Raihan awoke early the following morning, shivering. He was naked on the riverbank beside a dead firepit. Piers was nowhere to be seen. As he came to, Raihan sluggishly brushed sand and dirt from his body. The dragoon's head was pulsing from dehydration as his joints creaked, muscles sore, and body aching. A passionate night it had been, the shores had proven not to be a healthy place to sleep.

He was silent as he crawled to the river's edge and cupped his hands to wash his face in the icy waters. Raihan scanned the area. His ears fluttered as he heard the morning birds chirping, unseen in the treetops. The river was calm, and the falls tranquil. Rapids that had roared with the voice of the lion had reduced themselves to only bubbles as the water tickled over the jagged stone edges which peeked from the river surface.

"Hey…" he muttered, looking at nothing in particular. "Where are you?"

The morning was too quiet and still for Raihan's comfort.

As the distant red glow of the sun began to bleed into the pale morning sky, the dragoon remained on the river banks observing Pier's domain, listening. He couldn't explain it, but something in the air felt heavy and bleak. He was gritting his teeth, and hands balling into fists.

"HEY!" he barked out to the water. "PIERS! GET OUT HERE!" Raihan's nostrils flared as he stood, stark naked. "I know you can hear me, damnit! SAY SOMETHIN'!"

Nothing.

Just the same flapping birds, singing in the new morning. Nothing except the river, flowing on.


Time passed and so Raihan found himself visiting Pier's waterfall every evening he could. There was no risk of any consequence to him. The weekly visits had once been boundless curiosity but had now evolved into a frantic, near-hysterical obsession. Since their love-making, Raihan had so many things left unsaid, questions left without answers, and nowhere or no person to turn to for answers besides Piers. There were no phenomenal sounds from the winds nor sweet music welcoming the sun. For the first time, Raihan couldn't hear Piers.

Weeks spanned into months, and the dragoon watched himself becoming further entangled in his dependency on what he had lost. Hammarlocke's opera house felt like needles being stabbed into his ears. The King's banquets tasted like ash, and wine scorched his throat whenever he drank. Nothing could satisfy him save the sweet muses from a fossegrimen's violin and a burned peasant over an open fire.

Concern from the other knights had been had over Raihan's worsening state of mind. At first, they had dismissed it as a simple distraction and bad days during training or hunting, but now it was undeniable. Leon would find him trying to sneak out of the castle late at night when on guard duty, demanding to be switched out for patrol.

Then, it happened.

The day came when even the most loyal of the King's wyverns would disobey Raihan's commands. In a fury, Raihan would be snapped at and wrestled against by the very dragon that he tamed and rode every day across Hammarlocke's skies. His closest companion acted as if it didn't recognize him anymore, treated him like a stranger, a threat - a monster!

Raihan was eventually stripped of his position among the dragon riders. He had been reduced to horseback knight and castle guard, never to go outside the village walls except for his off days.

There was nothing left. The kingdom was still rotting from the inside over sickness. The witch hunts were proving fruitless, and the royal chemist failing to create medicine. The clergy commanded no holy might to banish whatever it was that plagued Hammarlocke. Their greatest dragoon was a disgraceful embarrassment to the kingdom. Now that Piers had vanished into thin air, it felt as though the world was disintegrating to be blown away in the winds.


"Was it really all a dream?" he asked himself under his breath.

It was late, well into the hours of the night. Only a lantern in hand as he wandered through the castle library. Books stacked on a small desk. This had become his routine ever since he submitted to the harsh reality that Piers wasn't going to reveal himself in the river. Yet, Raihan refused to believe that he was gone. He was pouring his focus into anything he could link to Piers. Water magic, music theory, history, mythical creatures, ancient legends, and fairy tales, yet it all seemed so fruitless.

For what felt like a thousand and one nights he had spent tearing through large tomes, reading old stories of leviathans, serpents, witches, dragons, mermaids, and sirens but nothing seemed to point him towards any answer. In fact, Raihan wasn't even sure what he was looking for after so long. He was staring, droopy-eyed at illustrations on faded, discolored pages of mermaids. An old children's tale of a mermaid who gave up her voice to be with the man she loved, but ultimately met with a broken heart, and her doom.

"But I never betrayed you," he whispered to the book before him. "Why? Why did you leave me?" Raihan's hands were shaking, unsure of what to do. Flip the page and continue reading? Scream? Cry? He knew that this image wouldn't speak back to him, felt a feral instinct deep within him told him to howl at this mermaid - to condemn her insolence and silence. He wanted to hurl back into the shadows, to tear every page from it until it was no longer recognizable. No course of action would bring Piers back to him, and he knew this. In a slow, deep breath, Raihan hunched over the desk.

