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For many years, Ratchet heard the call of the sea.
It wasn’t the poetic, vague echo that some spoke of, or the alluring sound of the waves, or the hollow sound of water beneath bare feet upon the dock. Though those were familiar sounds he always loved, the call was truly a song.
It was beautiful, resonant notes that he heard on a dreary afternoon, the morning after a terrible storm, or on a calm night beneath the stars. A tune that echoed in his heart and beckoned to him, all just for him.
From the first time he heard it as a child, he loved that song.
If he rushed to the beach fast enough, sometimes he could catch a glimpse of mysterious white and red fins before they vanished into the surf.
He called out to it to wait, but they were always long gone. He was always left standing on the edge of the dock, reaching out hopelessly to a great blue beyond.
He was certain, as soon as he was old enough to learn to sail, he’d answer that call. He’d chase that song until he found it. Found the singer who called to him, summoning him into the ocean itself.
But for all the certainty of childhood, adulthood was not so kind.
He was still young when money was tight, and he had to move to the city to work.
The only chances he had to visit the sea were scarce days off—occasionally he could catch a glance of brilliant scales shining in the setting sun, red and white that always vanished beneath the seafoam before he could follow.
And as Ratchet longed to march into the waves, to follow the song of the sea, the world marched into war, singing the song of violence. War that taught him medicine on the battlefield and scarred his hands, war that dragged him back to a hospital overwhelmed with the sick, the injured, and the dying.
Rather than learn to handle lines, he sewed sutures. Rather than learn to reef sails, he set splints. Rather than learn to navigate using only the stars, he learned to navigate the sea of patients thrust before him, all in need of his help.
Days stretched into months, and months into years.
But war devastates, and has no winners. Many were left with nowhere to go, nowhere to return to. Despite the long hours and the late nights, he took on apprentices and took in others too young to care for themselves, others robbed of families and dreams alike by the stretching hand of death and the smoke in the sky.
He learned to cook, to clean, to mend clothes, to tell bedtime stories. He learned when to use a stern word, and when to embrace and soothe. He learned how to make kites and tutor math and how to give a loved one away at the end of an aisle.
He learned many things, but never to sail.
He kept the song close to his heart.
And soon, he was no longer young.
Years upon years had given him a family, now grown, and a legacy as the doctor who would treat any, now either recovered, or long gone. The town thanked him, offered him an estate, but he declined.
All he wanted was to hear the song he loved again.
So, old and gray, he moved to a tiny cottage by the sea.
But as his youth was fading, so too was his hearing. At first it was the highest notes that vanished, then the lowest. Then the steady ringing he'd heard so often in the booming of a battlefield settled into one ear. The world was not silent, but it never sounded the same.
Now retired and alone, he walked to the edge of the tiny dock every day and sat, waiting to hear the song he loved. The song that called to him, the song of his heart.
But it didn't come.
The song he'd once heard every day as a child, the song that had him running to the beach, the song that made him swear to become a sailor was gone.
There was only the ringing in his ear, and the ebb and flow of the waves.
Had he missed it?
Was it gone?
Had the song abandoned him in favor of a younger heart, one that would answer its call?
One evening he sat, gazing out at the ocean, watching the shifting waves. The tide was coming in, and the peaks of the waves nearly reached his feet. The way the sunset glittered across the water's surface made him feel nostalgic, gazing out at purple clouds over the water, lined in orange and yellow. It felt like a picture from so long ago, and he began to hum.
He hummed the song as he remembered it, vibrating through his body and reaching out with it, in hope he might hear that beautiful voice again. Ratchet was not a singer, but he knew the tune well enough, letting the memory of the voice outline and solidify itself once more.
In the middle distance, a red and white fin broke the waves.
It appeared again closer, lingering above the surface briefly, then dipped underwater again.
Ratchet was leaning against the mooring pole, his eyes closed as he hummed the tune, when a small splash startled him into stopping.
"That's my song!"
The owner of the voice was unlike anything Ratchet had ever seen—and arguably the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen.
A siren.
