Siren in the Deep

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

A Jealous Lover

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        Once there was a man of such skill with the blade he was without equal, unparalleled in his ability to mete out death.  The shine of his sword, it was said, could not be of a natural light, for even in the dark did it glow a most unusual glow.  T'was blood, the men in taverns often whispered, blood used to accentuate the sheen and create the devilish light that always sought to escape the blade's surface.  Still other stories claimed he was the devil himself, an incarnate representation of that greatest evil.  Never once did he attempt to state the stories false.

        It was during a trip to a small hamlet on the southern coast of the continent spotted with lush forests that he met a girl of humble beauty and brilliant intelligence.  From her, he often would claim bitterly later, he learned nothing but the pains of love one did not receive in return; she loved another, who was a simple man just as she was a woman of unrivaled thought.  This, though, was not a truth, for she taught many other things and she did not love the man she was to wed. 

        One of the many stories told of the swordsman was of his stone heart, that he loved none and none loved him.  He was a murderer, the men in the town warned her as she taught the children their lessons, and she ought to avoid him.  The blood of a thousand men rested on his head and he showed no remorse for the things he had done.  She did not believe their words, though she agreed to keep a distant acquaintanceship with him, and so she never said much to him for the course of a month through the twelve months they knew one another.  Welcomes and farewells were rare, as he made sure to follow her wherever she went, even as they rarely spoke to each other. 

        The girl was a stranger in the hamlet, found wandering in the shallow waves of the lapping ocean when she was but a child.  She had been raised in part by every man and woman in the coastal town fringed by trees, and she had no memory of who she was or where she came from, so this made her a stranger still.  The children, being innocent as all children are at some point in their young lives, adored her every word and she knew instinctively she belonged with the children.  This was why she taught the children strange things the villagers believed she had learned before she had been lost in the sea. 

        With the swordsman, though, he knew what she denied vehemently when she thought herself alone, that she belonged with him even more.  To bear his children was a foolish dream, she often scolded quietly, finding her lips betraying her with a smile or a reproving jest when she was near the man with the devil's sword.  The man she was to marry would finally bring her peace in the village, giving her a name to lay claim as her own, children to root her blood into the village and make it old.  Then could she truly be one of the hamlet's content denizens.

        But she was not content, no matter what she said otherwise, and her words grew more and more frequent with the swordsman, who welcomed them and responded with his deep, curt replies.  The children saw what no others saw, that their beloved instructor had fallen in love over the course of seven months, a gradual stepping down a path until suddenly it grew too steep for her small feet and she plummeted.  He would catch her, they knew, and she would not fall, but she would be enveloped in love, and even the boys thought it was a beautiful thing.

        One night, when ten months had come and scattered, the swordsman came to speak with her and he left with a brush of his mouth across hers.  Her cheeks were scraped with the blood of roses and she pushed him away, running to the sands she had been found wandering, lost and waiting for something she had not found.  He hurt, of course, the rejection stinging, but he was also an impatient man, and he knew she loved him as he loved her.  Marriage he could not offer her, yet he could feel in his essence it did not matter so long as she was his in heart and body; when both are given freely, the soul joins as well.

        It was nearly another month before she allowed him another kiss, and it did not end until the morning's sun rose in quiet understanding.  The first night the swordsman spent in her room meant more than the touch of bodies, but the joining of something far deeper.  Now she admitted to loving him and she saw him smile, a pure twist of his lips, and they spent every night together, not always satisfying a carnal longing, but a tender one that simply needed the other's presence.

        One of the children talked too loud one morn as the twelfth month drew close to an end, for she had seen the girl and the swordsman embracing in the woods and had not understood.  Questioning the man the girl was meant to wed, she unknowingly caused the anger to flow in his blood.  He challenged the swordsman to a rightful duel, but while he chose a day on which to have it, his anger caused him to slap the girl.  On the spot, before the girl and the village, the swordsman, who had earned a place in the village over the arduous time, slew the man. 

        And when the girl began to weep, he thought she shed tears for the man he had slain and he left the village, turning on his heel and stepping numbly away.  The villagers let him pass, too shocked, too horrified, to stop his steady motions, and only the child had presence of mind enough to cry for him to stop.  She did not weep for the man, the child forced from her lungs as the swordsman diminished into the horizon, she wept for knowing you will leave!  But he did not hear, and thusly did the swordsman never return, for he was a foolish, jealous lover.

        This is not the truth of the tale as the youngest of children learn it.  Youthful lovers are often reminded of the swordsman's folly and the girl's unsolved enigma, to shepherd them from mistakes and keep them careful to the point that they might forget love.  Details were lost over time and the story changed, until even names had been forgotten, and people who had not existed were brought into being.

        The swordsman was a curious man of intimidating stature and lean muscle, one whose name of Roronoa Zoro rings yet in other legends, for none believe he would be the man in a romantic tale.  He loved a girl, of the name Ami from an unknown tongue, and a year they spent with one another, and though it ended in tragedy of a different sort, it ended yet in tragedy.  Their happy ending, however, was not forgotten by God: it was merely put off for a few years, but this, too, was lost to time.

        Of course, as it is a tale of swords and magic, and, perhaps most importantly, that the greatest adventure is love itself, it must begin in such a manner:

        "Once there was a girl…"

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        Feedback:  Appreciate it.  :]

        Disclaimer:  Still applies.

        Notes:  Got the formatting fixed.  :]