Chapter Text
Climbing out of her cabin onto the deck of the ship, Raelle took a deep breath, inhaling the salty scent of the sea. Somewhere off in the distance, seagulls cried as they soared up high above the water. The last of the day’s light faded on the horizon and Raelle stopped at the gunwale to watch it give way to a dark blue in the sky.
A lazy smile of contentment crept to her lips. Their voyage would soon be over. Although Raelle cherished sailing more than anything, Tally’s promise of arrival by tomorrow morning filled her with an almost childish sort of excitement.
After years of piecing together torn out maps and scrolls with what little information she found in her mother’s journals, Raelle was more than ready to unearth the secrets of the island that lied ahead. She ran her fingertips on the outlines of the turquoise stone that hanged by a golden chain from her neck and held it tightly.
“We’re almost there huh?” Abigail joined her, propping herself up on a nearby canon with ease. She was wearing her captain’s hat, which was starting to look worn out at the edges, and a navy coat to protect her from the sea breeze.
“Yeah, I can hardly believe it,” Raelle admitted, brushing away a strand of lose hair that was blown in front of her eyes. She had allowed her blond hair to grow longer than she normally would, past her shoulders. Its usual braids were still kept in their rightful place, though, adorned by silver beads and seashells. “Feels like only yesterday we were scrubbing decks together,” she chuckled.
“We rose up, Collar,” Abigail’s voice was heavy with pride and her eyes shone as she turned around to look at their ship. It was Abigail’s greatest joy. From its strong wooden masts dropped scarlet sails that contrasted beautifully with the golden paint on the sides of the galleon.
“Yeah, she’s a beauty,” Raelle smiled, eyebrows shooting up as she noticed Tally coming their way, her eyes shining with a buzz that matched the one in the air.
“Dinner’s ready!” The redhead looked almost ridiculous with a sword hanging by her hip and a grin so wide as the one she wore when she rushed to embrace her sisters.
“Calm down, Tal,” Abigail chuckled, patting her softly on the shoulder.
“I’m just so excited! We’ve been after this for years,” Tally took a deep breath, pursing her lips only to have them go back to their previous smile.
“I know, Tal,” Raelle whispered, letting go of the hold she had on Tally’s waist. Her gaze shifted from Tally’s eyes to Abigail’s as she licked her lips in preparation to speak. “I wanted to say-”
“Are you gonna be sappy right now, Collar?” Abigail interrupted, tilting her head in teasing.
“Me?!” Raelle scoffed, laughing before turning serious again, fidgeting with the hem of her coat. “I just wanted to say thank you,” she started, eyes momentarily flicking downward. “For everything, for getting me here. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“We know how important this is for you, Rae,” Tally smiled warmly and pulled her friend into another tight hug.
“Speak for yourself, I’m only here for the treasure,” Abigail scoffed jokingly before wrapping her arms around Raelle and Tally. “We’d go with you to the end of the world, shitbird,” the captain whispered.
***
Raelle awoke with a gasp, her hammock moving hastily from side to side, threatening to throw her to the floor. She rubbed her eyes before opening them groggily, blinking as they adjusted to the light that came from a single lit candle on her right.
She grunted sleepily as she pushed herself off the hammock. She could hear a harsh crashing of water against wood as she came to her feet and felt the ship move beneath her. Something was wrong.
She quickly put on her clothes, hurried by yelled orders that now sounded from deck, muffled by waves and thunders. Strapping her sword’s holster to her waist and grabbing her coat, she stepped out of her cabin and soon was climbing out to the deck along with fellow members of her crew.
Air was knocked out of her lungs once she reached it by winds powerful enough to make her lose her balance. The sky was pouring, angry in its wallows. By now, her heart was hammering in her chest, compelling her to keep moving. Raelle forced herself to take a deep breath as she grabbed onto the thick ropes that run along the gunwale for support.
“We’ve been caught by a storm!” Abigail was suddenly by her side, stance wide, yelling over the chaos that filled the air.
“Yeah, no shit,” Raelle replied, her voice hoarse and barely audible. A storm was an understatement. The cold winds that blew against them sent shivers down their spines and the sky above them was as dark as the sea below.
Lighting struck the clouds allowing Raelle to see more clearly for a brief moment and she looked around frantically, searching for something, anything that would make all of this make sense. They were so close.
Raelle’s jaw clenched with something that felt too much like anger as she tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. They had faced storms before, but somehow this one felt different. More powerful, more destructive. The last remains of sleepiness left her as dread settled deep in her chest, hidden by her bravery.
“Where’s Tally?” Raelle managed to scream, fighting the urge to squeeze her eyes shut as the sting from saltiness of the water constantly thrown at them by high waves made them feel like they were on fire.
Raelle could see Abigail’s lips moving in response, but barely heard a thing as she scanned the deck for the familiar head of red hair.
“Come on, we gotta find her,” Abigail yelled in Raelle’s ear, linking their arms together for mutual support and started walking in the direction of the bow.
