The Fishy Mascot

 Ah, to be a fish in the sea! To be surrounded by friends and family in schools, with little worries except where the next meal would be! To swim and be free, and-

SLAP. A school of fish were dazed as a saw pierced through. They scattered best they could, swimming as fast as their fins would allow. Most would live to see another day, but some would meet their end as they were gulped right up.

The sawfish chowed down on them, content as could be. Good thing, too: they might have starved if they didn't find anything! The sawfish lazily drifted away, glancing towards the seabed in case any other tasty morsels were hidden within.

It was the same old thing day after day: hunt, dig, eat, repeat. Maybe they'd find a mate, or hide from a shark, but it was about as thrilling as watching grass grow. Maybe they'd see another one of their number? No. They haven't seen their kin for miles. The last time they did, the hook from the heavens dragged them up above the surface, and they were never seen again. 

They were careful to stay close to the seabed, resisting the temptation of free food from above. They did not want to meet such a fate. No, they would rather keep with their lives, boring as they may be.

The sawfish enjoyed their simple life, up until they were cloaked in blinding light. They flailed violently, thinking maybe they were being attacked. What could possibly do such a thing, when the Lanternfish lived in deeper depths than them? Panic spread, the sawfish continuing to flail until suddenly, all went dark.

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"-sure this is okay? She looks kind of out of it..."

"Of COURSE it's okay! The spell worked, did it not? Who needs that brutish samurai when we have HER?!?"

The sawfish choked as she awoke, unfamiliar with the power of human lungs. Open air terrified her as she was no longer cloaked in the sea's embrace. She was dying, wasn't she? She would meet the same fate as her breathren, and become someone else's dinner! What a terrible fate she met!

"Oh, Boss, she's awake!"

Words. Words she understood, but she didn't understand why or how. There was no time to comprehend that as she used her "fins" to prop herself up. They felt weird,  segmented. It was no exageration to say that this was the most she felt ever in her life. And her life didn't seem to be fading. She was breathing, wasn't she? Maybe not through gills, but something?

She gawked at the men who stood around her, staring blankly at them and freezing in place. Humans? Here? Where was she? And why was that weird man with the hair above his lips approaching her with a smile? Oh no, he was going to eat her, wasn't he?

"Why, hello, and welcome!" he said. "Oh, I'm sure you're quite startled, but not to worry! None of us will lay a finger on you. Wouldn't do well to hurt our mascot after summoning her, no?"

The 'sawfish' stared at him with confusion. A mascot? What IS that? Was it a different type of fish?  Ugh, she felt something on her back and shook her head to get rid of it, but clumps of wet hair just flopped into her face instead. 

"But now that you are here, I do humbly and sincerely request that you simply look good! Smile, and be merry! You will feast with your newfound family and have a room all your own, and you will be the envy of women everywhere! Ha, even our 'darling' captain would go mad knowing she's no longer the mascot of this crew!"

The weird hairy man just kept talking and talking. She didn't know what to do. Food? Free food was nice. Her eyes glazed over as she imagined eating shrimp and oysters for days on end. Maybe some guppies here and there. A mantis shrimp as a treat, too? The possibilities were endless!

She was jolted out of her thoughts when someone nudged her on the side. 

"Psst. You really not gonna say thank you to him?" She turned towards the pirate, who looked upon her with concern. "You should say something, otherwise Lord Valor might throw a fit."

"Blub?" Even she was startled when the word came out of her mouth. "Blub?!? Blub blub.  Glub." 

The pirate looked over at Lord Valor now, sweat dripping down the side of his cheek. "Uh, Lord Valor, I think the spell messed up somewhere. Did you mess up the words or something?"

Lord Valor turned red as a tomato and stomped his foot down. "Of COURSE not! 'O, Lord of the Sea, bringeth to me a mascot who understands me!' How could I possibly make a mistake?"

"Because she's, you know... not speaking words?"

"Blub?" 

As the pirates exchanged glances, Lord Valor huffed and crossed his arms. "I-I clearly planned for this! Clearly, she understands us, but it is up to us to teach her to speak! Even then, she doesn't NEED to speak to be a mascot for our ship, no?"

"But what if she wanders off somewhere without us?"

"She'll remain on the ship and close to our sides at all times! As if we'd even think about letting her out of our sights!"

"How can we tell she's hungry or thirsty or has to use the bathroom-"

"We feed her on a schedule, you dunce! Isn't that simple?" With a huff and a puff, Lord Valor Now, enough questions! We need a name for her, and quickly! Something cute, something memorable!"

The fish girl sat as they all tossed out suggestions, unsure of how to think of this. She only knew herself as Sawfish. That was the extent of who and what she was. Now she was more, and she couldn't just name herself Human. Who could grasp the concept of a name, when a name was never needed in the world she lived in?

"How about Paimon?"

"I'm going with Fisharina!"

"Gross! We should just call her Saara! With TWO As!"

"The Cooler Xiulan!"

Suggestion after suggestion came out, each one more infuriating than the last. Crimson with anger, Lord Valor shouted, "Stop joking around, you buffoons! Why would we name such a beautiful girl something like 'Paimon?' Does no one have any sense of taste?" Complete and utter silence. The captain grumbled and shook his head. "Fine, we'll worry about her name later! One of you, teach her how to read and write! Can't have her seem illiterate, otherwise we'd become a laughingstock! Now, GO!"

It took some time before the former sawfish became comfortable in her new body. Walking was an experience, almost tripping over herself with each step. The pirates were kind enough to escort her and teach her, at least? She proved to be a fast learner, learning the alphabet and words associated with each letter. She couldn't speak them aside from a few she found interesting: "Y...U... I." Those three letters together felt nice to her, enough that when she finally learned to write, she wrote those down over and over and smiled like a child.

With time, the pirates noticed, and taught her how to pronounce it. And when the sounds came out, it felt pleasant. No, it felt right, somehow.

"Yui. Yui. Yuuuuiiiiii."

As annoying as it was for her to keep saying that, the crew decided that they might as well call her that. She responded to that more consistently, so why not? Now, as for whether the captain would like their 'mascot' to be saying her name all the time was another story. A story they'd prefer to delay as long as possible.

Seeing her smile every time they called her, though? It almost made their hearts melt. Almost. The perfect name for a perfect mascot.