Title: The Deadly Sirens and Their Licentious Prey
Series: The Four Thieves
Author: Maggiemerc
Rating: T
Characters: Swan Queen, Regina, Hook, Aurora, Mulan
Spoilers: Destiny is the Rabbit Hole. You may be confused if you skip it.
Disclaimer: Of course I don't own them. All the lady loving would be hella canon if I did.
Summary: After the events of Destiny is the Rabbit Hole Regina is stuck on a boat with three strangers. The four have to not kill each other, or Sinbad, if they ever want to make it home. Sirens, witches, gods, a giant's boils and some delicious apple turnovers all stand in their way.
Author's Note: This whole series is kind of stand alone but really not. It just bridges the gap between Destiny and Toxic, giving people a better idea of what Regina spent two plus years doing. As such each story is only loosely tied to those around it. Tragic. I know.
The Deadly Sirens and Their Licentious Prey
Once upon a time Four Thieves sailed an ocean bluer than the sapphires on Ozma's crown. They were searching for a town where every myth and story was true and every person was someone once and then twice.
They were not. They were only themselves. The pirate who sought revenge for a lost love, the princess searching for her family, the warrior devoted to her, and the sorceress pining but never, ever, ever willing to admit it unless fire, truth serum, or a great deal of alcohol were involved.
The sorceress never drank for fear of alcohol or truth serum loosening her tongue, and she'd long ago learned to be flame retardant so it wasn't like-
"I swear to God Sinbad if you don't stop that insipid narration I'll test your flame retardancy."
Aurora opened her mouth to let slip her own highly offensive bon mot but the wicked sorceress pegged her with an ominous glare.
"And only his flame retardency. You're a princess Aurora. Try not to use words that haven't been acceptable since the 60s."
The princess blinked. Another confused victim of Regina's bizarre references to a land none of them had se-
####
"Choking," Sinbad grunted.
Regina ignored him and squeezed tighter.
"A-air-can't-breathe!"
"I know."
"Regina," Mulan warned, looking up from her spot at the bow where she'd crooked her leg over the side and was sharpening her sword. "We need him as our guide to Olympus."
"What she said," he squeaked out.
Regina raised her other hand and crooked her finger, so, still choking, Sinbad floated across the deck to be within physical reach.
"No on ever said the guided needed a tongue."
"But it's such a devillishly good tongue," Hook interjected.
Aurora covered her eyes as though she had a migraine. "I think I'm going to vomit."
"Homophobia? From you? I'm surprised."
"What's that supposed to-"
"Still choking!"
"No one cares," Regina said. "Everyone would much rather talk about Aurora's insensitivity to minorities. Really dear, with your mothers you should be the last person on this boat to be nauseated by same sex relations."
"Her parents," Hook said, "I was thinking of her and Mulan, who are every bit as noisy as Sinbad and myself."
"Now I'm going to vomit," Regina said flatly, her hand still extended and Sinbad twitching at the end of her fingertips. "Am I really the only one on this boat not engaging in licentious relations?"
Hook shrugged, "I don't know. I heard you and your hand are quite-"
Mulan sighed as Hook flew straight off the boat and landed in the water with a loud splash. "You've got to stop flinging him and Sinbad off the boat every time they say something crude."
"Exactly," Sinbad gasped, his face now as purple as the sash around his waist, "You'll spend the whole trip double backing to pick us-"
She flicked her finger and Sinbad launched off the other side of the boat. Aurora cried out as he flew but it was only when there was a loud "whump" and a groan instead of the expected splash that she explained.
"I tied the dinghy up on that side."
"I'm dead," he moaned from somewhere over the side of the boat. "I think you broke my coccyx!"
Regina stepped trepidatiously to the side and peered over. "You don't even know what a coccyx is."
He was splayed out on the bare deck of the tiny boat. It was the one they'd found him in all alone, rowing from the destruction of Bluebeard's castle two weeks after Cora had betrayed Regina and given her a knife in the belly for her trouble.
In the two weeks since then no one had bothered to ask him how he'd gone from famous sailor with a huge ship to homeless man in a dinghy. Primarily because no one cared.
Regina waved her hand and an oar flew into her hand. She dropped it down blade first and it only barely missed his crotch.
