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There is a voice in the wind.

It is a beautiful voice, a spellbinding, melodic voice. As it dances from note to note, it dyes itself in different, shimmering colours; and as it rises and falls with the rocking of the waves, floating through the salty sea air with the sweetness of a cherished memory, Mista gazes out at the blue horizon from the bow of his ship and thinks he understands why no sailor can resist the siren’s call. That voice is simply too beautiful. It is distinctly male, but it soars high like a woman’s, clear, resonant, pure as a beam of sunlight shining through dark clouds. It is nimble, too. It flits between notes with a lightness and easiness that captivates the ear. It is as if the melody is darting through the air like a swallow; his heart fluttering in his chest, Mista raises his arm to catch it, to follow it—

His neck burns. 

And when Mista curses and tears his eyes away from the watery horizon to rip at the enchanted necklace that is glowing angrily and searing his skin, he abruptly remembers the purpose of their trip. The realisation slaps him in the face. He grimaces and looks behind him, at his shipmates. “Uh…it’s coming from the north,” he says, scratching his head; when a frowning Fugo stares irritably at him and doesn’t respond, Mista says, “Oh, right, you guys have beeswax in your ears,” before he realises that isn’t helpful either. He sighs; then he turns, hesitates, and points in the direction of the siren’s voice. “That way,” he says rather pointlessly.

And though there’s nothing left to do but head towards his destination, there’s something else that he wants to say. There’s something else that he wants to express, just for himself—but his mouth opens and closes stupidly, for there are no words beautiful enough to describe the voice that is rippling through the cool air. Sublime, he thinks, summoning a poetic sensibility that comes to him with a sudden ease, though the word is still woefully inadequate. Like fresh water spilling over parched lips. Should I really do this? The world would be less beautiful without…

But Mista tightens his jaw and rubs his eyes as the ship sails on, cutting heartlessly through the vast blue sea, closing in on the siren whose voice rings in the summer wind. 

Lately, Mista has been hearing about a dangerous siren lurking in a corner of the Tyrrhenian Sea. 

Apparently it’s a serious problem. According to the sailors who uttered their tales of woe over frothy glasses of beer, this siren only ever directly calls for one man out of their entire crew, but its magical song compels his shipmates to sail on without him. “I’d pay good money to tear that feathery bitch from its perch,” snarls Sale, a fellow sailor whom Mista drinks with occasionally because he’s hilarious when drunk. “It took Zucchero. I’ve gone back, but I can’t find him.” Sale’s eyes are blazing. “He’s gone!”

Mista has never really liked Zucchero, the cackling bastard, so he just makes a vaguely sympathetic noise and pats Sale’s arm comfortingly. But he’s never one to pass up a chance to earn good money, so he leans forward and says, “How much?”

Sale rubs his forehead miserably. “Five million lire. The rest of the crew will chip in. We all want it dead.”

“Six million,” counters Mista. “And throw in a couple of beers.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

A sly grin slips onto Mista’s face. “Deal.”

What Sale doesn’t know is that Mista has an ace up his sleeve, though his ignorance is probably for the best. To explain it would require Mista to tell a story that sounds absolutely ludicrous, since the concept of his somewhat childish shipmate Narancia Ghirga having a lover at all requires a certain suspension of disbelief; the fact that Narancia’s lover is a powerful sorceress who fell madly in love with him when he drifted onto the shores of her magical island is absolutely surreal and requires a stiff drink to truly comprehend, a stiff drink that Mista doesn’t want to pay for. 

Nonetheless, that sorceress—Trish Una—is the key to Mista’s plan. “Hey, Narancia,” he says at breakfast with his shipmates the next morning, “you think you could ask your girl for a favour?”

Mista’s words draw the entire table’s attention. The helmsman, Leone Abbacchio, narrows his eyes suspiciously; the captain, Bruno Bucciarati, raises his eyebrows over his coffee; the first mate, Pannacotta Fugo, exchanges a confused look with his best friend Narancia, the boatswain. A few moments later, Narancia turns to Mista, a curious expression on his face. “I dunno, man,” he says, shrugging. “Depends on the favour. But you know that Trish doesn’t really, well…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” replies Mista, waving a hand in the air, “she only gives a damn about you, I got that message loud and clear. But she owes us! If we’d managed to stop you from falling overboard, you wouldn’t have been lost at sea; and if you hadn’t been lost at sea, you’d never have met her.”

Abbacchio laughs sharply. Narancia looks at Mista for a long moment, seeming rather unimpressed, before he rolls his eyes and stuffs a slice of cake into his mouth. “Well, thanks a bunch,” he complains, though there is no real heat in his voice. “So? What is it?”

Mista grins at him. “Well, there’s this siren I’ve been hearing about…”

In the end, he manages to sell his shipmates on the idea of slaying the siren. It takes a few days of cajoling, for few sailors like to tangle with the fantastical, and this lot are no exception; but Mista promises to share the reward with them all, and Bucciarati likes the idea of saving lives, so one by one they fall into line. He’s told they won’t help him with the actual slaying, though. Bucciarati sits him down and says, “If Trish assesses that you can slay the siren, then I will get you there; I won’t risk the rest of my crew, but you can keep the lion’s share of the reward,” and Mista is more than happy to accept. 

One week after Mista brought up the idea, Narancia comes to him with Trish’s response. “So, first things first,” he says, dropping himself into an armchair in Mista’s sitting room. “She wants me to tell you that you’re a selfish man cruelly taking advantage of her love for me.”

“That, I am,” replies Mista, nodding sagely. “Carry on.”

Narancia chuckles, his eyes shining with mirth. “Anyway, she gave me this.” He rummages around in a bag on his lap and draws out a beautiful necklace; it’s a silver chain that’s dripping with emeralds, and it sparkles brightly as Narancia holds it up to the light. “She says this is enchanted with protective spells that should completely neutralise the siren’s magic. If you wear this, you’ll be able to hear it and figure out where it is, but you won’t fall under its sway.” 

Mista moves towards him and takes the necklace, examining it. “Huh,” he says. Now that he’s looking at it more closely, he notices that the gemstones seem to be glowing faintly, as if there is a little fire burning within each of them, scattering their light. “That’s great, thanks. But…” He makes a face. “It’s kind of girly.”

