Chapter Text
The sky was a vivid blue painted with light brushstrokes of cloud, framing the landscape Alhaitham was taking in with admiring eyes. The island was a sliver of land seemingly lost in the deep azure hue of the swirling ocean around him, reflecting sunlight in thousands of little coloured glimmers like a kaleidoscope.
He dipped his feet into the soft waves of a coastline that looked hand-drawn, sighing as the water washed away the sweat on his skin.
This was his new home: a lone lighthouse perched in the middle of this little picturesque island, somewhere between Sumeru and Fontaine, where the closest piece of land wasn’t visible by naked eye.
The back-and-forth swirls of the sea against his ankles slowly soothed his bothered mood from a relatively long boat trip, in which he’d worn his hearing aids crafted by elemental power in order to communicate with the man piloting the thing. Unfortunately, said man had taken Alhaitham’s ability to hear as rather a willingness to do so, giving him a headache by talking his ear off for the entire hour they’d been at sea.
But no matter. He was here now, completely and blissfully alone amid the beauty of the ocean, accompanied only by the little fish tickling his toes. The life of a lighthouse keeper was one where he could indulge in a good book all afternoon and have his resources brought to him by boat, rarely ever having to put on those uncomfortable hearing aids or nodding along to uninteresting and painfully loud conversation.
The world was better like this: quiet, muffled, and gorgeous. Peaceful.
On his first week at the island, he quickly learned to operate the lighthouse, which was simple enough with elemental technology. Really, a keeper wasn’t exactly strictly necessary, but he had volunteered for the job anyway, itching to leave the bustling crowds of Sumeru City.
He had always felt at home in the sea, where the fresh currents eased the feverish heat stuck to him and where he could submerge his head to leave the real world for a moment, suspended in a deep calm that swooned slightly around his body. His daily routine started to include a long walk around the island in the late morning, then lunch near the sea.
Feet dangling off a large rock coming out of the sea, he threw a piece of bread from his sandwich into the transparent water, watching contently as a swarm of fish ripped into it. He threw another piece towards the deeper end, and it was immediately fully pulled down.
Interesting, he thought. A large fish?
He threw the entire outward crust of the bread into the glinting blue of the deeper end, watching as it was dutifully snatched down.
Alhaitham frowned. A fish shouldn’t be able to take something of that size, unless it was considerably larger than all the creatures he’d seen until now on the island.
Considering whether it would be wise to peek underwater to have a look at the animal, he ripped off a small piece of fried fish from his sandwich, throwing it towards the same spot.
A pause. For a moment, everything was still except for the sway of the ocean, and then, bizarrely, the piece of fish was thrown back at his face.
Frowning at the soaked food that was now pathetically lying on his lap, Alhaitham tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for such an act. Was the fish… offended that he had tried to feed it its own kind? Surely animals did not think like that. Tentatively, he picked a ring of onion from his half-eaten sandwich and let it plop into the sea, a little closer to him than before.
The fish took it.
Slowly, Alhaitham stepped down from the rock, letting the fresh water embrace his legs as he threw in more onion before quickly plunging his head into the sea.
Flicking away in an instant, making Alhaitham wonder if the sight had simply been a trick of light, a bizarrely long pink-red tail swished away from him, framed by golden… hair.
Taking an old book off one of the many bookshelves lining the walls of the lighthouse, Alhaitham searched the chapter index for Sirens.
He didn’t own much literature relating to nonhuman creatures, since biology had never been one of his specific interests, but he was generally well-informed enough to have read something about almost anything at some point.
Sirens are generally considered mythological beings, as there is no fossilised evidence of their prior existence. However, there is debate among the scientific community regarding the possibility of their past existence, since they appear in Sumeran, Fontainian, and Inazuman folklore at early moments of civilization, mostly with the same characteristics, even though it seems that these peoples did not interact amongst themselves. Some theories suggest that they are an extinct species who mainly lived in the deep sea, where scientists have not been able to thoroughly explore.
So there is a possibility that was real, Alhaitham thought, mildly excited at the prospect of having potentially found an answer to a scientific question. To see a siren in flesh and bone would be incredibly interesting.
The following day, he packed two sandwiches instead of one, this time with no fish in between the slices of bread. Going with a simple spread of cheese and a few stir fried vegetables, he adjusted the tight hearing aids around his ear, grimacing. It was uncomfortable as always, but it would be worth it for a day if he managed to interact with a siren.
Arriving at the same spot as always, he ripped off a third of the sandwich and gently placed it in the shallow water, but only small fish came to peck at it.
