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part i. captivate—first note
Imagine this: a girl, staring at the horizon. She hums an ancient sea shanty, and wonders where her adventure will come for her. The ocean sways, frothing white foam churned in the violent swirling of the waters, and it reminds her of the beasts that lay within its depths, ready to kill, ready to bite.
The sea is beautiful, but it is also dreadful. This is the mantra the whole village repeats under their breath whenever a storm passes, and what all the fishermen whisper under their breaths when they return to the small seaside village. The stories of the sea are beautiful too, with their rainbows and corals and seashells—but their beauty too, like the sea, belies a dangerous world beneath the surface.
They say that the sirens were the most deadly sea creature of them all. Not for their inhumane beauty, nor their lightning-quick speed in the waters—but for their song. If there is a beginning at one note, then the end is at the next. Two beats is all it takes for a man weak of heart to throw himself overboard, limbs locked into place, lured to their drowning.
They say the men sink into the ocean with the happiest smile they’d ever make.
Do not be swayed by their songs, she’s been told, over and over again. Do not let them see you. Do not let them catch you—
And most importantly: do not let yourself go.
This girl’s name is Lumine, and she is tired. Tired of this dreary town and its dreary people. Tired of the same old routine and same old stories. Lumine is bored. Lumine is tired of boredom.
: : :
(Imagine this: a girl, staring at the horizon—and something stares back.)
: : :
“Going to the shore again, sister?” Aether says, rolling his eyes.
Lumine harrumphs. “What else is there to do in this place?” she says in disgust, dusting off the imaginary specks off of her dress. “It’s not as if I’m allowed to come with you on your journeys to the mainland. Rest while you’re able, Aether, and let me have my freedom.”
“But you’d better stick to learning how to weave,” Aether scolds.The sea breeze sweeps across his bangs, soft murmurs of the roiling sea. “What was it that she said…” Aether scrunches up his face, adopting a high-pitched imitation of their mother, and wags his fingers. “‘I’d better not find you slacking off again while I’m gone at the market, young lady! At the rate of your shoddy weaving, by the time you become of age, no one would ever marry you!’ Yes, I think that was it.”
Lumine shoves her shoulders against him. “Shut up. You talk too much.”
“Hey!” Aether protests, “And here I thought I sounded spot-on.”
“You sounded more like an idiot,” she says.
“Better not let Mother hear you say that,” Aether says with a pout. “Are you really going to leave?”
“I’ll be back before her return. You know how late she comes back. She loves to gossip with the other women at the market. Besides… I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”
Aether grins. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Depends on how nicely you beg me, sister dearest.”
Lumine is the one to roll her eyes at her brother this time, and with a quick flick of her wrist, she tugs at the ends of Aether’s braid. Her reward is a worn yellow ribbon wrapped around her index finger as his hair comes undone, as well as the annoyed expression that flits across Aether’s face.
“The only weaving to be done here is for your hair,” Lumine says breezily, tossing the ribbon over her shoulder as she walks away from him, knowing he would catch it. “You always were good at braiding. So who knows? Perhaps you’ll make the better wife, brother dearest.”
: : :
Lumine hums as she sits on a rock by the shore. The sun has begun its journey into the cradle of the ocean, and soon she must return home. But until then, she lets herself relax, palms flattened against the rocky surface as she loses herself in the daydreams brought about by the salty sea breeze. Then, in the distance, two aqua-green orbs blink into existence against the dusky horizon, like candlefire—if the candlefire could be teal instead of orange.
“What in the world…” Lumine murmurs, squinting in an attempt to make out the mysterious lights. And then, a head pops out of the deep waters. Midnight-blue strands snag on the glow of the sunset.
A boy. A creature. A myth.
Lumine gasps and tumbles off the rock. The beach catches her fallen body, graceless pile of limbs spraying sand everywhere. When she whips her head toward the horizon, arms scrambling to upright herself, there’s nothing but the deep waters.
Lumine blinks. Rubs her eyes, and looks again.
There’s nothing except the waves.
He’s gone.
: : :
There is a boy, staring at the shore—and something stares back. It shimmers in the dying sunset, golden strands flying in the breeze. Wild and free, like starlight, like the sea itself.
A girl.
And she is humming.
His head throbs. His teeth ache—want. A sudden emotion seizes him, rendering him unable to move. His tail, his arms, all of it is stuck in stasis, as if the very ocean itself has been frozen, with him caught in its embrace.
When she gasps, he gasps too. With the sound, frozen blood thaws and begins flowing again. The sea roars in his ears, demanding his attention. Too afraid of the implications that the girl has brought into his life, the boy flees, both of his hearts stuttering and arrhythmic.
All of a sudden, the sea seems too, too wide for him. He swims back to his coral reef, an acute loneliness in his throat, aching to be sung aloud.
: : :
Imagine this: a girl, listening to the sea.
Do not be swayed by their songs. Do not let yourself go, they say, and Lumine will not. Truly. Even if she’s returned here to the same rock the next night, snuck out of the house while her brother and mother and father lay sleeping. She wanted to see whether the boy was merely a figment of her imagination. However, there is still no compulsion to walk toward the shore, to give herself up to the sea.
Even if the boy's voice is more lovely than anything she could ever imagine.
The resonance of his voice is an unfamiliar melody, catching on the vibration of the air, crisp even though it should be muffled by distance and the waves. The words, if there are even any to begin with, are not anything she understands.
But it’s beautiful nevertheless, plucking at some string inside of her, a numb sensation spreading through her veins. For a second, one glorious second, Lumine feels anticipation instead of boredom. The sensation is thrilling, a jolt of lightning down her spine. Lumine shivers.
