The Siren's Song

When Krathis woke, she floated a moment in pleasurable anticipation of the day. Though she was the dominant siren in these waters, today there were no duties for her to satisfy. She might spend the whole day at home, if she so pleased, and that was exactly what she intended to do.

Krathis denned in a modest coastal cave system that was often submerged in its entirety at high tide. When the sea was low, the coral reef that covered the cave entrance was revealed; sometimes our siren lay there, her dorsum soaking up sunshine until her deep blue tail flicked with annoyance and she was in danger of drying out. Thence she would hastily retreat to the cool dark waters of her home, and sleep long and lazy.

Those days were quite precious. Sirens weren’t necessarily social animals, but Krathis had precedence in this sea, and that meant something. She held a large territory, and had to patrol it often. Other sirens might come to her for advice or adjudication. So it ended up that Krathis tended to be a more social animal than most, through no particular desire of her own. Today, however, as she cast her mind out to listen for visitors, she heard only blessed silence. The nearest sirens were well out of her range, the leviathans were in the deep, and the porpoises were playing elsewhere.

The late morning sunlight scattered through the water as she swam slowly out of her cave in search of her first meal. There were always crabs on the seafloor, or sneaky octopi pretending to be part of the reef. The fish scattered at her first movement, and they had enough predators, she felt, without adding to their sad fish burdens.

A shadow shifted over the waters, and a jolt of alarm ran through Krathis. She ducked into the reef herself, and scanned skywards.

Sirens were not social animals, and had no enemies in the sea, but there above the ocean’s embrace were strange and awful creatures. Harpies and griffons would fly the air and sometimes plunge into the water for foraging, and if they saw a siren they would try to eat her.

Krathis narrowed her eyes as the shadow passed again, hulking and enormous, the beat of powerful wings in the air sending ripples across the surface of the sea. Before she could decide on a course of action, there was an enormous crash as a large, writhing mass entered the water, sinking deep before struggling into two discrete parts.

Staying hidden, Krathis watched with wide, dark eyes.

It was a griffon and a harpy. Krathis had heard that as much as they preyed on sirens, they were as like to prey on each other. It seemed queer and cannibalistic for predators to eat each other’s flesh, but just then Krathis only wished they would go be queer and cannibalistic elsewhere.

The griffon, lion-large and full of fury, was clawing at the harpy with their massive paws, tipped in talons. The harpy, also equipped with gnarly, curved talons at the ends of her legs, delivered a devastating strike to the griffon’s soft underbelly. Both creatures, however, were sinking: their big beautiful wings were worse than useless under the sea, and, waterlogged, were dragging down their owners.

The griffon died first, the harpy at their throat. Krathis watched the light go out of it, and turned calculating eyes on the harpy. Alone and weakened, she was no match for a siren of Krathis’s size and strength. It hardly seemed decent to swim out to mete her death when the sea was already killing the creature: blood swirled around her dark brown skin, and though she kicked her legs desperately she would never break the surface.

The harpy’s wings flared out in a pathetic attempt to lift her. They were moonlight-silver, and the harpy’s mind was throwing out waves of distress so bleak and sharp that Krathis winced. She supposed no beast of the air wanted to die in an alien habitat, suffocating and alone.

Krathis hesitated a moment, and then opened her mouth to sing softly. A siren’s song was powerful, and could glamour most animals to their doom, but it was also a blessing for dying things. Krathis sang her prey into dazed lassitude to prevent their suffering and panic, which often spoiled the taste of the flesh. She thought that the harpy might merit the same mercy, so she sang her song, and reached out with her mind to soothe.

The harpy recoiled as soon as she did. When her song reached her, the harpy renewed her fight, thrashing in the water and twisting to look, fear writ in her bright amber eyes.

Shocked, Krathis stopped singing. The harpy’s mouth was mangled in a snarl, her eyes flicking around to look for the siren she now knew was nearby, and all the while water was filling her lungs. And her mind… her mind, Krathis realized, was of no animal. It was as developed as a siren’s, complex and overwhelming, and before she could think better of it Krathis swam out of the reef.

She could tell when the harpy saw her. She went absolutely manic, exhausted wings beating weakly, talons swiping through the water. She only succeeded in sinking lower in the water, and yet the strength would not go out of her. As Krathis approached, the harpy flailed with decreasing vigor, until her bright eyes slipped close and her arms floated helplessly in front of her.

Krathis was not deceived. She could still feel the harpy’s mind, pulsing with thought and strategy, plainly feigning unconsciousness so that Krathis would come within killing distance.