"Sinbad, be a dear and pick up your bunk mate would you?"
"You're the one whizzing people around like lawn darts. You do it!"
She conjured the second oar about three feet above his head and let it hang.
"Regina," Mulan warned, "don't tease the idiot."
Aurora shrugged, "A little teasing doesn't hurt."
Somewhere, far behind the boat, Hook splashed and shouted. It was too far away for any of them to hear what he was saying.
Until the unmanly yelp and very specific cry of "Shark!"
Everyone not being circled by a shark stared at Regina.
"Oh all right."
She snapped and the oar disappeared, Sinbad found himself hanging in the ropes above their head and Hook returned to more solid ground, albeit soaking wet.
He sneered at her and approached menacingly. "I find you bleeding and moaning in the woods and all alone and I bring you here and nurse you back to life and yet somehow, without fail, you knock my rear off my own damn boat every day."
"I found her," Aurora said.
"And I fixed her," Mulan added.
"It's my bloody boat!"
"So we can cut it down to…four times a week? Three?"
He leaned down. "None."
She tilted her head up. "One."
Sinbad, still tied up above, raised his hand, "If you two have sex can I watch?"
####
They did not untie him.
In fact Regina tightened the bonds. Which led to comments about kinks. Which led to a desire to slap him. Which led to her own thoughts about kinks. Which led to Aurora not so innocently asking her why she was so flushed.
Were it up to her (and it had been made very quickly that it was not) she would have launched all of them off the ship. Firecrackers protruding from their rears and sending them scorching across the sky.
It would have been majestic. A photographable moment.
But she would have had no one to share it with what with everyone she cared for being stuck in another land with her mother. So she played nice. They needed her help as much as she needed theirs.
Especially for the task at hand.
"Sirens," Hook said ominously.
They were making their way to Olympus, but their path, the only remotely safe route in the land, was through straits that were treacherous even for a ship as fast as the Jolly Roger. One one side the rocks erupted out of the ocean like they were fleeing the molten earth below. They were vicious and sharp crags that would shred even the sturdiest ship.
The other side was less the traditional sheer wall of rock and more a stunning beach and smooth waters.
Waters inhabited by sirens.
Who ate people.
To avoid the boat and people eating rocks they had to sail closer to the people eating bird women.
The whole adventure was…unpleasant.
Still, "It shouldn't be that difficult. We tie you and Sinbad up and leave buckets to catch all the drool."
"The sirens don't lure men," Sinbad said, slowly swinging in the breeze, "they lure anyone attracted to women."
"Well, then we'll be fine won't we?"
Sinbad snorted and Hook looked at her knowingly. Expectantly even.
Until Aurora meekly raised her hand. "I should probably be tied up then."
She glanced at Mulan next to her, who sighed and sheathed her sword, "Tie me up too."
Aurora flushed and Mulan looked away, a blush burning on her cheeks as well.
"So I'm the only one on this ship not attracted to women?"
Hook shrugged, "If that's what you claim and are willing to risk all our lives on."
"Of course it is!"
He eyed her, "How're your boating skills then?"
"Adequate enough."
####
The four lovers found themselves lashed to the ship's mast. The sea spray soaked through their thin garments, revealing every masculine swell and feminine curve.
"If I have to listen to this narration any longer your masculine swells are going overboard again," the witch (for sorceress was too noble a term for her) shouted from her station at the boat's wheel.
What the witch had not yet realized was that the clever sailor had pilfered a book from the pirate's hold and read words that must never be read and been cursed to narrate every action around him in purple prose.
"I knew it," the pirate shouted in triumph scant centimeters from the sailor's ear. "You said you didn't but clearly you did!"
Yes, the sailor had been looking for treasures to plundered and gotten bored in the process and it was all part of a discussion that could be held at a later date—
"No. We can have it now. It's not like we're going anywhere."
The pirate was so insistent. Needy really. Which was probably why he couldn't keep a lover—Kicks! Kicks to the legs!
"Hook," the warrior woman said in a tone tinged with exhaustion. "Stop trying to kick Sinbad."
The kicks that landed were painful, but kicking someone lashed to a mast when you were lashed to the other side of the lash was, unsurprisingly, difficult.
"Can we muffle him," the princess asked, her pretty little ears too accustomed to treacly whispers of wonderment to handle the bold prose of a poet.
