Chapter Text
They say the Song of Sirens can be as deadly as a fatal wound, for it calls you to the most secluded shore of your beaches or the very edge of your boat, just to be pulled into the waves and to be torn apart by those beautiful fiendish creatures.
Yet, they are not as deadly as cannon fire, as those things will indiscriminately rip apart everything it collides with.
It had been a while since he had seen such a familiar bright orange color, fierier than the sunset or sunrise, yet this time, he wasn’t the cause of it. He clung to the wooden scraps as if it was his last line of defense, not that that would be a wrong statement, because he knew those creatures might be coming up soon. They had definitely heard the cannons, smelled the nasty iron from the blood of his comrades or, at least, seen some of them slowly descend towards the ocean floor. He rested his head on the piece of driftwood and trembled as he looked back at his former ship, now wrecked to pieces by cannonballs and pirate torches and shivered, his eye closing slightly as he saw the amount people that were still standing, slowly thinning. It was eerily cold, the flames doing nothing to warm his beaten body up. Death seemed to be lurking everywhere, even if you were able to board the surviving ship, you would most likely be slaughtered by the other pirates, for you were not one of them.
Matthias sighed, hoping it would’ve been his last breath until he felt an eerie feeling wash over him, the cause of it not only being one of the many cold waves this time. He opened his eye and shivered, only to realize that he was no longer floating somewhere in the middle of the ocean, but rather drowning in the most lower depths of it.
His lungs screamed at him to start moving, to start swimming, anything to get air. But his mind told him to wait and to let the ocean swallow him up, hoping that it would leave no trace of the sad excuse of a pirate, Matthias Czernin. He closed his eye completely at that thought, feeling… Regret and yet not giving in to the tempting invitation to go up for air, stop the twitching in his body to lurch upwards, and to get the much needed air, even if the smoke would make his lungs sting once more. That fire would’ve been for nothing but unfortunately, there was nothing left for him to do. Even as his lungs seemingly stabbed itself, in an attempt to breathe, only water reached the organs. He couldn’t think, he needed that ash tainted air. Just as he wanted to open his eye to look up and relocate the surface, a hand was pressed on top of his chest, right where his lungs would be, pressing him against the ocean floor. Even with his instinctively thrashing around, he wouldn’t have been able to even scratch this thing. This creature was more powerful than he was, be that on land or on the ocean floor.
A faint glow was casted on his eyelid, reminding him of the sun itself, yet knowing how far he had drowned, it was very unlikely to be the sun. Curiosity got the better of him and he made the mistake of slowly opening his eye, the feeling of water hitting his eyeball making him squint. The glow had transformed into something more than just a faint light. It was practically beaming at him, as if worried, but that worry was not as gentle as the creature intended it to be, the light was hurting the young pirate’s eye at this point. He could feel a faint feeling of… comfort, that the being was emitting, it was trying to calm the twitching in his body, because he no longer needed the stinging air of smoke that was up there. The yellow iris was practically shining back at him, rapidly inspecting him, radiating the same warmth the sun would give him after a cold night out on the sea. With that thought he eventually lost consciousness, the only thing on his mind being that beautiful glow that seemed to warm up his entire body. No wonder he mistook it for the sun.