Gamma/Aria. Mermaids.
Gamma heard her laughter before he first saw her. It was bright and effusive and it bubbled over the green grass of the hills with the breeze. A siren's call, and it bound every thread of his existence around her.
Aria moved with the grace and purpose of rushing rivers, turquoise and whitewater-magnificent, with the economy of movement of a true Mafia boss. Smooth gestures with her fingers, a chin turned just so, a quick appearance of a frown line; small movements, like silver scales briefly flashing in the hazylight, all with their own liquid meanings and messages.
Aria often wore pearls in occassions which required her to exchange the floppy white hats for more elegant, classic attires: translucent swathes of silk, dark evening gowns with wide slashes for easy running, strappy heels. The pearls winked at people from her throat and her ears, lustrous against her dark hair, and gave Aria an air of calm and mystery, like a tide pool in the evening.
Gamma only called Aria a mermaid only once, because he really imagined she was that, a woman of myth and beauty and indescribable danger. He regretted it as he knelt by her sickbed, a sidearm digging into his ribs and a ring that burned on his finger, gazing into Aria's eyes bluer than Italy's sky, bluer than the deep sea. Mermaid, he had called her, in a teasing mood a long time ago, forgetting that mermaids were ethereal, creatures of mist and sea fog and the mystical ocean, not long for the earth, and eventually fade to sea foam in the hands of men.
(His heart is a wasteland and the sky overhead and in her eyes turns gray and thin as the sea leeches her away.)