Chapter Text
The first thing that Yuno became aware of, as consciousness returned, was the water. There was the gentle sound of waves lapping onto rocks nearby, and then, muffled by distance, the roar of crashing surf. Water dripping. He could smell salt and taste it on his lips. The chill of the wet rocks seeped through his clothes.
His head hurt. He might have moaned as he tried to open his eyes. It took three attempts and more seconds than it should for him to succeed.
He was in a sea cave. There was a little light from the fissures in the roof, which allowed him to make out the pool of water and the rocks he was lying on. The water shifted, but it never reached him. He watched it and listened to the sea beyond the cave. It sounded like a storm pounding the cliffs.
For a moment, he wanted to let his eyes close. Even the cold was not enough to push him back to wakefulness. He needed to sleep. The sound of the water lulled him. He felt the warm embrace of darkness. His eyes closed.
Something hissed across the cave.
Yuno opened his eyes again. The pull of the darkness vanished, and he was suddenly awake. What was there? He had thought he was alone with the water. He tried to push himself up, but the rock was slippery.
"Why did you do that?" a voice said. It was a low, angry voice, whispering from the shadows of the cave.
Now that Yuno knew where to look, he saw two glowing points of light tucked into the darkness. His mouth was dry, and it was sore to talk. He knew his response was more of a whimper than a real word. He was trying to say, 'What?'
The hiss from the shadows either understood or decided to clarify anyway. "I was going to eat you. Why did you do that?"
Yuno was still no closer to an answer. He had no idea where he was, or why. The last thing he remembered was the Golden Dawn battening down against a storm that had surprised them with its ferocity. Captain William had shouted something against the screaming of the wind. Spray was flying, and the deck had lurched under their feet. Ropes and canvas were like living things. Something had hit him on the head, and the breath had been knocked out of him. He had fought against the bucking of the ship and blackness in his vision until...
Cold. Darkness. Quiet.
Then here.
"Wha'?" He tried again.
"Why did you help me?" the voice said. "I was going to eat you."
"Eat me?" Yuno mumbled. He pushed himself up, and this time, he managed to get his face off the rocks before nearly faceplanting back onto them as his wrist buckled under him. He swore before trying again. Go slower.
It took time and more curses for him to haul himself into a sitting position. The movement made it clear that his ribs were bruised, if not broken. His arm looked the right shape but could not support any of his weight. The dampness that he had been lying in was some of his own blood and was dripping into his eyes. He did not want to think about his legs, so he put that issue aside for the future. The glowing eyes were a more immediate problem.
The owner of the eyes had not made a sound despite Yuno's struggles and had not come any closer. It was watchful from the shadows.
This time when Yuno spoke, the words were clearer. "When did I help you?"
There was another hiss, louder this time. "I said. When I was going to eat you." There was a sharp glint of metal and something was thrown across the pool of water to land at Yuno's hand. It was sharp, in a long, wicked hook shape. There were scratch marks along its length as though something had struggled to remove it but been unable to get any purchase. Yuno looked at it and swallowed. "Oh, shit. I thought that was a dream."
Another hiss. "I was going to eat you," it said. There was something like disappointment in its tone.
Yuno put his hand out to touch the hook. He was shaking with shudders that he knew was his body trying to generate heat, so he missed it the first time. When he was able to grab it, the shape was familiar in his grip. He had touched this before. He had pulled it free from muscle and bone. "This was in you?" he said.
"Until you took it. I was going to manage. It was fine. You shouldn't have touched it."
That did not seem right. The memory was confused and muddled, but Yuno could see the hook stuck into pale flesh. The wound had been puckered and red, with track marks that led down to the ribs that were too prominent. Skin had tried to grow around the curve of the hook. It was embedded deeply, and it had been there for some time.
Yuno remembered the surreal disconnection that made it feel like a dream, but now he realised it had probably been the result of a concussion. He had been on board the Golden Dawn long enough to know how to remove a fishhook. He had reached for the hook, pushed it down against the surrounding flesh to release the barb and yanked it clean away. It was a silent memory, but the release had felt like pulling against bone. Pus and blood had run free, then the memory dissolved into darkness.
He ran a finger down the hook and whispered, "Not a dream."
"No," the voice said. "Not a dream. And now, I'm stuck here with you and I'm still hungry."
"Are you sulking?"
