Chapter Text
It’s been a couple of days since Techno and Wilbur woke up, and since the crew knew that at least Wilbur spoke English, so they could find out maybe what happened to all the three Sirens and how they recognize each other. But he wouldn’t budge, all he would do is just hiss and growl at them and dive into a darker part of the cage. And Niki was getting more frustrated every time she was denied, Tubbo and Ranboo had no luck in gaining either one of the newly caught Sirens' trust. It became clear that Tommy was a cakewalk to get along with.
But as the old saying went, if there’s a will, there’s a way, Philza had heard of the frustrations in trying to get the sirens to talk. He tried his best to come up with a couple of ideas on what they could do. And Niki tried them all out like so.
Idea one: “We will never shout at the three unless it’s absolutely necessary, so maybe state what your intentions are and then see if Wilbur and Techno budge at all?”
Spoiler alert, it didn’t work, Tommy was squeaking and clicking happy to see Niki, Tubbo, and Ranboo as always but was quickly shushed by Wilbur, sometimes Techno, and taken to the darker corners of the tank again.
Idea two: “Oh, okay well, maybe try and catch Techno and Wilbur asleep and get Tommy to wake up and play with you? Then maybe they’ll see that you aren’t going to hurt them at all.”
It would have worked, if Tommy slept less than the others, and the only time he was the only one awake, the other two woke up instantly when the first drop of a button made a sound. Wilbur and Techno were a snarling mess, and with very agitated looks on their faces. Niki and the others didn’t know this, but Tommy was starting to get tired of not being able to hang out with his human friends anymore.
Idea three: “What if? No-, well, then, no- no- no- we can’t, I-, gosh I don’t know what to do.”
Philza held his head in his hands, elbows on his knees, things weren’t working out and they needed at least something. About Anania, anything, but ever since the day they were captured from the Anania ship, they never spoke English again. But the Esempii crew knew for a fact that they spoke English that day, despite serious doubts.
Everyone was getting frustrated, and nothing was seemingly working, and they would never resort to violence and anger to get Wilbur and Techno to talk to them.
One day, however, everything changed. Tommy got tired of his brothers not allowing him to play and talk to the humans. And so when he saw Captain Philza without seeing him for a couple of weeks, he squealed with joy and swam to where he was. Philza smiled at him and waved, he had a couple of things for Tommy, and he saw that Wilbur and Techno were asleep. It was his chance to finally communicate with Tommy after so long of being away. And so Philza went and showed off a crown, with such a shine to it, the gems were real and the actual object was heavier than most people thought.
Tommy squealed but slapped his hand over his mouth to stop the noise, and Philza laughed quietly and threw the crown at Tommy. The Siren thrust himself up, through the water, and then caught the crown out of the water, and plonked back into the tank. Techno stirred but didn’t wake up, and so Tommy and Philza kept up with the routine of the Captain throwing things to the Siren. And his ’brothers?’ Still lying asleep, as the games and looks of wonder continued on, Philza went up a ladder and reached down to the water that Tommy sat at and put his hand in the water. Tommy swam up to the top and pushed his head into Philzas hand, and the Captain started running his fingers through the wet hair and massaging Tommy’s scalp. It was tranquil, and peaceful, completely silent save for the occasional deep breaths, if Philza was going to be completely honest, he could stay in that moment forever.
There’s a lower-pitched questioning click that brings his attention away from Tommy and to Techno, who is definitely now awake again.
“This is the chance, Phil! Don’t mess it up you clueless fuck!” The Captain thought, he turned to Techno and smiled, relaxing his shoulders.
“Hey mate, you doing alright?”
The Siren mumbled something under his breath, turning his head away from Philza, and Tommy.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you?”
Techno did actually speak up this time, “I-I, what are… you doin with Tommy?”
“I was just playing with him for a bit, don’t worry about it. Do you want to play with Tommy too?”
The Siren started to think about it, but then flared his fins and bared his teeth again. Techno starts growling at Philza, but the captain stands his ground and gets off the ladder. He raises his head showing off his throat, and Techno stops growling for a moment. Raising your head up to show a Siren your throat almost shows them that you surrender, or you mean no harm. Techno was mildly surprised, he stopped his growling and started speaking again.
“Stay away from us, we suffered long, I don’t want my brother to be away from me and Wilbur.”
The captain nodded in agreement, he wanted to give the small family some time to be alone, but then he started thinking about it.