Narancia makes an indignant noise. “Hey, that necklace is her personal jewellery!” he exclaims. “She wants it back afterwards, you know. Apparently the enchantments on it are really strong, some of her best work.” His lips curve in a fond smile. “Trish said that while she doesn’t care if you live or die, she knows that I’ll be sad if you die, and she can’t have that, so…”

Mista snorts. “Well, I’ll take care of it,” he says, walking off to keep the necklace.

When he returns, Narancia is holding a sheathed dagger. “Now, don’t take it out until you’re with the siren,” he says with a serious expression. “Trish told me that the blade is enchanted. It can cut through anything. And, apparently, if you stab someone with it, the magic in the blade will make them die real fast.” He sighs affectionately, stroking the intricately-engraved sheath. “She’s amazing.”

“If it can cut through anything,” says Mista, placing his hands on his hips, “why can’t it cut through the sheath?”

Narancia scrunches up his face. “Uh…” He squints at the dagger. “I guess…the sheath is also enchanted? To…never break?”

But Mista laughs, because he does believe Narancia, and is just teasing him a little; and Narancia laughs too, and soon the house is ringing with their laughter.

“Also, Trish gave the rest of us enchanted beeswax to put in our ears, so that the siren won’t affect us,” says Narancia once they’ve caught their breath. “She’s also got some healing ointment for if you get a bit injured. Sirens can be pretty tough, apparently, but if you can stab it, it’ll be done for. She thinks you can handle it. Especially since you’ll have the element of surprise. They don’t react well to their food fighting back, since it basically never happens, so either you kill it or it flies away in shock.” He purses his lips. “Oh, but if there happens to be more than just one, you should get out. They don’t like leaving their caves, so as long as you can get back into the water, you should be able to escape.”

Mista huffs. “I’ll be fine,” he says. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

“You have a good feeling about everything.” Narancia frowns at him. “I just want you to be safe, you know. Promise me you’ll get out if anything seems off?”

“Oh, all right,” says Mista reluctantly. Man, Narancia’s really mellowed out a lot since meeting Trish. “Have it your way, then.”

And though they begin to speak of other things, dispersing the image of the siren that they conjured up between them, it lingers—like mist, swirling silently, curling and unfurling in the empty air. 

They sail till a large mass of jagged rocks emerges from the mist. 

Mista finds it hard to focus when the siren’s song is washing through the air, when he is sucking it into his lungs with every breath. It is sinking into his skin. It is flowing through his veins, racing towards his heart. It is his blood, his soul, and if he cries it will trickle down his cheeks and drip from his chin like tears; and it is drawing him up and pulling him forward, pulling at his trembling fingertips, pulling…

But the necklace burns his neck like a brand, and he cries out, and the siren’s voice quietens in his mind. 

Mista winces and considers his plan. He’s fairly sure that there’s something magical about those rocks. They’re nowhere near the shore, the way the mist floated in out of nowhere is suspicious, and they possess a certain unreal quality; they seem to ripple in the air as he turns his head to look at them from different angles, as if they are not fully of this world. Apparently he’s the only one who’s experiencing this, though. Fugo, Narancia and Bucciarati just looked confused when Mista mouthed the question “Do these rocks seem strange to you” three times, so either their lip reading skills could use some work or the necklace’s enchantments are dampening the effects of the magic used to create the rocks.

Regardless, Mista’s next steps are clear. If he looks to the left, he can glimpse a wide hole in the rocks ten or so metres away that’s the height of three men. It is hazy in the curtain of white mist; he cannot see it well, and its form seems to be flickering slightly, like the wavering shadows cast by candlelight, whenever he gazes at it for too long. But he knows what it is. It yawns there, gaping, like the maw of a horrible beast. And the sea is still. It is lifeless. It sits in the mouth of the cave like pooled drool, stagnant, silent, daring him to take the plunge…

The siren’s voice soars out of the darkness.  

Mista rolls his shoulders and cracks his knuckles. He turns and waves to his shipmates, who nod at him warily. He slings his bag over his shoulder. His fingers tighten on the form of the dagger inside. 

Then, he plunges into the water. 

The freezing sea swallows him in an instant. Suddenly completely submerged underwater, Mista begins to panic. He flails around, his limbs moving uselessly through the water, the siren’s song swirling about his body like liquid silk—then the heat of the chain against his neck and the weight of the dagger around his torso wrenches him back to reality. He kicks powerfully with his legs. He breaks the surface of the water. Shivering, he gasps for breath, paddling determinedly as he struggles to get his bearings. The sea seems to be dragging him down, slowly but surely, as if there is a vortex in its depths that is sucking him in. 

But the siren’s song is stronger, and Mista is stronger than the song.

He grits his teeth. Casting off any traces of apprehension, he takes a sharp breath and begins to swim, slowly at first, then more energetically as he remembers that his clothes are enchanted to dry once he steps out of the water. The thought spurs him forward. A part of him wants to laugh—can’t believe that’s what’s motivating me now, he thinks, and not the money or the glory of killing the siren—but he ignores the thought. His muscles are aching by the time he reaches the cave entrance. He peers inside. There is no pinprick of light in the distance, no indication of anything resembling a far wall; there is only darkness, an all-consuming blackness, that awaits him if he enters the stretched maw of the beast and swims through its dripping oesophagus. Mista swallows. Well, there’s the siren too. He imagines it sitting inside, perched on a rock, fanning out its dusky wings as it sings its spellbinding song. I bet it’s beautiful. It must be beautiful, if its voice is so pure, so incredible. Mista frowns. It’s almost a shame that I have to kill it. What a pity.

He fishes the dagger out of his bag; gripping it tightly, shaking off the temptation to submit to the siren’s call and embrace delirium, he swims into the darkness. All at once, an unnatural coldness engulfs his body. The water had made him shiver, but this is seeping through his pores and chilling him to the bone, turning his organs to ice. He scowls and kicks on furiously, fighting the sensation off. The siren’s voice is almost a sweet relief. He doesn’t let it tug him forwards, however. He moves of his own volition, swimming and swimming and swimming, as time crawls by and the darkness engulfs him whole. 