The eyes flickered an ominous red. "I've had that stuck in my shoulder for weeks. Some damn harpooner caught me instead of the pilot whale they were aiming for. Lucky shot. The rest of my shoal took him down, obviously. But I couldn't get the hook out. It's hard to hunt when all the hydrodynamics are shot and..."
"It was infected,” Yuno guessed. “And caught on the bone."
"It was fine. I would have got it out."
Yuno decided not to mention that if that had been true, the hook would not have been there for weeks. He ran his fingers over the jagged barb at the end. "Couldn't your shoal have helped you?"
The voice snorted bitterly. "You don't know anything about us, do you?"
"I don't even know what you are."
For a moment there was only the sound of the water lapping against the rocks. Even the crashing of the waves outside lulled for a second. The glowing eyes leaned forward until a shape emerged from the shadows. At first, it appeared to be human. There were light brown curls of hair on top of a scowling young man's face with those piercing glowing eyes. The torso was man shaped, even though one arm was hanging awkwardly, and the shoulder was swollen and red. The ribs were visible in a way that suggested hunger to Yuno, as if there had been strength and muscle there, but was now wasted with starvation.
And then…
Shit.
"My name is Langris," the creature said, and his mouth split into a smile with far too many teeth. "I don't suppose I can call you prey anymore, can I?"
"That's a tail," Yuno said. "Fuck. A tail. That's a.... a..."
He... It? No. Langris. Langris said, "Yeah. A tail." His smile widened.
It was green. The tail. Yuno blinked in case the blood dripping into his eyes was affecting his vision. Nope. It was still a tail. The scales glinted the blue green of the sea before a storm. He followed the curve down into the swell of the water, where he could see the delicate tail fin moving in the current. There was a ripple of movement as the fin flickered.
"Human. Concentrate."
"You have a tail."
"Obviously."
"A tail."
"Yes. A..." He... Langris paused. "Are you well? You’re very pale? Well, paler than you were?"
"A tail."
Yuno knew he was repeating himself. But it was a tail. He was talking to someone with a tail. The person with a tail was talking back. There had been a hook and...
Why was the rushing water so loud?
"Shit."
There was a splash, then Langris was suddenly very close. It was not just the tail, Yuno realised. There were fins tucked within the light brown hair behind the ears. The skin of the shoulders was painted with fine green scales.
"Look at me. Something is wrong."
The eyes. Langris's eyes were now glowing blue, but what should have been white sclera was black like the depths of the ocean. He was in the water beside the rocks. He was near enough for Yuno to reach out and touch those scales and...
"You're a siren," Yuno whispered as blackness closed in at the edges of his vision.
Hands were holding him. They were strong hands, Yuno thought, but they were hesitant as if unsure what they were supposed to be doing. There were words, but the sound was lost in encroaching darkness and static in his ears. His eyes closed as he was lowered onto the rocks.
A tail, Yuno thought. Langris had a tail.
Then nothing.
-
Yuno cracked an eye open. The cave was lit by flickering fire light. It illuminated the dripping walls, and the swells in the pool of water.
"I told you," a voice that was not Langris said.
There were two figures seated at the edge of the pool. Yuno had learned his lesson. He checked for tails first. Yeah. There they were. Two curving tails flowed into the water. Langris's green scales reflected the fire light, while the other's scales were lilac near the top, and darkened towards indigo under the water. The fine fins shifted in the currents.
"Sirens," Yuno whispered to try out the word again.
"Hi," the siren who was not Langris said. His light brown hair was tipped in green. The lilac pupils were framed in black. "I'm Finral. What's your name?"
"Yuno. You're sirens."
Langris folded his arms across his chest. He winced as he tugged at the wound on his shoulder. "Not this again."
"Yes. We're sirens."
"You look alike. Are you brothers?"
The siren that was not Langris nodded with a polite smile. Langris on the other hand frowned as he nodded.
Yuno pulled himself up to sit. He was wrapped in a warm blanket that he pulled around his shoulders to keep the heat close to his body. "Shouldn't you be eating me?"
"I would have," Langris sulked. "If you had left the hook alone."
"I'm glad you've not eaten me. Why didn't you?"
Finral answered. "Well, I don't like the taste. Plus, people are interesting." He gave Langris a significant stare.
Langris sighed as he answered. "You helped me. I couldn't eat you after you'd done that." There was something about the glare that he fixed on his brother that made Yuno think that was not the complete answer.
Finral shrugged at him, then said, "My brother brought you here. You were thrown overboard from one of the big ships in the storm. You would have drowned if he hadn't saved you."
"I was hungry. I was going to eat him."