How would he ever get the chance to ask this? It would certainly bother Wilbur and Techno, Tommy if he knew what Philza was talking about would probably be in tears from memories. But he needs to know, what happened, at least how Anania treated them so that way he could at least show them that Sirens weren’t objects. (As well as another reason to hate the kingdom more but that’s not important.) So Philza took a deep breath and asked Techno a very important question.
“How did you and your younger brother get separated?”
Techno hitched his breath, and as his eyes widened, it felt like all progress to get him to calm down and trust the Captain was futile. But instead of anger, it was fear, pure and genuine fear.
Tommy must have noticed the atmosphere changing because he went and hugged Techno’s side clicking and warbling. As a response Techno brought the blonde into his arms and sighed with his eyes closed.
“Can you… not use past against us?”
“Please?” He quickly added.
“Techno, I promise you no one on this ship will ever have any ill intent towards you, Wilbur, or Tommy. I swear here and now, that the moment that anyone on the Esempii, including me, commits any act of evil towards you on purpose, will be thrown off this ship.”
A moment of silence passes in the room.
“Grab a chair, or whatever those wooden things are to comfort in, I think you want a explanation.”
Philza listened and grabbed one of the few wooden chairs in the room and started listening.
“In human years, think it 18, but Siren years 6. Parents were too weak to protect three of us so while being chased by shark they left me and my brothers behind.”
It was absolute disparity, Tommy was crying and sobs echoed through the empty ocean, clutching his head, which had been hit on a rock and started bleeding. Wilbur was trying to calm his baby brother down while also not being panicked by his own injuries, which were three claw-like marks etched into his tail. And Techno was frantically grabbing multiple items on the sea floor to try and help his two family members' wounds. When he finally got back to him Wilbur looked like he was going to pass out from exhaustion, and Tommy had already fallen asleep. Techno tried his best to whisper reassurances to Wilbur.
“Hey Wilbur, your doing good everything is going okay, just stay awake, please stay awake, I need to heal you.”
Techno wrapped seaweed around Wilbur's tail apologizing whenever his twin brother winced in pain. And after a couple of silent moments, Tommy’s head was supported and also wrapped. Sorrow was the word to describe how the three felt at this point, and it was going to be rough times now that their pod had left them, that their parents left them. As soon as Techno carried both a sleeping Tommy and Wilbur into a dark and safe spot in coral to rest peacefully, he immediately started hunting for any sustainment. He was successful in finding a couple of clams and crabs that were wandering around the sand. He went into the coral cave, stored the food close to his twin, and younger brother, and fell asleep from exhaustion.
Philza already felt awful for those poor Sirens but he supposed it was survival, and that’s how they did it.
“Oh, Techno that’s already pretty awful.”
“It get much worse from there, losing parents was nothing compared to Anania.”
There was a screech that echos through the room, and Techno snarled at the noise. Wilbur was finally awake, and he wasn’t happy with what he saw, which was Techno interacting with one of the humans on the ship. The brunette started speaking in a foreign language to Techno, anger sewn into his voice, and Techno responded with the same tone and ended his statement with a snarl. Philza tried his best to keep still and silent as the argument kept on going. Suddenly, a new voice erupted in the room, everyone jumped at the sound.
“Nakte! (Stop)”
It was Tommy who floated there and was furious, he continued his yelling.
“Tre ua aarnip aye! Ti teoka tolkya po! (We can trust them, let Techno talk)
Wilbur was shocked at the outburst, he started stammering.
“Ka- k- (Please-)
But Tommy held his ground, he continued talking, and when he stopped Wilbur snarled at Tommy and went away from where Philza was close to the tank.
“Raye. (Fine)”
Techno sighed and rumbled to calm Tommy down again, he spoke in English again.
“Sorry, Philza? Is name?”
The captain snapped out of his trance.
“Yes that’s my name, do you want to continue, or is that it?”
“I want to continue.”
Philza relaxed again and smiled.
“Continue.”
The ground felt like it was starting to shake, and this immediately woke up Techno. He swam out of the coral cave and saw a dark shadow run across the sand, it was absolutely terrifying, while a large shape runs through the water like its nothing.
“Techno, what on the moon is that shadow?”
Wilbur had appeared beside him, but he had no answer, Techno was at a loss for words, when he looked up to see where the shadow was now, there was a criss-cross of shapes that was swimming towards them, Techno yelled at Wilbur, barking one order.
“Get Tommy out of the cave and swim away from the shadow, I’ll follow you!”