Undeceived but rather impressed, Krathis switched tack and swam under the harpy, her long tail just out of the reach of those helpless seeming arms. The harpy twitched a little, and then came alive in a panic as Krathis wrapped around her from the back, pinning her arms to her torso, and torquing her tail to push them to the reef in a rush.

Before the harpy could regain her composure, Krathis had deposited her at the highest point of the reef, where the tide was beginning to subside. When the harpy sensed air close by, she abandoned Krathis in favor of hauling herself even higher on the reef, and lay gasping there for a long while like a fish out of water. Then, rather anti-climatically, she passed out for real, her mind going slack as her mouth.

Krathis stayed beneath the waterline and watched her. In the sky, so high above that Krathis couldn’t say if they were gulls or griffons, dark shapes wheeled about.

This was supposed to be her lazy day. She had been looking forward to doing nothing at all beyond what was required for basic survival. Now she was somehow beholden to a harpy’s safety. Sighing to herself, Krathis drifted in the water and waited for the harpy to wake.

***

As Autonoe opened her eyes, she considered for a moment that she might be dead. There was a blinding light above her that might have been the Mother bringing her home, and her last memory was of a siren swimming for her.

The pain registered then; she was, regrettably, still alive. There was scorching agony in her belly where the griffon had ripped into her, and her wings might well be broken from her long fall. The sound of water came to her, and she tensed instinctively, the sensation of drowning all too close. Her eyes, reluctant to open, squinted around her a little to assess her position.

It was not looking good. She was breached on a reef that was digging uncomfortably into her soft parts, and her wings—Autonoe was afraid to move them, but she was very accustomed to achieving fearsome tasks, so move them she did. They were both heavy with water and pain, but she seemed to have avoided major fractures. Next she squinted around some more, trying to find the shore. She was deeply unwilling to reenter the water, but she knew she could not fly before the tide rose over the reef, as it must do for the coral to be alive and sharp beneath her poor back.

The shore, though it could not have been more than few wingspans away, seemed very far.

To add insult to injury, a gull landed on Autonoe’s wounded stomach to investigate what it no doubt thought was an easy meal. Autonoe glared at it, flapping a hand in a shooing motion. Unintimidated, the gull cocked its head to the side and pecked at her, drawing a sharp gasp from the harpy. Two other gulls landed on her vulnerable body to back up their friend. Autonoe found herself supremely grateful that none of her younger siblings could see her brought so low, especially that little menace Glauce.

Out of the water rose a monstrous siren, indigo-blue skin blending into glittering blue scales as she hauled herself onto her reef with powerfully muscled arms. Autonoe stared. The siren ignored her, shaking kelp-green hair out of her face and baring a mouth full of sharp teeth to hiss at the gulls. They evacuated the premises promptly.

The siren looked at Autonoe with big, dark eyes. She must have been at least sixteen feet in length. The water swished gently around her waist.

“Thank you,” Autonoe said weakly.

The siren slid back into the sea without a word. Autonoe considered passing out again just to avoid dealing with any more of this wretched day. But things refused to go her way, starting with running into that damned griffon so far from any senate she knew was roosting near her lands. They had clashed as a matter of course, their species natural enemies to each other, competing as always for territory and prey. Autonoe recalled the thing curling their head over her shoulder, trying to take a chunk out of her neck. Despite everything, she felt very proud of seeing the enemy dead. Even if she perished here today, her clamor and their land still was protected.

Still. She had not counted on falling into the alien sea, or prepared for how it would make her feel so useless, how her very wings, the same wings that carried her through storms would sink her like a stone. It had been harrowing, Autonoe could admit to herself. And she was not yet safe.

As if to emphasize her susceptible state, the siren heaved forth again. Her face was round and although her mouth was full of sharp teeth she curled her lips at Autonoe in an approximation of a smile. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the smallish octopus she held between her teeth, which she deposited on Autonoe’s chest. The octopus immediately sojourned north towards Autonoe’s face, and all of a sudden it turned out she did have the energy to sit up. Her wings flared painfully as she hastened to grab the octopus, and blood came sluggishly forward from her belly.

“Mother’s curse,” she swore as the horrible little thing wrapped itself around her hand, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

It was a rhetorical question, but the siren was watching her closely, and seemed a put out. She snapped her teeth at her, and Autonoe flinched, and then she was embarrassed that she had flinched. She was the eldest in her clamor, she was too old to show fear, but she was not as big as the siren was, and she was sort of wrecked right now.

The siren went still at her flinch, and then leaned back a little, as if to demonstrate that she was not a danger. She gestured to the octopus, and indicated that Autonoe should eat it. She snapped her teeth again, very slowly.

