Cymbeline does not much care for sailing but it's by far the fastest way to get around. He's clinging to the railing, occasionally putting seasickness from himself or one of the other passengers into one of the glass globes he brought aboard as magic receptacles, and gazing out at the waves.

Okay.  Okay, Cyllene has practiced this, though admittedly with rocks and not a moving human creation.  She takes several deep breaths, and - oh, there are conveniently graspable things on the side of this ship.  Perfect; she hauls herself up.  Just enough to get her torso out of the water.

"...Kerem?"

"Your highness?"

"What kind of creature is that?"

"...well, mostly a shark, but someone's been doing something mighty odd with it."

- Oh, wow, they can talk - not that she can understand them, but that's clearly some sort of proper language going on, there.  She had vaugely guessed that this would probably be true, but it's a different thing to hear it.

"So you think it was made? Why would anyone want a... shark with a human face and hair."

"That, I have no idea."

Sheeee's above the surface and touching a ship and her whole body is being vertical like a human's and - she needs to breathe.  Back under she goes.

"Wonder why it was poking up like that."

"Could've just been curious."

"Sure, but... which of the original donors did the curiosity come from."

Maybe if Cyllene tries the other side of the ship she will be able to see humans in more detail than silhouette?

There don't happen to be any humans on that side near the railing.

Hm.  Well...

The main question is whether she thinks they're going to net her, or attempt to do something with a similarly-bad outcome that she doesn't know about.

......She can probably just drop back down into the ocean if she catches a hint of something scary impending.  She sings, quietly - it's beyond her power to make a body that functions on air instead of water; she doesn't know enough about how they work and even if she did it would be an intensive process.  But she can make the resources her body has available last longer.

Sing, sing, deep breaths - and back up.  She tries to haul more of herself out of the water and - wow, that really doesn't work.  She's pretty strong but she's even more heavy.

"Maybe something's trying to chase it and it's trying to get out of the water?"

"Can't rule it out but I don't see a bigger shark or anything."

They're ✧talking✧.  Maybe someday she can learn their language...

"I think it's looking at us." Cymbeline waves on a whim.

Is that....

Yes!  She thinks so!  Wave wave wave wave!

"...hi, shark-being!" he calls down.

She would maybe try repeating that except for how she can't really talk overwater.  Wave.

"I'm tempted to throw it a fish. Do we have a fish?"

"I can go ask if you'd like, your highness?"

"Sure, go for it."

Off goes Kerem.

Okay yes breathing time for her, too.

...She could - she doesn't want to let any merfolk know she's here, she can't let them, but - as long as she starts quietly and works her way up a crescendo, she can as part of that magic direct the sound up.  She'll aim for the remaining human, specifically, and - she doesn't want to seem as though she's making a threat; she'll keep the audible part to a few bars and switch to a set song, one for fry, one that anyone who knows how magic music works should be able to tell isn't magic, even if they've never heard the song specifically.

This human has never actually heard of magic music! But that means he doesn't find music especially threatening.

Shark-being has a voice. He was sort of not expecting that. Sharks don't make noises even when whales do.

(It's a very nice voice.)

Back up!

...he will sing the first verse of Blithe Lake and see if the shark-being does anything.

- She waits a few seconds after he finishes and then dives back down to (after the prerequisite quiet magic) serenade him with a full verse.  And then back up!

Having heard the tune of her song twice he can croon it back, more or less, though the words are hard to pronounce and he doesn't try.

Coming here is the best decision Cyllene has ever made.  How does she convey this.  Wave wave wave.

- One wave (of the oceanic variety) is a bit choppier than the rest and engulfs her; she takes the chance to breathe and lets it carry her higher on the line of graspable things; she's better at holding her weight up than at hoisting herself.

Kerem comes back with a fish and hands it to Cymbeline, who tosses it down to her.

- She doesn't catch it but she does give up her high spot on the side of the ship to dive after it.

These people probably don't know she's a princess, and that means she doesn't know why they're giving her a fish.  Maybe it's just like trading plain music back and forth... but she doesn't have a way to give them anything, right now.  She could do some magic for them if she knew what sort of things they wanted.

She doesn't eat the fish, and times her next approach with another large wave so it's easier to establish a cling one-and-a-half-handed.

"Well, she's not eating it. Maybe that's not the kind of fish she eats, or maybe she only eats seaweed."

"She?"

"Judging by the singing voice."

Okay, it's not as though they gave her a living fish, and no nets are yet making themselves evident, so it might not have been a warning...