“I won’t hurt you,” he tried, pushing the food towards the deeper side. Then, outstretching his hands underwater, he added, “I’m unarmed.”
Nothing happened, and he reminded himself that there was always a possibility that the potential siren wouldn’t return. He pushed the sandwich further from himself, letting it float in the water for a few seconds before it was swiftly snatched down.
Alhaitham ripped off another third of the sandwich, then carefully plopped it onto the water, a little closer to him than previously. And then, timidly, a human hand peeked from under the surface to grasp it. Slowly, Alhaitham reached towards the hand, but a sudden flurry of water told him the siren had fled away. The last piece of the sandwich floated uselessly in the water, munched on by small fishies whose tails weren’t the dazzling coral-like pink-red of the creature he’d fleetingly taken a look at.
It ended up becoming a routine: every morning, Alhaitham would prepare two sandwiches — no fish, ever — and, around noon, he would sit by the shore, gently caressed by the waves dotted with multicoloured fish that looked as if made from ink. He would eat while throwing lunch at the concealed siren, not bothering to try a glance at them after a few days of failed attempts. Some quiet company was all he needed, anyway.
After two weeks of peacefully chewing down on a sandwich while sitting against a rock, the water swirled oddly a few steps away from him, as if there was movement underneath.
And then, a forehead peeked out shyly.
Soaked blonde locks glistened in the sun atop a tanned head, and two bright red eyes scanned Alhaitham’s face analytically. Seemingly concluding that he wasn’t a threat, the siren let his neck and shoulders emerge out of the water.
Measuring his movements excruciatingly slowly, Alhaitham reached for the hearing aids he’d brought, and the siren scrunched up his features.
“It’s just a device so that I can hear,” he tried to murmur, although he could never be sure of the volume of his voice when he couldn’t listen. It just felt like an odd vibration bubbling up his throat, and he’d never felt completely comfortable speaking like this. He gestured to his ear, too, trying to get the message across through movements, since there was a good chance the siren couldn’t understand him.
The siren carefully watched as he adjusted the little mechanism against his ear, and the peaceful watercolour around him suddenly erupted into white noise and a repetitive swish of waves crashing on sand.
“Hello.”
The siren didn’t respond, but his eyes crinkled slightly as if in invitation, and Alhaitham felt like that signified comprehension.
“Can you understand me?”
He swam forward tentatively before tapping Alhaitham’s left shoulder, and the cold touch sent goosebumps through his skin.
“Does that mean yes?”
He tapped Alhaitham’s left shoulder again.
“If that means yes, touch your nose.”
The siren touched his nose.
“Okay. So you can understand Sumeran?”
Yes.
“But you can’t speak?”
He tapped Alhaitham’s other shoulder.
“If that means ‘no,’ touch your nose again.”
He complied, and the movement must have tickled, because he scrunched up his freckled nose.
“Do all sirens understand Sumeran?” No.
“Interesting. Can you read and write, too?”
He tapped yes, but half-closed his eyes as if to say “kind of.”
“Do you have a name?” Yes.
The siren motioned downwards, beckoning him towards the water.
“You want me to go underwater?” Yes.
Nothing about this interaction was safe in the slightest. And yet, even if his curiosity cost him his life, Alhaitham itched to obey. No scholar could deny the opportunity of conversing with a mythological creature.
Reading the unease present in Alhaitham’s silence, Kaveh held up his hands, proving that they were empty. He smiled gently.
Alhaitham inhaled deeply before submerging his face, cursing himself for having seemingly abandoned his usual rationality. His eyes crinkled as he tried to open them.
Open them he did, and the sight was… dazzling. The siren was an undeniable beauty on land, with his hair stuck to the nape of his neck and droplets dotting his torso, but underwater, the swirl of a light current dancing through his hair and the shimmer of his jewelled eyes fully brought his features to life. Gorgeous, Alhaitham thought, and he didn’t realise his eyes were widened until they started to burn from the salt.
He returned to the surface of the sea after only a moment. The siren did, too, and he was laughing soundlessly as if he could understand Alhaitham’s mortifying predicament. He beckoned him down again, and, this time, Alhaitham kept his eyes closed.
He heard something between a vibration and a hum, similar to the sound of whales. It carried through the water more smoothly, however, almost like song. A linguist at heart, Alhaitham tried to decipher what was being said while the sound was repeated several times. Two syllables, two vowel sounds.
“Aheh?” he murmured, pupils blown wide when he finally opened them above the water.
The siren scrunched up his eyes, then held up his hands oddly. Was he trying to draw out a symbol?