Feeling babied in a way that she had not been in a long time, and frankly ravenous, Autonoe bit down on the octopus. She had never eaten one before, and was curious about the taste.

The octopus tasted of salt. To Autonoe’s horror, it moved even after she crushed its head between her molars, its tentacles squirming around her mouth and down her throat. As it slid down it blocked her airway, and Autonoe began to choke, and scrabbled at the reef with her hands, panicking, absolutely regretting every last thing about waking up this morning, and then—

There were fingers in her mouth. Her eyes found the siren, draped heavily over her, a frown on her indigo face as she held Autonoe’s jaw with one hand and gently pried out the octopus with the other. Her tail lay over Autonoe’s legs, fins flicking in the water. Autonoe’s blood must be on her skin.

Eventually, the octopus came out. The siren planted both hands on either side of Autonoe’s shoulders and removed her body from Autonoe’s person. She lay down next to her on the reef, tore the octopus into small shreds, and offered it back to the harpy.

Autonoe, genuinely unsure of what to do, froze. The siren waited patiently.

Feeling incredibly stupid, Autonoe opened her mouth.

The siren fed her. Mother keep her, nobody had fed Autonoe since she had been a fledgling. She chewed, and swallowed, and opened her mouth for more. When snack time was over the siren looked quite pleased, like she’d figured out how to take care of a recalcitrant pet.

“Woof,” Autonoe said under her breath, still feeling stupid at being coddled.

The siren studied her closely for a moment, and as Autonoe began to tense up in anticipation—

It had happened in the water, and it had been intrusive and nauseating then. There had been something in Autonoe’s head, whispering, and Autonoe had heard enough legends of sirens that called harpies to their deaths to act in self-preservation. This time, it was a more considerate approach. Rather than something invading Autonoe’s mind, there was a sort of echoing call outside of it. There was a soft tugging sensation, like she could answer it.

Autonoe cut a shrewd glance at the siren, who had hopeful eyes.

“You’re…” Autonoe started to say, working it out herself, “You’re asking for permission. You… I suppose you can’t speak like this underwater. You want to talk.”

The siren nodded. Autonoe nodded back.

Then she struggled to her feet and leaped into the sky, injured wings or not.

Naturally, she didn’t get very far. Her wings were not broken, but they were still too waterlogged to hold her aloft. She crashed back into the blue sea, the same shade of blue as the siren’s skin, and felt strong arms wrap around her torso again.

This time, instead of depositing her on the reef, the siren took her to the shallows of the sandy shore. Autonoe realized that this was not an easy task for her—that thick long tail kicked up the soft sand, seaweed coiling around it. But there Autonoe stood on wobbly legs in about six feet of water, able to crawl above the tideline if she needed to.

The siren was breathing heavily, slumped over in the shallows in an attempt to get water into more of the gills down her flanks and at her neck. Autonoe stepped forward, a task much easier when she was not standing on blades of coral, and began to push her into deeper waters. Her wings flapped for balance, and she winced at the pain in her stomach as she strained, but it was tolerable now, and she—

Well, by her count it was three times the siren had saved her life today. Autonoe felt like she should put up with some discomfort for that.

As she urged the siren back home, the siren was shoving back with large, webbed hands, nodding that Autonoe should return to her habitat first. It quickly devolved into a polite and graceless scuffle, both of them batting at each other, Autonoe losing.

Grunting in annoyance, she moved back in the shallows, where the water came to her chest. She held her wings high and back, giving them time to dry. The siren stayed nearby, clearly still considering Autonoe under her care.

Autonoe could not stop staring at her. Sirens were meant to be dangerous. Their songs were murder, and this one had already tried to sing at her. She had never heard of one—mind-melding with a harpy or whatever her siren wanted to do with her. But here she was. Saving Autonoe’s life, giving her snacks, and chasing away seagulls that had threatened Autonoe’s dignity.

Here she was, waiting until Autonoe was ready to leave her.

Slowly, wary of the big blue siren still, Autonoe stretched out one hand and touched the siren’s cheek. Dark eyes instantly turned to meet hers, an intelligent question in them. Not shark-like, or predatory, but…curious, and gentle.

Autonoe held her cheek as she looked in her mind for that soft tugging sensation, that distant call.

“Talk to me,” she told the siren. She raised both her eyebrows at Autonoe at first, and Autonoe rolled her eyes.

“I know, shut up. Talk to me.”

The siren’s lips curled up. The soft tug returned. This time, Autonoe tugged back. A voice came to her, in her ears and yet not carried by the wind. It was a voice as deep as the ocean, and it said:

Hello. My name is Krathis.



END