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wanderrealms · 7 months

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Home In Shadow

There was a mist between Veini and the world again. Unseen weight running over skin, holding him still. Thoughts sluggish through mind, he had to push at them to give shape to the meaning. Yet even then, he couldn’t hold on long enough to make the thought into action.

He stood still, listening to the raucous call of birds and the sea climb along the smooth stone shore of the nameless island and recede in a soft rush. The wind buffeted against the salt and weather-stained grey stone walls of the North Tower; it found cracks in the round walls and crept inside. Sending shivers up along his pale skin. The scent of kelp and stinging smell of storm filled his slow breaths.

Along the wall ran oval stones set into brass insets casting warm light, imitating the sun, yet failing to catch likeness. Amber in color, they brought a semblance of sun's rays within the stone circle that shut out the world as best it could.

The North Tower had once existed to gather starlight and weave magic from it during the long winter nights. But mages had learned to gather sun's light as well, and power from other elements. The journey here had become too costly.

And now the tower existed for its own sake. A place fit for a soft exile.

He leaned his shoulder against the dark wooden shelves which ran along the curving wall. The edge pressing through the thin, grey woolen coat and linen shirt he wore. The shelf rose from the cold floor to the circular ceiling. A few books rested on the shelf, thick tomes with paper that crackled when he lifted them slowly. Spines written in the language of mages, between them knowledge, meant only for the few who had studied magic.

Next to them stood boxes meant to guard ingredients for magic. Each carved with a symbol of what it had once held. And a box painted black as the void, inside a mask of glass, tinted blue, fashioned in the likeness of a grinning skull.

A memory from a past life. And a tool of changing.

In his pale hand he held a dark blue stone, smooth and cool against his palm. Its kind could be used to store magic, and turned into a spell, a change in the world.

This was empty. He stared at the grey wall before him, devoid, but for a mirror to the side. At the thin, dark seams and rough surface. Senses speaking to his mind, but he couldn’t react to them. Thoughts slow, he had to will them into meaning.

The smooth stone in his hand began to slip from his grasp. Cool surface slipping past fingers one by one. He could sense the motion. Grip was too lax to hold on, but his fingers wouldn’t tighten around the stone.

A click against the floor. Skittering the sound of the blue stone away from him.

He remained still. Trying to push thoughts into form, and action. Through the fog coiling around him.

“Again?” he said quietly.

The creak of a heavy door opening. Cold spring air flooded the tower, and the murmur of waves became a loud rush of water creeping upwards, failing, and retreating to gather its strength.

In the doorway stood Watcher the siren, wreathed in the thickest woolen coat he owned. Much too large for her, the black coat pooled around her feet. Dark red locks spilled from under the hood of the coat, framing the angular features of her pale face. In the depths of her green eyes burned determination. The sharp corners of her lips curved into a smile when she caught his gaze, then tensed.

Behind her, the door slammed shut. She didn’t flinch or blink. Her intense gaze remaining on him. He forced a false smile for her, then looked down at the stone which had rolled between him and her.

The stone had stopped in the middle of the tower floor. She moved with the fluid grace of sea, the borrowed coat whooshing softly along the floor. Knelt and lifted the stone.

She turned the stone in her hands. “There’s not a scrape.”

There was an undercurrent to her voice, an enthralling melody which soothed and enticed. Even when she did not sing her magic.

Outside, the rain pattered against the walls and shutters. Simple music of his element. For a moment, he thought to go outside and feel the water run along his face. As he had when he’d been alone, washing away the loneliness.

She held the stone to him. Webbing between her long fingers. Faint pattern of scales on the thin skin. Revealing her not quite human. Magic innate to her as salt to sea.

She took his hand in hers, resting her thumbs over his palm. He stiffened and tried to draw away, but she grasped his hand tighter.

"Speak to me, or I will hold you here until you do,” she said.

And she would.

Most stubborn person he’d ever met. Part of the allure.

He cast down his face to the dark blue depths of the stone, distorting his reflection, yet it seemed more familiar than the face he saw in the mirror. The blue-tinted mask of glass had changed his features as well, when it had been fused to his features with dreadful magic.

And for a moment, he’d felt the same as when that mask had been set on his face.

“…it was as if I had sunk deep, deep into myself,” he said. “Felt the stone’s surface against my palm. Moving. Slipping. But couldn’t reach my hand, a mist curling around my mind. Making thinking like pushing a weight.”