Eventually, finally, he catches sight of a faint light in the distance. It’s weak, blurred. It’s barely there, but it’s something, and Mista will take anything at this point. He strains his eyes, shaking from the cold, trying to make out what it is. The light is far too large to be a torch. Now that he thinks of it, it is too dim to be a flame of any kind; and as he draws nearer, he realises that the siren’s voice is coming directly from the light, as if the light is the siren itself. Its voice, louder and purer and more beautiful than before, is casting its shimmering magic over his entire world and blurring the line between dreams and reality. He swallows and swims on, his eyes fixed helplessly on the figure ahead. He can just barely make out that the creature has turned away from him, baring its back to his view. Little by little, the distant image sharpens before him; from the gloom emerges the slopes of the creature’s shoulders, the lines of a torso that taper slightly to form a narrow waist, the faint shine of long blonde hair…

And a silver-gold mermaid tail, sitting silently on a bank, still and unmoving.

Mista jerks in surprise. His arms slap against the water, splashing loudly; the creature turns its head abruptly at the sound, revealing a delicate visage and striking blue-green eyes, which widen when it sees Mista. The song dies in the creature’s throat as it presses its lips together tightly. He watches as its fingers curl, as it takes a shaky breath, looking at him searchingly as he steps out of the water, slowly, his feet seeking purchase on the rocky bank that he cannot make out in the darkness.

He stops two metres away and clears his throat. “Hey,” he says, flashing the luminous creature a grin. Now that he is close enough to admire it properly, beautiful is the word that comes to mind, even though the lean body before him has a flat chest and appears male and the face that is warily contemplating his is decidedly masculine; there is a youthful prettiness to its features and a delicateness to its good looks that makes it best suit that descriptor. Something nags at him, however, and he thinks to himself that its beauty seems somewhat dimmed. Its skin is too pale, and there are bags under its eyes, and when he looks down at the glimmering fish tail, he sees that some scales seem to have been dislodged with others torn out of place entirely; and there is no missing the deep, red gash that cuts diagonally down from the hip to the middle. 

Mista cringes. “So, uh…” He raises his eyes to look the creature in the face once more. “You…”

Its jaw tightens; it must have observed what he was looking at. “I know why you are here,” it says quietly. Its eyes flick to his hand. “You have come to kill me.” 

Mista is startled by the weight of the dagger clutched in his hand; he had forgotten that it was there. “Oh.” It feels almost silly now, for now that he is standing before this creature, he knows that it is not the bloodthirsty siren of rumour, even if it is responsible for Zucchero’s death. “I—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself.” The creature’s voice is melodious. Its speaking voice is lower than its singing one, but it is musical all the same. It tilts his head. Locks of wavy golden hair slip down its shoulder as it bares its neck at Mista. “Go ahead.” There is no trace of fear in its eyes. “I will not stop you. In fact, I may not be able to even if I tried. But…there’s one thing you should know before you do it.” It looks away. “When you have finished the deed, you must leave at once. Return the way you came. Swim swiftly, board your ship, and sail away without looking back.” The creature laces its fingers together, and Mista hears a strange clinking noise as it does; he looks at its wrists and realises for the first time that what he thought were black bangles are in fact cuffs, and that those cuffs are tethered to thick chains that disappear into the darkness. “Even if you do so, I cannot guarantee your safety. He is strong, and fast, and he will not spare you if you fall within his grasp. But then…” Its eyes close, and Mista swallows as he gazes at its long, beautiful lashes. “To have come this far, you must be a man of great resolve. I suppose you will not falter at this hour. So…go ahead. Do it however you like; I have no complaint.”

Mista stares at the glowing stretch of neck that the creature has exposed for him. It’s such an elegant neck, he thinks. Like a piece of art, like curved ivory from foreign lands. “You killed Zucchero, didn’t you?” he says. “I mean—I suppose you don’t know his name—but you…or, rather, you’re the one who’s been calling these sailors to their deaths, aren’t you?”

The creature slowly opens its eyes. “Zucchero,” it says tentatively, as if it is testing how the name feels on its tongue. “I cannot tell you if I killed a man of that name. But you are right. I am responsible for their deaths.”

Mista hums. “But you’re not bad, are you?”

“Not…” A look of surprise flickers across the creature’s face. “Not…bad?”

“Yeah. You didn’t want to, right?” Mista jerks his chin at its cuffed hands. “Someone forced you to kill them. The guy you mentioned just now. Right?”

Something shifts in the creature’s expression. It seems to open up a little, like the shutters of a window have been pushed aside; then the moment passes, and its eyes grow dull once more. “Does it matter?” it says. There is a note of resignation in its voice. “I still brought them here to die. I don’t know if you are here for revenge or for a paycheck, but it makes no difference. You have come to kill me. That is all.”

“Wait,” replies Mista. There’s something off about those words. “You’re saying you brought them here to die?” He scrunches up his face. “Were you the one who actually killed them? As in, the one who dealt the final blow?”

“No.” The creature looks down. “That would be…him.”

“The guy who trapped you here? Who forced you to do all this?”

Silence. Mista’s words hang between them, hovering in the damp air. One second passes; two seconds; three. Eventually, the creature turns to look at him, its face guarded, and says, “Does it matter? I played a part in their deaths. Why are you—”

“Do you want to die?” interrupts Mista.

“Do I want to—” The words seem to have been shocked out of the creature’s mouth; it stares at him, its lips slightly parted, as if it is struggling to comprehend what he just said. “You…” Something bursts to life in its beautiful eyes. The emotion struggles there for a few moments, painfully, as if it is fighting to survive, as if it doesn’t know if it’s allowed to live. “You…”

Mista walks forward, carefully, till he is around half a metre from the creature; it stiffens as he approaches, but its head follows him as he squats before it. “I’m gonna ask you again,” he says. “Do you want to die?”

He watches as his words seem to take hold, as the hesitation slips from the creature’s face; then, finally, he looks on approvingly as a fire blazes to life in its eyes. “No,” it says, spitting the word with a venom that doesn’t seem to match its pretty face. “I don’t want to die. There were things I wanted to do, you know. I had hopes. I had dreams. But my father—”

The words die in its throat; it glances at him and then at a random point in the distance before it looks at its lap, at its hands that are clenched into fists. 