A real one. Most of his tail was concealed beneath the water, but Ratchet could see the slight, sweeping sway of red and white. He had a gray face with gentle, angular features that faded into sweeping ear fins, a back of wicked-looking spines, and a massive dorsal fin that trailed down his back. His strong shoulders cut a bold silhouette, skin giving way to fins and scales down his arms, ending in webbed fingers and powerful claws. To Ratchet, he was bigger than any person, and must have been almost three meters long. His gills flattened against his neck as they emerged from the water, but the glint of deadly fangs didn't go unnoticed, either.
"You… you remembered my song! I've been calling you for years!" The siren was beaming.
Ratchet was taken aback. This had to be the same creature he'd seen from the beach when he was young, but even from the tiny glimpses back then, he seemed exactly the same.
He looked just like the memory.
Perhaps even more striking and beautiful.
"It's… my favorite song, I've loved it since I first heard it. I was hoping I could hear it one last time." Ratchet admitted, almost begrudgingly. "I suppose you were hoping for a starry-eyed sailor, not a grumpy old man?"
The siren shook his head no, swimming close enough that he could reach out and grab Ratchet's feet if he wanted.
Ratchet didn't pull away, though he did watch the creature with a careful curiosity.
"I can sing it for you! Let me…?"
Ratchet nodded.
As the siren began to sing, the tips of his fins glowing ever so slightly, some words rang clear, but others faded as the notes dipped too high or too low. The echoing lows were missing, the ones that shook the waves, and the highest notes of the succulent song didn’t reach above the cries of birds. The song was in a language foreign to humans, but familiar to Ratchet’s heart. It filled him with nostalgia… it was supposed to be a magical song, wasn't it? He thought such sound shouldn't be affected by human ears.
"Apologies. I can't… hear it anymore. I'm so sorry, I should have come sooner."
The siren frowned, sinking back down into the water.
"I see…"
Was he too late?
Was whatever mysterious force that brought them together finally too weak?
Ratchet's heart sank.
But then, the siren perked up. "Wait, please. Come with me! I promise I won't drown you or eat you!"
Ratchet shot him a skeptical look, but shook his head with a small sigh. "I'm relieved enough to have met you. I wouldn't care if you drowned me now."
"No! I'm serious!" The siren countered, gesturing to the water.
Ratchet rolled his eyes, but still slowly lowered himself into the water off of the edge of the dock, his movements careful and shaky.
The siren turned, offering his back to the human. He helped Ratchet loop his arms over his shoulders, keeping his spines flat. "Hold on tight, and be careful, the spines are poisonous. Whatever you do, don't bleed."
"Are you really asking me to just choose not to bleed if you cut me?" Ratchet asked incredulously.
"Um. Well. Please?"
"That's not how that works."
The siren fidgeted, trying to flatten his spines against his back to make the human more comfortable. Ratchet didn't ask why. Something told him he didn't want to know why he shouldn't bleed while holding onto a monster of the deep.
He held onto Ratchet’s hands, strong claws wrapping around worn fingers to help hold him in place, then slipped beneath the waves.
It wasn’t far, and the siren stayed close to the surface, swimming far faster than Ratchet ever could—but Ratchet still found himself admiring the way the sunlight shone across his scales just beneath the surface, and the steady, even movements of his gills as he cut through the water on powerful fins.
He dipped down into a cave not far from the shore, part of a rocky outcrop where the current circled around them, cool and slow. He surfaced into the air of the cave, the last bits of sunlight filtering in a fading orange far above where the ceiling of the cave lay open to the sky. It was dim, with only the illumination of the fading sun above, and the vague bioluminescence of the siren’s scales and eyes. His touch was strong, but careful, delicate, deliberate as he helped Ratchet off of his back, and helped the human onto a rock surrounded by coral and sea moss.
Ratchet watched as the siren turned, almost hesitant, and reached up to cup his cheek. It was a careful movement, a deadly, scaled claw against wrinkled, age blotched skin, and he leaned his head against Ratchet’s, thumb lingering against the soft flesh with a careful reverence.
“I don’t know what I was expecting, but… I know what a cave is,” the human grumbled.