Somewhere off in the distance, above the wet splashes of water, the softest of voices began to echo in the air, with a song as sweet as a fresh honey. Raelle’s feet came to a stop, halting Abigail’s stride as she listened closely. The song was strangely alluring, seductive even. Raelle’s eyes got lost in the sea as her heart came to the calmest of paces despite the chaos surrounding her.
“Raelle!” She could barely acknowledge Abigail’s screams as the captain tried to move them forward. Raelle’s mind was so oddly quiet, clouded by a warm feeling that resembled peace, consumed by the need to join the one singing in the sea.
“Rae, snap out of it!” Abigail grabbed her face roughly, covering her ears with her hands. As the song faded and Raelle looked into Abigail’s steady eyes she found she could once more feel the rain drops falling heavily on her face.
A gasp left her lips. Sirens.
Raelle had heard the stories of the sea creatures that lured men to their deaths. Every pirate had. They were whispered about in dark alleys as much as they were joked about in taverns. And apparently, they were very real.
Seeming to notice Raelle had come back to herself, Abigail lowered her hands just as a wave broke against them, throwing them to the floor. The ship lurched to the right as Raelle fought to find anything she could grab onto to keep herself from sliding along the deck. She was coming straight for the main mast, quickly. She could feel the pain of her body hitting it before it even happened, muscles tensing as if trying to protect themselves.
As soon as her flesh hit wood with a dull thud, Raelle rushed to wrap herself along the mast, grunting at the way her ribcage throbbed, making it hard to breathe. In the darkness of the night and with her eyelashes peppered with raindrops, it was harder to see than ever. Raelle extended her right arm blindly to where she thought Abigail could be coming from and in a second her fingers were grasping a fistful of wet fabric, the weight of Abigail’s body pulling her down.
As the ship sailed through the enraged ocean, Raelle held onto Abigail as fiercely as she could, her arm aching in protest. Eventually, another wave tilted the ship to a neutral stance and the two pirates were able to come to their feet. They were soaked through their clothes and the cold was starting to make its home in their bones. Luckily enough, Raelle finally spotted the tall woman they were searching for, coming towards them with careful, although hurried, steps.
“We’re being pulled off-course,” Tally screamed as soon as she joined them, hugging them and briefly burying her face in the crook of Raelle’s neck. “We need to get the sails up!”
Abigail immediately set of to tell their men what needed to be done, the natural leader in her coming to the surface. All around them the siren song still resonated in the air, mellow and captivating. It was getting louder, closer. Raelle could swear the sea was glowing in a light blue and it took all of her willpower to not get dragged back into the trance she’d been in before.
Others, however, were not as strong.
No matter how loudly Abigail screamed at the sailors to pull themselves together, they wouldn’t listen and soon, one after another, were jumping overboard, meeting their end with delight.
Raelle rushed to pull back their men from the edge of the ship, yelling, tugging at their clothes, pulling back their limbs, but her efforts were fruitless. A hasty look over the gunwale showed her bright blue water getting rapidly tinted in crimson and in the midst of all those colors Raelle saw it. The siren.
Brushing away the rain from her eyes, she took a shaky breath, attempting to commit the scene to memory. But the moment was gone too quickly and all Raelle could remember were wet strands of dark hair, shiny fish scales and beauty.
She ran back up to the mast, pushing the image out of her mind, the weight of her wet clothes slowing her down. Joining Tally and Abigail, she pulled at the rope tied to sails. Its rough materials pressed into Raelle’s palms, craping them harshly as she grunted in resolution. The few of the men who had managed not be affected by the siren’s calling followed her example.
It was hard to maintain her posture as her body was hit with chilly winds and the deck took on more and more water. She pressed forward, hands burning and shoulders growing sore.
Looking up to see the sail move inch by inch, marking her success, Raelle grunted. A scream was begging to be let out of her chest as the work Raelle’s hands were focused on wasn’t enough to help her push past the emotions that were threatening to overcome her. Anger hit her with a strength greater than that of any wave, topped only by resentment. Resentment towards the seas, towards the sky, but mostly, towards herself.
***
Beneath the sea, Scylla reveled in the taste of blood on her tongue, in the frenzy in which the pirates jumped ship to meet her call. The waves around her tingled her senses, sharpening them.
It had been a while since someone had dared sail that way and Scylla was hungry. Hungry for the hunt, for the power, for the company. Having been abandoned by her kind to guard an island no one had set foot in for hundreds of years filled her with a kind of emptiness that drilled holes in her soul, a kind of emptiness a galleon lost at sea could quench, even if just for a little while.
Scylla no longer believed in the gods.
The old ones that ruled the seas in the past were nothing but children’s stories to her now. Nevertheless, she had hoped, she wouldn’t lie, she had prayed, even, for a night like this one; for a night where the skies matched the grief in her heart and poured, the thunders the anger she had so shamelessly let run untamed for years.
And yet, she found her bottom lip caught between her sharp teeth, displeased. These were just pirates, looking for something they’d never find, like countless others before them. They weren’t soldiers, they didn’t sail under a nation’s flag, they weren’t the ones she wanted to set her rage loose upon. They were just men. Men who had killed her kind before, sure. But not those who had persecuted them, who had run harpoons through her parent’s fins.
