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In all twenty years of being captain, Beidou has been a witness to many strange events. She’s fought sea monsters beyond a normal person’s comprehension and crossed seas that even monsters wouldn’t make out of alive. For the longest time, Beidou just assumed that she'd truly seen it all and that nothing could surprise her anymore.
But here she was right now, face to face with a siren, her cheeks red, and her claymore nowhere to be found.
—
The siren hissed at her, and the captain belatedly noticed her claymore in the corner of her eye—flicked away by the siren’s strong tail and several feet out of her reach. Blue-pink eyes narrowed into slits as sharp claws dug into her shoulders.
Beidou’s breath hitched for all the wrong reasons.
“Woah there, careful,” she stammered, the hesitance in her voice making her sound a lot less confident than she was aiming for. It really didn’t help that their faces were so close together, and the siren’s weight was holding her down. She was trapped beneath the sea creature, and defending herself was the last thing on her mind at the moment.
The siren didn’t reply, understandably, and only inched closer, fangs bared. Her eyes flickered towards the claymore and then back at Beidou. She had blue-violet horns curling around the top of her head, with dripping wet blonde hair covering the base of them. Up close, Beidou took note of how the siren’s skin had a pearl-like glow to it. She had a humanoid appearance from the waist up, but her chest didn’t move with every breath like a human’s would. Instead, she had something that looked a lot more like gills running down the sides of her ribcage. They were the most glaringly obvious indication that she wasn’t human, save for the tail. Beidou’s eyes ran down the gills, her expression showing fascination where there should be fear or even animosity.
Against her better judgment, she found the siren beautiful.
The siren seemed to know what she was thinking, too, because the end of her tail twitched as she followed Beidou’s gaze down at herself. She hissed again, and Beidou flinched backwards, more from surprise than anything else. The action reminded her of an angry cat, and the captain wasn’t sure how exactly to interpret that thought just yet.
Instead, she cleared her throat again, trying to draw up a plan that'd get her out of this situation. Preferably alive. She still had a crew to go back to, after all. Being stuck on an Inazuman beach for too long will certainly send her concerned crewmates looking for her, and she couldn’t be sure that their presence won’t aggravate the siren. Adorable or not, she’s aware of how dangerous these sea creatures could be. One wrong move and...
—
Kazuha’s hand slipped to the hilt of his sword as he watched Beidou from his spot, concealed behind bushes. He was ready to spring out and activate his vision the second she got ambushed by a siren, but something in his gut told him to wait.
As the most bizarre scene unfolded in front of his eyes, Kazuha was glad he trusted his instincts. Captain Beidou and the siren were out of earshot from where he was crouched, but he could see them very clearly—the way Beidou’s cheeks got progressively more flushed and the siren’s posture slowly shifted from hostility to amusement.
He watched with wide eyes as Beidou said something to the creature, only for her to tilt her head to the side silently, her tail swaying with it. The same captain who fiercely fought and defeated any sea monster that dared to cross her path across the seas now shook her head and laughed nervously in the presence of a siren. She was so immersed in their (clearly one-sided) conversation that she didn’t even sense Kazuha’s presence so close to them on the beach. The same could even be said about the siren that had yet to utter a word but was clearly listening intently.
It was like the two of them were tucked away in their own world, and suddenly Kazuha felt like he was intruding—this wasn’t a scene that was meant to have any witnesses. A guilty feeling tugged him backwards from his hiding spot, and, as quietly as possible, he began to back away into the woods. He was only here to ensure Beidou’s safety, after all, and that didn’t seem to be a matter of concern, Kazuha thought.
With his hand finally falling from its grip on his sword, Kazuha began to turn away from the scene when his jaw suddenly dropped.
In a matter of seconds, the siren had grasped either side of Beidou’s face. With cold, webbed fingers pressed against warm skin, the siren tugged Beidou forward until their lips met. If the captain gasped in response, the sound was drowned out by the sound of waves crashing just a few feet away from them.
Kazuha’s neck almost snapped from the force of his turning away, his own face red with embarrassment. He had stayed long enough to confirm Beidou’s safety, and now he really needed to get out of here.