The boy keeps singing, and Lumine watches and listens. She does not move. Against the vast emptiness of the sea, he is but a mere glowing dot of blue-green. And then, when the song comes to an end, a crooning note stretched over what feels like thousands of years, he disappears with a flick of his aquamarine-scaled tail against rippled waters.
Lumine blinks. Takes one step toward the shore.
Stops.
: : :
(Imagine this: a boy, singing to a girl.
There is magic in the air, and he hopes she hears.
He hopes she will come.)
: : :
: : :
: : :
part ii. cast—songs in water
Imagine this: a girl, standing on the shore, barefoot. She’s been sneaking out of her house every night, the midnight wind whistling in her ears as she sprints for the sea—but never to swim in. Only to look.
There’s no foreign compulsion at play, no magic that’s working on her. It is curiosity and purely that, Lumine decides. Because a siren so close to a human establishment is strange and wondrous and deserves to be documented. Her heart beats faster and faster in anticipation, excitement like nothing she’s ever experienced.
Nothing in this dreary little town had ever appealed to her the same way that the strange siren boy has.
With each successive night, with each successive song, her apprehension in approaching the siren fades.
It happens like this: one step forward yesterday, another today, and then another tomorrow. Night by night, step by step, Lumine’s feet carry her toward the boy—until the waves lap at her bare feet. Until she moves no further.
His eyes are glittering emeralds in the darkness. He won’t approach her, she knows. He can’t. The shorelines were too shallow for that, and this beach is not a place where boats can come to dock. It is not a place where sirens can come to rest, without permanently finding home on land.
So they are stuck in this stalemate. Lumine refuses to take another step forward, and he does not—cannot—swim closer.
“I won’t come any closer, siren,” she whispers, shaking her head. “I can’t. You’ll pull me under, and I have no wish to return to the sea so soon. You're beautiful and fascinating and exciting—but I know the stories.”
Lumine won’t be pulled in, won’t let herself, but still he sings. For her, she knows, for he only waits until her arrival before haunting melodies are carried by the sea breeze toward her.
Quiet, but somehow it rings in her ears, loud as any choir. A song in an unknown language, sounds she can never quite replicate the same way on her tongue, when she whispered it in the bright of day as she laboured over her usual chores—cacophony in her attempt instead of euphony, as if she were missing a vital organ needed to produce the airy sound. Lumine had pored over the puzzle his voice presented, had searched stories both written and spoken, and had ultimately come up with nothing.
It’s not as if anyone had truly met a siren before; not returned from such a meeting, at least.
They say that a bird needs a special organ to sing. A syrinx. Lumine wonders if sirens had something similar. Or maybe it was just magic, plain and simple, after all.
Lumine hadn’t believed in magic before this. But she can't stop thinking about him. Can't stop how his voice plucks at her, heartstrings tugged between his teeth in some dark enchantment that has her spellbound.
Or at least, she thinks he has teeth; she’s never sure of anything when it comes to this mysterious creature, too beautiful to be worldly.
His songs too, though Lumine swears she can hear the emotions behind them. Quick, light notes: happy that she arrives. Slow, languid notes: sad that she leaves.Playful, resentful, and all the shades in between. It almost hurts, when he had sung as if wounded. She had even sighed at the sound of it. Are you sad, siren? Are you also tired of this boring world like I am?
“I wish…” she murmurs.
But no. She forces herself to listen with a careful ear as his plaintive cries dies down in her ears, as he dives back into the ocean. A flash of the shimmering scales on his tail before the black waters swallow him, leaving nothing behind.
What did he feel at her inaction? Anger, disappointment, or frustration?
Will he ever tire of her, and then leave to never return?
Will he then forget about the girl he sang to? And how long before he does?
All these questions swirl in Lumine’s brain, as she stares into the horizon. The moon hangs in the waters, shaking with each ripple.
No answers in the whistling wind.
No answers tomorrow night either. Lumine comes to a running stop at the lapping shores. Not songs to greet her. No siren.
The answer was found in whistling wind after all, when it is all that Lumine hears as she stares wide-eyed into the black waters...
With no trace of emerald eyes anywhere.
: : :
“Lumine…” The voices fade in and out, washed out against the too-thunderous sea, even though she’s nowhere close to shore. “Daughter… Are you listening—Lumine!”
The girl starts, the thread in her hand clenched so tight her knuckles hurt. She blinks. Right. Her name is Lumine, and she’s at home, praticing weaving. weaving Her mother stares at her from the doorway, thin lips twisted into a disapproving frown.
“Daughter,” her mother begins, eyes sharp, “you need to keep your mind focused as you weave. Focused, not off daydreaming like you always do. Look at the patterns you’ve made, and how scattered it is! I can't even begin to guess at what it is!”
“Sorry,” Lumine mumbles, looking down at her handiwork—and her mother’s right. It’s a swirl of strange colours, no pattern at all to the way differently coloured threads weave in and out the cloth. She sweeps her fingertips over the fingers, trying to find meaning where none exists, all sharp unfinished lines. “It won’t happen, again, Mother.”
Mother softens, her pinched face finally slacking into soft sympathy. “I know, Lumine. I know you want to be out there with your brother.” Lumine looks away, knowing all the words but still hurting all the same anyway. “But the sea is dangerous for women, let alone just a girl. Best that you stay home and accompany your mother.”
“To what, Mother?” Lumine whispers. “What do I do at home, except to cook and clean and weave?”