“Your…dad, huh?” Mista winces in sympathy. He looks at the angry wound on the creature’s tail, and a wave of sadness rushes through him; suddenly, it occurs to him that there’s something he can do about it, so he quickly moves to sit nearby and starts digging in his bag for the healing salve from Trish. “That’s fucked up. I mean, my dad hit me when I was naughty, but he never trapped me in a cave and made me kill people for him and injured me so bad that I was bleeding out like this…” He retrieves the bottle, places the knife by his side, and squeezes some of the white cream into his hand. “So, what’s the story?” he says casually as he reaches out to dab the cream on the creature’s hip. “You—”

The creature freezes at his touch. “What are you—” Mista’s hand stills; he looks at it, and sees that it is staring at him in wide-eyed shock, its chest heaving as it sucks in shallow breaths. “You—”

“Relax, this will help.” Mista places a hand on the creature’s shoulder, thinking that that might help calm it down, but it just tenses up in response, so he shrugs and begins to apply the cream to its scales. “I think it’s magical. Apparently it heals injuries really fast, so this should stop bothering you soon.”

He focuses on his task, though he takes note when the creature seems to stiffen or flinch under his ministrations, and tries to move his fingers more gently. Little by little, he senses it beginning to relax, the tension draining from its muscles. A grin slips onto his face, and he says, “See? Wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Their eyes meet when he finishes up and looks at the creature’s face. It quickly tilts its chin away, as if it can’t quite bear to look at him, but the way it peers at him from the corner of its eyes betrays its true feelings. “Um…thank you,” it says softly. “I, uh…” It swallows nervously before it speaks. “I don’t know your name.”

“I’m Mista,” replies Mista cheerfully. How cute. “Guido Mista, though everyone calls me Mista for some reason. You can use whatever name you want.” The creature’s expression softens, and it smiles faintly; a sudden fondness surges through Mista, and he realises that the creature probably also has a name. “What’s your name?” He pauses. “And, well, what are you, exactly? I was told that you were a siren, but, uh…” He gestures at the fish tail. “I thought sirens had wings, not tails.”

“My name is Giorno.” The creature—Giorno—tucks a few strands of its loose hair behind an ear, and continues, “What I am is…complicated. I’m a freak of nature, if you will. My father…he infused the shapes of many different beings into me with his blood magic and implanted me into my mother, who is a mermaid, so I took on many qualities.” Giorno goes quiet for a few moments. “I do have some siren in me, but I prefer to appear like this. As a merman. So, I suppose you could consider me a merman.”

A merman, huh. Mista turns over the word in his head—merman, mer…man, merman—and thinks to himself that Giorno isn’t just some fantasy creature, he’s a person. A person who is currently studying his face intently, trying to gauge his reaction. “Merman it is, then,” he replies lightly. “Guess it makes sense that you’d rather take after your mom than your dad. He sounds like a pretty evil guy.”

A shadow falls over Giorno’s face, and Mista realises that he must have been mistaken. “Unfortunately,” says Giorno quietly, “there’s no love lost between my mother and I. You see…” He gazes into the distance. “She didn’t know that my father implanted me into her. They were lovers, but when it seemed that the implantation didn’t take, he sent her away…and then she became pregnant a year later.” Giorno sighs, and looks at his hands. “I horrified her when I was born. I didn’t look like a merchild, or even like my father. I shifted between forms, taking on different aspects of different beings at once, so my appearance was…terrifying.” His voice is tight. “She stayed with me for a while, because I remember swimming behind her and trying to call out to her when she went too far…but she left me, in the end.” 

Mista watches as Giorno sits there and breathes unevenly, his eyes haunted by painful memories. Suddenly, he looks sharply at Mista. “I apologise.” His expression is inscrutable, but Mista thinks he catches a hint of self-consciousness in the stiff set of his shoulders. “I don’t know why I told you that. Besides, it’s no longer a problem. Nowadays, I can stabilise my form. That’s why I look like this, and not…you know.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” says Mista casually. “Your mom’s a bitch. You’re her kid. She’s supposed to care for you. What you look like doesn’t matter, you know?”

Giorno stares at him blankly. “Of course it matters,” he replies. “I’m not…saying she was in the right, but…”

“Well, I say it doesn’t matter,” says Mista, crossing his arms. The force in his words surprises even himself, for previously he’d been lamenting that such a beautiful creature would have to die by his hand; now the creature has a name, though, and his name is Giorno, and Giorno doesn’t deserve to be valued only for his looks. “The first thing I noticed about you is that you’re beautiful, but the more I talk to you…the less it matters, you know?” He shrugs. “It’s nice, and I’m happy to appreciate it, but I don’t think I’d like you less if you were half manticore or whatever.” There’s something about Giorno, an endearing mixture of strength and softness, that calls to Mista from inside him and transcends his outer beauty. “I’m sorry that your mom wasn’t smart enough to see things that way. But if that’s the case…why take this form, then?”

Giorno’s breath hitches. He looks at Mista with disbelief for a long while; but something in Mista’s face must have convinced him that he’s telling the truth, because Giorno eventually lowers his head with a slightly flustered expression. “Oh,” he says, his voice small. “I…am part manticore, actually.” He clears his throat. “Well…anyway, I wandered the sea for many years, surviving by myself. I had many different powers but no way to control them, and I looked terrifying, so the denizens of the sea either attacked me or stayed away from me…one day, though, I happened upon a merman who was bleeding out after a vicious battle with a shark.” Giorno’s voice warms. “When I saw him dying there, something burst to life inside me. I approached him, and before I knew it, I was healing him. I saved his life.” He smiles. Mista leans in a little to admire the expression better, because Giorno is absolutely dazzling with a smile on his face; joy is becoming of him in the way that flowers are becoming of maidens’ hair. “He would find me occasionally after that, to give me food when I was hungry or teach me about the world. Bit by bit, he taught me everything I know.”

“Wow,” says Mista. “He sounds like a great man—I mean, a great merman.” 