“I know, I know… but I wanted to show you this. I waited for you…” his voice cracked slightly, as though the siren were about to cry. “My kind, we only sing to humans to call them to us. I’ve seen others at sea, they call them until their humans board boats, and follow us to the ocean. It’s like a game. A lifetime of chasing one another. Following the sails and flirting, daring to get close and escaping, until the time came for us to take them away. I saw you, and I knew you heard, I watched you and knew I wanted you… but you didn’t come. I sang and I sang, and…”
“And I never came…” Ratchet sighed. “I always wanted to… I truly did. I wanted to become a sailor…”
The siren pulled back, admiring Ratchet’s form. The lines of the years, the scars on his hands and arms, the little tells of how he was a human who had done so much. He lacked the sun-kissed tan of the sailors, or the defined shoulders of an oarman. He didn’t have the sharp eyes of a lookout, or the heavy hands of a helmsman. “What… did you do instead…?”
“I… well, I like to think I helped people. Tried to, at least. They say the sea is violent and deadly, but humans are too. You might not think it because we don’t have sharp teeth or claws, but it just means humans are creative in how they tear each other apart. So I became a doctor. I tried to put them back together, care for the sick… and then I eventually tried to care for other humans too. I always wanted to go to the sea… to hear your song again, but it felt selfish. I couldn’t just leave the people who needed me. People started to rely on me, and if I abandoned them, that would be cruel. So I stayed, but I never forgot your song.”
The siren took his hands in his own, squeezing them gently. “What’s your name…?”
“It’s Ratchet.”
“Ratchet…” the siren repeated back to him, as if savoring the taste of it on his tongue. “Please, let me sing for you, Ratchet. Let my song reach you.”
“I told you, kid, I’m old now. I can’t hear it the way I once did,” Ratchet answered, though he had a feeling there was something a bit ridiculous about calling what was likely a centuries-old siren of the deep kid .
“I know,” the siren shook his head, the fins of his ears tilting back slightly. “But there are so many other ways to listen.”
He hung there for a moment, claws holding onto his hands. He leaned his head forward until their foreheads touched, cold scales against warm skin, huffing slightly as he took a deep breath, and began to sing.
Far above them, the sunlight was retreating, leaving the stars above evident against the dark sky. Ratchet could feel the rise and fall of the siren’s chest, the way the notes resonated even as they rose with crescendo and faded into nothingness. He could feel the song.
As the siren sang, the coral around them began to glow, hanging moss along the rocks and from the ceiling illuminated by the gentle luminescence. The stars above shimmered in time with them; the cave was filled with color and light, coming to life in a vibrant spectrum that pulsed, glowed and faded in a familiar song.
It was the song that lived in Ratchet’s heart.
He knew that pattern, brimming with life around him, the call of the ocean. Though he could no longer physically hear it, he knew this melody. He could feel it in the siren’s chest, see it in the brilliant coral around him, even in the ripples of the water at the siren’s waist. He could feel his heart singing along.
Tears came to his eyes unbidden, and he felt like he might collapse. The longing between them traversed decades, bringing his weary heart back to where it belonged.
The flora around them continued to glow even as the siren's voice faded, like simmering coals in a hearth.
Ratchet pulled the claws that held his hands close to his face, kissing the cool, scaly knuckles gently. He trembled as he held onto them, trying to hold back the emotions that threatened to push him over the edge, rather than cascading into sobs.
“I love it. It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever felt…” Ratchet whispered.
The siren swallowed, his grip tightening imperceptibly as he looked at Ratchet, feeling the warmth of the salty tears against his scales.
Ratchet let go with one hand, only to bring two fingers beneath the siren’s chin, tilting it towards his face. They sat there for a long, silent moment, the distorted lines and twisting reflections of the light of the cave casting twisting lights across their visages, before Ratchet pulled him into a long, slow kiss.
The siren tensed up, like every part of his body was a spring pushed to its tightest coil, arms reaching out, claws out, and he stopped himself, freezing before he slowly, reverently let them rest against Ratchet’s shoulders, careful not to grip the human too hard or pull him from the rock atop which he sat, forcing himself to relax into the kiss, holding Ratchet like a sacred object.
Ratchet could feel it now. The gentle longing, the yearning that brought the siren back to the rocks by the shore time and time again. Laying adrift on the waves, rolling over as he waited, always returning to the tiny dock to call out to and await his human.
Others came and went: families and young people, skinny dippers and athletes, fishermen and families, but none of them were the human he sang for. Not a single one was the one who was meant to answer his song.