“But that’s all you need, darling daughter,” her mother says, nodding in agreement with her own words. “After all, these are all things that are the hallmark of a good wife. Now go back to your weaving, girl, and try to see if you can salvage your mistakes.”
But what if I don’t want to be a wife, Mother? What if I want to be more than that? What if I want to explore the open sea, taste the salt of the ocean breeze on my tongue, scout the unknown with my eyes?
“Okay, Mother,” Lumine says dully, listening as her mother leaves in soft footsteps, her back seeming impossibly small. Lumine doesn’t want to be as contained as her mother, small and unassuming. Lumine wants to be as wide as the ocean, as free as the wind. Lumine wants to be bold.
When she returns her eyes to the loom, Lumine furrows her brows. “Huh,” she whispers, stroking over the pattern with the back of her hand. “How about that?”
The chaotic mess she’d first dismissed now comes clearly to her—it’s the tip of a siren’s tail.
: : :
(Imagine this: a boy, singing until his throat hurts, for a girl who remains unmoved.
Night after night, he returns to the same exact waters as the first night they met. She must be here for him, he knows, for he sees how she runs—pattering feet rushing toward the shoreline. The swift return of the tides to the boundless sea after swelling toward land.
But to his disappointment, the girl does not stray from said land. Her body remains planted to the earth, still appendages. Legs, they were supposedly called. He thinks them beautiful, in some strange fascination.
Not scaled like the tails of his brethren, of all manners of colour in the rainbow. They’re almost stick-like, normally hideous in other humans, but he likes hers. Likes to stare at how the strange fabrics are swathed around pale skin when she wades into shallow waves.
And likes to imagine his sharp teeth catching on tender flesh, fresh blood seeping into cold waters.
But he always shakes his head at the thought. He likes her even more when whole. He likes her with her hair down, the wind tousling the fabric she’s draped herself in. He likes her with her clear golden eyes, and he likes her with her
No one would ever call the sirens merciful—but he could be. For her, he would.
If only she would come closer, so he could show her. He laments at the deadlock between him and her.
Were his songs not melodic enough? Was his voice not enchanting enough? Is that why she stays away? He almost cried at the thought, that he was somehow inadequate in his human’s eyes. That he was lacking. Did she not realize that his glossy scales, aquamarine blue and green, were among the most cherished of all the sirens? That his songs were considered the best of all the creatures under the sea?
He wishes she wanted him as much as he did her.
But he keeps trying. Keeps returning. A golden thin line of her hair wrapped around his neck, strangling him. Tugged toward her, as if spellbound. He sings and sings and sings until his throat is raw and sore, with nothing to show for it except distant, stolen glances of her.
Then, one day, as the crescendo of his grieving song swells between them—always lament in his songs these days—he hears it: a sigh. Just a flutter, barely carried to him in the sea breeze.
But it sinks into his ears, as if begging to be heard.
Oh. She’s moved. The boy tilts his head.
And smiles.
.
.
.
Because no matter what the boy thinks of his nature, no one would ever call the sirens merciful—and always for good reason.)
: : :
: : :
: : :
part iii. lure—scintillating scale
Imagine this: a girl, racing along the shores to the occasional flicker of emerald scales that dipped out of the sea, bathed in moonlight.
Her rabbit-fast heartbeat is thumping, thumping, thumping, as she chases his figure from the safety of solid ground.
“He came back,” she whispers, pumping her legs faster, faster. “He came back!”
: : :
Indeed, for a week, the siren never came back to meet her again. Night after night, Lumine returns to the silence of the dark night—until tonight.
No song, but she sees his face bobbing in the waters, still that green luminescence of his eyes boring into her. She gasps, and he dives. And then comes up for air again, a bit further right along the shoreline.
He repeats the movement, always coming up for air to stare at her.
“Do you want me to follow?” she murmurs, adrenaline surging in her veins at the thought. Will he disappear forever if she doesn’t? It’s not as if she would be walking into the ocean, Lumine comforts herself. Perhaps it’s just a game. Hide and seek. Tag without tagging.
So when he swims, she runs, afraid of losing him to the sea once more.
He leads her on a winding journey along the coast, only the beating of her heart in her ears. The siren swims in water with nary a disturbed wave in still waters, silence only broken by the splash of each time he resurfaces—as if to check she’s still there.
The earth under her shoes, Lumine sprints like the wind possessed, wondering where he’s leading her. Wondering if she should really be chasing after him like this. But when she slows down, gasping for breath at the way her lungs are burning, he sings.
Just a small little note, as if cajoling her. Comforting her.
An unknown language, but Lumine thinks she understands. Come, he says. Follow me. Please.
The note reverberates in her frame, and with one last deep inhale as she clutches at her chest, Lumine bolts forward.
The end of their journey is at the docks. Small fishing boats, the slightest of sway as they rested near the roughly cobbled together wooden boards that made up the sidewalk on top of the waters. Lumine has been here before to welcome the fishermen home, her father included.
But now, she’s here to welcome the siren instead. At the end of the piers, Lumine comes to a running stop, almost toppling over into the black waters as her arms flail to rebalance her body. She gasps, before finally managing to regain control of her limbs.
Palms and legs touch wood as she kneels down, peering down into the waters. Silence. She tilts her head. She had followed him for the entire route, she’s sure of it. She had seen his eyes, always staring back at her when she looked to him. Where was he—
With a pop, he surges up, parting the depths as he surfaces. Water splashes onto her face and fingers, and Lumine reels back at the sudden wetness.
“Hey!” she complains, wiping off the droplets from her face.
The siren makes a noise from the back of his throat. When Lumine looks at him, he’s grinning. Green eyes glimmering in amusement.