Giorno laughs a little at that, quietly, and Mista’s heart flutters at the sound. He laughs like bells ringing in the cool sea breeze. “Yes, I owe everything to him. I...used to want to be like him, actually. He made it a point to fight dangerous creatures that would seek to harm his people, and with his help, I managed to control my powers and fit in better with mer society; so, since I was so unnaturally powerful, if I could slay beasts by his side…”

He trails off, his face growing solemn, and Mista realises that considering they’re sitting in this place of all places, the story can’t have a happy ending. “What…happened to him?”

“One of the beasts he fought felled him in the end,” says Giorno slowly. “I was there, but I couldn’t get to him in time, and…” He sits there silently for a few moments, looking at nothing, cutting a lonely figure as he glows in the darkness. Mista’s fingers twitch, and he almost reaches out to touch Giorno, but Giorno suddenly runs a hand through his hair and says, “Then I fully awoke my powers. My hair, which used to be black, turned blond. I was powerful before, but I was nigh unstoppable now, save…”

“Your father,” says Mista.

Giorno glances at him and nods. “Yes. My father—Dio.” His voice is cold; Mista watches as he clasps his fingers together so hard that his knuckles turn white. “As his son, as his creation, we are tied together by blood—his specialty is blood magic, and thus his powers bind me to him even though I am stronger.” He squeezes his eyes shut and bows his head. “I felt his presence in my mind when my powers awakened. It was like…it was like frost, slowly creeping across the summer sea. He said that he’d find me. He said that he’d catch me, no matter what I did.” 

“Wait,” says Mista, shifting a little closer to Giorno. “How old were you?”

Giorno looks at him, hesitates, and says, “Fifteen.” 

That’s around how old I was, too, thinks Mista, a knot forming in his stomach. He’s like me, like Narancia, like Fugo… “Do you age the same way as a human?”

“Yes, actually,” says Giorno. “My father is human…well, he was human once, and for the blood magic to work, the core of my being had to be human as well.” He pauses. “I was fifteen when my powers awakened and my father began hunting me down; I evaded him for four years, but then…” 

“Four years?” exclaims Mista. “Well, four is a cursed number, so that makes sense.”

Giorno shoots him a strange look, but doesn’t question his words. “As he is my father, the blood tie between us allows him to overpower me if I let him get close enough. Eventually, he caught up to me. He captured me and put me here. He asked me to call the sailors for him, so that he could drain their youth. I refused. In response, he threatened to kill a merchild each day that I kept up my resistance. That’s why…” Giorno gestures vaguely at their surroundings; the chain clinks as he moves, and his arm drops heavily to his side. “That’s why this happened.” His voice is brittle. “He tells me that I’ve been here for two years.” Mista watches as Giorno shakes his head stiffly, his eyes bright with a strange, pained amusement. “I don’t know if that’s true,” he says. “Guido…” Giorno turns to Mista; there’s a plea in his gaze. “Tell me. Has it been two years?” 

Mista’s heart aches. “The rumours began three months ago,” he says gently. “So…”

“Oh.” Giorno curls in on himself a little and laughs, bitterly; it’s a sharp, painful sound that seems to have been forced out of his throat. “Oh.” 

Silence settles on them like a shroud. Giorno’s eyes are screwed tightly shut. His jaw clenches and unclenches as Mista sits there and watches, fiddling with his clothes, utterly helpless in the face of such pain. What am I supposed to do when faced with…this? There’s no salve that can heal his injury. There are no words that can patch up his heart. Mista swallows, wondering what he can do; then Giorno suddenly raises his head and looks directly at Mista, his eyes burning with cold fury. “Will you do me a favour?” he says.

Mista feels breathless. “Yeah?”

“When you go,” says Giorno, speaking hurriedly, “leave the dagger with me. I can sense the strength of its enchantments; I think it will be enough to kill him.” His voice, previously reserved and composed, has taken on a wild edge. “I don’t know if I can do it. His blood magic may stop me. But I have to try. I don’t know what will become of me, or what torment he will have in store if I fail, but—”

“Who says I’m going to go anywhere?” interrupts Mista. 

Giorno’s mouth falls open. “You…”

And then, finally, finally, Mista acts on the urge he’s been repressing for the last few minutes and reaches out to take Giorno’s hand. “I was sent here to kill the one responsible for Zucchero’s death,” he says, “and I’m not leaving till I’ve done it.” He slips his fingers between Giorno’s own; he marvels at the way Giorno’s skin glows in the darkness, and squeezes his hand tightly. “Besides, I can support wanting to murder your dad. I don’t talk to mine either, or my mom; he tried to force me to become a lawyer, when I just wanted to…” It occurs to Mista that his trials and tribulations, while genuinely worthy of sympathy, cannot compare to what Giorno has suffered, so he coughs awkwardly and stops talking. “Sorry. I mean, I want to help you. That fucker has put you through enough.” Mista raises his chin, gratified by the startled look on Giorno’s face. “What do you say to spilling some of his blood for a change?”

And Giorno stares at him, his eyes wide, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly; then his lips curve in a smile, and his expression softens, and he says, “Yes. I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”

They hash out their plan quickly, for Giorno is convinced that his father Dio will soon arrive. Hastily, Mista lies on the rocky floor close to Giorno’s side and pretends to be asleep, the dagger concealed beneath his right thigh; he hears Giorno shift where he sits, and supposes that he is trying to arrange himself in a manner to hide that his injury has healed. And so Mista waits, counting his breaths, running through their plan again and again in his head. One, he counts, two, three…five. The necklace is warm against his neck, but it is not strong enough; it will allow him to resist Dio’s magic, but it cannot counter it entirely. Six, seven, eight. If Dio doesn’t kill him, Narancia will when he finds out what he’s about to do. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Narancia has always been rather reckless too, but he trusts Trish, and Trish told him that Mista could only handle a single siren. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Well, this is certainly much more powerful than a single siren. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. How much more powerful, Mista doesn’t know—but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. This is the man who killed Zucchero and all those other sailors. This is the man who hunted and enslaved and tortured Giorno. He has to die. He deserves to die. Any other fate would be too kind, and Mista is all too happy to send him to his doom, to a place where he will suffer forever, to a place where…

Suddenly, he is dying.

