Wind slashes the surface of the sea, shredding the foam and peaking the water into jagged edges. Beneath the surface, the storm has no sway, and the currents still roll inexorably down to unfathomable depths. The creatures who live there prefer to remain in the deep, away from the cutting wind and violent waves. But a few choose to emerge from the darkness of the trenches and chasms and the cold, crushing stillness to serenade the raging storm. They swim, darting, winding and unearthly up to the surface. Their song carries, twining into the howling gale as a ghostly adornment. Those who have heard it are never the same.
The music drifts across the water, wending its way toward a sinking ship. Though it had appeared sturdy and fine as it glittered past the waving crowds at the dock, the wind’s knives and the ocean’s clubs have reduced it to tattered canvas and lumps of wood. All the gold it carried was the first to sink, along with anyone foolish enough to cling to a treasure won in exchange for sirens’ heads. A few straggling crew members remain above water, desperately clutching at anything likely to float. They spare no thought to the ones who have already sunk. The sea has tossed them apart, and the wind severed any bonds between them.
Separated from the other survivors, Avery struggles to stay afloat on a piece of what used to be the deck. Her long blond hair drips down her back and trails in the water, revealing her carefully guarded identity, but it doesn’t matter anymore. If they make it through the storm, they’ll have bigger problems than a girl stowing away as a cabin boy. She’s proven herself time and time again to be a capable sailor, and she knows many of the crew were aboard for far more sordid reasons than a simple love of the sea.
Then again, they may blame her deception for the bad luck which brought them into this storm. The thought of the captain’s face frozen in rage is almost enough to make her let go of her piece of wreckage, but her fingers are too frozen to release so she remains, clinging numbly. Through the rain and the wind, she imagines a haunting melody, the sound keening as though the singer is stricken with grief, yet the feeling somehow celebratory. When a thundering roar drowns out the music, she strains her ears, hoping to catch a few more notes. She doesn’t notice the cliff of water towering above her until it lands, splintering the makeshift raft and pulling her down into the darkness.
In the cold water below, the singers of the deep watch the ship break against the storm. They cry out in triumph, winding their victory into the song as the first corpses drift downward, burdened by shining metal and fine fabric. This song is not sung by the whole chorus, though. Telinoe floats a little apart from her sisters, too young to weave the harmony properly but old enough to watch. She gives a cursory glance to the sparkling treasure as it spirals downward, knowing that the children farther below in the city will enjoy playing with it after they feast on its previous owners. Whatever remains of the corpses will be left to rot, as befits those who would hunt the folk of the sea at the behest of their king.
She wishes desperately to sing with her sisters, to prove her devotion to the sea by killing those who would plunder its waters, but the idea terrifies her as much as it thrills her. Once she has joined the song she will be forever separated from her past, no longer joined to the shining trinkets of childhood. The melancholy of the song flows through her, coupled with nostalgia for a life of simple joys not quite yet lost. Unthinking, she reaches for the next piece of shining gold to drift by her.
Avery drifts. The waves take her consciousness with her air, bearing her down. She catches dreamlike glimpses of water and darkness, and then there’s another girl. Long black hair frames her face like spreading shadows, but her skin is the blue of clear water and her eyes are bright when she reaches out as if to hold Avery’s face in her hands. Beautiful, she thinks, for the last thing I’ll ever see.
The music drifts across the water, wending its way toward a sinking ship. Though it had appeared sturdy and fine as it glittered past the waving crowds at the dock, the wind’s knives and the ocean’s clubs have reduced it to tattered canvas and lumps of wood. All the gold it carried was the first to sink, along with anyone foolish enough to cling to a treasure won in exchange for sirens’ heads. A few straggling crew members remain above water, desperately clutching at anything likely to float. They spare no thought to the ones who have already sunk. The sea has tossed them apart, and the wind severed any bonds between them.
Separated from the other survivors, Avery struggles to stay afloat on a piece of what used to be the deck. Her long blond hair drips down her back and trails in the water, revealing her carefully guarded identity, but it doesn’t matter anymore. If they make it through the storm, they’ll have bigger problems than a girl stowing away as a cabin boy. She’s proven herself time and time again to be a capable sailor, and she knows many of the crew were aboard for far more sordid reasons than a simple love of the sea.
Then again, they may blame her deception for the bad luck which brought them into this storm. The thought of the captain’s face frozen in rage is almost enough to make her let go of her piece of wreckage, but her fingers are too frozen to release so she remains, clinging numbly. Through the rain and the wind, she imagines a haunting melody, the sound keening as though the singer is stricken with grief, yet the feeling somehow celebratory. When a thundering roar drowns out the music, she strains her ears, hoping to catch a few more notes. She doesn’t notice the cliff of water towering above her until it lands, splintering the makeshift raft and pulling her down into the darkness.
In the cold water below, the singers of the deep watch the ship break against the storm. They cry out in triumph, winding their victory into the song as the first corpses drift downward, burdened by shining metal and fine fabric. This song is not sung by the whole chorus, though. Telinoe floats a little apart from her sisters, too young to weave the harmony properly but old enough to watch. She gives a cursory glance to the sparkling treasure as it spirals downward, knowing that the children farther below in the city will enjoy playing with it after they feast on its previous owners. Whatever remains of the corpses will be left to rot, as befits those who would hunt the folk of the sea at the behest of their king.
She wishes desperately to sing with her sisters, to prove her devotion to the sea by killing those who would plunder its waters, but the idea terrifies her as much as it thrills her. Once she has joined the song she will be forever separated from her past, no longer joined to the shining trinkets of childhood. The melancholy of the song flows through her, coupled with nostalgia for a life of simple joys not quite yet lost. Unthinking, she reaches for the next piece of shining gold to drift by her.
Avery drifts. The waves take her consciousness with her air, bearing her down. She catches dreamlike glimpses of water and darkness, and then there’s another girl. Long black hair frames her face like spreading shadows, but her skin is the blue of clear water and her eyes are bright when she reaches out as if to hold Avery’s face in her hands. Beautiful, she thinks, for the last thing I’ll ever see.