Summary: Alberto finds out he's a siren, a creature from tales of old who can allure unsuspecting sailors into the sea. Some of the more conservative residents of Portorosso take this as evidence that sea monsters were a danger to their quaint coastal town all along – but Luca, Giulia, and Massimo know the truth – or do they?


Prologue


Globes of saltwater slap the rocks onshore in a raucous symphony. Briny seawater sprays Luca's arms and face, patches of green appearing on his pinkish human skin. His pulse pounds in his ears over the coming tide. Thunderous and deafening over his increasing breaths, his vision flickers in and out, arresting his chest.

"You're still here?"

Luca freezes at the voice behind him, at the other boy who places a casual arm around his shoulders. He ignores the strange warmth he feels with Alberto's weight on him, tilting his head to the side.

The light behind them is golden and fading. Luca knows he must return home lest he risk the wrath and misunderstanding of his parents, but it doesn't make going any easier. It's a delicate act to play: the perfect son willing to follow his parents' every word, versus the adventurous curiosity of his begging heart. "I… I don't want to go back yet," he admits.

As usual, Alberto's tone was light when he first addressed Luca, but now Alberto hesitates, trying to decipher the younger boy's nervous expression. "Then don't," says Alberto simply.

Oh Alberto. Always speaking so plainly about things that didn't concern him. With a father who trusted him to do as he pleased, it's not like he had a panic attack just imagining what his parents might do if they found out he'd been sneaking off the past week. Luca sighs, wanting to give in to Alberto's request to stay on the surface, but he shakes the fanciful thought away. His feet drag through sand on the beach as if on a magnetized track. The grains scratch his soles, embed underneath his nails. "I-I'll be back tomorrow," he squeaks.

The summer breeze turns chilly as Alberto's arm falls from his shoulders. First, his feet transform into flippers. Then, his legs grow heavy with scales and a tail that cuts through the water's surface. Once he's more than waist-deep, he shivers unexpectedly but doesn't dare look back, afraid his envy and sadness will be too apparent on his face.

Luca closes his eyes and ducks underwater.

Once out of Alberto's sight, the boy swims behind a large boulder near the shore. With a webbed hand to his chest, he stops, endeavors to catch his breath. His heartbeat thrums against his skull in a troubled rhythm. Going home always felt like this. His transformation in the sea is like pulling on an elaborate costume, a protective shell he donned to defend himself from being verbally assaulted the moment he returns. Dreading his days off, unable to sneak off and spend time on the surface with Alberto, he's constantly forced to pretend he's content with his humble farmer lifestyle – that he was the son who never wanted for anything of his own. Luca was starting to understand… it was the human who was the real him, and the sea person who was just a mask.

Should his parents find out about Alberto, they wouldn't accept him. Alberto was someone they didn't know, someone outside their village. Being from the open ocean was bad enough, but if they knew their son was spending time on the surface with an outsider, they would shed scales on the spot. Luca didn't want to believe it was true… but he already knew.

If only there was some way he could live both lives, without losing Alberto or his family, one or the other…

Luca doesn't know how much time passes until his breathing slows. The sound of waves crashing above dims, and his pulse no longer pounds in his skull. Aware his panic could start again at any moment, Luca swishes his tail to set himself in the right direction toward home. When he hears a faint splash emit from the shoreline, he turns, seeing Alberto is behind him again. This time with wide, green eyes. The other's speechlessness lasts for only a moment.

"I was headed in the same direction. Want me to swim back with you?"

Though Alberto says it like a question, he doesn't give Luca any time to respond before swimming past him, glancing back expectantly. Luca's heart thuds anew in his chest. Afraid they'll get too close to the village and someone will see them together, he's reluctant – but there's something else too – a slow, creeping nervousness unlike before.

The way Alberto is invading his lonely life…

The sea people in Luca's village keep to themselves. That's how it's always been, ever since Luca was a fry, and for generations before that. Growing up, the other boys around his age were so focused on their farm work and upholding the family name, so set on making a family and settling down in the area as their parents had before them. Luca could never relate to them, too intimidated by their unwavering faith in the path their parents laid out for them. And Luca felt bad, because contrary to his parents' hopes, he didn't wish for a life like that at all. He wanted to see more than he could ever dream. He wanted to explore everything the world had to offer. Only the boy in front of him now had shared that goal and passion with him, given him a place to express and be himself.

But Luca knows Alberto is closer to achieving that dream than he ever will be. Furtively, he glances at Alberto, swimming behind him. His spiny tail slashes skillfully through the water, strong and effortless. Luca's cheeks burn, feeling jealousy. Then guilt at that jealousy – yet he can't stop looking.

He isn't strong or spontaneous enough to achieve their dream on his own, not like Alberto. Maybe, if sticks around Alberto long enough, just a little bit of that confidence and strength will rub off on him.

"I'll leave you here." Alberto's words kick Luca out of his reverie – waking him from his endless peering into a mirror-like abyss. They've stopped at the far end of the rocky trench, where they first met.

"So what did you come over here for?" Luca asks, not understanding why Alberto glances wildly to the ocean's surface as his hand flies behind his head.

"Oh, uh, you never know. There's always human stuff around."

Luca doesn't think any more on it as he says farewell, sounding sullener than he intended. He cringes internally at his own self-pity.

Taking up his herding staff, his heart stabs with guilt at the stone statue in the center of the seaweed bed. He pushes the feeling aside this time, knowing he'll be facing his parents soon. Whirling gracefully around the perimeter of the seaweed bed, he gathers up all the sheep fish with the skill of a young shepherd, and once they're in a school, Luca glances back at where he and Alberto parted ways. He wonders where the other boy disappeared off to, sickened by the knowledge that Alberto's life is far more interesting than his ever will be.

Alberto is still there – behind the corner – though, checking around the rocks to make sure no one saw them together. If anyone did, he feared the meek shepherd boy would never be able to join him in his tower again.

Before he was left alone on the Isola del Mare, Alberto's father had grumbled about the village full of farming reef dwellers nearby. They were more conservative in their isolationism and surface politics than he. They didn't take kindly to strangers, concerned with protecting their own kin, so they cast him and Alberto out. Open water folk were known for venturing to the surface for supplies and recreation. Should they allow him to take residence with them, his facetious ways would surely infect the youths and put everyone in danger of being discovered.

So, if anyone found out such a man left a son alone on an island nearby, surely, they would reject Alberto as well. They'd drive him out like a disease – on the sole basis of his spiny fins and darker scales, on his smidgen of familiarity with the surface.

However, Alberto doesn't like to think about it. As long as he knows he can see Luca's rosy cheeks peer over the ladder to his tower tomorrow, admiring all the human stuff in his lofty hideout with his timid curiosity, Alberto would ride this wave for as long as it last.


Here I am writing for Luca (2021) again, much to my surprise. I just want to say that I am so utterly grateful and honestly floored by how much attention Phantom Tail has gotten. Thank you so much for your support! I hope you enjoy this story just as much, though it's quite different.

I've wanted to write a darker take on the world of Luca for a while now, inspired by discussions with jackshade21, tiburme, and others on Tumblr. It seems this story will be departed from anything else I've written thus far, so I wanna see what y'all think before I continue, as I am not very confident for the first time in a long time. I hope you'll let me know what you think in the comment section below!