The dress blue uniforms were itchy. They were tired and hot and couldn't wait for the ceremony to be over. The captain looked across the water at the setting sun. At least that part would be over, and they'd get some respite from the day's heat. But yet...
He looked down, into the cool depths of the ocean waters surrounding the metal monstrosity he had called home for almost three years now.
"And do you, Mark Wallace, take this mermaid, Jasmine Petals, to be your lawfully wedding wife? In sickness and in health... forever and ever, by Neptune's Trident?"
The young sailor looked down at the mermaid clinging to the ship's side, gulped, and shakily nodded his head. The red-haired beauty in the water's below smiled in approval, exposing sharp incisors in her delicate, full-lipped mouth.
...