"That doesn't even make sense," the warrior insisted, as though she'd learned anything of good writing while training to whack people with swords.
The witch's voice boomed, "Shut up, all of you!"
The cacophony of the ship's crew dulled to a whisper, so soft that with a cocked ear they could hear the sweet sound riding on the waves.
The sirens.
Their resonant aria drifted across the blue-green sea, tickling the ear and stirring the groin. It was a kind of driving ecstasy that lured the listener ever closer to the shore. The only need one could feel at the sound was to be so close that one could touch the lips uttering that beautiful song.
The boat swayed, the wheel spinning and the sails twisting as the witch drove them closer to the shore.
"Not too close," the pirate cried, as though immune to that resplendent song.
The witch's eyes were focused, dark and watchful like a bird of prey's. Her control of the ship's wheel was delicate. Reserved. "I know what I'm doing," she growled.
And indeed she had a truly masterful command.
"Thank you."
Closer and closer they sailed, until the shore took shape and details emerged, like the film pulled from the surface of a broth. The sirens frolicked on the beach, their three toed feet, like those of birds, dug into the black sands, and their wings, grey like the storm on the horizon, glittered in the sun, droplets of water like jewels on their feathers.
Their bodies were ideal. Plump or slim. Commanding or giving. Some had muscles that bulged beneath the skin, and others had curves to lie one's head upon. They were of every land, some dark, some pale. All gorgeous. With lips that hummed a song of despair and need as inviting as their sensual hands.
One by one they noticed the ship, the white sail like a light upon a stage, commanding their performance. They gathered and the song changed. The despair mounted. The pathos of each note rending apart the passengers of the boat.
One could only close their eyes with the mad hope that not seeing those mournful women would abate the driving need to be with them. To soothe and hold and love them.
But one by one each person on the boat opened their eyes.
And the sirens were all themselves and all one. Pleading. Desperate. With blond hair streaked with saltwater and sad green eyes.
"Why do they all look like Emma Swan," the princess asked. Tears streamed down her face but her tone was confused.
"It's not because of me," the pirate shouted in defense.
"Or me," the sailor insisted.
And it could not be the warrior woman, who's hand grasped the princess's tightly and who's head was ducked and her lips moving in a song of her own.
"Then who's—"
It was the splash of a body meeting the water that alerted them all. Both to the newest trouble to strike, and to the identity of sirens' audience.
The witch.
Was in love.
With a woman.
Oh she might not know it. It might be emotions just there at the fringe of her mind, but the sirens knew it. They sought love out and called to it. Appealed to the lonely. Offered to make them whole. Lust was their tool, but love was the instrument they played.
"You couldn't have told us that before we left her in charge," the pirate asked.
The reveal, at that moment, as the woman cut through the water like a knife, with sure, quick strokes, was much more potent then it would have been earlier. Such as when that wicked witch had been sending the handsome sailor's ass up the mast like a damned sail.
"Revenge?! You're getting us all killed because she hoisted your ass up the mast?"
It was a magnificent ass.
The pirate, renowned amongst little boys for his prowess with a sword, pulled at the ropes binding him to the mast.
"We've got to do something," the princess cried, forever stating the obvious.
"I'm for killing this bastard," the warrior woman said, her words remarkably forming despite her tiny, tiny brain.
"I've," grunted Hook, "got it!"
What he'd done was genuinely impressive. He'd removed his hook, dropped it onto his foot and kicked it up into his hand. He then swiftly worked the knot tying him in place and freed himself.
"No one follow please. I'd rather like to make it out of this alive." For a rapacious pirate Captain Killian Jones could be dashing when absolutely warranted.
He ran to the side of the ship and looked over, but did not leap into the water after the witch, who strummed along like she'd been born in the brew. Instead he ran up to the wheel and adjusted the ship's course, ensuring they would not run aground and be eaten by gorgeous bird women.
"Well," the princess asked haughtily, "aren't you going after her?"
"I'm a pirate, not a hero!"
The warrior struggled with her bonds, "You can't let her die!"
"It's not my fault she lied about liking women. If she wants to get eaten that's her business."
"Please," the princess pled, "you have to save her."