Familiar, too familiar that feeling, but from another life. He had been imprisoned in a dreadful realm, a shadow cast by this world onto tapestry of existence. Where vile magic pooled and fashioned those imprisoned into hunters. Creatures who could draw more prey into the realm. To feed the cycle of hunter feeding on prey and the realm feeding on the hunters.

Changing, he could remember the distance between himself and his body. Unable to reach himself. And then the mask of glass set over his features. Freezing them in place.

And sinking, tangled in the vile magic, changing him. Until he’d found a way to surface. The memory remained.

He turned his face away from the reflection on the blue stone. Met Watcher’s green eyes, worry in their depths, but she didn’t speak.

She had been there as well, but in a different form. A mermaid of deep seas, glowing scale and long glasslike teeth.

And now a siren. Or he hoped it was her, now reunited after years apart.

“It’s happened before,” he said. “Twice before you came here. I thought it was loneliness and fear of what might become of the last of my days. Gathering magic from starlight. Imprisoned for wrongs I’d done in the first life I can remember.”

But he wasn’t alone anymore, or, imprisoned.

The spells keeping him imprisoned had worn off. The dread realm had drawn him into another, worse prison. His jailers had found the tower empty and let the magic wane or taken what was left.

What might have his jailers thought when they found the prison empty?

Long ago, in the first life he could remember, he’d belonged to a group of mages called the Path of Guiding Light. Trained to become a mage, his element had been water. Usually associated with healing.

But his teacher had wanted him to use his magic as a weapon, ceasing the flow of blood through veins. He had practiced on those imprisoned. The Path of Guiding Light needed assassins, and he might have become one.

But he had gone to the leaders, in his guilt, admitted what he had done. And sent to exile in the North Tower. Of his teacher’s fate, he did not know, but doubtful it was harsh. A fully trained mage was too precious to waste.

An example had to be made. Watcher knew why he was here. Had accepted the first life of three…

When he had been someone he did not wish to be.

But knew little of the dread form the mask fashioned over him.

***

Watcher waited for Veini to continue speaking, but he’d fallen silent. As he often did. She would wait until he felt to speak again.

The amber light the stones filled the room with had always felt unnatural. Though they were filled with starlight, collected by the contraption on the peak of the tower. A strange thing of steel and glass. But the stones changed the light, making it hard on the eyes. It cast sharp shadows against the walls and floor. Even her own was distorted, edges too clear when they should’ve blurred soft.

But the shutters had to stay closed. And there was little light in the sky today, grey with clouds roving fast as fish driven by predator.

The scent of salt lingered in the air, seeping through cracks in the stone. The wind which had sung outside the walls, now whispered. Waves crashed against the stone shore of the island in a soft murmur. Yet all would grow stronger. A storm rose on the horizon. They would both feel it, even within the thick walls of the tower.

They had weathered many storms here. In each other’s arms. Listening to the battering of rain against stone. Lightning flash and sea rise, as if to wash away the tower. And one day it would, when the elements had worn down the walls.

The sea claimed all eventually.

As she would return, to her home south, to Song Cove.

Veini’s thick, dark brows furrowed, and eyes pale blue of a forget-me-not, held hers, though his thoughts were somewhere else. Wide mouth tense, a few times he parted lips to speak, but returned to silence.

The long grey coat he wore seemed to make him fade against the stone walls. Worn thin by time. He stood hunched over, right hand against the dark wooden shelf. Not enough to lean, but to steady himself. Or the sensation of gripping something helped his mind remain here.

She waited, her thoughts turning to the words she wanted to speak. The question worrying her mind.

Her home was far south, in Siren Cove. Not here. With sirens, luring ships to stone, everything which washed ashore was used. Those washed ashore living were killed and butchered for spells. Once it had been any who sailed too close.

Now the villages on the coastline paid for sirens to protect and leave their ships alone. Breaking only ships of raiders and other enemies.

Could Veini live among men and women who lured ships to break on hidden stones and harvested corpse and living alike for spells?

He leaned his head to the side, long brown hair sliding along his face. He shook his head before she could lift a hand to brush the strands aside. Drew a breath of salty air.

“It is nothing,” he said. “I’ve lived with such moments and will continue to live with them. Perhaps they will pass.”

He glanced at the black wooden box with the glass mask, which could change him. He’d taken it out twice after they had met.

Never placed it over his face. Or maybe he had while she was in the embrace of the sea.

His features softened, the corners of his mouth rising slightly. He stepped towards her. Taller than her, yet he hunched over and held himself, so he seemed smaller than he was. Except when he used his magic, then he stood his full height and proud. Commanding his element.