She chomps the fish, and swallows it mostly whole.

"There she goes. Shark teeth."

"Shark teeth!" Kerem agrees in a higher pitch.

...That other human sounds maybe upset?  She'll fall back underwater and sing another fry song, this time to both of them.  One about sharing.  Cyllene finds it pretty condescending, and did when she was a fry herself, but she's nearly certain that they won't be able to understand it anyways so what does it matter.

This at least does not cause the darker colored human to make more upset sounds.

There are starting to be enough clouds blocking the sun that Cyllene can see the humans a little bit better, but it's still not enough that she can really make out any individual traits they might have.  One of them has more hair than the other, she thinks, but it's still pretty short for a merfolk.

Do they do anything else?

The lighter colored one will sing her another verse of his song!

Oh, that's just what she wanted!  She waits for him to finish, again, and then disappears to sing it back to them.  She does most of it in a neutral syllable, but one of the lines was the same in both verses and she has a go at replicating some of the sounds, there.  And then she's back on the side.

"I wonder if she could learn Loegrian."

"...you might have to find out later, looks like the sailors want us inside, weather's turning."

Ooh, a convenient really-high wave.  If she lets it carry her up the side and then holds on with her whole body out of the water, maybe she'll be able to see them, properly?  Finally?

She can see the backs of them, though this one looks over his shoulder as he's hustled into a cabin.

Ughhhh.  Well, back to the other side, to see if anyone's there now?

Sailors, messing with ropes!

It occurs to Cyllene that weather like this could maybe be related to the sunken ships and their accompanying scores of skeletons.  She lets the sailors be.

(But still sticks around.  She's supposed to be off practicing her music for the next few hours; no one will miss her until after that.)

The weather continues to get more like this. The sailors are very busy and yell at each other a lot.

If it were merfolk (or, royal merfolk specifically), there would be an obvious person to magic the weather away, and they would do that.  But Cyllene doesn't have a way to communicate with them; she doesn't know what they're doing up there - she hums to try and find out, and it's clear they're doing something, and it's not something she recognizes, and it would be very stupid for her to try and mess with that.

So she continues to wait at the ship's belly, going back and forth, checking it on each side, again and again...

Is she sure? The ship is heaving around quite a lot and might smack into her.

Ow.

But yes.  She'll just give it a wider berth.

Those two from before are back out on the deck, doing something with glass globes. This one is sitting down and clinging to the railing while he does it.

Oh, they're the ones doing the magic.

She considers for several long minutes, whether to do anything that might interfere with this; she hums, trying to figure out exactly what they're doing -

She decides to try and say something to them, but what's something they'll understand - if she tries to sound frantic they might think she's the one that needs help; if she tries to sound imposing and authoritative then there are a lot of ways that could go wrong...

The storm keeps getting worse.

Whatever they're doing doesn't seem to be working very well.

Okay, she's going to - try and hold the ship still.

That's worse! Everything on the ship that isn't part of it - the humans, but also their glass spheres - goes flying. Many of them hit the railing; many go over entirely.

- That's really not what she wanted to happen!!  And humans are really not supposed to be in the water - she drops the ship-holding song (slowly, she doesn't need to cause more problems with a sudden jerk) and starts swimming for the overboarded humans.  It seems like the most important thing is to get them to the surface; she'll collect them there and close to each other before figuring out a longer-term solution.  - Or, breathing is important, and she'll make sure that they each get at least a couple breaths before she moves on.

They don't seem to die instantly on hitting the water and some of them can sort of kick to the surface under sufficiently supportive conditions but those conditions are pretty hard to come by in the storm.

The grippable parts of the ship are not remotely stable enough for Cyllene to want to try and attach humans to it.

She cycles, a few times, giving them each a turn kept above the water, trying to figure out what to do next - she sings, checking each one, making sure they're alive and keeping them alive, when it looks like they might stop -

There are things coming off the floor part of the ship, which is probably not good, but some of them do float.  She directs the humans to grip onto those.  (Mostly in a physical sense; almost all of them are too panicked and flailing for her to communicate with, and that would probably still be true if she spoke their language.)

what yes okay grab the wood thing sure

Cyllene suspects that humans need more light than merfolk to see well; she's seen lights shining out from where they live even at the long distances she's previously kept.  So she's not, initially, that worried about the orange light coming off the other side of the ship.

But when a few more humans seemingly on purpose go into the water to get away from it, she updates her assessment.

Yeah, whatever that thing is seems to be... eating the boat?