For the briefest of moments the sea swelled and the sirens' song could not be heard, and for the pirate even the sound of the others on the boat were gone. For one moment he was a man all alone. A man faced with a choice. Conflict was painted on his handsome face. Save the woman or save his own life.
His jaw clenched.
He went backed to the mast, grabbed the rope that had bound him to it and returned to the wheel, tying it into place and keeping them on their current course for the foreseeable future.
He then threw off his coat with a very dramatic flair and stepped to the side of the ship again, his boot on the edge and the figure he cut a dashing one.
"Thanks," he said with a wink. Then to all of them, "No one die while I'm gone."
With a dive that would have made a mermaid proud he slipped into the water and disappeared beneath the surface.
Then, because luck was never on their side, the rope wrapped around the wheel and keeping the boat on course, slipped off. A gust of wind sent the boat veering sharply to starboard.
This was what they got for letting a man with a hook for a hand tie a knot.
"Don't be an ableist," the princess scolded. Like she hadn't tried to call him retarded earlier.
"Damn it." That was the warrior woman, now struggling against her ropes.
"You can't," the princess passionately insisted. "If you're tempted-"
"We have to get the boat back on course Aurora. I can do it."
Such fervor shared between the almost lovers. Guaranteeing that they'd be the next ones lured by the sirens.
The warrior produced a knife from places no one could have fathomed and cut herself free.
"Mulan," the princess begged, her voice cracking with her plea.
And the warrior spun on her heel and pressed into the other woman, her hand around her waist and her lips searing against the princess's. It was a kiss that ached to watch. The complicated love they shared and the ghost between them. The man they'd loved. And the bittersweetness of this first and potentially final moment. The warrior was perhaps dooming herself to die, and the princess was helpless to do anything but watch.
They parted sweetly, the princess trying to prolong the kiss and the warrior steeling herself for the trouble ahead. When she'd stepped far enough away the princess sighed and her head thumped loudly against the mast.
"If we survive," she said, "I am going to murder you Sinbad."
The warrior staggered towards the wheel while the boat drew closer to land and the alluring sirens. She made it the last few steps and quickly went to work rigging the rope properly and tying half a dozen knots.
"I'm not tying that many knots! You want them you do it."
Three knots?
"One!"
She made it the last few steps and quickly went to work rigging the rope properly and tying one very good knot that could certainly not be undone with a breeze like certain other knots tied that day.
Then, because she wasn't as stupid as previously assumed, the warrior used the rest of the rope to tie herself up just out of reach of the wheel. Though…how clever could it be? The woman had just tied herself up she could just as easily—
She dislocated her shoulder. Okay. Yes. That was one way to hobble one's self and keep one from undoing the knot one had tied. It was, in fact, a very impressive way of handling one's self.
"Thanks," she said through clenched teeth.
It was only after they'd all stood there a few moments, sailing along to the most wondrous accompanying music that they realized they still hadn't heard from the pirate or the witch.
Perhaps they'd drowned.
"Only one of us is drowned and if you're clear enough in the head to keep on with that awful narration then you can damn well help us get back onboard," the pirate shouted somewhere on the port side near the stern.
"We can't," the princess shouted back, "we're all tied up."
"Fine then! I had to drown Regina just to keep her from magicking her way onto the island and she'll probably be to brain addled to be ressucitated soon but we'll just wait!"
The realization that she was going to have to dirty those pretty little hands if she wanted to save a life painted a scowl on the princess's face.
She wriggled her way out of the ropes, the rough cords scratching her face, and her fairly swift escape revealing just how poorly they'd all been tied up.
"I see you're still tied up," she noted smugly.
It was a truth. The clever sailor was so tightly bound he was positive he'd lost circulation in parts of his anatomy.
"Only if we're lucky."
The princess worked quickly, tying an excellent loop and throwing it overboard for the pirate. Then with a series of very unbecoming grunts she pulled both witch and pirate back onboard.
Hook looked very manly despite being soaking wet. His shirt had torn to reveal a handsome chest and his sopping hair was in his face.
The witch on the other hand…
"Hurry," Hook said, "we need to get her breathing again."
She was as pale as the princess, but with blue lips.