Now he seemed human, without the power of magic.

A weak smile crossed his face. “What is the sea like today?"

Hope on his face. Dark brows arching and head tilted slightly to the side.

He wanted to leave, but…

No.

That was the answer.

The sea was still frost and floe. The traces of a winter storm drew near and though it was little compared to the true fury of storms which crossed the sea. The sky would be white and grey with wet snow. Howl of wind bury voice. And sea batter against stone, anything foolish enough to challenge it.

But storms passed. Mere days. And they would leave for land, a new home.

They would both be safer in Song Cove. The Path of Guiding Light held no power there.

If he could live among sirens.

Days, mere days.

***

The scent of rain lay heavy on the air. Patter striking stone and shutters. Few drops fell from cracks in the shutters, dotting the stone floor. But far away from the books on the shelf. Posing no threat to the old books, which held only knowledge he’d long ago mastered.

Bound in shades of blue for water magic, one in green with lettering worn away for healing magic. Wishes for life that had slipped from his fingers.

But the books had allowed him some escape, pretending he was a student in the Citadel of Light again, studying in the flickering light of a reed candle. The stone floor reminded him of the floor of the cell he’d had in the early days.

He lifted a hand to run fingers over the spine of one worn book. Musty smell of paper and knowledge wafted in the air. Almost disappearing beneath salt and rain. But it was there.

Watcher looked up at the shutters, and a shadow passed over her face. But lingered only for a moment. Light in the depths of her green eyes strengthened as always when she spoke of their element.

The magic of her voice running beneath the words, mingling with excitement. As she spoke, he could almost feel sea in the words, the sharp cold wind and rain.

"A storm rises,” she said. “It will turn the sea to foam and rage. No magic can quell it. We would be fools to leave.”

They should have left during winter. Walked along the ice to shore. Both bound to water, through magic and the very being it felt, could have found a safe route. Or he could create one, guiding rafts of ice.

He had returned from that dread realm alone. And remained so for years.

There had been a calm to the routine of the tower. Until she broke that calm. Trying to steal magic from him. If she’d been anyone else, he would’ve allowed her to steal from the Path of Guiding Light and its mages.

But he’d recognized her. They had met before in another realm and life. One she could not remember. He had returned to himself, while her spirit had set into a new shape.

Followed over frost and floe, as if chasing a common thief. Almost she’d suffered the fate of one. Freezing to death and sinking to dark depths.

He’d carried her to the warmth of the tower.

And told his tale, asked if she might remain until spring. If he was wrong and she wasn’t who he thought she was… he wanted to know her.

“You don’t speak enough of your mind to me,” she said.

“Old thoughts,” he said. “Of an old self.”

She glanced down at the box and then at him, expectant.

He opened the lid. Emptiness stared back at him from a face of smooth glass, tinted a cold shade of blue. The mouth of the skull-shaped mask in rictus grin.

He lifted the mask. Cool to the touch and smooth. A thrill ran up his skin.

There was power in the guise that went beyond his own magic.

Stronger, tiring only when magic within the mask waned and he could feed that magic by draining life.

He moved past Watcher, to the small mirror on the wall. Held the mask between his face and the mirror, a finger’s length away from his face. As he’d done many times before. Gazed at his reflection through the empty sockets.

Memories, fear and strange longing roiled within, but he remained still. Watcher’s intense gaze on him, studying him. He wanted to set it against his features. Change into that being, with strength and teeth.

Slow, regretting, he lowered the mask.

“I am… beginning to feel this face is more mine,” he said. “Than the one distorted by this mask.”

It wasn’t all a lie. Both forms were his. Both were home. Now.

But it had taken time.

He had woken on the floor. Back against the stone floor, the wooden board floor of the second floor sprawling above him. The mask was beside his face. Skin itched, white flakes sloughing off when he scratched or dressed. As if he was shedding some layer. Right-hand palm ached, as if something had pushed at muscle and tendon, and now there was an absence... when he first put on the mask. There was a ring of teeth in his palm, beneath the soft skin. Waiting for the promise of feeding.

A terrifying form, from a dreadful realm. Could she love someone in such a form?

She had once.

He hoped.

***

The large, borrowed coat Watcher had wrapped herself into felt hot. And a barrier. She shook off the thick black wool, folded it and stuck into an empty shelf. Leaving her in a loose linen shift and worn slippers. Cool air blew through the cracks in shutters and between stones, washing away the heat off her skin. For a moment, she reveled in the feeling.