It was already cold. But a further, deeper coldness sweeps through the air so swiftly that he scarcely has time to think about it before it has frozen his entire body and become a part of him. His breath is cold; his blood is cold; his heart is cold. He lies there, dead like a corpse. Time seems to have slowed to a crawl in the darkness of his closed eyelids…slowed, slowed, slowed, till it stops entirely. Has it stopped? Mista has no way of knowing. Is…is my heart still beating? It is getting harder to think. Where am I? He doesn’t know anymore. Why did I come here? He has forgotten. There is only coldness, and a deep, deep darkness that calls to him with the promise of rest, with the sweetness of sleep. He sees nothing. He feels nothing. He hears nothing. And so, little by little, with the inevitability of the sun sinking beneath the horizon as a long summer day gives way to night, he…

But slowly, surely, a name floats to the top of his mind like a snapped piece of coral rising to the water’s surface. Giorno. Mista frowns; he knows that name. Giorno, Giorno. Someone is saying that name. Their voice is twisted and cruel; it doesn’t fit that name at all, no, not when that name is so beautiful. But where do I know that name? Distantly, he becomes aware of a heat around his neck. He frowns. It is vaguely familiar. Something tells him that he should focus on it, let it pull him away from the darkness and away from the promise of sweet oblivion that had seemed so enticing; and so he does, and as he does the heat intensifies till it is burning, and that voice is growing louder and louder, until suddenly—

“So,” says Dio directly above him, “this is the man you have brought me?”

Mista plummets back into reality. His first instinct is to sit up and look wildly at his surroundings to get his bearings, but he fights it with all he can. He lies there, pretending to be asleep, as something cold touches his cheek; curved fingernails dig into his skin as his chin is turned this way and that. “Another failure, then. This is not quite what I asked for,” remarks Dio, his voice dripping with cold amusement. Mista suppresses a shudder. “You know how I like them, Giorno, and this…well, he is the exact opposite of that.” Dio sighs, long and slow. “Is this the kind of man you favour? Dirty, earthy…” He tugs sharply at Mista’s hair. “With a head full of…unruly, coarse curls? Come now, Giorno.” Dio tuts disapprovingly. “A son of mine should have better taste than that.”

“He is a sailor,” replies Giorno smoothly. “And he looks more like a sailor than the other sailors I’ve been bringing you.” 

Right, thinks Mista. Our plan. Giorno is trying to distract him. He feels the shape of the dagger beneath his right thigh, and breathes in, out, in, out, slowly as Dio draws his hand away from him. “Oh? Something’s different about you today,” he says. His voice is light and casual, but there is an undercurrent of danger in it. Mista’s heart hammers in his chest. “You’re more…talkative than usual. Do you like this boy that much? Have you grown…attached?”

“I have never wanted any of them to die,” says Giorno coldly. “Not this man, and not any of the other men.”

“So, you do like him.” Dio laughs, loudly; Mista is briefly deafened. “I suppose it must be my fault. How could a boy as…well, wild and uncontrolled as you understand the measure of a good man? There has been a deficit in your education. But, well, we shall get to that later.” He claps his hands together, ear-piercingly. “I will impart a different concept first. Have you ever seen a rider slit the throat of his horse, Giorno?” He pauses; when Giorno remains silent, he continues, “I suppose you have not, having stubbornly stayed in that wretched sea for as long as you have. The rationale is this. When a horse breaks a leg, it cannot easily be healed; therefore, for beings as stunted and limited as humans, it is considered kind to spare a horse from further suffering by granting it a quick death.”  

Silence. Mista doesn’t know how Giorno is reacting. But he hears Dio move, feels the coldness of his body as he bends over him, feels the finger on his cheek that traces an icy line down his skin. “I will give you a choice,” says Dio in a low murmur. “If you do not want to watch me drain the life from this boy, you can kill him yourself.” He chuckles under his breath. “You and I know how strong you are, Giorno. If you wanted to, you could take his life in an instant. You have that ability.” Dio presses his freezing palm against Mista’s forehead. “...Well?” 

One second; two seconds; three seconds. And then—

“Father,” says Giorno, his voice resolute, “there is only one thing I have to say to you.”

That’s Mista’s cue. His eyes fly open and he sees Dio, who is looking questioningly at Giorno, for the first time; he takes in the gigantic frame that looms over him and the twisted smile and the golden hair that’s the same colour as Giorno’s and the amber eyes that glow like hot coals in the dark. He presses firmly down on the sheath of the dagger and yanks out the blade and stabs, hard, at the dark shape that must be Dio’s body. But Dio shifts abruptly and Mista’s stab misses; and then Dio’s hand swipes downwards and the dagger flies out of Mista’s grasp. 

It all happens in a blur. The dagger clatters against the rocks and Giorno shouts Mista’s name in alarm and then Dio’s fingers are clamped firmly around Mista’s neck and his fingernails are digging into the vulnerable flesh there. Mista gasps and claws at the fingers around his neck, but they only tighten further; his heels kick uselessly against the ground as Dio turns his head to regard him, contemptuously, for a few moments. Then his attention is back on Giorno again and they are talking heatedly, saying things that Mista can’t quite comprehend as his throat is crushed little by little and he can’t breathe and it hurts and the world is spinning before his eyes. Vaguely, he hears Giorno bargain for his life, and he remembers the bloody gash on Giorno’s tail and the pain in his eyes and thinks, no, don’t do it, don’t do it—but Dio’s hands are firm on Mista’s neck and the pain quickly washes away any trace of rational thought. He sputters. He can’t even gasp. He is dying. He is dying. He is—

His foot, scrabbling for purchase against the rock, bumps against a loose metal object. 

Mista doesn’t think; he just acts. He bends his leg, kicks the object in the general direction of Giorno and, finally ceasing his fruitless attempts to pry Dio’s hands off his neck, curls his hand into a fist and punches Dio in the arm. It doesn’t do anything to hurt him. But Dio’s head turns and he gazes down at Mista, at this tiny ant that had dared to bite him. His nostrils flare; his face is suddenly metres across as he lowers his head close to Mista’s face and laughs, like thunder rolling across a stormy sky, and says, his eyes blazing, “You really thought you—”

And then he freezes in place.

“What—” Slowly, Dio lowers his head, and his wide eyes fall upon the blade that is sticking out of his chest. “You…” The wound glows bright white. He grits his teeth, his face contorted in pain and fury. “You!” 