Wilbur nodded and swam into the coral cave, Techno following him to try and salvage some kind of food, so that way when they moved they could have at least some food at a new location.
Tommy was safely brought out of the cave, and Techno got a decent amount of their food supply. The problem is though, they didn’t have a lot of it, and if they couldn’t find any coral reefs or schools of fish, this little family would starve to death.
It was lots of moving, and all of them were getting restless, they needed to find anything to eat because they were moving slowly but surely across complete emptiness for a couple of days and things got way worse. Tommy was severely sick and had almost no energy, Wilbur had also gotten ill from the loss of food supply, and Techno was getting more frustrated.
Wilbur one night frantically shoved Techno awake saying that the large shadow was back and they needed to move. But at the time, since they had no coral or rock to hinder the movement of the shape all of them were swept up by the large shape.
“Now, I know large shape was actually fishing net used by Anania.”
Techno stays silent and then looks over to Wilbur who was still ‘hiding’ in one of the dark stops in the tank and starts saying things to him.
“Hu nap driko jphni-ha? (You want to talk?)”
Wilbur slowly swims out to where Philza was and gave a scowl, Tommy was delighted that maybe Wilbur would say something and see how wonderful the crew of this ship was.
“Just because I’m going to say my side of this story doesn’t mean I’m trusting you with Tommy, human.”
Philza nodded in understanding, “That’s alright, I just need to know what Anania did to you three.”
Wilbur went without talking for a while and took a deep breath.
“Well, once the net swept us all up, the crew members found us and decided to put us in cages, and the worst part about it was that there was no water. I suppose that this environment is… slightly better than that ship or anywhere else.”
Techno snorted and made a ‘chuff’ sound.
“Wilbur this the best place in our life, don’t underestimate this.”
The brunette rolled his eyes and continued.
“Anyways, of course, Techno and I didn’t know anything about English, how to speak, write, or read it. So we had no clue what they were even saying or wanting from us, I don’t know about you Techno, but all I wanted to do was just go back to the sea.”
Techno nodded, and added, “Sure it… was constant survival, but when I in cage with no water, I didn’t know how bad gonna get.”
Tommy, despite being the one that got the most amount of sleep, was now sleeping against Techno's chest and breathing peacefully. Wilbur smiled at Tommy, “I remember when we were thrown into the cage Tommy was always making conversation with the crew like they would understand what he was saying. I think he was able to make genuine friends with at least one crew member there. At first, I was incredibly mad that Tommy was talking with the people that were holding us back and slowly killing us. But looking back on it, that human friend saved all of us from being skinned alive, what one of the ships of Anania were going to do was kill all of us, except Tommy because his scales weren’t ‘pretty enough.’”
He scoffed, and sadness grew on Wilbur’s face.
“I feel kind of bad for that crew member because one night while all the other crew was asleep, or busy. He snuck into our cells and carried us all into a large pool of water on the docks of the kingdom off the ship.”
Pearls could be seen forming in his eyes, “I saw it happen, that poor kid was stabbed in the heart multiple times when the captain found out.”
Philza gasped and stood up frantically stammering out a question.
“W-was that kid's n-name, Purpled?”
Both Wilbur and Techno's eyes were wide, “How do you know his name?”
Philza, with remorseful eyes, explained how Purpled used to be a part of their crew but was held hostage by Anania, it was the worst timing because Esempii wasn’t such a rich crew yet. And for what Anania was asking to give back Purpled for, Philza didn’t have enough crew or riches to get him back, so he had to give up Purpled.
“And that’s where he’s been all this time, I failed to get him back safely… But I’m so proud of him for still listening and following what rules I set on this ship.”
Everything was tense in the room until there was a small groan that made everybody direct their attention. Tommy was slowly waking up but sat straight up when he saw the looks of grief and sadness on their faces. He tilted his head in confusion.
“Groee l fromph tr’uo aye? (What’s going on?)”
“Tre taron’ aat pon Purpled. (We were talking about Purpled)
Just from the name alone, Tommy was close to crying already, he never saw what happened to his beloved friend, but he heard of what happened from Wilbur. (And he saw the aftermath of it, but his brothers never knew that)
Tommy stammered his next sentence.
“Cand rye po uu? (Can I talk?)”
Wilbur gave a sad smile and nodded.
“U’uer frobnak frol nai gui. (I’ll translate for you)”
Tommy faced Philza and spoke, continuing his side of the story.