Lumine narrows her eyes. “Are you laughing at me?” she huffs. “It wasn’t very funny.”
He quirks his head, but his grin doesn’t leave. On the contrary, it widens, and Lumine catches a glimpse of white in his mouth. Seems sirens had sharp teeth.
“Why did you call me here then?” Lumine asks boldly, even as she scoots back away from him, just barely out of his reach.
He hums, that smile still on his face. Sparkling gem-like eyes drinking her in, as if trying to memorize the shape of her against the darkness. Lumine’s eyes wander across his face, finally having the chance to get a good look at him.
There’s a seashell tucked neatly above his braids, the tips of which glowed softly as they bobbed around in the water. And along his naked skin—for he wore nothing to cover himself like all the men in Lumine’s village did—winding green markings, also that same muted luminescence.
His light reminded Lumine of a jellyfish, a warning against predators. Or perhaps it was more for attracting hapless humans lost at sea.
He remains still while Lumine observes him, though he does open his mouth to chirp something that Lumine cannot understand. It’s a language of the lungs, airy breaths tapering off in a high-pitched whine.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she informs him.
He makes a louder noise this time. More urgent.
Lumine tries again. “Do you understand human speech?” She points to her ears and shakes her head. Shrugs and says slowly, “I. Don’t. Know.”
He raises his arms from under the water, the rippling of waves echoing in the quiet around them, and Lumine flinches. Staggers back, pushes herself even further away from him, for fear of his fingers latching onto her wrists and dragging her into the depths.
But no. He unfurls his fingers slowly, exposing his palms—and in them, something that glitters like the stars.
A pure white shell. Tiny but perfectly sculpted, he holds it out to her. Yours, the shell tells her. It glints in the night, moonlight caught at its edges. Take it.
Lumine doesn’t. Instead, she studies him carefully. Gaze sliding over the markings encircling his arms, a graceful trail of colour that branches out into mysterious patterns, whirls like the sea when it rages.
“Are you here to steal me away like all the myths say?” she asks offhandedly. “Are you here to drag me into the sea?”
At her words, he shakes his head. He opens his mouth and breathes out, tongue brushing against his teeth. “Noooo,” he enunciates, flick of tongue against his lips as he furrows his brows in concentration. The lustrous scales of his tail slap against the water, impatient. “No.”
The sound of it is like a babble, of a baby learning its first words, twisted, unfamiliar syllables on leaden tongue. But she understood it.
“Good,” Lumine warns. “Because I won’t let you.”
He smiles at that, showing off the rows of his sharp teeth. “You,” he says again, to her ears, sounding strangely happy. Thrusts his palms into air, toward her direction. “You!”
“What about me?” Lumine asks, amused. “Are you giving this shell to me? What did I do to deserve it?”
He pauses at that, tilts his head. Breaks into soft laughter at her words, and he says, “Pre-tty.”
“The shell?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You. Pre-tty,” he says slowly, staccato syllables. His eyes wide open, painfully honest.
Lumine freezes. Wipes her trembling hands on the ruffles of her dress, and swallows. The scrape of raw flesh as she does so, lump in her throat at his praise. People have complimented her looks before, but never so earnestly. “Me?”
He nods. “You. Pretty,” he agrees. Looks up the skies, and Lumine follows him. The starlights blink back. “Star,” he says, eyes sliding back to her. “Pretty.”
Lumine can’t help but laugh, stomach fluttering all the while. To have such a beautiful creature give her such a compliment is a rush in the veins. “Thank you,” she says shyly.
The siren murmurs something in that strange language of his, and, eyes never quite leaving hers, holds the shell up to her again. As though he were a worshipper at a statue, offering a sacrifice to placate some angry ocean goddess.
“All right,” Lumine tells herself. “All right.” With a hitch in her breathing, Lumine finally, cautiously, stretches out her fingers. Settles it into his palms, warm skin to cool skin, and he shivers at her touch.
Lumine glances at him, leg muscles tense in preparation for resistance. Waiting for him to pull her in.
But he does nothing except blink. And wait.
Lumine smiles. Finally plucks the shell from his open hands. He makes an agreeable noise, making a sudden descent into the waters. Twists his body in some strange dance, before resurfacing. This time less intense than the first, so the waters only splash her fingertips.
“Pretty,” she murmurs, placing it up against the moon. Limestone white in her palms, but there’s an iridescence to it that shimmers under the moonlight, turning it teal. She tucks it away into the front pocket of her dress and feels the steady weight of it against her. The heaviness feels right, somehow.
“What’s your name?” she asks. “Do you have a name?”
He opens his mouth, a flurry of flowing noises that she can’t decipher, like the trickle of creek over pebbles.
“I…” She frowns. Tries to mimic his voice but ends up in harsh, garbled sounds. “I don’t know how to say that.”
With another slap of his tail against the water, he opens his mouth and repeats something, before settling on something that sounds relatively human-like to Lumine. “’Tiii,” he says carefully. “Veeeen-tii. Venti.”
“Venti,” she tests. “Venti?”
He nods eagerly, giving her a wide grin, red lips stretched against white teeth. “You?” he says, pointing at her.
“Lumine,” she whispers. “I’m Lumine.”
“Lu-mine,” he says, the slightest song in the cadence. Breathless in the pronunciation, and Lumine thinks he’s shaking. Her name, sighed as he repeats, “Lumine.”
“Yes.” Lumine sits back on her legs, feeling equally shaken. He looks at her, lips curling in a beatific smile. The lull of the tides breaking upon shore filters into her ears from behind her. The landscape sounds too empty. “Will you…” She hesitates. “Will you sing for me?”
