Star in the dark sea

***

A light breeze and a pale sun fluttered over the quiet harbor of the small town of Speirus. It's more like a big village where everyone knows and respects each other. Many villagers are engaged in fishing or hunting in the forest, which is favored by the landscape. A kind of paradise for man and a place of solace. Life here is usually smooth and quiet. No one is running anywhere or in a hurry, but today... Today is probably the scariest day for the villagers. There is a commotion everywhere and everyone in a hurry is trying to sneak into the house as quickly as possible and lock themselves in, but tighter. This rarely happened, but as they say - aptly. Pirates decided to attack the village, stock up on goods before their journey to the coral reefs. A group of pirates disembarked from the ship, loudly discussing something. Their captain, Cleus the Conqueror of the Seas, calmly leaned against the side and smiled smugly, sipping a cup of rum. "Look, honey, this village is just teeming with fish. We can fill the hold to capacity and not care about food for a couple of weeks," he chuckled, glancing over his shoulder and sighed in disappointment, realizing that his daughter was completely not listening to him. "No, you're serious now, my precious pearl, huh? Can you at least take a look at how our squadron brings the loot to the bins?" The girl only shrugged lazily before getting up from the barrel and adjusting her belt on her trousers. Her two ponytails cascade down from her shoulders, and she throws back her pale gold bangs with a slight snort. "We see this every day, Father. They, as usual, will scare the people, and then they will grab barrels and nets with cool. Aren't you tired of looking at this?", she crosses her arms over her chest and taps her heel lightly on the deck, expressing dissatisfaction and whims that even her father still cannot accept. "Oh, Lumin, Lumin. You're acting like a little brat." he playfully nudges her with his elbow and hands her to him to start ruffling her hair, ruining the perfect hairstyle that the girl has been working on all morning. "Damn you! Have I been standing in front of the mirror all morning for nothing? Father, don't you understand how much time it takes?" she pouts slightly, stepping back with irritation and leaning her back against the side of the ship and with feigned resentment begins to fix the mess on her head. Lumin would be lying if she said she didn't like their hilarious banter with her father. After her mother's death from the plague, her father's figure became the only support. Cleus had a hard time combining his dangerous activities while raising and educating a little girl. It's been a tough 8 years for both of them, but everything in life changes, right? Lumin is now a trained and most admired member of the crew. Don't put a finger in her mouth, she'll bite off half of her hand, and then if she's lucky. She sometimes knits socks, scarves, or if it's really bad, sweaters for sailors. Oh, and what strong knots she ties...they will last forever and will not untie. And she is, well, just a berry, a rose among the manure. Pale golden hair, neatly gathered in two ponytails and released bangs, honey-brown eyes with a slightly golden iris on the border and a petite but strong figure. You'd have to be an idiot not to want to merge with those plump pink lips, like not fully ripe raspberries, or intertwine your fingers with those pale and elegant fingers...only then can you lose your hands and eyes. Lumin adjusted her cotton pants and cape before opening a small barrel that had been brought by someone with a carriage a few seconds ago. Her eyebrows rise slightly in curiosity when she notices a couple of books in an old binding on tight cattle skin crusts. She carefully takes out the first book, lightly brushing off the dust and coughing, waving it away. "Father, do you need books or can I take them for myself?" she asks without even bothering to turn around or glance at Cleus, having already opened the book and read its table of contents. "Mystical creatures? Mmm...curious...," Lumin mutters softly, heading to her cabin without taking his eyes off the book. For the next couple of hours, while the entire crew loads the looted goods, the young lady's attention is focused on the pages in the book. It's more like someone's notes than a full-fledged book. What is interesting is that the pages are decorated with homemade drawings of various creatures, some of which even look absurd, despite their possible existence. "Dwarves? Huh. Yes, we have half a team of them." she thinks aloud, grinning at her own joke and crosses her legs, lying in a comfortable hammock and casts a lazy glance out the small window of the hold."This book is even worse than children's fairy tales about sea monsters...nymphs...Dragons... uh, what are these?" Lumin raises an eyebrow in surprise, examining the drawing of some other creature. It is a humanoid creature that has a fish tail instead of legs. She looks at the picture in confusion and runs her finger over the image, feeling not very comfortable at the sight of such a fish. "Sirens, mermaids and mermaids...marine life and, as it is believed, the masters of the waters...Pf, what kind of nonsense is this? How can such a creature be underwater and swim like a fish? What kind of mackerel or herring is this?" She snorts and throws the book aside, and it falls with a muffled thud to the wooden floor of the ship, opening to an unhappy page. Despite looking bored, Lumin stealthily glances at the drawing again. Mermaids have a pretty charming appearance. The face is the same as that of humans, except for a pair of teeth sharp as fangs. Their hands are strong and slender, and the fingers are not completely webbed and are almost twice as long as human ones. They have gills on their ribs, which, as shown in the figure, serve as breathing for the sea miracle and open and close when swimming. Of course, special attention is paid to the tail...Oh, how beautiful he is... It reaches 2-3 meters in length, and maybe more. The scale is adjacent to the scale and it seems that the creator of the book has either seen this creation somewhere or is just rich in imagination...well, or on the head of a sick person, in the end. "If there are such creatures, then I will eat raw herring.", — Lumin muttered under her breath, leaning back and slightly arching her already aching back from an uncomfortable position. Her eyelids closed wearily as she rolled onto her side and lightly clutched the fabric of the hammock in her hands. In the sweet slumber of dreams, she dreamed of a young man with a fish tail. He had bright red hair and expressive blue eyes. The image was so clear and explicit that Lumin felt her heart flutter and she hugged the feather blanket to herself, burying her face in the warm bedding. Something about this dream seemed so strange... for example, how clearly the almost perfect features of the creature were lined up, which is even ... frightening. Maybe the girl just has seasickness or melancholy? It would be better if that were the case The mermaid waved his hand, beckoning Lumin closer and the girl obediently followed him, and her legs turned into a blue tail, and the scales softly shimmered under the water in the light of corals and glimpses of sunlight through the haze on the surface. Continuing his underwater exploration after the mysterious figure, for some reason Lumin feels a bad feeling. Pirates have such a feature - to rely on their instincts. There's something wrong with this eerily sweet and magical dream. The young man brought her to the bottom of a coral reef and takes out some kind of rune. He gently holds it out, without taking his eyes off the girl. After a couple of seconds of hesitation, Lumin takes the rune and cleans off a layer of mud and sand mixed with resin and squints slightly, looking at the inscription on the strange object, feeling a tingling in his heart.

*The rune is here, in your hands, and the saying on your lips... there is one curse, Davey Jones is his name. The devil is cursed in hell, embraced in the darkness of the sea. If you run into a locker, so grieve for life, friend, If you are in his water, then trouble will come true...*

"I... I don't understand. What does it mean and...wait, where are you?", — Lumin mumbled and turned her gaze to where the mermaid was a couple of seconds ago. Her pupils darted to the right, then to the left, and she was seriously panicked. "What the hell...It's just a delusional dream. I don't want to be here." Lumin looked around and shuddered when she heard a volley of cannons from the surface. Instantly floating up, forgetting about the rune, she surfaced, pushing back her wet, tangled hair. The girl's eyes widened when she saw her own ship, bumping into more pirates in the sacred waters. This is a forbidden place and all sailors know this, because according to legend, it is here that people die, as if it were the Bermuda triangle. Overcome by the curiosity of a developing dream, Lumin swims closer a nd hides behind a stone, watching the fierce battle.