“K?” Alhaitham tried.
Yes.
“Kaeh?”
Yes. He made a V with his fingers.
“Kaev?”
No.
“Kvaeh?”
No.
“Kaveh?”
Kaveh smiled brightly, then pointed towards him.
“Alhaitham.”
Kaveh disappeared for a moment, then returned with a shimmering pink seashell, curved and spotted in a beautiful pattern by erosion. He pointed to Alhaitham, but made no motion to hand over the shell.
“For me?” No. He pointed again.
“Me.” Yes.
“As in… this is me? This represents me?” Yes.
He thought that this was perhaps Kaveh’s way of building a complex communication system for him to be able to express himself better, picking up different rocks and shells and pointing to them to signify different words. Instead, he simply plopped the shell back into the water.
“How about you write on the sand, with your fingers? Or with a stick?”
Kaveh squinted his eyes only slightly, evidently hesitant as he looked towards the beach. Perhaps he was afraid of getting too close to shore. In the water, he had the upper hand.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Alhaitham continued, but that seemed to be the wrong thing to say. Kaveh beat his tail once, putting several meters of distance between them as he observed him attentively.
“Sorry,” Alhaitham rushed to say. “We can just stay here, if you like. I’d just be interested in being able to understand you.”
Kaveh didn’t move closer, but he didn’t leave either, which Alhaitham took as a good sign.
“I live alone on this island.”
Kaveh trailed a finger down his cheek, starting at his eye. Crying?
“Sad?”
Kaveh swam closer. Yes.
“No, I don’t find it sad. It’s a peaceful life.”
Kaveh looked a little confused, dissecting him with those amber eyes.
“Do you know what ‘peaceful’ means?” Yes.
He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but his muteness didn’t allow it.
“I work at the lighthouse. Do you know what a lighthouse is?”
Kaveh tapped no, but then pointed to the lighthouse with a cocked head.
“Yes, that’s it. Have you seen it at night, with the lights on?”
Yes. Kaveh flinched, hiding behind his arms, but it seemed like an act rather than a genuine reaction.
“You find it scary?” Yes.
“No need to be scared. It’s just me turning the lights on so any ships nearby see the island and don’t sail into the rocks.”
Kaveh blinked curiously.
“Do you have a question?” Yes. “Maybe you can sign it in some way?”
Kaveh looked away for a second, deep in thought. Then, he disappeared under the water. Alhaitham waited, some level of anxiety stirring inside him as he recalled every possible scenario of what could happen if the siren’s intentions were less innocent than they seemed.
After several long moments floating in exquisite liquid emerald, Alhaitham let his rationality win and turned towards the beach, but his hair stood on end with horror when something pulled on his leg.
He looked back to see Kaveh, looking utterly distraught with widened eyes and a pout. His shoulders were slumped.
“Are you sad that I was going to leave?”
Yes.
“I thought you wouldn’t come back.”
Kaveh signed a tear down his cheek again, then brought his hands up, carefully cradling a rusty copper object.
“A drawing compass?”
Kaveh’s eyes glittered in the sunlight, and he edged closer. Alhaitham felt the tingle of a fishtail near his ankle.
“Do you know that word, compass?”
No.
“Do you know what it’s for?”
No.
“It’s so you can draw circles.” Alhaitham took the object out of his hands gently, showing it the same care the siren had. He positioned the compass on the surface of the water and then turned the handle, as if drawing on a piece of paper.
Kaveh’s eyes were positively glowing, and he replied with a toothy grin.
Alhaitham, fuelled by an uncharacteristic urge, smiled too. “Do you draw?”
Kaveh closed one eye, which he took to understand “more or less.”
“I’m fluent in sign language.”
Kaveh cocked his head.
“Do you know what that is?”
No.
“It’s a language without any sound. You make words with your hands. If you knew it too, it would make it easier for us to talk.”
Kaveh swam even closer to him in excitement, and it quickly became evident that he didn’t have the same regard for personal space that humans did, because the tips of their noses were touching.
“I can teach you the basics, if you like. I have plenty of time.”
Yes, yes, yes.
“This is how you say yes,” he explained, closing and moving his fist.
Yes, Kaveh signed.
“And this is how you say no.”
No, Kaveh signed. Looking up in delight, he grinned. Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.
“Like this,” Alhaitham murmured, leading his hand to do the movement correctly. “Yes. Alright. Now, this is how you say hello.”
Kaveh copied his movements with diligent precision, frowns burrowed in concentration. And then, after hello, he learned to sign siren, human, sea, lighthouse, and the alphabet.