It was not the sea current, but the motion along her skin reminded her of moments in water’s embrace. Where she would return to sooner or later. Again and again.

The wind had risen to a howl outside. Rain battering the wall in constant hollow tapping. The storm near, its cold breath cutting through the tower. There was a familiarity to the sensation. Home. The wind, the cold, the taste of salt all spoke of home. Even the rough stone beneath her feet reminded her of the caves her kin had chosen as dwelling.

She pushed aside her longing for the moment.

Veini had set the mask down on the shelf. Where it grinned back at her, frozen in a moment of grim laughter. There was something about it, which drew eye to run over the too smooth blue tinted surface. Hollow sockets and lipless smile of carved teeth.

She had never touched the mask. Close enough, she could feel magic pooling within the glass. Drawing her, as currents did.

She turned away from the mask. To Veini.

“It is, fragile, the feeling,” he said, pausing for a time. “That, I am home in my skin. I can be at peace, and then, something shifts. There is a distance between my senses and where I end. As if I am shrunken and there is a layer around me. That isn't me.”

She embraced him, careful, feeling for him to suddenly stiffen in fear. But instead, he seemed to relax. Slowly, she ran her hands along his back, then up to his shoulders and down his arms. Drawing his shape.

“This is me, and this is you, where you end and I begin,” she repeated, adding notes to her voice, with little of her magic, to soothe. “You’re here and now. Beneath my hands. Beneath my touch. You might have been someone else—”

He lifted his right hand and looked at down at his palm, memory of horror on his face. “Something else.”

She took his hand between hers, as she’d done before. When she’d found him staring down at his palm.

He’d spoken, of how the glass mask had frozen his features in place. He could not speak or breathe, his lips closed shut by the mask.

His memories clear.

She remembered only glimpses of that other life. Moving water dark as void. Instead of voice, mere gaze and touch had been enough to enchant when she willed it. The memory withering, but she remembered the heady taste of copper. Flowing past sharp teeth.

How different had she been…

Her voice held a hunger. “What was I?”

Veini’s face alight with joy, the words flowing quick and easy.

“You were fearsome,” he said. “We first met, I was weak. Fighting to keep the human I’d… dragged in the realm to feed on.. I left him go, after I began to remember who I am. You swam up to me, through the river. In truth, a wound in the world filled the void in a form one could traverse for a moment. You moved through it as it were water.”

He paused, listening to the crash of waves against the stone shore. Rain now battering stone. The stinging scent of storm on the air, even inside stone.

He pushed a red lock off her face. “You were of water, even then, but different.”

She could remember faintly, moving different through water and over earth. Without legs, instead a tail of a fish, motion not too different. Beginning at hips, up and down, continuing through leg or tail, through water, moving her forwards.

"A mermaid? I remember something.”

His voice deepened. “Of depths, scales glowing to draw prey near. And voice, not as enchanting as now, but alluring. It was your gaze which ensnared then…”

He leaned his face closer to hers.

“I remember some things,” she said. “But if I am not who you think—”

“It’s memories, faint and untrustworthy. I hoped long they were untrue, even as that stared at me,” he said, glancing at the mask. “I wish you are her, then she too would’ve escaped. And we had found each other through distance and time. Sweet thought, that love could bind so, yet… if you are her. You are not the same. I am not the same. We’re beginning anew.”

She could remember speaking words of promise to a man in a grinning skull mask. Holding hands hidden beneath gloves of dark leather. Removing the right-hand one slow and gentle, then kissing each knuckle and speaking the words of promise again.

Then nothing.

As if the memory had been cut in half, everything after that moment lost.

She had loved someone before, across time, distance, and life. Someone who reminded her of him.

She lifted fingertips to his face, trailing, closed her eyes, remembering the feel of his features. Imagined the cool glass between her fingertips and his skin. There were echoes of desire to relieve him of the fear which seemed to stagnate in his mind, as still a pool caught in stone. Of embracing him. She’d fit her mermaid self against him as best she could, then lifted a scaled tail and broad flukes over him. Some sense of protecting him from the dread, blue-tinted world which surrounded both.

The waves, sang of storm, as if each drop of water crashed against another, carried by the motion of the sea. Only to return after caressing the stone shore.

As she would.

Hopefully with him.

***

Was it her song or her touch, but Watcher seemed to draw fear away. Veini held her gentle. Though she felt sturdy in his arms, through the linen shift. He could hold on to her, until the fear passed. If only she remained.

