He had heard the menfolk refer to this expanse of waves as the Atlantic. It shouldn't have mattered to him, here so deep beneath the surface, invisible to any of their kind; but when a lack of excitement dragged on for so many years, his thoughts tended to stray. He needed something to feed off of, something to restore his energy. The waters he thrived in had been quiet for a while, and now it was time to stir things up a bit.

Unlike others he could name—the cantankerous sea-witch Castafiore, for example—he did not exercise his power at every possible opportunity. Rather, he waited. He waited for the tides to slow to a near-halt before he made his move. He waited for a peace that was simply begging to be broken. He waited for a hearty ship with hearty men, the kind that never suspected a thing, the kind that thought they were invincible only to be proven deadly wrong.

He turned over onto his back and flicked his tail. He was growing impatient, now. He had sensed the approach of something from miles off. Whatever that something was, it was taking its sweet time.

A head of ginger hair peeked above the rippling water, and a hand soon followed to style the orange strands back into a neat quiff. Silvery eyes scanned the surrounding area for any disturbances, but found nothing. Nothing except for the usual back-and-forth of the water, reflecting the shine of the summer sun.

"Hmph."

With another flip of his scaly tail, he surfaced completely, landing gracefully on the rocky shore of the shoal he had called home for the last century or so. He meandered around plenty, sure, but somehow he always returned to this little cove. Sometimes he wondered if there was something beckoning him there, something calling for him, something he needed to follow…

"Nonsense," he muttered aloud. "Beckoning is my job." He allowed himself a short laugh, a smirk gracing the space in between freckles and rosy round cheeks. "And I'm quite good at it, if I do say so myself…"

A sound in the distance startled him from his contemplation. It was a sound he would know anywhere, and a sound he had long been anticipating. The low, heavy honk of a steam-ship's horn, the signal that the something he'd been waiting for had arrived.

The sailors these days all seemed to think that sirens had died out with the Ancient Greeks. Not so, my friends, not so, the littlest one thought, now just about ready to prove them wrong.

It was time to work his magic.

Also unlike Castafiore, his song was far from the shrill, all-engulfing sound that captured the ears of only the easiest men. Rather, his call was softer, lighter, gentler: and that only made him all the more enticing. He would give but a little taste of his voice to the sailor-men as they approached, rather than destroying their ears all at once. That made them curious, made them want more of him. So they would follow, intrigued, and bit by bit the sound would grow more and more powerful until the mesmerized fools met their fate against the rocks.

He wasn't above believing his body was attractive as well. Creatures like him were so rarely seen by the people on land. When human eyes met the ones wrapped in such an air of mystery and charm, it became very, very difficult to resist their temptations.

Even with his eyes closed in concentration, he could see he was winning. The ship, quite large by the sound of it, was changing course, already ensnared in the trap his voice had laid. Though the chant was wordless, it was filled with plenty of suggestion: to come, to follow, to stay, to obey…

Deeper and deeper, louder and louder, stronger and stronger his spell became. The ship went from completely unseen to mere meters from his face. It began so slowly, and then in one single instant…

…it was over. Those who stayed on the ship were smashed, and those who reached out for a glimpse—or maybe even a touch—of the being before them were drowned.

The small siren looked over his handiwork. The bodies, the bottles of alcohol, and the tins of what looked like some sort of meat were useless to him, but still he was impressed with himself. What he soaked up with pride was the pure energy of the beautiful disaster he had caused…

Suddenly, there was a brush of skin against his tail fin. He peered down into the water and found one of the sailors: a stocky, tall man, with a thick black beard. A thin trickle of bubbles was flowing from his mouth.

He was still alive. Barely, but it was so.

Cocking an eyebrow, he impulsively reached for the sailor-man and brought him to rest on the rock beside him. The siren brushed the sailor's neck with one dainty hand, and found a pulse. He was unconscious, and likely still hypnotized…but he was alive. How was that possible?

In that moment he realized he had never seen one of his victims up close. And so with a curious fascination, he began to inspect the man he had captured.

Even the features he shared with the human were drastically different between the two of them. The hair on the sailor's head was longer and thicker. Underneath his sopping shirt, he had hair even where the mer-creature had nothing but soft, sleek skin. He appeared rather muscly, quite strong.

Well, anyone who had somehow avoided death as cast by a siren had to be plenty hardy.

That was enough to leave said siren, who was normally quite sure of himself, in a state of uncharacteristic doubt. This stranger was worth something, he knew, and with the powers he possessed, he was sure to find out exactly what.

With a snap of his fingers, he lifted his spell.