As I said before, here's the rewritten version of Siren's Honour! I'm trying to do the re-writes quickly, because I have to update other stories, but I promise this version will be clearer, and hopefully less drony, than the last. Have fun!
Thank you to those who reviewed the original version of this!
Disclaimer (for the whole story): I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, or Sirena, which was what this story was inspired from. I own the OCs. Any song lyrics I use in this story, I do not own either-they belong to Utada Hikaru.
Sighing in satisfaction, I heaved myself out of the ocean water and onto a flat, protruding rock. A slight breeze blew chilly against my pale, wet skin, and I closed my eyes, better to enjoy the scene around me.
The sky above was impossibly blue and glorious-Zeus was in a good mood-and the day felt tranquil and relaxing, an atmosphere comfortable for just lazing about. In the distance, I could hear my many sisters chatting and laughing together, positioned at an island a very short distance away. I supposed I should go and join them, but I couldn't be bothered moving.
My sisters used to be concerned about my wandering away from them in the past, but after awhile, my occasional wandering became a habit they got used to, and they merely accepted it without too many questions. My dear sisters-without their company, I would have rotted long ago on the little grassy island we lived on, waiting for ships to come.
Several screeches from the island vultures pierced the serenity of the day, and I abruptly opened my eyes. A warning for us-a ship was coming.
I quickly rejoined my sisters, and we each positioned ourselves on the little island we dwelled on, fish tails coiled tensely into spirals of different colours. Mine flashed pale aquamarine in the sunlight, the same colour as my eyes, with tints of sunlight shining on morning dew. Despite its jewel quality, I draped seaweed over it, hiding it completely, and proceeded to pin some locks of my straight black hair behind my ear with a blue starfish. The rest of my hair fell loosely to my waist, while my midnight-blue side fringes slightly fell over my temples.
Around me, I watched my sisters do what I was doing-that is, beautifying themselves. We aimed to seduce; starfish in thick, dark hair, kelp arranged sensually over fishtails. We flaunted everything human, but hid the fish part of us. The human men, unless enchanted, would think us revolting if they saw the fish part of us.
One last check to make sure everyone was ready, and then we began to sing.
Our voices carried through the still air, sweet as honey. This was Mother Dora, our mentor's, gift; the gift of enchanting with songs. Our only way to gain immortality alongside our god and goddess relations was for a mortal man to love us. Our song could enchant and coerce the men into thinking we had no fish parts, and make them see us as the most beautiful women on earth. Thus why we flaunted almost every human part of ourselves, as temptation.
The winds changed course. No!
It blew against us, carrying our voices in the opposite direction of the ship. We sang harder, trying to force it through the gale, but it was no use. The ship sailed out of reach of our voices. We stopped, and sank into gloomy silence, slowly untangling ourselves from the carefully draped kelp.
I mentally cursed Rhodope, the goddess who placed this curse upon us. Her jealousy was the cause of our unnecessary pain.
Long ago, she was lovers with a god, but this one was a fickle god. After sleeping with Rhodope, as she lay asleep, he spied a beautiful but extremely stupid fish of great beauty, almost unrivalled. He slept with the fish, and the next morning, when Rhodope woke, the fish had laid all of her fertilized eggs in a nearby cave and left. In a rage, Rhodope swallowed the eggs, only to choke them back up when they began to swell with growth. So she cursed the eggs (us), to never be immortal unless loved by a mortal man.
The thought of being intimate with a man was almost off limits to me-I wouldn't let my imagination wander that far. Instead, I focused on helping my sisters lure a ship. Our tactic was just to enchant sailors with our voices to forget our fishtails and make them love us. From that, we would gain immortality and stand equal among the other gods, qualities that we should have had from birth right.
The island vultures slowly settled down, since no more ships came into sight. With a sigh, I slipped down into the water beside one of my sisters (the most beautiful of us admittedly), Himerope.
"Rhodope wishes to make this difficult," she sighed.