He set his head against her red locks. Soft against his cheek. Drew breaths of her scent, salt still lingering on her hair and skin. Touched by their element. She set her face against his chest. The weight comforting.

She remained there. Listening to the storm, to the song of their element. Loud and fearsome, drumming against walls and raising sea over shore. Wind serenading over the music water made.

"Draw my edges," Watcher said. "Just run your hands over me, like I did."

He knelt before her. Hovered hands over her shoulders. With a hesitating motion, he ran hands over her arms. To her hips, pausing there for a moment, then continuing down along the side of her legs.

"So that's what I’m shaped like," she said.

She closed her eyes. He ran fingers through her hair. Trailed her cheek and then jawline. Then down to the hollow of her throat.

He cupped her chin and ran a thumb over her cheek, a lingering motion. She could feel his gaze, imagine him looking at her. Kindly and with desire. His hand slipped from her chin to the back of her head. The heel of his hand resting against the nape of her neck. Fingers arching gently run along her skin.

A shiver ran up her spine, making her lift her shoulders. She parted her lips and leaned forwards in invite.

For a moment, he hesitated. Then met her lips with his.

First, remaining in touch, unsure. Then he took her lip between his, gently nibbled, the sweet sensation making her sigh against his mouth.

He continued to caress down from the nape to her back. Then raised a hand to run fingers through her hair, fingers spread, running down in a swaying motion...

She set her hands over his upper back, feeling his muscles tense beneath. Pulled him against her, body to body, feeling his shape through the cloth separating them. Feel his chest rise as gasped when she ran her tongue over the arch of his lips. She then mirrored him, nibbling his lips with hers. Grasped the back of his head, keeping him close. Until neither sought the others kiss, instead resting forehead against each other.

She whispered sweet notes to him as he gently swayed her, as if in dance, though both stood still.

Their first kiss in these forms.

“Change for me?” she asked. “I desire to see all of you.”

He froze.

Let go of her slowly and stepped back. She watched him, brightness in the depths of green eyes. Or maybe he remembered. The narrow corners of her lips twitched in an apprehensive smile.

She’d wait. Until he set the mask of glass over his features. Before her gaze.

He turned towards the shelf where the mask waited. Smooth surface, the same cold blue, even though the light of the room was warm amber. Rictus grin of teeth welcoming him back to become something else.

But. The form was his. It might have been set over him by the vile magic gathering in the dread realm. But it was a part of him now. He had used it to survive, and save the few he could who had been drawn into the realm.

The form was his tool, and he’d use it for good in days to come.

She would see.

Perhaps remember the life they shared once

***

The storm raged outside. Futile winds striking against stone, reaching with thin fingers through cracks. The heavy wooden door whined against its hinges. Several of the lights running along the stone wall had dimmed to a dark amber.

Watcher felt the storm reflected in her. Heart beating to the thrum of waves. Wordless, she formed the song of calling a storm, but without voice, no magic. The storm would rage and fall of its own accord.

Veini lifted the mask from the shelf. Pale blue eyes flicked between him and the mask. Then slowly he lifted it.

Paused once with the mask of blue glass a finger’s length from his face.

His chest rose in the last breath he’d take.

He set the mask over his face.

A jolt went through him. He lowered his hand, palm upwards, fingers fanned. The grey coat hung off his frame oddly. He straightened himself to his full height, but somehow stood taller than a moment ago.

Black gloves covered his hands, summoned by magic shaping him. Needle thin teeth rose in rings through the torn glove of his right hand. The light seemed to avoid touching him, making a shadow run along his shape. Thin and barely there.

When he spoke it wasn’t his voice, but low and harsh, followed by an echo of the words in a high distorted voice. The words more in her mind than on air.

“Still me.”

He tilted his head to the side, dark brown hair sliding over the glass mask in the shape of a grinning skull. Only his eyes were alive beneath the glass. Same forget-me-not blue, studying her face.

She stepped forwards. He knelt slightly before her. She ran a hand over the smooth blue surface. Eerily cold beneath her hand. Unlike the cool storm and rain brought. The material seemed to drain more than warmth from her.

“I cannot feel through the mask,” he said.

The voice stirred memories. Little doubt she had known him in this form. Even though her old form and self might be lost to time.

“If I cupped my hands in the rain,” she said. “Until it painted my hands with our element, would you then feel my touch.”

He closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest. “You remember.”

She carefully took his right hand in hers, thumbs resting along the edges. The leather glove felt of this realm, even if magic had woven it.

He opened his eyes, focused on her. “Would you have me in either form?”

