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One of the first things Beatrice ever did, once she was old enough to string together notes, was to swim up to the rocky outcrops her family lived near, sit on them, and sing. A born songstress, those like her called her; the song-witch of the deep shores, those unlike her called her.
To her, it didn’t matter. She was born to sing, and sing she would, until the day she died. There was nothing and no one she would ever exchange her voice for. This was what she was best at, and it was something she could take immense pride in.
Her family, though, was very worried for her.
“You have to lessen your time above, darling,” her father fretted as he laid down the food for the day. “Your singing has brought fish aplenty, but you know how those who live above feel about us.”
“I know, papa,” Beatrice sighed, picking at her tuna and octopi salad. “But I have to sing. It’s stronger than me.”
“At least start going out during the night more, hm?” her mother offered a compromise, and her little brother nodded.
“M-hm! I heard the lights are very pretty at night up above.”
“They’re called stars, sweetheart,” Beatrice’s mother said patiently, combing the boy’s hair with her fingers. “Do we have a deal, darling, Bea?”
Bea and her father nodded in unison. What her mother wanted, she got – that was the rule in Beatrice’s home.
Finishing the meal in the warm atmosphere, Beatrice said her goodbyes and swam up to her favorite rock, her powerful tail propelling her at the speeds only possible to those born and living in the vast waters. She hadn’t gone up the whole day, and at this point she was growing antsy. The notes were scratching at the back of her throat, begging to be released, and Beatrice swam even faster, her head breaking the veil of the Vidblain just as the gigantic sun set underneath it – the edge between the water and air, something that humans apparently called ‘surface’. In Beatrice’s opinion, her people’s name was much prettier and far more accurate – Vidblain meant ‘the one who stretches out to infinity in blue’.
Her rock was just as she left it yesterday, with seaweed, corals and discarded ropes making a comfortable seat for her. Propping herself up on it, Beatrice took out the comb made of a particularly strong shell her mother had gifted her, and started combing her hair, singing into the rapidly encroaching darkness.
The song had no words: it was just the sounds and notes strung together, echoing the emotions in her soul. All of peoples living in the water sang like that: the difference was, of course, in experience and articulation. The closer you were to your emotions and understanding of yourself, the more authentic and beautiful you sounded.
Beatrice surrendered herself to her heart; allowing it to speak for her, she sang of longing, joy and excitement. Before long, she sensed tiny fish and their bigger cousins flock to her rocks, and Beatrice smiled, continuing her song and combing. It was going to be a good hunt for her people.
She didn’t know why she combed her hair while she sang – she never felt an urge to before she got the comb, after all, but she didn’t question it, just like she didn’t question why she was such a good singer.
Beatrice closed her eyes, combing all the kinks in her hairs, the notes building up and leading her on a journey. Come, fly with us, the notes sang to her, and Beatrice followed them with a giggle, imagining herself soaring with them. Skies above her had never tempted her, but she would be lying if she hadn’t wished at least once to reach that other layer of Vidblain – the one named Vidar.
She was so immersed in her song that she didn’t even notice the fish running away in fear, nor the change in the water tides – it wasn’t until she heard loud shouting and splashes that Beatrice realized something was wrong. Opening her eyes, Beatrice’s entire body froze at the sight in front her: a ship made almost entirely of what seemed like sunlight, towering above her with what had to be at least five times her length.
However, it wasn’t the ship that froze the very blood in Beatrice’s blood: it was the shape on the end of it – a huge monster with golden mane for hair, with equally huge fangs bared at the world.
“No,” Beatrice whispered. This was the Ship of the Dead – she had to escape now! No merfolk that came across it ever survived – they all ended up pieced through heart.
But before she could slip off her seat and dive into the depths into safety, a piercing whistle reached her ears, followed by a gruff female voice. Beatrice blinked – a female? Wasn’t the master of this ship a man?
“Oy, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Beatrice sang back, the human word breaking in her throat in a way that made her wince. Born songstress, indeed. Clearing her throat, she made her next words more fluid. “I hear you.”
“Okay.” The owner of the voice – or so Beatrice presumed – appeared at the edge of the golden ship, and took Beatrice’s breath away. That hair! It fluttered in the low night breeze, illuminated by the lights on the ship, looking the brightest red of corals, the type only noble-born could use for decoration.