Scylla swallowed, pushing past the lump on her throat. She’d work with what she had been given by the seas, even if it lighted up a bright fire in her chest to not see her one desire met.
She swam to the surface once more, felt the drops of sweet water on her face and released her song.
The few humans that remained aboard were cleverly trying to raise the sails, making it harder for the winds to set their fate. A small curious smile came to Scylla’s lips. One of them was resisting the call, she could feel it, could sense her song being shut out, the pirate unyielding.
She propelled herself closer. She knew of tales of those strong enough to resist a siren’s call, yet she had never found a man to be able to refuse the allures of her song so adamantly. It was infuriatingly marvelous and Scylla was not one to back down from a challenge.
***
Overlooking the siren’s song was getting harder and harder by the minute. No matter how loudly the thunders rang in Raelle’s ears, shaking her to her core, the voice of the creature was all she could hear.
As soon as the sail she had been working on was up she ran to another one, rushing to get her hands to focus on something again, afraid of what not having a physical distraction might lead her to do.
In her haste, Raelle failed to take into account the movements of the ship, how it was about to come crashing down the sea after rising in a high wave. She was immediately pushed forward by forces of invisible nature and for a moment she could swear she was flying, all four of her limbs dangled spread out before her, free.
The floor was soon getting closer to her, however. And when she hit it, despite her arms stretching out in defense, she hit it roughly. The impact sent shudders through her body, a small cry left her lips.
One would expect that everything in Raelle would be telling her to get up, to push past the pain, to go back to the fight against the sea. But none of that happened. Instead, Raelle rolled herself onto her back with a hiss and stared at the sky.
The throb in her ribcage from her earlier misadventure was making it hard to breathe and the deep gash that now appeared to be adorning her forehead sent thick blood down her face, granting her vision a redish blur.
The sky was dark and bare of stars.
Raelle closed her eyes.
She had been so close.
So close to fulfilling her mother’s legacy; to maybe, just maybe, find something that would give her life a little bit more meaning.
She cursed herself for her earlier happiness, for having dared herself to hope, even if it was just this once.
“Raelle!” Tally’s voice sounded from somewhere on her right, snapping her out of her thoughts. Her head instantly turned in its direction to see, in the midst of lose strands of hair, Abigail and Tally still pulling down rope, attempting to get the last one of the sails up.
Raelle took a deep breath and pushed herself of the floor. In another time, she would have kept lying on the deck, eyeing the clouded moon, awaiting her end. But she couldn’t do that now, not when Tally and Abigail were out there fighting, bloody hands, pained grimaces, aching muscles and all.
Wiping away the blood from her eyes, Raelle shakily walked up to the only rope that was left unmanned, which hanged by the gunwale. She pulled and pulled until she had no more air left in her lungs and was sure she’d pass out, her heart beating in her chest as heavy as a hammer.
Her breaths came out in short pants, her arms quivered, missing their usual strength. She was exhausted, truly spent. And so, when a wave hit the galleon and made her lose her balance once more, Raelle barely had time to process the fact that she was sliding over the edge of the ship before it was too late and she had nothing to grab onto.
The drop took longer than she expected and this time she didn’t feel like she was flying.
She fell and fell and fell, arms outstretched towards her ship, as despair kicked in and the sweet song of the siren resonated louder than ever.
She didn’t think of the blood that tainted the water or the death sentence that awaited her or the fact the only two people she cared about in the whole world were left screaming for her. No, her mind was blank, lost in process.
And just like that she was surrounded by water and the bodies of her fellow crew members. It was cold, colder than she ever remembered sea water to be, and the gash on her forehead stung with the saltiness of it.
Raelle tried to fight the pull and push of the waves, tried to stay afloat, her survival instincts kicking in with the last of her strength. But it wasn’t enough, and in that moment, she felt terribly small.
The water left a metallic taste on her tongue as it filled her mouth, then her throat and lungs. Her limbs fell slack around her as she sank, deeper and deeper, until everything was dark.
***
Scylla tilted her head in wonder as she got closer to the ship. She could now spot the silhouette of the man who dared resist her song, pulling at rope deliciously close to the gunwale.
As it turned out, he was no man at all, but a young woman, a mess of blond hair, slender shoulders and power.
A smirk came to Scylla’s lips.
Well, now that was interesting.
She kept on singing her song, rage forgotten, her attention now totally focused on the one who got away.
But then the pirate was falling, drowning, the strength of the sea no match for her and Scylla swam to her, watched her as her small body descended deeper and deeper into the darkness.
She had soft features, even as her lungs were filling up with water. A scar on the left side of her chin. Ocean blue eyes.
Wrapping one arm around the girl’s figure, Scylla brought them both to the surface with ease.
The girl was dead weigh against her body, unconscious as she was as Scylla carried her swiftly to shore and coaxed life back into her.
With the first coughs of water leaving the pirate’s mouth, Scylla released a relieved sigh she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Gods, humans were weak.