He laughs and nods, eyes crinkling. Soon enough, eerily beautiful notes ring into the night. Plucks at something deep inside her, each note resonating. Lumine closes her eyes and exhales. Lets the crooning harmony of his siren song lull her mind into serenity.
: : :
(Imagine this: a boy, making his offerings to a girl. Always, they are accompanied by his song, drifting into her ears, seeping into her skin.
It starts with little things. A moon-white shell, to match the one tucked into his hair. A branch of coral, snapped from his home. A never-dying water lily, to replace the pale flower already tucked into her hair. Traces of him, he gives to her, so that she remembers him every time the flower in her hair sways.
Then bigger things. Shinier things. An emerald gem, to match his emerald eyes. A golden pearl, to match her golden eyes. A necklace here, an earring there. Before, it had been him professing his affection for her solely, palms held up with his gift. But now, it is her who is reaching out, her own palms held up in acceptance. Now, it is Lumine who seeks his affection, and Venti who carefully folds trinkets into her hand.
She accepts them all, though some of them with a little more opposition.
"They're too precious for me," she'd said. "Too valuable. Where did you even get them?"
He'd shaken his head and cried, "No, no. You must."
Because for the price of his name on her lips, nothing is.
Venti, she calls him. A human version of his true name—one of them, at least—but he cherishes its sound nevertheless
She does not know it, but he has rejected thousands of similar pretty trinkets before to make sure they match the exact shades of his and her eyes. Collected from ancient and not-so-ancient shipwrecks, plucked from the flesh and bones of dead men who’ve fallen to his songs before—
All so that he may crown her in gold and emeralds. In the colours of him and her, intertwined.
However, to his disappointment, when she comes running to meet him at the docks, she never wears his flashier gifts. Only his shell or his flower.
“Too noticeable,” she protested with a laugh when he asked with clumsy words. A confused tilt of the head. “Everyone will know!”
But isn’t that the point of it, Venti had wanted to object. Isn’t that the point, Lumine?
He’d shrugged instead. Slightly put out, but sooner or later, she’ll be wholly his. Even without the gifts to show it as such, she’s still his.
Even without pulling her into the waters, she’s still his.
There is a reason she followed him. In the nights without him, she must have longed for his songs. Must have realized she wants him—must have been afraid of losing him once more. He’s become something vital, song pierced and sunk into her heart, harpoon to flesh. She just hasn’t accepted it yet.
I won't let you drag me into the sea, she'd said, and he'd laughed at her stubbornness, but also the truth in those words. He will not drag her into anything. Why would he? Venti does not want her unwilling, does not want her to be anything but wholly herself when she comes to him. Everything she chooses will be of her own volition.
A little siren tug at the edges of her mind, perhaps, but only amplifications of what was already there, to tear down the innate barriers she’s erected to prevent herself from reaching for her desires. His song is nothing that would influence her decision. It could, you see, but it won’t. Because Venti will have her choose, whatever it may be—though Venti knows she will choose him.
There is only him, at the end of Lumine’s path. She’s a creature of the sea too. He knows it to be true, from the way she gazes at the ocean, curiosity and longing brimming in the golden starlight of her eyes. And she smells nothing like the human pollution, of smoke and earth, but of the ocean breeze instead.
It’s in her blood, that Lumine is the sea’s—and that means she’s Venti’s too. That means she deserves all the riches the sea has to offer, including himself.
So when she’d requested that he no longer bring her gifts—he’d protested and protested, but she’d shaken her head and told him, I’d rather your songs than any gold, Venti, and he’d been so pleased he agreed—Venti still insists on one final treasure. It is the one he had saved for last. A scale, plucked from his tail. The biggest, shiniest one. The freshest one. The one that made him bleed for days and days after the fact, red permeating the dark waters that she could not see into. A betrothal gift. But it was worth it, because this gift, she takes with reverence. The lightest of touch as she brushes up against him, but he revels in it all the same. Her warmth always sends some pleasant shiver down his spine, cold-blooded creature that he is.
“Beautiful,” she murmurs, eyes never leaving its iridescence, and he allows himself to preen at the praise. It was comforting to know she found him pleasing for more than just his songs. And this gift, she keeps on her person at all times. He feels it, the aura of his scale as it’s tucked away in the cloth pocket right above her breast. Right above her sole human heart.
Lumine presses her fingers to it every time he sings.
Someday, Venti hopes she would press her fingers to him instead. To the place right above where his two hearts rest, both of them thumping to the rhythm of her breathing.
Perhaps then, she will understand. Perhaps then, she will be ready.
But for now, he waits. For now, he sings and sings and sings, and prepares her for the ocean’s embrace.)
: : :
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part iv. caught—hooked heart
Imagine this: a girl, standing at the piers, rope in hand. Venti tilts his head and blinks. “What is the purpose of the… brown seaweed?”
“It’s a rope. A little safety precaution,” Lumine says with a smile, though her voice can’t keep out the slight tinge of wariness. “Just in case. You’re a very beautiful creature, Venti, but you’re also quite deadly, aren’t you?”
Venti had smiled that wide grin of his, all teeth and lips, turquoise eyes a mischievous light in the dark. The waters lap at his skin, glowing marks wobbling under transparent water. “Am I?” he laughs, a slap of his tail against water, sending sprinkles onto the wooden planks. His human speech has been getting better and better, ever since she’d been regularly talking with him. “You think this of me, after all this time? I am… wounded.”