“Drun no Purpled bamliwe fryh nym uu taka ror lab.”
Wilbur repeated what Tommy said but of course, in English.
“After Purpled died, I was taken by the crew to go to a lab”
“Ip daw dawuo guo uu treeshna ka.”
“It was while I was asleep.”
“Dawna uu jae treeshyo kor ti’i’i’a manph-lo smil to scientists dawnip uu aye grul opnureet hawbabnikla.”
“When I woke up, there were scientists in a small room that told me that they needed me for something important.”
“Yap, dawnip puyni ro ro treeshna uu aye grui’ui’op.”
“Then, they put me to sleep with some kind of gas.”
It was endless, the number of strange things that they were doing to him, inserting needles into his neck, head, tail, arms, anywhere. And he would always feel funny afterward.
“Hun kaja uu rumnpa tri unk ti’i’i’a juol chu.”
Wilbur was having a battle in his head, unlike Techno whom he saw twice a week, Tommy was taken away from them entirely, so this would be the first he’d hear what happened to his younger brother while in the hands of Anania. Wilbur didn’t want to translate, he just wanted to comfort his brother and make sure he would never have anything awful happen to him again. But, Wilbur was starting to trust Philza a little more, when he heard that Purpled was the apprentice of the Captain and learned how to respect all species. So Wilbur continued to translate for Tommy, he gritted his teeth when he said it.
“But I hated the ones that would hurt.”
At first, it was not that bad, sometimes the scientists would inject him with needles and also poke and prod him. But things got so much worse from there, to ‘discover more about Sirens’ they would constantly put Tommy in dangerous situations and constantly use him to put substances in his body. Commit acts of gruesome violence to see how Tommy would react (never well). They also rarely gave him food, sometimes it was a huge abundance of it, and sometimes he would go days without eating. Every single day he would ask “Gruo nap uu aye fach jhyou? (Where’s my family?)” And all he would receive is a look of disgust or just be ignored. Tommy was getting tired, tired of the abuse, and the consistent mistreatment from the scientists. He tried his best to look around him for any possible means of escaping, and Tommy over the course of 5 years came up with a plan to escape. The worst 5 years of his life, being cramped and constantly hurt, always fearing whether or not he would be alive the next day to be hurt again.
But, while it was late at night, he saved up all his energy to push into the plastic tank, he kept running into it and rolling into the same wall of the tank.
Eventually, it fell off a shelf, and hit the floor, opening the lid to the tank and pouring gallons, and gallons of salt water all over the floor. It was completely dark and Tommy dragged himself across the slick floor, adrenaline coursing through his viens, rushing himself using all his might to push through the air and close to the exit. Tommy pulled himself up and grabbed the door handle, the metal felt so cold in his webbed hands, and he pulled the handle down, the momentum carrying him outside of the other side of the door.
While Tommy was in the tank, the lid was off and the researchers left a map in the room that was very much conveniently close to Tommy's tank. You could’ve sworn that he looked like a child at a candy shop. Except, the child is looking at the solution to escaping a lab that was constantly being abused.
Tommy saw the docks not far away from the exit door and knew that guards would already hear the noise in the lab and be rushing down to the basement where he was kept. So what did Tommy do to get into the water again?
He rolled.
It was a hill that led down to a stone street, which hurt Tommy’s scales a lot, it left him already trying to hold back tears. But he kept going, he needed the taste of freedom, Tommy was so close to doing it.
“Pour, pour! Boa naye i’i! (Please, please! Almost there)
He heard shouts coming from inside the building, signifying that the guards and scientists were there. The ground underneath him burned, badly scraping the scales on his tail. As the door to the exit burst open again, Tommy rolled over the edge of the dock and dropped into the water, making a ‘plonk!’ sound.
He had escaped, He finally had his long-deserved freedom of being in the wild.
“Yap hun rh hhbay not lok po!”
Tommy lay with his arms crossed and his mouth in a slight pout.
Wilbur however did not take this sentence as lightly as Tommy did, he growled and stared at Philza with a look that could kill.
“But then a net took me away again.”
Philza gulped and his hands started getting sweaty as Wilbur stared the captain down.
“I want go next,” Techno spoke up.
All heads turned to him, “What? Did I do somethin?”
Philza laughed, “No, you didn’t do anything wrong.” he quieted, “Do you want to say your side of the story?”
Techno paused and took a couple of deep breaths.
“Yes, I do.”