“Was that you luring us here?”
“Luring?” The word was unfamiliar to Beatrice. “What does that mean?”
“Making us come over here,” the woman huffed, sounding a bit impatient. “Calling us.”
Beatrice shook her head, bewildered by the line of questioning. No, why would she do that – what would be the point? Her folk did not feast on the flesh of those above.
“I do not sing to those above Vidblain, but to those below it. I apologize.”
The woman did not answer her for a while, and Beatrice’s tail twitched, ready to slip away the moment her eyes were off Beatrice. As beautiful as the other was, Beatrice could not risk falling victim to the Ship of the Dead.
“So you didn’t sing to us… heh. Interesting.”
In the next moment, the woman jumped over the edge of the ship, and Beatrice’s body moved before her mind had any time to think: she slipped into the waters, only two flaps of the tail enough to position her under the falling woman. Beatrice lifted her arms up, opening them for a catch, when the most impossible thing happened.
The woman snapped her fingers, and fire erupted around her, slowing down her descent.
Suddenly, Beatrice remembered another type of victims of Ship of the Dead – those who didn’t even resemble themselves anymore, black from exposure to fire. Panic took hold of her heart, and she dove below the veil, cursing herself for ever responding to the beautiful – devilish – woman.
No beauty was worth her life!
However, the next thing she knew, something thin wrapped around the middle part of her tail, and she was violently and painfully yanked backwards and upwards, back to the ship. Beatrice couldn’t help it: she screamed from pain and fear as she broke again through the veil of Vidblain.
Were those people trying to tear her in half?! Why couldn’t they kill her the easy way?
A calloused, almost unbearably hot hand closed around her throat, and Beatrice found herself pressed against the ship. She struggled, trying to pull the hand away, but another source of terrifying heat appeared next to her ear, and Beatrice stilled as the woman floated down to be at the same level as her.
The other source of heat was a small fire in the woman’s hand, and she’d pressed it so close to Beatrice’s hair and ear, it was a wonder it hadn’t transferred.
“Where did you think you were going, pretty?” The woman was smiling at her, sending chills through Beatrice’s spine and tail. “So much time we’d spent, searching for the Songstress of the Atlantic, only to find her when we weren’t even looking. You’re quite famous, you know?”
Beatrice gulped. She was famous among the merfolk, yes, but that fame was more of the hearsay variety. She hadn’t known those above knew of her too!
“You’re even more beautiful than what they say about you,” the tiny flame drifted from the woman’s hand, allowing her to trail index finger down Beatrice’s cheek. Beatrice closed her eyes, tears bubbling at the edges and threatening to spill over.
“No need to cry – you’ll be treated well here.” Surprisingly gently, the woman brushed away the tears from Beatrice’s closed eyes. “You should be happy – it’s an honor to be noticed by our Lord.”
“What does it matter?” Beatrice whispered, not caring if she’d sound impertinent. “This is Ship of the Dead – what honor lies in being noticed by Death?”
Woman chuckled unexpectedly, making Beatrice open her eyes. In the short time she’d had her eyes closed, the other woman managed to come so close to her, their noses practically touched. It allowed Beatrice to see the other’s warm brown eyes, eyes that looked almost coral red in the light of the fire hovering behind her.
“I’m sure the name came about for a wrong reason, but you’re not completely wrong,” there was so much warmth in the woman’s eyes and voice, Beatrice couldn’t help but relax a little. There was a world that could be learned from a person’s voice, and everything in Beatrice told her the woman in front of her was not deceiving her in any way. “We are not dead, but Death – although our ship’s name Ragnarok, describes us better.”
The word struck a cord with Beatrice – she did not know its meaning or implications, but it was important to her, and she above all else followed her heart and instincts, both to her detriment and joy.
“Come with us,” Beatrice’s personal temptress cajoled, and Beatrice could feel her determination crumble. However, there was one thing she could take from this woman in exchange – if Beatrice was to abandon all and become the vassal of Death, she would make sure she would never be abandoned.
“What may I call you?”