“This is my name sign,” Alhaitham explained, flapping his hands in a mix between the sign for wings and the initial A. It was what his grandmother had named him as a child. “Alhaitham.”
Alhaitham, Kaveh repeated. Alhaitham. Alhaitham.
“We can name you something, too.” He thought of asking Kaveh to choose for himself, but that would make little sense when he knew next to no signs. “Do you have any ideas?”
Kaveh flapped his hands in the exact same way, but while holding the symbol for K.
“I see. You’re a fast learner, I’m glad to see you remember the K. But won’t this be confusing, since it’s so similar to mine?”
Kaveh cocked his head. No.
“Alright,” Alhaitham conceded. “We’ll call you that for now,” and then he added, in sign language, Kaveh.
Kaveh, Kaveh repeated.
“I have a few books on the subject, if you like. I could bring them tomorrow, if you’re willing to swim to the beach. I’m the only one on the island.”
After a moment of thought, Kaveh tentatively signed yes.
“How come you can make sound underwater, if you can’t speak here? Do you just not know how to speak Sumeran?”
No. His face showcased a complicated expression, and he brought his hands up to sign siren, then V, O, I, C, E, D, A, N, G, E, R, O, U, S.
“Your voice could hurt me?”
Yes.
A coil of dread found its way through Alhaitham’s gut at the very explicit reminder that what he was doing was incredibly reckless, and that he had no good reason to trust the creature in front of him. If the myths had any truth in them, the angelic face blinking at him could drag him to the depths of the sea, forcing him to drown to an early death, by simply opening his mouth.
As if sensing his fear, Kaveh covered his own mouth gently.
“I won’t hurt you and you won’t hurt me, right?” Alhaitham asked, trying to phrase it like a deal.
Yes. And then, Kaveh signed, F, R, I, E, N, D, S.
“Exactly. Friends. Do you want me to teach you some more?”
They spent the rest of the afternoon dipped in blue, repeating signs and constructing basic sentences. Kaveh was a ridiculously quick learner, remembering every sign after he’d seen them only a single time, smiling brightly every time Alhaitham murmured something like good, that’s it.
Looking up at the sky, Alhaitham noticed that it had started to darken by a few tones, several sprays of orange framing the half-sun bleeding into the horizon.
“I have to go soon,” he spoke, signing the words at the same time as he voiced them. “We can see each other tomorrow. I’ll bring your books.”
Kaveh signed sad again, bringing his face too close. The back of his hand brushed Alhaitham’s cheek as he motioned the tear, and Alhaitham’s breath hitched.
“This is…” He cleared his throat, stepping back and holding his hands up. “This is the sad sign. It’s similar to yours. I’ll understand either way.”
Sad, Kaveh signed, properly now. See you soon, Alhaitham.
He smiled, hiding a blonde lock behind his ear.
See you soon, Kaveh.
A siren’s life was a lonely one.
The few merfolk who were still alive after thousands of years of hiding in the depths weren’t in the same region as Kaveh, and they were generally wary of outsiders, sticking to their small families and sheltered underwater caves where they couldn’t be easily found.
Interacting with humans had been taboo ever since the first sirens had swam up to the shore and seen those odd arm-like limbs dangling from their bodies in lieu of a tail. Kaveh’s parents, however, had broken the unspoken rule by befriending people who offered them easy food in exchange for scavenging the sea floor for what, on land, was considered “treasure.”
Kaveh could understand the appeal of shiny objects and glinting gold, although he was unsure of why humans valued useless trinkets as highly as lunch or dinner. Sirens were herbivores, but finding enough algae and plant matter in the water of Sumeru was no easy feat — especially when you’re alone.
Kaveh’s parents had been gone for several years now, taken by an underwater landslide after he’d begged them to find him more to eat.
He turned the drawing compass over in his hands, analysing for the hundredth time how its corroded exterior caught the sunlight that travelled through the water. It had been one of his mother’s most prized possessions, gifted to her by the human who had taught her to write.
Like his parents, Kaveh had learned the human language, listening in on drunken conversations by the seashore and following the ink written into pages with widened eyes, remarkably drawn to the figures sketched in the margins. Drawings, the humans had said, and Kaveh’s fingers had itched to reach for the ink.
He had spent years investigating humans from afar, fascinated by their loudness and expressiveness. Everything under the sea was muted, muffled by deep columns of water and slow in a way human life didn’t seem to be. Humans treated water like something separate to their existence, a resource, a necessity in moderation, while, to Kaveh, it was life itself: home. The currents surrounding him served the same purpose as the thick walls separating humans from one another, and the sea’s surface was not unlike the arched ceilings of land settlements, protecting its inhabitants from an outside world that was just as dangerous as it was unpredictable.