“All the stories certainly say so,” Lumine says nonchalantly, as she winds the rope around her, finished off with a firm knot. And on the other end of the rope, she does the same, only this time wrapping it around a piling of the dock, the wooden beam enveloped by the curling straw rope. Lumine lifts her dress and sits down at the end of the docks. Slips off her flats and wiggles her toes against the quiet wind. Venti stares at her feet with sparkling fascination. He doesn’t reach out to touch her—but it certainly looks like she wants to.
And then, her heart thudding in her chest, eyes never off of Venti, Lumine inches her feet down, down, down, draping the ends of the planks with her legs, just until the tip of her toe contacts water. It’s cool to the touch, and Venti stares back at her, his gaze a heavy weight on her body.
But he doesn’t move. Lumine presses her hand to her heart and sinks her feet into the water, gentle waves lapping at her heel. The test today is whether he’ll take advantage of her vulnerability.
She looks at him cooly. Venti hums, eyes amused, still in the same spot.
“Are you expecting something?” Venti asks, a sing-song lilt to his question. “What do you want from me, Lumine? Tell me, tell me, and I will give it to you.”
Lumine swallows. “I don’t want anything,” she says. To be more precise, she doesn’t know what she even wants in the first place.
“I think you do,” he says, and his eyes drift to her legs again, how she’s swinging her feet in the swirling waters. “All humans want something. Sirens can hear it in the heartbeat.”
“Is that how you lure us to our deaths?”
Venti smiles again, that knowing little grin, peek of fangs. “Yes. Our songs appeal to what they desire. So, what do you desire, Lumine?” he says, a low croon.
She ignores his questions. "Then once they come to you, you devour them,” Lumine says flatly. “Is that what’ll happen to me if I were to take off my rope and jump into this water? Will you pull me under and drown me, Venti? Feast on my flesh?”
The siren makes a trill, a sad, drawn-out sound. “Death is not for you, Lumine,” he says, as if mourning at the thought. “Never. I promise, so long as the sea sings, you will suffer no harm from me.”
Lumine narrows her eyes. “Have you done the same to others then?”
“Does it matter, Lumine?” Venti says breezily. “After all, it will never happen to your person.” And then he swims a little closer, curling a finger at her, beckoning her close. Lumine stares, and he says, “Also… I have a secret to tell you.”
A creature is a creature, through and through, isn’t it? Lumine swishes the water around, staring into its dark depths. Above them, the moon hangs, its reflection swaying around Lumine’s ankles. Okay, she thinks. I can risk it.
Because isn’t that how you feel excitement? That rush of adrenaline in your veins as you plunge headfirst into danger?
So Lumine dips her head, until her ears are just barely touching Venti’s head. The thud in her chest is making her tremble. “What is your secret, then?”
Venti hums and then whispers, “My secret is that…”
“Yes?” Lumine whispers back, the caress of cool air from his mouth tickling her ear.
“I do not even like the taste of human flesh. It tastes like smoke and tar.” Venti pulls a face. “Not good at all.”
Lumine lifts her head up and rolls her eyes. “How special of you,” she says dryly. “I should give you an award.”
Venti laughs. Dips in and out of the water, swirling himself around. Face earnest, he asks, “Do you feel a bit safer now, Lumine? Shall I sing for you now? There are so many stories of the deep sea that you humans do not know. You would enjoy them.”
Lumine rests her hands in her laps, considering his question. He hadn’t attacked her, nor tried to pull her under. In fact, he hadn’t even touched her—and she saw his eyes lingering at her feet. He wanted to touch her, surely.
But he held back.
So Lumine sinks her legs a little deeper into the waters, and says, “Yes. I’d like to hear you sing. Tell me a story, Venti.”
: : :
In human words, Venti sings a story for Lumine, of coral reefs and shipwrecks, of human folly and siren hubris, of a siren who saves a human girl. It ends in a storm that sweeps over a kingdom, a tsunami that engulfs all its inhabitants, and the siren waiting for her human girl at the bottom of the sea.
: : :
A little looser, a little freer, is how Lumine spends the next few days. The rope slackens until it’s barely held around her body. And one day, before she’s set to visit Venti, Lumine looks at the face of her sleeping brother, and then her sleeping father. So peaceful. So free of worry. He gets to go explore the world and come back to cooked meals and warm baths—and Lumine is left here with her mother, two women to cook the meals and warm the baths.
Lumine throws the ropes into the back of the shed, and no longer brings it with her.
That night, when Venti circles closer and closer, just shy of touching, Lumine lets him. And the next night, when Venti splashes water at her (her giggling all the while) and then nips at her delicate ankle with his sharp teeth, she lets him.
He presses a kiss to the pink, slightly bitten skin, and his lips are sinfully soft.
A creature is a creature is a creature. But this creature is her friend. This creature is safe. Lumine knows him.
So the night after, she calls for him to get close. Trails her hand through his hair—soft as silk—and then traces the strange patterns winding around his arms. And when he reaches for her wrist, with a grin with sharp white teeth the colour of the luminous moon, she lets him.
: : :
“You look like something good’s happened to you,” Aether says one day, having taken rest from the ships that usually head to the mainland to sell their stock.
“Mhm,” answers Lumine absentmindedly as she continues her weaving. Even though she’s indoors, far away from the waves, she can still hear the sound of it crashing around in her ears, as if it were an inch away from her feet. Can still hear the cooing of Venti’s voice, enveloping her. She crosses her feet, and then uncrosses them, feeling as if her shoe pinches despite Lumine knowing it shouldn’t.
“...What pattern are you making, Lumine?”
“Mhm.”
“...Lumine?” Her brother bumps his shoulder against hers, and Lumine finally glances at him.