The woman paused at the out-of-blue request, but obliged.
“My name on the ship is Samiel, the Huntress of the Night.” It suited her well, Beatrice thought with an ironic inner chuckle. “But my true name is Eleonore.”
E-le-o-no-re. Beatrice repeated the name to herself several, breaking it up into syllables to better digest its essence, before getting to work. Weaving her heart into the name, deftly twisting adoration, hate and possession into her voice, Beatrice repeated the name out loud.
“E-le-o-no-re,” Beatrice sang into the ear of her hapless victim, and the effect was instant – the red-brown eyes flashed electric blue of Beatrice’s own eye color before returning to normal. “My name is Be-a-tri-ce.”
“Be-a-trice,” Eleonore tried to repeat the name the same way Beatrice pronounced it, ultimately failing, but still coming close enough for the magic to take hold. Beatrice smiled – Eleonore had no idea what she’d just done, and Beatrice had no intention of ever telling her. Eleonore had her fire magic at disposal – it was only fair if Beatrice had something of her own. “Will you come with us?”
“I will come with you,” Beatrice smiled widely, well aware of the double meaning of the human word ‘you’. Her people had two different forms for singular ‘you’ and plural ‘you’ to avoid this precise mistake – but what Eleonore didn’t know, couldn’t hurt her.
Eleonore relaxed at the confirmation; the hand at Beatrice’s throat vanished, and Beatrice squeaked as she found herself in a firm hug, pressed from the top of her tail to the tip of her shoulders to Eleonore’s super-heated body. Blushing, Beatrice squirmed a little – she hadn’t expected the magic to work this well! She only wanted Eleonore to take extra care of her, but she wasn’t going to protest this extra step as they floated up to the ship’s deck.
“Too hot? I’m sorry,” Eleonore apologized, and indeed, the heat went down, not threatening anymore to give Beatrice blisters by being in Eleonore’s embrace. “I should’ve remembered – we pulled Machina from the Arctic, and he was the same.”
Beatrice didn’t know what Arctic was, but it sounded like this person Machina was similar to her, which cheered her up – at least there’d be someone she’d be able to relate, in addition to Eleonore who’d protect and care for her.
After getting on the deck and being given human legs, Beatrice spent the next five days getting used to being on the ship. Her connection with the sea had not waned in the slightest, which meant she managed to avoid most of the seasickness humans seemed to be plagued with: however, she was still unused to having legs to walk around, which made her cling to Eleonore for support.
That had its good sides: she managed to meet most of the crew that way in a more relaxed setting, and learn quite a bit about how Ragnarok worked.
Captain, death god taking human form Beatrice could barely stomach being around named Reinhard and his equally repulsive right-hand man of a magician Mercurius were at the top, and their orders were obeyed without question. Next were their seconds, Eleonore, Schreiber and Machina – former volcano goddess, wolf-shifter and living iceberg respectively. Beatrice couldn’t stand Schreiber and his crazed animal impulses, but she found a quiet kinship with Machina, who seemed to enjoy the quiet songs Beatrice sung under her breath every now and then. Eleonore was of course her protector and dear to her heart, and Beatrice only continued falling more in love with her the more she knew her.
Everyone else seemed to be of roughly the same rank while being below the first five – the foul-mouthed vampire Bey, who looked far too interested in tasting Beatrice’s blood and motherly necromancer Babylon who kept feeding Beatrice and eyeing her slender figure with disapproving eyes; sadistic witch cum doctor Malleus who couldn’t stop looking at Beatrice like an interesting artifact she wanted to dissect and scaredy-cat spider-human chimaera Spinne who took care of the gold in the bowels of the ship and offered to teach Beatrice math; standoffish conjoined twins Johann and Isaak who served as ship’s maintenance crew and empath-shapeshifter priest Kristoff who seemed to like both being near Beatrice and being her while at the same time being deathly afraid of Eleonore.
The only person she hadn’t met was Tubal Cain, but according to Eleonore she wasn’t missing anything – Cain was an empty, dead husk, there only for Babylon to animate.
No one gave Beatrice their true names except Schreiber and Reinhard – they knew Beatrice was magical as well, and likely didn’t want her to do anything to them. Beatrice wasn’t interested in that anyway: she had tied herself and Eleonore tightly, and she had Machina to stem her longing for singing and the sea.