Mista wheezes, weakly, as the hands around his neck slacken and fall away. The world is fading away before him; he feels as if he is slipping into death’s cold embrace. His eyes close. He is descending into the darkness, slowly but surely, like a weakened sea creature sinking to the bottom of the sea. So, am I finally dying? Mista doesn’t really want to die, but he supposes this isn’t a bad way to go out. I’m sorry, my friends. Sunlight dances on the water’s surface, but it is distant, like a lingering memory of better days, and Mista doesn’t have the strength to reach out and grasp it. I wish I could have sailed with you a little longer. And I wish… Giorno’s voice, Giorno’s pure and resonant voice, floats into his ears. I wish…

“Guido,” says Giorno quietly, “You won’t be dying today.”

And then a bright light is burning his eyelids and a pair of warm hands are caressing his neck, and he opens his eyes to see Giorno, Giorno as he should be, Giorno whose radiant skin is flush with health, whose bright turquoise eyes are filled with warmth, whose wavy golden hair is cascading over his shoulders like liquid sunlight. “You’re okay,” he murmurs. His voice is like music; it ripples sweetly through the air and drifts through the chambers of Mista’s heart. “You’re going to be okay.” Giorno dips his head, slowly, his eyes fluttering closed, and kisses Mista’s jaw. His kiss is soft and gentle; when he draws away, his cheeks are pink and he can’t quite meet Mista’s eyes for a few moments. “I…” Giorno hesitates, swallows, and properly looks at Mista once more. “I will bring you back to your ship. You have to rest. You have to sleep for a while. But…” He smiles, tentatively. “We can meet again, if you like. I can sense your presence, and I can come to you and call to you at the water’s edge.”  

Mista’s eyelids are heavy. He struggles to keep them open, for he doesn’t want to stop looking at Giorno, but Giorno’s smile widens at the sight of the losing battle that Mista is fighting; a warm hand moves slowly over Mista’s eyes, and so his eyelids have no choice but to close, reluctantly, but gratefully all the same. “Thank you,” says Giorno tenderly. His voice is far away now, as Mista slips slowly but surely into the realm of sleep. “I couldn’t have done this without you. And I…well, I…”

But his words dissolve in Mista’s ears like sea foam dispersing into blue waves; and then, fast asleep, Mista hears no more.

Mista wakes up in his own bed two days later.

He sits up groggily, squinting as the sunlight streaming in from the window catches him in the face. When he shuffles out of his bedroom, he is greeted by Narancia and Fugo sitting in armchairs in his sitting room; thereupon, he is assaulted by question after question. The conversation quickly devolves into an interrogation about the mysterious golden-haired merman who had deposited his unconscious body at their ship. “Did you run into a bunch of merpeople?” asks Narancia with huge eyes; “He seemed suspicious. Was he the siren after all?” remarks Fugo, frowning; “He looked back at you as he left with such a soft expression on his face. I think you got yourself a secret admirer!” exclaims Narancia, gesturing wildly in excitement.

Ultimately, however, this unusual chapter in Mista’s life slowly draws to a close as the tides turn and the weather begins to cool. He meets Sale at the pub. Since he is unable to prove that he has indeed slayed the siren, their heated conversation escalates to a fistfight; eventually, Sale, spitting mouthfuls of blood, agrees to pay Mista if no more incidents arise for a month. A month later, Mista rolls his eyes and collects his payment. He watches as his shipmates spend or invest the money, but he is reluctant to part with it himself—he stares at it, wistfully, as he remembers a beautiful merman whose resilience and composure hides a cuter, softer side. The days crawl by. Mista thinks of Giorno when he’s at sea, gazing at the watery horizon; he thinks of him when he wakes from nightmares, trembling as he recalls an impenetrable darkness and icy hands crushing his throat. He waits. Giorno does not look for him. And so Mista is left alone with these thoughts, these thoughts which become his sole comfort over long, lonely nights.

One night, frustrated by endless tossing and turning, Mista gets out of bed and heads past the ports, walking briskly towards the shores that will be deserted at this hour. Summer is dying, its heat retreating within the ground, and the chilly autumn breeze tosses Mista’s hair this way and that, so he tugs his coat closer to his body and hurries on. His feet sink into soft sand. He melts into the sea-soaked air. The waves surge forth, draw back, and surge forth once more; Mista sits a few metres from the water and watches as silver moonlight dances over gently-cresting waves, as scattered rocks glisten in the distance, as gulls soar and spiral through the starry night sky. Giorno’s out there somewhere, he thinks as he gazes at the dark sea. What is he doing? What is he thinking? Has he forgotten me? It’s a silly thought, a rather pathetic thought, but it digs its claws into Mista’s brain all the same; and so he stares into the distance and thinks and thinks, his mind racing, his thoughts spiralling…

“Guido.” 

It is like Mista is waking from a dream.

He turns. Giorno is sitting a few metres away where the sea meets the shore, glowing faintly in the night, his torso facing Mista as his iridescent gold-silver tail lies curled up against the sand. Mista’s heart flutters. Scarcely able to breathe, he rises, moves slowly towards Giorno, and sits. “Hey,” he says shakily. “You, uh…” His eyes wander over Giorno’s face, drinking in every curve and feature, before finally rising to meet Giorno’s own; there is a fatigue haunting Giorno’s eyes that he feels bone-deep, even though Giorno was resplendent when they last saw each other and he has no reason to have lost his radiance. “It’s been a while.” Mista clears his throat. “You…how have you been?”

Giorno gazes at him with a strange, startlingly open expression. It shifts alongside the waves that are lapping at his tail; hope, longing and sadness flicker in his eyes, which are suddenly so painfully expressive, but the moment passes and he composes himself once more. “I…” He swallows, wincing, as if he is unused to speaking. “I’ve been…” Giorno looks down at his hands. “Guido, I’m sorry for taking so long to find you. It’s just that…” He inhales, exhales, as if he’s struggling to find the words to express his feelings. “I suppose I thought everything would be fine now that I’ve escaped my father’s clutches, but…” He shakes his head, sighing. “Anyway, I decided to wait a while before finding you. That’s why it’s taken so long. I’m sorry.”