“Yes,” she said. Then quick asked. “Both are you.”

And if he would come with her to live in Song Cove, the answer would be always yes. Without question.

But that question did remain. Would he live with harvesters of the sea?

“I’ve told you of my kind, the sirens,” she said. “We sing ships to break on stone. Everything which washes ashore is used. The dead are used for magic. Those who live are imprisoned with song.”

Few did. The sea was quick to claim life when roused by siren’s song. They could summon storm, or cold or incite hunger in sea, so it swallowed those in its embrace. The more sang, the greater the magic.

A lone siren was easy prey to those who feared her kind.

Veini gazed at her, head tilted to the side. Dark brown hair falling over the smooth mask of blue-tinted glass. Only his eyes, pale blue as forget-me-not, seemed alive. Studying her features.

His voice echoed in her mind, low and harsh, then followed by a higher pitched distorted voice. Unnerving and familiar at once.

“You’re protecting your home and others,” he said. “I would be proud to add my strength to yours.”

He couldn’t. The song would bespell him as well. Unless this form protected him. But that was not what she wanted from him. “I await introducing you to my family. They are not afraid of magical, born of light or shadow.”

***

The storm had left strands of seaweed on the shore which the raucous birds pecked at.

Veini walked around the North Tower, head tilted back, gazing up at the weather worn grey stones forming his former prison. The storm had left its mark on the rising tower, as it always did. Sea spray reaching over smooth shore of rock to caress the walls, which knew only touch of wind.

The sun’s rays broke through the clouds now and then, painting the grey tower gold for brief moments. The streaks rain had drawn on the curving surface glowed. The air tasted fresh, as it only did after a storm washed away the old air.

A gust blew from the north, carrying the last breath of winter. He pulled the thick, black woolen coat tighter around himself. When Watcher returned, he would wrap her in the coat.

She had gone to the sea to hunt.

Tired of the stale rations, dry bread, and salted fish. She would’ve rather eaten fish raw, as a bear would. When he had asked, she had assured him the siren cooked their meals. She was just hungry.

Behind him, the seagulls cried out in alarm. Beating their wings to flee something.

Veini glanced at the curving wall of the tower. He had found nothing that required repair. He wouldn’t have to use up magic he’d collected to mend a stone.

He turned around to see what had spooked the birds.

The deep blue sea spread before him from the rocky shore of the island. Frost and floe torn away by storm. Leaving behind only the rolling velvet blue and white foam heads. Waves met shore, breaking to white lace and withdrawing.

Watcher rose from the sea. Red locks coiling in rings to her angular features. The linen dress clinging to her shape. Leaving little to memory. Her arms wide and two large fish hanging from her hands and a third in her mouth. She grabbed the fish from her mouth and grinned.

“I brought dinner!” she called over the murmur of waves.

Veini laughed at the sight.

She lifted the fish higher, the pride of a hunter in her green eyes and her lips parting into a grin. “Show me how to make something of these unless you want to eat them like a predator.”

She glanced at his right hand. Then walked past him towards the heavy door. She and the fish dripped water.

He raised his brows and spoke in a mocking tone. “You want to spend magic on cooking fish?”

“We’re leaving in a few days. The sea is calm enough,” she called without looking back.

Then stopped. Turned around and waited until his long strides brought him next to her. Eyes bright with joy, she grinned up at him. He ran a hand over her arm. Her skin cold and her muscles felt taut from the hunt through sea. He moved his hand down to take the fish from her, but she jerked her hand away.

“They are my fish. You are not touching them,” she said. Then added, “I hunted them.”

She chortled. The false annoyance disappearing from her face.

He took his thick woolen coat and placed it over her shoulders. Drew it around her. Then went to the thick door and pushed it open. The door creaked quietly, the sound almost lost beneath the soft song of the sea and wind.

Watcher hurried past him and inside the North Tower. He remained still for a moment in the doorway, gazing at the sea and horizon where it met. Grey clouds breaking to reveal rays of sunlight which scattered across the sea’s surface. Then back inside the tower. Where the same sunlight spilled through unshuttered windows. Giving the tower a warmth, magic could not.

He’d leave both soon, sea and tower. The place where he’d spend many lonely years. Never home, but a part of him might long to visit here. As a part of him longed for those moments he’d had with Watcher in another life.

But that was past. He could visit in memories, share them, with her.

Home was with her.

There was no question left.

#short story #my stories #fantasy story #Siren #Mentions of bodyhorror #Romantic elements

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