Raquel cut through the water like a knife, gliding smoothly through it with the elegance of one born to the water. The emerald green of her tail glistened like priceless gems in the filtered sunlight from the sky above the water, her fiery hair flowing behind her shoulders in a cascade of rosy color.
Her intelligent, ever silent blue eyes flickered from wave to wave, watching the current, noting the slight changes in its flow, calculating what it would mean. A tiger shark glided by her side, its smooth rubbery skin slipping past the water it swam through. She often spoke to this creature, an aggressive shark by nature, one that fiercely protected anything it thought worth protecting; luckily for Raquel, she was one such thing worth protecting.
She refocused on her calculations, and then her thought process was suddenly cut off and replaced with adrenaline when she caught sight of the ship ahead; sailing steadily towards her, towards where she remained frozen in shock. No ship had ever sailed this far, ever; this event was something extraordinary and terrifying. She swallowed and thought through her options; to dive so far down that the sunlight could no longer reflect off of her scales and make her visible, or to transform into her human self on the island shore not two kilometers away. She calculated quickly and despaired in realizing that she wouldn't have enough time to dive...so she had to transform.
With a muttered curse in her mind, she kicked it into gear and sprint-swam for the shoreline, muscles working double time to get there before anyone on the ship could notice her. She launched herself upwards at the last moment, escaping the water and moving into the air, then onto the sand. Her tail had been replaced with a pair of long, slender, pale legs, toned without being overly muscled. She winced at the sight; she absolutely loathed becoming human, and it grated against the very nature of her soul. She looked towards the water to see the tiger shark's fin disappear beneath the surface of the crystal clear water, and sighed in relief; at least he wouldn't be caught.
She looked up as she ship drew closer, and swiftly scrambled backwards, trying to stand so she could retreat even more quickly; but she knew that would most likely be impossible with the amount of time she had, and the lack of practice her human self had. There was nothing left for her to do but to sit there and act like a stranded girl, hoping they would believe her facade; she certainly looked ragged, with her hair soaked and hanging in fire-red strands around her pale, cold face. Her sides were heaving with the effort of breathing human air, and her limbs were quivering. Yes, she looked like the shipwrecked type at the moment.