“What is it?” Lumine asks. Aether’s brows are furrowed, as if concerned. Lumine’s not sure why. Her brother is so rarely serious, unless it’s some grave matter concerning her safety. And there are no monsters in this boring, dreary town to be scared of, in the first place.
“Are you okay? You’ve been phasing out a lot recently,” Aether says, placing his hand at her shoulder. Lumine blinks, and resists the urge to shake him off, strangely repulsed by his touch. “Even Father’s noticed—and he’s usually blind to these things. Mother’s been yelling at you a lot more since our coming of age ceremony is approaching, but you haven’t even snarked back at her once.”
“I guess I got used to her screeching,” Lumine says flippantly.
Aether frowns. “Lumine, is there something you’re not telling—”
“Don’t worry, Aether,” Lumine dismisses, and it’s easier than she’d thought, to lie to her brother so blatantly. Before, her midnight excursions had been hidden only because of his ignorance—you can’t ask about something that you don’t know about, after all. But the next sentence that falls from her mouth is not a white lie, not a half-lie, but a whole lie, stark and simple. It’s easy to lie, easy to say, “You know I’d never hide anything from you.”
: : :
You must take care, her grandfather had said once to Lumine before he’d passed away, pointing a crooked finger out into the horizon.
Lumine squinted. The sun? It’s very bright.
No. The sea, child, her grandfather said impatiently. The sea.
What about the sea, Grandpa?
If ever you hear it calling for you, Grandpa said, a grave darkness in his eyes, shut your ears and ignore it.
But… why? Don’t all of us return to the sea once we get old? You told me this before too, Grandpa.
It’s different for you, Lumine. Grandpa clutched her shoulders then, his weak, bony fingers gripping just a tad too tight on her shoulders. His eyes looked wild with madness. You cannot listen to the sea. It took your grandmother before her time was up. Just up and walked away in the middle of the night while I’d slept unknowing, only her footprints left in the sand, never seen again. Grandpa is scared it will take you too, one day. So remember, Lumine: watch out for the sea.
Huh. Lumine nodded. I get it, Grandpa. No listening to the ocean, right?
Right.
: : :
It’s raining when Lumine wakes up. She rubs her eyes and looks out into the downpour. Touches her fingers to the scale tucked in her breast pocket, and becomes so drawn to the water dripping down her window that the memory of her dream is all but forgotten, consigned to being washed into the ocean along with the rainwater.
The pitter-patter of the rain turns into something more familiar, and for a moment, Lumine lets herself be lost in the song of the sea.
: : :
“Why me?” Lumine asks.
Venti tilts his head. “Why what? Is this a human riddle I am not privy to?”
“Why me, of all the humans you could have chosen? Why wait for me?”
“Oh.” Venti hums, a smack of his tail against the water, sending water spraying everything..
“Venti!” Lumine splutters, half-laughing and half-scolding as she wipes away the seawater coating her face. “You know I hate it when you do that.”
Venti makes that trilling sound of his, a soft and airy laughter. “But you’re laughing.”
Lumine tugs at the end of Venti's braid, glowing strands wrapped around her index finger. “Okay, enough,” she says. “Tell me the truth now.”
“Is that what you want, Lumine?”
Lumine presses her lips together. “Yes.”
“Do you see this?” Venti points to the quavering reflection of the full moon in the water. He cups his hands together, and then sinks his hands beneath the surface. And when he raises his hands, the reflection of the moon held in the cup of his palms, he says, “The moon is here. But it’s also not. Even though it is in the water, I cannot hold it.”
“It’s a reflection, Venti,” Lumine says, amused at his explanation. “Have you ever seen a mirror? That’s how reflections works.”
“Yes. When I first saw you, I thought you were a reflection of a fallen star, made human.”
Lumine rolls her eyes. “I never knew sirens would be sweet with their words too, along with their voice.”
Venti laughs. “At that moment,” he trails off, “I thought…”
Lumine leans closer, creased brows and curious eyes. “Thought what?”
He takes the water in his palms and splashes her face in response. Lumine growls and kicks up her own little storm, scooping up water and flinging them at him. Soon enough, the empty docks rings with laughter, Lumine’s question all but forgotten.
: : :
I thought, if I handled it carefully enough, this is a starlight I could keep contained in my palms. No reflection nor imitation.
: : :
(Imagine this: a boy, holding a girl’s hand. Venti kisses the underside of Lumine’s wrist, fangs trailing right above where her pulse is, and hums into her skin when the pulse stutters and skips a beat.)
: : :
: : :
: : :
part v. sunk—the sea’s coda
Imagine this: a soon-to-be woman, meeting her husband-to-be.
Her mother elbows her, that tight smile never leaving her face. “Say something, Lumine,” Mother says under her breath. “You just became introduced, and you need to say something.”
Lumine sets her mouth in a grim line. “Hello,” she says. She forgot his name as soon as he stopped speaking. He looks all right. Average height, average face, average… everything. A muddy brown eyes, with no strange glow to compensate for the mediocrity. You will learn to love him, her mother had always told Lumine. “It’s nice to meet you,” Lumine says distantly. “I hope we get along in the future.”
Yet another lie she couldn’t care less about.
And when the man folds his hands over hers, palms dry and calloused, Lumine resists the urge to grind her teeth and snatch her fingers away. “You will be a good wife,” the man whose name she couldn’t be bothered to remember says firmly. “My home and my family will be good to you. You’ll see.”
: : :
“Are…” Aether pauses, and then pinches his nose. “Are you really going to marry him?”
“He has a name,” Lumine says dully.