"But nothing can stop us sister," I assured. Changing the topic to a more cheerful one, I asked with excitement, "Are we going to Mother Dora's sea cave soon?"
Visiting Mother Dora was a highlight for all of us. All mermaids, nymphs and sirens loved stories, and Mother Dora told one each time we gathered at her cave.
"In half a moon cycle, Charis," Himerope laughed. I laughed along too. We all wanted to get away from this island, despite its…quiet charm. It was a grassy island large enough for all of us to spread out at many different places and still be heard to each other. Yellow flowers grew all over the slopes quaintly.
It was charming in a simple way, but change would be pleasant.
"Don't go wondering off today, Charis," Himerope told me as we swum lazy circles around the island. "The vultures are muttering that another ship will come by soon."
I nodded. "Of course, Himerope. We all want to be free of our…fault," I said seriously. She smiled encouragingly at me, and then swum lazily away.
Oh! The vultures have circled our island, screeching again. They bespoke in our universal, nonsensical language about three trading ships from a far away land called Arabia, sailing on course to come near our island. After hastily beautifying ourselves, my sisters and I positioned ourselves all over the island, waiting.
The ships approached. We began to sing, the melody as clear as glass bells.
Winds suddenly blew against us. Spiteful Rhodope! Her hatred knew no bounds on us, I was sure.
It was too late to foil our plans though-the ships were far to close, heading straight for the hidden rocks under the water, ready to tear the ships apart. We sang and sang until our throats were raw, then kept singing anyway. Enraptured they came faster. We could even begin to see some of the men rowing the oars.
Crack!
The first ship ripped apart in the rocky reefs. Only then did the men wake from the enchantment of our music. They cried out in panic and struggled to turn their other boats around but it was no use. A second resounding Crack! Echoed through the air, and men fell into the water. Their cries of terror filled the air like vulture screams.
Sadly for us, the third ship managed to sail away. However, we succeeded in luring the first two! Laughing, we waited shyly. Some muttered, wondering what a first kiss would be like. I dared not let my thoughts wonder to something like that-yet.
We were so delighted by our success that it took us a few minutes to realise something was wrong. Only a few of the men had swum to shore. Where were the others? There was plenty of commotion in the water, and screams and thrashing. But not many were actually moving to shore. What was taking them so long?
Horror slapped us harshly across our faces. They couldn't swim!
We dove and split in all directions. I took hold of a short, burly man close to me and pulled him up. He did not thrash or scream like the others. Quickly I hauled him to shore. Then I checked his breathing. No air came from his mouth or nose, and his chest lay still. His skin was cold and clammy as a fish. I pounded on his chest and breathed into his mouth briefly, but it was no use. He was dead.
Around me, my sisters cried and screamed in growing agony as we pulled bodies from the water. More were dead then alive. My sisters and I dove as fast as we could, but our will to save them all was in vain. Gradually our diving slowed, as we realised that whatever we found by now would be cold and dead.
In the end eleven men survived, six of which were the ones who swam to shore. Eighteen lay dead on the beach. Breathless, cold and lifeless. Many more were dragged too far under by the ocean currents to be fetched safely. Even more dead. I breathed through a great amount of effort, anguished by this loss.
The survivors huddled together in a cold, dripping group, glaring at us with hostility. They feared us, and blamed us. The hatred in their eyes was apparent. But were we to blame? How could we have known that these men could not swim? Shouldn't sailors have learnt how to swim before climbing onto a boat? My sisters and I shed tears over the dead bodies of the men, lined up side by side. The torment continued on in my head. I couldn't help but think that this was our fault, though my sisters muttered half-heartedly against it.
The survivors moved closer to the bodies of their dead comrades. One stepped forward. His eyes spat revulsion like snakes spat venom.
"Get away! Get away from them!" he shouted.