Sneaking up beneath the dock again and again, watching the beach as he waited for him.
Returning to where the land met the sea time and time again to sing, and to wait.
He sang and sang, and the human did not return.
He waited for his sailor, hoping to call him to the sea, until he feared he might never come back. A fellow siren of red and gold, with scales that shone like fire beckoned him away, begged him to join him in chasing the whale pods, or circling the pirate ships. "Come home, come find a mate, someone who will love your song as you love theirs."
But instead, he waited and sang.
Waited, and sang.
He tried to stave off the looming heartbreak, to hope against hope.
He was certain he was forgotten, his human was gone.
Until he spied the old man on the dock.
It seemed he didn’t hear the song anymore. He didn’t react to any of his songs.
He was ready to give up, until he heard the quiet hum, barely perceptible amongst the waves, a quiet, loving rendition of his own song.
When their kiss broke, the siren pulled away, regarding him with an anxious caution. He floundered in the water there for a moment, dipping beneath the surface briefly to blow bubbles, his fins twitching in such a way that Ratchet could not tell was excitement, anxiety, or both.
“Ah, sorry. I… this was everything I wanted, I promise,” Ratchet whispered, his voice quiet as if speaking would break some delicate spell.
“Ratchet… my sailor…” the siren’s voice was small, garbled by the surface of the water. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you want? Nothing more?”
Ratchet stopped himself from reaching out to him again, a lump forming in his throat to accompany the tears that he couldn’t push away. “Your name, maybe?”
“It’s Drift.”
It was a simple name, all he said, but suddenly it felt to Ratchet as though he’d heard something else. Something more. The sound of distant waves, the shine of sun against the sea. Laying on his back and letting the current take him, the lazy, smooth gesture of powerful fins propelling him downwards into the abyss, carrying him across the ocean floor. Sitting in the surf not far from shore soaking in the sunlight that warmed the shallows, and deadly speed that found delight in slipping through a school of fish to snatch his prey.
“Drift…” Ratchet echoed, though it was only his voice, and not the crashing of waves. “I’m sorry I wasn’t your sailor. I’m old now, I don’t have the strength to row or hoist sails, the dexterity to tie lines or chase you out to sea… my youth is gone. I can’t adventure as you beckon me to.”
“No, no, don’t apologize…” Drift’s voice seemed to crack a little, a clicking sound that reminded Ratchet how far this creature was from human. “You still came. After all these tidal cycles you came. I thought… no, no. I. I have something else for you. Wait here!”
It was a silly command. It wasn’t like Ratchet could swim away.
Drift turned, and in a splash of red and white fins, he was gone, slipping away beneath the water’s surface.
Ratchet sat there, feeling a bit ridiculous. He did his best to compose himself, to wipe away the tears that stained his face, and tried not to shiver against the cool night air. The water was still warm here, but he already missed the faint glow of Drift’s bioluminescence, the cool red from his fins and brilliant blue of his eyes.
Luckily he didn’t have to wait long, because only a few moments passed before Drift returned, breaking the surface of the water with a splash, chest heaving as if he’d just swam back as fast as he could.
He thrust a necklace into Ratchet’s hands—a ring of beautiful beads unlike any Ratchet had ever seen, with a tiny, living starfish at the center, holding onto a brilliant pearl. The pearl didn’t look like any Ratchet had seen before, but was a marbled red, silver, and white, swirled into a perfect sphere, iridescent and shimmering in the dim light of the cave.
“This is for you. It’s. Um. It’s intended to be for my conjunx endura: my mate. Polaris there is holding a pearl made from my scales, but you… I think you should have it. I love you more than any fish or mammal in the ocean. So I think it should belong to you…”
“Drift, but I didn’t—are you—are you sure I should have this?” Ratchet asked, admiring the twisting and spiraling lines of the pearl.
Drift nodded. He reached out to him, arms outstretched to the one he wanted most. “Please. Come away to the sea with me?”
Ratchet’s breath caught in his chest, the lump in his throat feeling larger and heavier. The years had stretched out between them, the divide between the paths they wanted and the paths they took. The dream of each other they had was gone, replaced by the reality of the here and now.
It was the song of the sea that summoned him, and the siren who waited for him. He finally had a chance to answer the call.
He already knew his choice.
“I would love to.”