Yuno said, "Instead, you saved me and brought me here. You gave me a blanket. And lit a fire."
"Finral did that," Langris hissed. "I'm going hunting. I'm hungry." He slipped into the water and under the surface without a ripple.
"He really is hungry," Finral said lightly as he busied himself in the shadows at the other side of the pool. "You must have looked like easy prey when he found you."
"I don't remember."
"No wonder. It was a wild storm. You were drowning."
"Do you know if anyone else went in the water? What happened to the rest of the crew?"
"I don't know. He never mentioned anyone else, but he was in no shape to check." Finral turned from the alcove he was rummaging in. His eyes glowed in the shadows. "He hadn't eaten since that thing went into his shoulder. You were his last chance to hunt before he starved to death. You saved him."
"It sounds like he saved me too."
"I don't think he had a choice, once you took the hook out." Finral turned away again. "I apologise if he's rude. He's only ever thought about humans as prey. It isn't his fault. That's our way."
"It's not your way, though, is it?"
"I guess not. I like humans. You're interesting. I watch the humans in town. They play music." He sighed. "Beautiful music. It makes me think of the breeze on a hot day, or the flitting fish of the reefs, or the turtles in the depths. I... I was thrown out of our shoal years ago because I'm an embarrassment and a failure. I would go to town when I was lonely. Langris was the only one who would talk to me, but he had to do it in secret so he couldn’t come often."
A shiver of loss ran through Yuno. He said, "He's your brother," as if that was enough to explain everything.
Maybe it was. Finral did not reply for a long time. When he spoke eventually, his words were quiet. "He won't say thank you. He can't. But I can. Thank you. I don't know what I would have done if he had died. Thank you for saving him. I should be saying sorry, but I can't. I'm selfish. He would have died without you."
"Why should you be saying sorry? I'm glad he's not dead."
"I should be sorry, because we're sirens and that makes things complicated." He shook out his shoulders. "Now. I don't have any food, but do you think you can manage something to drink? I've warmed water on the fire, and I've got tea leaves, so I can try making tea if you would like."
Yuno sensed that he would get no further explanation from Finral about why he thought he should apologise. "Thank you. Tea would be lovely."
It was stronger than Yuno was used to, and of course there was no milk, but he added a little sugar when Finral brought out a box containing fine brown sugar from the Spice Lands of Heart. The seal on the side was the Silva Company's. Yuno was intrigued but decided not to ask.
With the warm cup in his hands, Yuno looked around the cave and the spaces that were illuminated by the campfire. Earlier he had missed the wooden shelves because they were in the shadows far from the water's edge. Of course, there had been the all-encompassing cold then, and the fainting. He felt better, although the edge of the headache was still lingering, and he felt more tired than he would have done after a day on the rigging of the Golden Dawn. Maybe he would sleep before Langris returned.
How did he know that Langris would return? He surprised himself by how sure he felt that the siren would be back.
The shelves were packed with mismatched items. There were more boxes marked with the Silva seal, and a couple with 'Royal Goods' marked in red ink. There was broken crockery, a fiddle with loose strings, water damaged books, pots, a doll with one eye, piles of fabric that could be blankets or clothing, a teapot and other things that Yuno was unable to identify.
Finral cleared his throat. He was watching Yuno. Maybe it was the firelight that made him look flushed, but when he ran his hand through his hair and smiled apologetically, it was clear he was embarrassed. "You collected this stuff?" Yuno asked.
"Yeah. Well. Like I said, humans are interesting. I find things on the shore, or on the seafloor after a wreck or a storm. There was a box of books washed up months ago. I had to bring them here above the water to keep them dry so that the paper wouldn't be ruined." He ran a finger across the spine of one of the books. "And clothing can be dried out if it hasn't been eaten by fish. That's where your blanket came from. Langris sometimes brings things that he finds. Look." He rummaged on a shelf full of old tins, until he found a carriage clock. The face was bashed, and one hand was missing, but Finral handed it over reverently. "He found this. I don't know what it is."
Yuno took the battered thing with care. It was obviously something important to Finral, and it was polite to treat it with respect. "It's a clock. You use it to keep time."
Finral grinned. He had just as many teeth as Langris. "You know what these things are?"
Yuno shrugged. "Most of them."
"What about this?"
"A teapot, only it’s missing its spout and handle."
"And this."
"Ladle."