Observing a broken piece of mirror he’d found in a shipwreck, he would copy human expressions until they resembled the ones he saw from the coastline: lips curved upward and teeth showing for happy, add shoulders moving for it to mean funny, let water travel down your cheeks for sad, and a myriad of others that made him wonder how humans could remember them all.
He hadn’t interacted with a human in years, anxiety gnawing at his chest at the thought of approaching the land people without his parents’ comforting presence by his side.
And yet… the anxiety had given way to curiosity at the sight of that human who was always kind enough to feed him, in exchange for nothing. Kaveh would lie on the shallow sand and simply take in the oddities of the human’s toes, unsure of what they would ever be useful for.
He knew he should be wary of being alone with a human, but this one looked almost adorably harmless, with his cute weird feet and the delicious food he always brought for Kaveh, not expecting anything in return. He longed to outstretch his fingers and touch the human’s leg, thank him for his kindness, ease this aloneness that followed him with one simple interaction.
And so, he did.
Prior to giving in and letting the human see his body, he’d returned to the human books he kept in the dry part of the cave where he lived, which had a pool of sorts surrounded by stone above the water. Reminding himself of what all those symbols sounded like out loud, he’d tried out his own voice to practice listening.
It was bizarre to use his siren tongue for human language.
A siren’s voice was meant to be heard underwater, carried over long lengths and understood only by those well-versed in the language. In the air, his voice would come out as music, but not the kind that humans danced to on lively nights. Rather than make their limbs move with laughter, it forced them to swim down to the rocky sea floor, drowning like mindless mannequins.
It was another reason why Kaveh avoided humans: the idea that a slip-up from him could cost innocent people their lives brought him nothing but pure nausea.
Sirens could sing two melodies: one to kill, and the other to turn a human into one of their own. The turning process was long and cruel, consisting of hours and hours forcing your body to accept water as a home, and not a threat, essentially ripping someone out of the life they were used to. Kaveh had known ever since he understood the concept of voice that opening his mouth above the water was akin to piercing a human’s chest with a jagged fishing hook, and all the blood would seep into his hands. He was a threat to humans, and the best way to avoid slicing anyone’s skin with his words was to keep his distance, watching the island man from under the waves.
But the swirling loneliness around him, in his empty cave, in his solitary swims around the sea, in his inability to call out towards anyone through the water, weighed down on his heart. Water started to feel like a cage rather than a house. The human near the island was so close, and so harmless, and Kaveh had been itching to pop his head out of the water.
The sensation of a breeze against his face was odd, but welcome nonetheless, and seeing the human’s face brought back that sensation from years ago of wanting to sketch. His hair was grey and his eyes were a combination of teal and amber that Kaveh had never seen, covered by the odd cloths humans always sported in the name of an invented concept called modesty.
Alhaitham his name was, flapping wings with an A. It was a name he would love to run over his tongue if he could, opening his lips then rolling the sound over his tongue, closing his mouth for the final sound. It was beautiful, in itself and in its uniqueness, because Kaveh had never met anyone like that, and Kaveh hadn’t met anyone in too long.
Alhaitham wanted to talk to him, and, more importantly, wanted to hear him, teaching him to move his hands to let his thoughts pour out of his head. It was as relieving as it was unbelievable, that all this time, all Kaveh had to do was emerge from the surface and meet a kind man who could weave his hands into ideas and tap into what he so desperately wanted someone else to know.
And, well, he couldn’t hear. Which meant he was immune to Kaveh’s song.
Hello, he signed, curving his lips to demonstrate he was happy.
Hello, Alhaitham answered. They’d been doing this for enough days that there was no need for that odd object in Alhaitham’s ears anymore, which he said hurt him.
Present for you. He offered Alhaitham a small golden trinket he’d found inside an old ship on the sea floor.
Thank you.
What is it?
A wedding ring.
Kaveh cocked his head. What is that?
People decide to spend their lives together when they love each other, and they celebrate that decision in a party called a wedding, Alhaitham signed. They wear this to show that they are married, they had a wedding.
Spending your life together with someone, just like his parents had, sounded like an unreachable dream Kaveh would give up his own tail for, to talk everyday and know someone will take care of you when you need it.
I want to get married one day, he signed.
Alhaitham looked up at that, as if thinking the idea through. Me too.