However, she couldn’t always follow Eleonore, so she often found herself sitting at the prow of the ship, singing quietly and taking care not to be heard. According to Eleonore, at its full volume and potency, Beatrice’s voice had managed to enchant even the Death Lord and his entire crew from miles away to come to her, and she had gotten a stern order not to do it again. So, to err on the side of caution, Beatrice only sung quietly and far away from the crew, watching the sea below her with a quiet longing.
She was doing it again, singing her loneliness and heartbreaking love to the waves, when she felt someone sit next to her. Clamping her lips shut, Beatrice turned to the magician, who was watching her with a mocking grin on his face.
“One can take mer from the sea, but they cannot take the sea from the mer,” Mercurius spoke the old proverb of the merfolk, and Beatrice grimaced. The man knew far too much about the merfolk for her comfort, and him revealing what she’d done to Eleonore hung over her like a blade on a hair strand. “How are you, Valkyria?”
Ah yes, her new name. Mercurius had given it to her with an enigmatic smile, proclaiming her to be the ship’s leading star; Eleonore theorized he had seen her as a good front-runner or scout and gave her the corresponding name.
Beatrice severely disliked it, but it was far better than her true name.
“I miss the sea,” she stated bluntly. “Singing.”
“I’m sure my dear friend will let you swim again soon,” Mercurius hummed. “However, I urge you to refrain from singing loudly for a bit more.”
“Why?” Beatrice crossed her arms. “Everyone else on this ship uses their magic freely.”
It came as a shock to Beatrice: such free usage of various magics, sometimes clashing and sometimes complementary, left her breathless and in wonder. She also wished to join that cacophony, to raise her voice and add to the beauty of the moment.
“Have you ever tried to sing someone else’s song?” Mercurius asked her instead of answering, and Beatrice made a disgusted face. That was such a taboo – you did not sing the song of someone else’s heart, ever, unless you wanted the person to die or fall in love with you.
“Never. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well…” Mercurius made a secretive smile. “Your singing seems to produce the effect of singing another’s song, no matter what you’re singing. Were you really not aware?”
The deck beneath opened into a void for Beatrice. Had that really happened? Eleonore had only told her they were all enchanted by her voice and felt compelled to find her – if what Mercurius was implying was true -
“Then I have to go,” Beatrice stood up, swaying slightly as the sudden movement shocked her legs and having to brace herself on the railing. “I will not survive long without singing – I have to - !”
“And leave our dear Samiel with a broken bond?” Mercurius, the damn bastard, was smirking at her. “Unless you’d be willing to let her go and completely forget her?”
Beatrice bit her lip, her heart crying at the sheer thought. How could she abandon the woman who’d so thoroughly ravaged her heart and reshaped it to only beat for her in such a short time? But she had to. She couldn’t live without being truthful, and being truthful for her was singing every day.
“I shall break it,” Beatrice finally decided. “And take the backlash. She will not notice a thing.”
“I wonder,” the magician murmured, but Beatrice ignored him, her mind set.
She may spend the rest of her life singing of sorrow and heartbreak, but she would fix things for everyone. She would truly die this time – not just for her family, like she did when she stepped onto Ragnarok, but for everyone who ever knew her.
That was the best course of action, Beatrice consoled herself as she stumbled into the room she was sharing with Eleonore at the moment and fell onto her bed. Now, she only needed Eleonore to come, and night to fall to begin with her plan.
Unbonding was done without a hitch – Eleonore had gotten used to Beatrice singing ‘E-le-o-no-re’ whenever she wanted her attention, so it only took Beatrice a moment to replace the ‘possession’ part with ‘rejection’ and repeat the same thing she’d done when they’d first met. Slipping away, on the other hand, was a whole different matter.
Beatrice had to pretend she’d fallen asleep, and then patiently wait for Eleonore’s breathing to also even out before she could sneak out. The moment Beatrice was sure, she slipped from under the covers, only dressed in a loose, tiny nightgown she’d borrowed from Babylon under the excuse of not being used to sleeping in much clothing. The real reason behind request was to make discarding it before jumping into the sea easier – she adored the longer one Eleonore borrowed her, but it was far too impractical with its many buttons at the weirdest of places.
