Siren Song

She could never belong to him, his human above the surface of the sea. The thought was sharp and bittersweet like the sting of a ray’s barb to his tan chest. Soft undulations of currents teased the gold expanse of his scales as his fin fanned out, riding the tide’s pull. His head broke the surface, cool crisp air foreign to his skin. It was safe. Night enveloped the island and its nearly empty shore with fathoms of darkness.

There she was, her very presence summoning him as she simply walked along the beach. She did this every night, as though something in the water, something like him, called to her, but she couldn’t hear his siren song. He would never use it, never lure her into danger. She was his everything.

The beauty of the moonlight shining off her pale skin was like the flash of a school of Atlantic Herring with lightning bursts of silver blinding as the fish banked and turned, leaving him alone in the inky sea cut sparsely with flickering moonbeams. He opened his mouth, but language would not come, he had no voice to call his beauty to him. Daring himself, he moved closer to the shore, hands burying deep in the shifting, shivering sands.

So little time to remain close to her.

If discovered, his people would punish, hers would kill. For one glimpse of her smile he ignored the siren’s beckoning call of his world. The red waterfall of her shoulder length hair tempted him, but to touch her was to burn, to feel the poison of a lionfish flush his skin.

Look my way, he begged, sending his thoughts to her.

She stopped walking, one foot ankle deep in the water, one foot on the loose sand, bridging their worlds with ease. Her face turned towards him, the wan moonlight glowing in her sapphire eyes.

I see my world in your eyes, if only you could see me.

His thoughts rippled through the air and into her mind with the melancholy echo reminiscent of whale song. He knew he should hide, shelter himself behind the craggy rocks battered by the unending waves. Frozen in the shallows, water surged past his scale covered hips. The night air cooled his bare chest and he rubbed his arms, trying to ease the discomfort of the sea breeze’s rough caress. His blond hair fell into his eyes, and his move to brush it away caught her attention.

She spun on her heel to face him, the dance of her movement graceful as a seahorse uncoiling its crimped tail as it twisted in a kelp forest. Her first step in his direction was an dream, the sway of her human hips like enticing the rainbow colors of a jellyfish. He ached to touch, to hold, but to do so was death. In all the years he’d traced her life on this island, never had she seen him before.

Twenty summers she’d haunted the shallows and he’d clung to the shores. The muscles of his fin twitched as her smooth bare legs navigated the tide pools and around the darkened rocks. Eyes luminescent, she gazed down at him, just out of reach. Her warm breath clouded the air as she joined him in the shallows.

Water lapped at her ankles, then her knees as she moved deeper into the waves toward him. Wonder lit her eyes and he was held helpless by her gaze as she stopped just a foot away.

She reached out a hand, graceful fingers brushing his tail. No burning came, no fiery pain…he felt…warm. He felt a dozen other things that he’d never felt within the harshly beautiful cold depths of the sea. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell her the magic of her touch, but only a rasping sound came out.

“I can’t believe you’re real. I’ve dreamt about you all my life,” she whispered, her fingers still touching his scales now just above his fin. “They said you were all gone, that they’d hunted you down a century ago.”

A ripple of energy burst through his body and he jerked.

“Are you okay?” Her hands were still on his fin, holding him still in the shallows when he would have thrashed like a fish tossed too close to shore by a violent wave.

He reached out, gripping her arms as agonizing pain came next. Gasping, sucking in a lungful of air he shouldn’t have needed, he waited an eternity for the pain to pass. When it did, he glanced down at his body, afraid to see what touching his human had done to him.

Two muscled legs had replaced his mighty tail. Toes wriggled in the place of his fin.

“You…” she began uncertainly, her body still close to his as he held onto her with a quiet, powerful desperation. “You changed.”

“I changed…for you.” His new voice was husky, low, not used to speaking with human vocal chords, but he’d spoken the truth. Her touch had changed him inside and out.

“Oh my God…” she breathed, a shaky smile hovering about her lips. He trembled with joy at touching her, at feeling her warmth against his palms. “We need to get you inside and get you some clothes. The water is freezing this time of year.”

She put an arm around his waist and he struggled to stand for the first time on human legs.

“I’ll have to hide you, no one can know where you came from, it isn’t safe…” she whispered.

He didn’t care about any dangers now. He was with her, his human and he stood upon human legs. He could face anything now that he was with her.

“This changes everything, you know.” She told him as they reached the dry sand of the bead.

Ahead of them, the fog which often gathered around the edges of the village, made the lights of the small cottages glow like the fish that lived in the deepest, darkest parts of his world. Perhaps there were not so many differences between his people and hers after all. Maybe he could be the one who convinced his people and hers that peace between their worlds was possible. Hope burned within him as deeply as his love for his human girl. He was a prince of Atlantis and now he walked on land as a human.

I am mortal now, but with my numbered days, I belong to her, always.