“Yes,” Aether agrees seriously. “A name that you yourself don’t even remember! Come now, sister—”
Lumine whirls on her brother, teeth bared. “And what would you have me do, Aether?” she snarls, stabbing her finger to his chest. He winces. “Your future is set by your own hands. You always have choices to make. What do I have?” Lumine laughs sharply. “I have Mother, keeping me locked up in a tight little box, so I can be a good little daughter. I will soon have a husband who will keep me locked up too, so I can be a good little wife, to cook his meals and prepare his baths and warm his bed.”
Aether staggers back. “L-Lumine…”
“When you come of age, you will become a man, free to do whatever he wants. When I come of age, I will become a wife. You have your choices, Aether, but me? I’ve always had none,” she spits, drawing herself up and clenching her fists. There is a haze settling over her, the swishing of the ocean, the mournful departing song that Venti makes every time she leaves. Every second away from him makes her drowsy, uncaring, callous. “I’ve never had any choices to make. So be happy, Aether. Be happy for me and this godforsaken marriage.”
: : :
“I don’t want to marry him,” Lumine admits, a hollow carved out in her chest.. “I don’t want to switch from being under my mother’s thumb to being under his. I don’t want any of this.”
Venti’s playing with the water, his delicate fingers caressing the surface, sending ripples that propagate to lick at her calves. “What do you want, then? Tell me, and I will give it to you. Tell me, tell me.”
“I…” Lumine looks into the horizon. “I want to explore this vast world, to visit distant shores, to see things I’ve never seen before, to hear things I’ve never heard before. I want to be free, Venti. Can you give me that?”
Venti smiles widely, a flash of his teeth. “Of course.”
Lumine grimaces. “How? Is this a trick?”
“Not a trick,” Venti says brightly. “Magic. But…”
“Ah,” Lumine says. “So there is a ‘but’.”
“You will have to give something up,” Venti says. “You will have to give up your life on land. Give and take. That is how it has always been done, in the legends. Are you willing, Lumine?”
: : :
Are you willing?
No, she’d told him. I’m not. I won’t. I can’t let myself go, Venti.
Lumine knows that whatever it is Venti meant, it could only mean her walking into the sea, and Lumine is not foolish. She’s not. She knows the story.
But when her mother brings out her wedding gown, fabric rustling from the rubbing against each other, the colour of the lace reminds Lumine of his teeth: moonlight white.
: : :
Sirens have two hearts, Lumine had learned. She’d flattened her palm against his chest and felt it: twin heartbeats, stagnated rhythm thudding beneath his skin.
There is a legend that Venti had told her. A legend of a man who’d caught a siren in his net, throat wounded. In exchange for letting her go, the siren had offered the man one of her two hearts. She’d plunged her hand into her chest and plucked it out.
The man had eaten it, raw and still beating. That is where the story ends.
What happened after? she’d asked.
Venti had only given her a mysterious smile. A siren secret, he’d said, eyes shimmering. You’ll see.
: : :
The night before her wedding, Lumine gathers all of the treasure that Venti had given her, gold and jewels and flowers and corals, and places it in a linen bag. Only the scale does she leave on her person.
And then she tiptoes toward her brother’s room, planning to shake him awake. But when she opens the door, Aether’s sitting on his bed, already awake.
“You’re going to leave,” Aether says softly, as Lumine gently shuts the door behind her. His eyes are accusing, finally the truth coming out between them. “You lied to me, didn’t you? When you said you weren’t hiding anything from me.”
“Yes,” she says simply.
“When?”
“Tomorrow night,” Lumine says. “I’ll let Mother have the wedding ceremony—and may it be the last thing she has from me. And after… I’ll be free to explore the world. Will you tell Mother of my plans, Aether?”
“I won’t tell if you won’t, sister dearest,” Aether says, but his voice is humourless.
“Oh, brother dearest,” Lumine says, smiling, “I’ll miss you.”
“Me too,” Aether says. And with a quick flick of his wrist, he tugs at the ends of his braid, coming away with a worn yellow ribbon as his hair comes undone. “But you’ve always had a boundless curiosity too small for my world, haven’t you? And I would not limit you for anything in this world. So here. Have this, Lumine—to remember me, if nothing else.”
“You’ve always been too good for me, Aether,” Lumine whispers, wrapping the ribbon around her wrist. “So, before I leave,I want you to have this. For contingency’s sake.”
She hands over the bag, and Aether opens it with a questioning gaze. Upon seeing the contents, his eyes widen. “Where did you…”
Lumine shrugs. “I don’t know.” And then she blinks. Says under her breath, amused, “After all, dead men tell no tales.”
: : :
The wedding procession goes by in the blink of an eye. Lumine is a doll, strung up on invisible strings. She is led, is fed, is dressed, with almost no recollection of anything that had happened. And when the time of her vows comes, Lumine speaks hollow lies.
All that she knows is that her heart is beating too fast for boredom. Anticipation curls under her skin, waiting to be released.
: : :
Imagine a wedding night, a groom, but no bride to be found. Imagine a woman sprinting toward the sea in her wedding dress, yellow ribbon around wrist, thunderstorm in the horizon. Imagine the wind whistling at her ankles as she runs onto the pier, dark water rippling under creaking wooden boards.
Imagine a siren crooning a song of the sea as he waits, aqua-green eyes sparkling, a beatific smile on his face. His arms are outstretched at the end of the docks, waiting, waiting. You have chosen.
I did, the woman breathes.
: : :
: : :
: : :
Did you imagine all that? Yes?
Good.
Keep it in your mind’s eye.
And now, imagine this: the woman...
She jumps.
—fin.—