And, just like that, the frustration that Mista had felt dissolves into nothing. “It’s fine,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.” He doesn’t know exactly what Giorno is going through, but he can compare it to his own experience; I was only in the cave for an hour or so, he thinks, and I already have terrible nightmares and can’t sleep without a lamp by my bedside. Reaching out, he takes Giorno’s hand as he’d done back then. He slips his fingers between Giorno’s own, marvelling once again at the way Giorno’s skin glows in the night, and squeezes his hand tightly. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks lightly. “That’s why I came out here, of course. Though, I don’t know if your sleeping schedule is the same as mine…”

Giorno regards their joined hands for a moment before turning to look at Mista, a smile playing at his lips. “Yes,” he says. “I couldn’t sleep. Then I sensed you here, so…well, I was wondering if you were all right.” His expression becomes searching. “Are you?”

“Suffering from exposure to your dear old dad, I’m afraid,” replies Mista. “And, uh…” His face warms. “I missed you.”

“Oh.” Giorno’s fingers curl, and he flushes; his luminous skin only causes the blush on his cheeks to bloom more brightly. “I…” He looks away, looks back, and says, “I missed you, too. And I’m sorry for involving you in all this.”

“Nah, I chose to get involved.” Mista flashes Giorno a grin. “And I don’t regret a thing.”

Giorno’s eyes widen.

Then he smiles and dips his head. “I’m glad,” he says softly.

They sit there, hand in hand, as the cries of the gulls echo through the night. The wind caresses their faces and plays with Giorno’s long hair; the loose golden strands shimmer under the moonlight, and the sight is so beautiful that Mista forgets how to breathe. He closes his eyes. He savours the warmth of their joined hands. It is as if everything under the sky has contracted into this one point, as if everything that is good and just and beautiful about the world has suddenly become concentrated in one hand, in one person. “Hey, Giorno?” he says quietly. “You think we could do this occasionally?”

“Do this?”

“Meet and talk.” Mista opens his eyes and looks at Giorno, who is watching him intently. “Here at the beach, when I’m not out at sea…it’s like our two worlds are being bridged, you know?” The thought is so poetic that he’s surprised he came up with it—but then, he thinks, I’ve gotten a lot more poetic since meeting Giorno in general. “Land and sea. Here, at the shores, we meet.” He smiles. “There’s a lot that I’d like to tell you. I have a whole life that I haven’t shared. And I want to know more about you, about that dream you have, about the merman you look up to…”

Giorno smiles at him. “I’d like that too,” he says. “And, meeting at the shores…I like that idea. But we don’t have to stay here, you know? That would probably make it easier as well.”

Mista raises an eyebrow. “We don’t have to?” He gestures at Giorno’s tail. “But you’re…”

And then there is a playful glint in Giorno’s eyes, and then he is glowing brighter, brighter, as Mista looks on with his mouth hanging open. The light radiating from his body intensifies, little by little, till Mista has no choice but to turn away; when he looks back, slightly disoriented, he blinks rapidly and wonders if what he’s seeing is a trick of the light. “You—” His gaze falls, incredulous, on a pair of human legs. “You—” He counts ten perfectly-formed toes. His eyes travel upwards to a pair of slender ankles and rise, rise, journeying up lightly-muscled calves and beautifully-shaped thighs to—

Mista’s face burns. 

Tearing his eyes from Giorno’s naked body, he coughs and shrugs off his coat. “Here,” he says, holding it out in his general direction. He doesn’t know why he’s so flustered all of a sudden, for he’s never been this way around women, but something about Giorno makes everything take on a different, more intimate light. “You should, uh, wear something.”

Giorno laughs quietly. “All right,” he says, and Mista feels the cloth being tugged from his grip. “I was always naked, you know.”

“Well, this is different!” exclaims Mista, and Giorno laughs again in response; there’s the sound of feet against sand, and Mista thinks he hears Giorno take a few unsteady steps as the fabric rustles and the waves lap against their feet. “Done,” says Giorno after a few moments. Mista turns, and takes in the strange sight of this beautiful man wrapped up awkwardly in a too-large brown coat. “How do I look?”

“Awful,” says Mista, chuckling. “We need to get you better clothes.”

“Better clothes, you say?” Giorno turns a little pink, but he continues mercilessly, “More of yours?”

Oh, he’s so cute. Mista’s heart skips a beat. “More of mine, yeah. Want to go to my house? I haven’t cleaned, but at least there isn’t sand everywhere.”

“I’d love to,” replies Giorno. Mista begins to walk, watching cautiously as Giorno follows—it seems his caution was warranted, for Giorno’s legs wobble awkwardly before his knees buckle and he falls. “Ah—” He blinks at the sand as Mista laughs loudly at his expense. “Apologies, I still have to get used to these legs. Give me a moment, I—”

But Mista steps forward and sweeps Giorno off his feet. “I dunno, Giorno,” he says, looking bemusedly into Giorno’s wide eyes, “I think this is faster. What do you say?”

Giorno’s body stiffens, and Mista’s heart sinks as he worries that he may have done the wrong thing; soon enough, though, Giorno relaxes and even shifts a little closer. “I think so too,” he says, loosely winding his arms around Mista’s neck. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Thus, with Giorno in his arms, Mista grunts and begins the long trek home. He won’t be able to carry him the entire way there. Giorno is slim and shorter than him, but his body is lean and he’s heavier than he looks; Mista doesn’t think about that now, though, not when Giorno’s legs are swinging slightly with every step he takes and Giorno’s head is resting lightly against his shoulder. They turn into the street. Giorno makes a small noise at the back of his throat as Mista begins to ascend the steps. Mista’s smile widens; his cheeks hurt, but he can’t stop smiling. Yes, they’re both tired. Yes, they’re both in a lot of pain, but right now the moon is bright and Mista wants for nothing else. Their joy can’t heal the wounds they’ve suffered, but it can make things a little better for a while, a little sweeter, a little happier. And Mista can’t wait to learn more about Giorno. He likes him so much already. He’s bursting with affection that he’s wanted to express for days and days, and now that Giorno is in his arms and looking up at him through those long beautiful lashes, he can finally begin, and they can finally begin, and then, and then…

And so Mista walks on, together with Giorno in the darkness, heading for home.

fin.