out completely still on the rocks like Aster was able to. Her tail was constantly twitching and making flippy-floppy motions, and her mouth was always going a mile a minute- talking to her friends, or the little fairies that liked to hang around her because they thought it was cool knowing a mermaid. Tooth got bored very easily, and her mother was always telling her off for looking for trouble. So it wasn't much of a surprise when, one day, the unthinkable happened.

Tooth found a pirate.

Burgess felt exactly like it did three years ago. Jack breathed in the smell of seawater and fish, and took a glance over the little seaport town from his vantage point on top of the open-roofed three-story docking station. As soon as the ship had landed on North Shore, he'd scrambled up the building's rickety wooden stairs and found a spot at the windowed wall facing the town. Jack could see posters advertising the week-long Winter Festival, which culminated a day after Christmas, hung up on the lampposts around the town. Little kids and teenagers crowded the white-sanded beach next to the dock, enjoying the first day of their mid-year break, and everywhere Jack looked, he saw bright sunshine and every indication that Burgess was a flourishing coastal settlement.

He strolled down the steps again to the edge of the dock and took a good look at faraway Fae Island, named after the fairies that were rumored to live there. Jack believed in fairies, because the idea of small, winged, creatures that existed in harmony with humans was magical.

The whole town was magical, really. Every so often the ocean would break out in ripples from the fins of some marine creature frolicking in the balmy water, and there were many small fisherman sailboats with their nets cast. Jack took another deep breath, feeling nostalgia spread from his toes to his fingertips.

His phone buzzed loudly, breaking him out of his reverie. He fished it out from his pocket and grimaced at the caller ID. It was Pitch. Again.

Jack had been avoiding his calls, which had started about a week ago, so he'd opted to take a ship from Washington instead of a plane because some guy had once told him that there wasn't any 4G in the Pacific Ocean. Thankfully, the dude was right.

Jack should've been expecting the call from his former boss, but it still managed to piss him off. He hesitantly picked up, after jogging off the dock and towards a more remote corner of the shore.

"Yeah, what."

Tooth started. She had been sitting on a boulder, her tail hanging in the water, trying-and failing- to braid her hair when she heard the voice. It sounded like a boy, and it was coming right from behind her, so she slipped quickly and silently into the water, then made sure he hadn't seen her by peeking around the stone she was hiding behind.

The first thing that stuck out to her was that he had beautiful, bright silver hair, and skin a lot lighter than hers. He was wearing dark things over his eyes that the teenagers called "shades." She was intrigued at the handsome human, and tried to hear what he said to the rectangle thing he was talking into. The water kept splashing on the boulder and she only caught a few phrases of what he was saying.

"…done…pirating! Money is…enough treasure, okay?"

Tooth's eyes widened and her slender fingers wrapped around her mouth. Money? Treasure? Pirating?

Her heart started thumping. She had caught a real pirate!

A/N: All credits to the wonderful sophiefarts on tumblr for the ideas. Hope y'all like where this is headed! :)