Frightened, we dove back into the water and watched them mournfully from a distance. He continued to glare at us, and many of my sisters, in an effort to ease the enmity, tried to make their faces soft and sweet-innocent. The men never dropped their hostile glares though, and I had a feeling they would glare at our kind like that for the rest of their days.
"What unnatural spirits are you?!" he asked, standing possessively over the bodies of his fallen comrades. "Stay away,"
Our tears added more salt to the sea at their vehemence.
The man motioned to the others, and they began to look for places to bury the dead, but the bare island only had a shallow layer of dirt. Everywhere they tried to dig, they struck solid rock. Each time they cursed and moved on. We watched, circling listlessly around the island.
Everything had gone wrong. We had to make them forgive us; make them understand we didn't know the others could not swim. We needed to gain their forgiveness, and if still possible, their love.
The men returned to their previous clustering spot. Instantly we opened our mouths and sang softly, our voices dripping anguish, hoping to make them understand us and gain forgiveness. If anything could win them, it would be our song.
I doubted they would listen anymore though, and I was right. The leader picked up a rock and threw it at us.
"Silence! There is no fresh water on this island. There are no animals except three vultures. No plants except for lilies. This is an uninhabitable island, a hell above ground. Damn you! Damn you all!" he screamed in rage, and threw another rock. "We should have listened to other passing sailors. They warned us of you, but thought the vultures had sung, when it was really your wretched song. You. Misshapen wretched monsters of the deep, seductresses of evil."
"No! We are not like that!" I cried out, unable to bear their accusations.
"Silence!" he screamed again. "Do not speak. Do not sing. We will allow no more treachery."
He pressed his hands to his cheeks and looked heavenwards. "Oh gods, have pity on us. Help us escape."
He picked up another rock, and his living comrades followed his example. They showered us with the rocks of their hatred.
The sailors carried rocks with them everywhere. They threatened to kill us if we came close. Two strong swimmers searched for wreckage that might be rebuilt into a smaller boat, even a raft. Their attempts were valiant, but unsuccessful. All the remaining boards were smashed into pieces too small to be used, and not enough had survived the pull of the water currents.
While they rested, we tried to help as much as we could. We also scavenged for materials, and what we found we piled as close to the men as we dared to go before fleeing.
The men eyed our piles with suspicion, but eventually came and sifted through the rubble. They weren't much good though; if the disappointed sighs were any sign to go by.
When darkness fell, the men retreated to the inner part of the island. We fled to the rocks on the lower side of the island, and listened to their sobs of terror and cries for help as nightmares haunted their sleep.
In the morning they tried fishing, but to no avail. They muttered about nets. We searched for nets in the ocean, but there was none to find. They ate small amounts of clams and snails found in tidal pools. Two swimmers continually searched for wreckage again, but had even less success than the first time.
Without any human hope left for survival, they turned to divine intervention. The men cursed the hot sun, and then begged for forgiveness of the sun god Helios. They prayed to Zeus for rain. They found conch shells which they rested hole-side up, as hopeful receptacles of rain. Alma (the sweetest of my sisters), touched by their faith and hopeful the gods would listen, dove and found an old unused tortoise shell. She put it on the beach, and we watched as the evident leader of these men examined it with his eyes. Finally he looked at us in confusion, and grabbed the shell.
The next morning came, seemingly like any recent other. The men muttered amongst themselves, and then one of the stronger swimmers fashioned a crude spear from some driftwood. He walked into the water, shouting he would kill us if we came near, and then dove.
The others waited tensely for his return. Their skins were red and peeling, their lips cracked and even sometimes bleeding. They breathed heavily through their mouths, tongues lolling out in thirst, like an animal dying in the heat. Which they almost were.
I scanned the skies desperately-no sign of rain. This time of year was not the season for rain. An idea came to me, and I darted away from my sisters, in case I was doing something dangerous.
"Eat the lilies!" I shouted. "They hold liquid."