"I can't," the princess said. Her eyes weren't on the witch or pirate, but the sirens, who had shifted again and were now a mix of the princess herself and the warrior woman. Their song was no longer a mournful wail but a stirring and erotic ballad, and the sirens seemed to perform each note not to the ship but to one another. Acting out fantasies two very real women had long kept private.
"Right," Hook said.
"There's no time to tie me up," she was already trying to get past the pirate.
"What would you have me do," he said, shoving her back.
"Punch me."
He gave her a final push. There was a moment where she did not move and he used it to look at his fist and weigh his options. Then she did move and with no other choice he punched her so hard she spun.
The only thing that didn't keep it from being the most repugnant thing anyone had ever seen was how Hook caught her and gently set her on the deck.
It was, however, still very repugnant, and certainly to be part of any narrative told about the "great" Captain Hook in the future.
He punched princesses.
"Because I was very low on options. Now quiet. I have to bring this one back to life."
He was situating the witch and tilting her head like he could bring her back to live. Or even should. She was an awful woman. Grumpy. Short tempered. Prone to flinging people—
####
She knew it wasn't Emma Swan. Logic, her own eyes, everything told her it wasn't Emma Swan. But the song. The song spoke to her. Lured her away from logic. From reality. Beguiled her with its dolorous notes. Though she knew it was not Emma Swan on that island she'd felt compelled on some primordial level to seek her out and offer comfort.
Those were her last thoughts. Keeping Emma safe and sound had been her only desires.
Then she found herself baking in the sun on the hot deck with a soaking wet Killian Jones dripping seawater all over her.
"You alive?"
"Yes. Why am I on the deck?" And why did her mouth taste like dirty fish?
He stared and she knew it was a silly question to ask.
"I tried to swim to the sirens didn't I?"
"The bright side is you didn't try to take the whole ship with you."
He helped her sit up and she took stock of the rest of their paltry little crew.
"Why is Aurora unconscious?"
"Was that or let her go for a swim too."
"And Mulan?" Who was glowering up by the wheel and holding her shoulder.
"Dislocated her shoulder to keep from getting free."
"And Sinbad?" He alone was still tied up as she'd left him. Only unconscious and with what looked like a broken nose.
"You might not believe me, but punching him was absolutely necessary." Killian grinned and Regina had to smile too. The sailor was absolutely atrocious sometimes. "By the way, he is cursed, we're stuck with his narrations until you can figure something out."
"And I assume 'something' doesn't involve tongue removal."
"As I've already told you, that tongue of his is one of his only redeeming qualities."
She shuddered.
"So that bit, back before, about you not being attracted to women? Looks like you were wrong."
At the time, even after kissing Emma and even after everything with Bluebeard she'd thought it was…something else. Infatuation only bordering on the sexual.
"According to Sinbad lust is only part of what the sirens do. To be really effective the victim has to be in love." His blue eyes sparkled like he was telling a joke.
"I'm not in love with Emma Swan."
"Some part of you is."
"She's abrasive. Idiotic. Controlling. Annoying."
"And you miss her."
The only person she missed more was Henry.
She ignored his attempts to get something out of her. "What about you," she asked, "why didn't their song work on you?"
He looked past her, towards the sirens, and she turned to see them in the distance. She realized she could hear them still, but their song was now so soft as to be a dream.
They were all one woman. A gorgeous dark haired woman with fair skin and a secret in her smile.
"Is that her?"
He said nothing, his Adam's apple bobbed as he watched the sirens sing.
It had to be.
Milah. Rumpelstiltskin had ripped her heart from her chest in front of Killian. Crushed it to spite him and to destroy her.
She knew that pain too well.
And if it had been Daniel calling she would have been bound to oblige.
"Why don't you go to her?"
The corner of his mouth ticked up into an almost smile. "I think for the sirens' song to work you need hope. The woman I love's been dead more than a hundred years. Those things on the shore are just ghosts."
It was the first truth she'd ever heard from him that she'd actually believed.
The sirens' faces flickered, shifted from Killian's specter to Regina's own. And she resisted this time, mindful of his words.
If one needed hope to be enticed by their song then Regina could survive. Because whatever her own feelings might be, she knew, without doubt, that they would never be returned.
Without thought her hand slipped into Killian's and she gave it a squeeze, and the pirate squeezed back, and together they turned away from dreams that would never be fulfilled.