A Coat of Scales
Day Two, Year Unknown
Still bleary with the last vestiges of sleep you grasp for the hilt of your sword, feeling a touch strange as you do so. Your father's words still ring in your ears.
A sword is not your belt knife and it is not for waving about to make a show of, it is a tool made for one purpose only, for man to kill his own kind. You do not wish to use it, but at need you will.
As you climb on deck you are greeted with the strange sight of more than a dozen of the crew crowded near the aft side of the ship peering into the water and shouting to each other in a melange of tongues you can only make up about half of. "It's a dolphin, leave it be...." "I've never seen a dolphin like that, it's a devil I tell you!"
Dolphin... the word almost feels like it belongs on another world. On the journey to Cyprus Ser Geoffrey had asked in jest if you want to see real mermaids and you had said yes, not really believing him, but wanting to be proven wrong. He had shown you one of the odd playful fish. skirting the water's surface and saying. 'They look enough like women to a man three months out of port.' You had taken the jape in good spirits and in truth come to enjoy looking at the odd playful creatures following the ship.
There had not been any dolphins on the Marcella's journey...
You shake off the thought and head towards the commotion as the Egyptian doctor was trying to say something in the few words of Sicilian he had, to stop them, but to little avail. The same troublemaker from the day before, Marco hefts a crossbow and shoots into the water but the bolt goes wide and he actually manages to him himself in the chin with the weapon in the process.
Nervous laughter echoes over the deck, then one of the younger sailors calls. "Look it's got it in its teeth like a dog! It thinks we are playing with it."
"That ain't no dog it's a cat if ever I saw one," another says as the doctor finally makes it to the edge to get a closer look. He says something in his native tongue that you cannot make out then calls for the captain.
"Clear out, clear out you layabouts!" Antonio shouts in turn from the other side of the ship. He too had been sleeping
The two of you make it to the edge at about the same time to see an odd sight indeed. Swimming alongside the galley with a crossbow bolt still in its teeth is a creature scaled shimming blue and sea green with the tail of a fish, maybe even a dolphin specifically and the front part of... a cat. It trully does look like a cat there is no mistaking it, whiskers and all. "I suppose I got to see a sort of mermaid after all," you laugh, and the sound feels strange on your lips but it just looks so absurd that you cannot help yourself.
Zaia says something and the captain translates. "He says he has never seen anything like this and for that matter neither have I in all my years of sailing. If we could catch it this is sure to be worth a pretty penny in port..." He cuts himself off looking more closely at the sea cat. "Although we might not be the first to have that thought, see there that flash about its neck?"
Now that he had pointed it out you do see. The odd little thing has a collar around its neck, a thin strip of what looks to be white leather though it is hard to tell with the way it keeps turning end over end in the water clawing at the hull.
He points out the same thing to the doctor who nods and asks something else in return. After a quick back and forth Antonio nods. "I think we should try to catch it, bad luck be damned, this is good luck staring us in the face, good luck and a pile of silver when we make port."
What do you do?
[] Leave it up to the sailors to try to catch the creature with a net
[] Offer to try to coax the strange creature on board, it has a collar maybe it can be baited with food
[] Counsel that they leave the beast alone
[] Write in
OOC: First encounter roll, I actually rolled this one two days ago, but I underestimated how much else we would have to do in the meantime. Not yet edited. 