"Help!" Cecilia, one of my more generous sisters, suddenly appeared near me. She dove again, and we sisters followed. As we went deeper, we saw the problem. The swimmer's hunger had made him reckless, and he had tried hunting a positively giant octopus. His spear lay broken on the sea bed, and the man himself was entwined within a mass of thick, pulsing tentacles. He was alarmingly still.
The octopus spat an ink cloud in anger at our approach, and released the man, opting to swim away.
We pulled the body to shore, but brave, kind Cecilia dragged it up onto the beach while we cowered back. She leaned over the body and wailed softly in pure anguish, wavy brown hair partly draped over the dead swimmer's face.
The other men were scattered here and there. One of them sprang forward, enraged, and dragged Cecilia to a higher hill of dirt by her hair. We never went that far inland-land was generally not safe territory for us daughters of the ocean.
Cecilia cried and sobbed in pain as her body bumped along the ground, and she clutched at her scalp helplessly. Within moments the men were upon her, slamming rocks on her, smashing her head and ribs bloody.
We screamed helplessly in the sea-animal instinct kept us away. If we went onto the land, they would surely kill us all. But staying in the water was torture. We screamed and clutched at each other, until we near deafened each other with our noise. I couldn't even hear my own scream of terror.
Eventually the bashing slowed and stopped-after a long, torturous while. The leader threw lilies over Cecilia's blood-matted hair.
"Vicious whores from hell!" He spat on what was once the heart shaped face of Cecilia. We were stunned into deathly silence.
"Putrid flowers. You grow them to deceive sailors into thinking this rock of an island welcomes them. Then you beg us to eat them. They are poison to our souls! Stay away or we will kill you all and throw these accursed flowers over you."
His words seemed like the echo inside a hollow mountain. I couldn't think properly.
These men were doomed.
My sister lay dead.
Everything had gone wrong.
"Charis! Come back, or you'll die too!" some of my sisters cried. I was beyond any state to listen though.
I swam, as far as I could. Though I was fast with my fishtail, it was dangerous for me to be alone in the sea, especially at night when predator fish came out. That was why sirens sheltered on the edges of rocks in groups. But I was no longer aware of where I was, or how long I had been swimming. I just wanted to keep swimming until I fell into oblivion.
As dawn came, the impeding exhaustion won. I floated on the ocean surface and wept.
Eventually I passed a rock where seals were playing and teaching their pups. It reminded me of my sisters, and I looked away.
For days I did nothing. Float, swim, eat and rest. My head was an empty shell. I couldn't-no, wouldn't think. I didn't even care if I was eaten. Day after scorching day, night after chilly night I drifted…nowhere.
Well, I thought it was nowhere. Eventually though, I looked ahead and saw the little island with the three vultures flying around it. My instincts had slowly carried me back home. For a moment, I hesitated in facing my sisters. Then I licked my lips, salty from ocean water, and consented to the unavoidable. I swam towards my sisters.
I wasn't even close when the stench of dead, decaying bodies assailed me. I recoiled but continued forward grimly.
The vultures had picked off the flesh, scavengers as they were. The quaint little island we once lived on peacefully, which I had known for sixteen years, had become an open grave for those doomed sailors. The island's flowers seemed to shrink downwards rather than upwards, closing their petals against the gruesome scene.
"Charis! Thank goodness," Alma swam up to greet me, hugging me tightly. "We didn't know what happened to you."
"Are they all dead?" I asked hopelessly. Mutely she nodded, with tears in her eyes. I felt my own tears stream down my cheeks, and Alma held me and led me to a different rock. Looking at the rest of my sisters, I could not help but see our number. We were ten sisters before, now reduced to nine.
"We waited for you," Himerope told me sadly. "It hurts when you go off without us. We watched day and night."
I understood at once and regretted swimming off. We were a school of mermaids, or sirens, as bluntly distinguished. We found comfort and cheer in numbers. I was just the odd one, but I belonged with them nonetheless.
We slept on the new rock, away from the horrors of death.
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