Finral pulled a selection of items off the shelves and Yuno explained their purpose. The siren's enthusiasm and pleasure at the ordinary objects was infectious, but Yuno's eyes were beginning to ache and his vision was blurring when something tugged at his attention. He felt like someone had said his name from the other side of a room, but when he checked, there was only the cave wall and the dancing shadows.
Finral put down the clothes peg he was holding. "Is that Langris?"
"What?"
"Can you feel Langris?"
"I don't know what you mean."
Finral sighed and began to adjust items. Yuno knew he was doing it to appear busy, but the sensation was so distracting that he ignored the siren. There was something beyond the cave and it was coming closer.
Finral shrugged. “It’s not important. I guess this means he’ll be back soon.”
“He was angry. How do you know he’ll come back?”
“Sirens are pack animals. We don’t do well without companionship.” He looked around the room as if the shelves were somehow proof of this. “Why do you think he brought you here? He’s been cast out by our shoal and there is nowhere else for him to go. Plus, you’re here, and… well. He’s probably not far away, thinking. Do you want me to see if there are any clothes here for you? The things you were wearing were destroyed, although I can see if anything’s salvageable.”
None of Yuno’s smart ship’s uniform had survived the crash into the sea. Finral pulled out a pile of what at first appeared to be rags, but on closer inspection contained at least two pairs of pants that were only moderately ripped, and a shirt that was too large but went under the sweater that was too small. Pulling on the clothes gave him a chance to properly assess his injuries. His ribs hurt, and the wrist was swollen and painful, but he was able to move it so long as he did not put pressure on it. There was a bandage secured neatly around his head. Finral shrugged when he checked it. “You should probably leave that alone. It stopped the bleeding. You’d been pretty knocked about.”
“It was a wild storm. I’ve never seen anything like it.” The next pile of fabric that Finral handed over was smaller pieces. Yuno claimed a mismatched pair of woollen socks to pull over his feet.
Yuno was about to hand the rags back when something caught his eye. Tucked underneath the fragments of a pointed hat was a black strip of fabric. It was plain, fashioned into a ring with red stitching holding the edges together. It was torn along one edge.
Yuno could not help his gasp of air as he realised what he held in his hand. “Asta,” he whispered.
He was staring so hard that he missed Finral coming to sit on the side of the rocks beside him. The hand that came to rest on his was almost human if you ignored the webbing between the fingers and the purple scales around the wrist. Finral’s hand was warm. “Do you know this?”
“It’s… it’s my brother’s.”
“Are you sure?,” Finral said, then continued before Yuno could answer. “No, of course you’re sure. But it looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe.” The headache had spiked again, and Yuno closed his eyes for a moment. He could not cry. He would not. “Why is this here?”
Finral leaned in closer. “I don’t know what it is. Langris brought it with the other things a few weeks ago. That hat, those…”
Yuno ignored the rest of Finral’s words as he tore into the rest of the clothing in the pile. Torn pants, blankets, underclothes, a scarf, but nothing else that he recognised. He looked up and Finral was already bringing him other bundles. There had to be something else. There had to be.
There was nothing. Yuno resisted the urge to throw it all angrily into the water. How could there be nothing? He clutched the headband against his chest as if it could give up its secrets if he held it tightly enough. His head was pounding, and his chest hurt. Something was nagging against the corner of his awareness. Something that felt worried. He pushed it away angrily. “Where did you get this? You have to tell me.”
Finral was in the water again after fetching the rest of the bundles. He was staying back warily. “I don’t know. Langris brought it. We can ask him. What is it?”
“It’s Asta’s. It’s my brother’s.” Yuno was breathing too fast against his injured ribs. He needed to get out of here. The walls that moments ago had felt expansive were suddenly pressing in too tight. The rushing of water sounded too loud in his ears. He needed to get out of here. He could not breathe.
Someone said his name. There were hands on his. They were trying to hold him back. He needed to get out of here. His brother. His brother was in danger. There was wetness on his cheeks. He could not cry.
A splash of water. Panicked voices.
Yuno pushed at the hands that held him. He needed to find his brother. He needed….
There was someone there. He could feel a wash of emotions that were not his own. It felt like a clumsy attempt at reassurance, even though worry ran underneath. It was too loud, and his breath caught. What were they trying to do? He needed to find Asta. He struggled. He needed to get away.
“Ah, damn,” a voice said. “What about this?”
There was a song. It hit Yuno like a wave. He could not catch the words or even the melody, but it said, Sleep.
Yuno took a breath, then another. Sleep The warm darkness pulled him under and he slept.