spines to light the deep they walk (1a)
The ocean is unforgiving. You had known this, of course, by the abstraction of Papa’s ship creaking in storms, but you hadn’t known it until your tiny dinghy had capsized and knocked you upside the head.
When you wake, you wonder if it had been a nightmare, because your boat is upright and the sun scorches your face. You sit up and immediately spot a white-haired boy sitting on the prow of your boat, bare-chested, snacking happily with too-sharp teeth on a raw fish.
He throws himself overboard at your shriek, prompting another shout from you. “Wait!”
But he doesn’t come back, at least not then, and as time passes you wonder if he hadn’t been part of your dreams, a night terror fleeing from the light of day.
(warnings for out-of-focus Sketchy Siren Shtuff, because seriously, they are alien and weird and more than a little bit Yikes.)
i know, i know, i’ve already posted chapter 1, but it’s been like a year since i wrote it and considerable edits have been made to better stitch it to the next chapter, so i wanted to post the updated version here on tumblr. (also, i wanted to make it more readable, so i’m splitting into parts. chapter one in its full edited glory can be found on ao3, if you don’t feel like waiting for monday to read everything.)
still written for @redphlox, who has a siren au of her own that you can find here ♥
[ 1a | 1b | 1c | 1d ] [ 2a | 2b | 2c | 2d ]
You are jealous. The human is yours, not the ocean’s, so when the above throws her from her little island, you drag her back onto the wooden contraption and watch to ensure that she does not slip fatally into the ocean. Once the above has calmed, you right the human’s island, catch yourself a snack, and pull yourself up into the above to wait for her to wake.
When she does, though, it is with an otherworldly screech that sends you into panicked flight.
So you try once more to sing her from the above, as you have been ever since you found her, but as before she doesn’t come to your call. Frustrating. Does this human have no ears? Maybe that’s how she put up with that awful sound she had chased you away with.
You should just leave, should just find another human to be your thrall. The islands of humans are not hard to find: the ocean carries news of their passing for leagues in the currents. Still, this one fascinates you: you’ve never seen a human alone in the above before, nor have you ever heard of one resisting the song of your kind.
(You do not think to wonder if your song is as other as the rest of you.)
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