However, as she walked to the door, a tiny sob of her heart made her turn around and walk back to Eleonore. It just seemed so wrong to go away and not say goodbye, even if only she was aware of that goodbye happening.
Standing in front of the bed, Beatrice dithered – should she say goodbye like a mer, or like a human? Should she give a light kiss to the head, like she’d seen Babylon give to Johann, or sing a note of farewell, like she knew how to?
Still indecisive, Beatrice leaned forward, placing her lips near Eleonore’s ears as if to sing, but then, thinking better of it at the last moment, she placed a light kiss on the lobe.
Goodbye, my dearest. Let us never meet again – it’s for the best .
She tried to convey the message through that light touch.
In the next moment, the ground disappeared from under her, and Beatrice yelped as she fell over into Eleonore’s bed, the other suddenly hovering over her with a terrifying gleam in her eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“No-nothing!” Beatrice squeaked, petrified by the intense glare.
“Liar, Be-a-tri-ce,” Eleonore said shortly, the gleam not retreating from her eyes, and Beatrice shuddered at the correct pronunciation of her name. “You tried to leave, didn’t you?”
“I-I-”
“You removed that spell you made – clever little thing, I didn’t even notice it for a few hours,” Eleonore continued mercilessly, and Beatrice gulped, heart pounding. Eleonore was aware of her manipulation, and did not say a word? She was so screwed. “You wouldn’t have removed it if you either didn’t plan on telling me the truth or running away. So…”
She leaned even closer, pressing their bodies flush, and Beatrice fought with all her might not to groan at the hellish heat Eleonore exuded and how tortuously different it felt now, in the human skin she was wearing.
“Tell me, Be-a-tri-ce. What in blazes are you doing?”
Beatrice couldn’t say anything – her heart was beating too fast, she was sweating, human words were all muddling together, and so when she opened her mouth, a string of notes speaking of love and desire escaped her, betraying her. She quickly shut her mouth, but it was already too late – the cat was out of the bag, as the human proverb went.
Eleonore, for her part, did not look surprised at all. In fact, she looked – satisfied?
“I see.”
She sunk down, completely covering Beatrice’s petite body with her larger frame, forcing Beatrice to take the full weight. Beatrice gasped at the weight shift, and Eleonore went in for the kill, aggressively pressing her lips against Beatrice’s before speaking, breathing directly into Beatrice’s still open mouth in a language far more glottal than any Beatrice had heard before.
“You’re mine, Be-a-tri-ce. Say it!”
Beatrice couldn’t think straight from all the heat and closeness, couldn’t speak any human language even if she tried – and so she sang again, the notes of devotion and love, her mind floating away from her as Eleonore hissed in glee.
“Good. My Be-a-tri-ce,” Eleonore repeated Beatrice’s name, enjoying its sound in that strange language – Eleonore’s native, Beatrice realized with a chilling certainty. “You bound me with your voice, and now I bind you with my command: you will never leave me – that’s an order!”
The flash of fire the spoken words created made Beatrice gasp; the fire transformed into a snake, which slid down from Eleonore’s crown, down her fiery locks and right onto Beatrice’s breast, where her heart tried its hardest to escape her body. Not a moment later, Beatrice arched her back as the fire snake reached her heart and set her insides ablaze, barely holding in a shriek.
“E-le-o-no-re!” escaped Beatrice’s lips without her consent, imbued with the magic, and again Eleonore’s eyes flashed electric blue.
“I told you,” Eleonore growled near Beatrice’s ear, making Beatrice shudder. “You bound me to you the moment I heard you sing – now it’s your turn to be bound to me. You’re not leaving me, ever!”
Never , Beatrice was barely able to sing out before Eleonore started kissing her again, stopping her from singing.
“Do not sing unless it’s for me, do you hear me? You, your body, your song, it’s all mine!”
“Yo-yours,” Beatrice somehow managed to spit it out, and Eleonore’s eyes turned completely red at the sound of her native tongue from Beatrice’s mouth.
“Yes, mine, all mine.”