A puff of smoke trailed, from the lantern, no doubt. It always seemed to occur - the fire mimicking the once-dragoon's rage. Sometimes he would swear he could see it reacting in time with his own breath and dismissed it all as delusion from sleep deprivation. This was another one of those times, and his usual cue that he should go to bed. Rarely did he heed these warnings, but that night he had no strength to resist. He couldn't even bring himself to stand from the library table and found himself falling face-first into the very book he had been talking to.

Darkness. Nothingness.

Just like that, everything Raihan knew was gone, save for the presence of old parchment and the scent of dust and old ink pressed against his face. For a moment, everything seemed calm. He was floating, swimming in a vast ocean of shadows, feeling his consciousness slipping. Even in such a state, Raihan's eyes wandered through the darkness as he moved forward, looking for something he knew he wouldn't find.

An echo rang, distant. Like someone was talking towards him. He looked through the darkness but saw no one - nothing as the footsteps came closer, and closer and then- Raihan woke up. A gentle hand was on his shoulder. They remained steady, even as he jerked himself up from the desk, swinging his arm about to try and strike whoever had disturbed him. He lost his balance, and nearly fell onto the floor as the elderly Opal stepped away from his attempted attack. "Such a tragic young man you've become, Sir Raihan," the old crone said as she tapped her cane on the floor. "Yet who would think you would become quite the attempted scholar in your downfall." Ever cheerful, even when the world was in a crumbling state, Opal's voice was eerie yet bright and cheerful, teasing anyone she pleased.

Raihan didn't say anything as he picked himself.

"Let me see. What are you so smitten with this late at night? Oh! Why just children's stories? I would have thought it was something far more important. And such a sad one, at that. Surely you know how it ends, don't you?"

Raihan groaned. "Yeah. She dies at the end because the prince betrayed her love."

"Yes, but do you know what happens after she does?"

His interest spiked. As many times as he had flipped through these books, it never occurred to him to read this fairytale in its entirety. After all, everyone knew this story, and when anyone told it, it always ended with the mermaid's death. "What do you mean?"

"Mythical creatures are so lucky. I think that's why we are drawn to them. You see, almost all of them can cheat the very fate we humans all share, but cannot escape. The mermaid doesn't truly die at the end of her story. No no no! Like fairies, mermaids do not have a soul. However, fairies with pure hearts are reincarnated from the flowers that bloom where they die. And mermaids? In fact, they are a rare exception. Because of her pure heart, the sun causes the sea to turn into air, and so she becomes a wind spirit. Then she is told by God that after 300 years of performing good deeds for mankind she will be granted a soul and allowed to ascend into Heaven. It truly is a beautiful ending, don't you think? What are 300 years for an eternity redeemed?"

"You seem to know a lot about this stuff don't yuh, Lady Opal? Guess it makes sense for a grandma to know her stories."

Opal cackled. "Well, this Granny is all the years wiser than even the King. Didn't your parents teach you to respect your elders?"

"My parents were destroyed by a witch's curse when I was only a baby."

"That was their first mistake. Everyone knows to never mess around with witches." Again, she cackled as he stabbed her cane against the floor. "I could tell you anything you want to know if it's fairy tales you're learning. Fairies, centaurs, mermaids, sirens, goblins, and far away places. Tell me, sir Raihan, why are you up so late reading these?"

Raihan was hesitant to speak. Everyone knew about his little adventures to the waterfalls, to see his supposed magical musician, but by now he would sound like a madman. Even Leon was in disbelief over it all after months. He sighed, unsure of how to answer, and yet noise can from his lips, speaking without thought. "Do you know what happens when all these creatures die? What about when sirens die?"

"That is a very peculiar question, Sir Raihan, but I do have an answer. You see they envy humans for the one thing we have that they don't. A soul. In life, sirens and mermaids enjoy the pleasure of being able to manipulate and control the laws of nature at their will, but when they die, they have no place to go. And so they become one with the very nature they once controlled. That is why mermaids turn to seafoam, and why fairies grow into flowers."

Raihan's eyes thinned as his blood chilled. The very thought - no! There was no way. If Piers had disappeared then it would mean that he was…

The knight stood in a heated rage, knocking over his chair in the process, and grabbed Opal by the collar of her nightgown. "Don't say that, you old crone!" he barked as the lantern of the table sizzled and popped; the flame burning bright. "HE'S NOT GONE! HE CAN'T BE!"

The look on Opal's face had said it all. She was confused, and a little frightened as he blinked at Raihan. Her cane dropped as her weak, wrinkled hands swiftly tried to unhinge Raihan's hold on her. "My word, wh-whatever do you mean, Raihan! Unhand me this instant! Sir Raihan!"

Frustrated, he did as he was asked, and stepped away from Opal, grinding his teeth together. He felt like his answer was so close, that he wouldn't dare let up, now. He had to ask the most difficult questions. "Is there a way? For humans to become one with nature? Like you said? A way for a human to communicate with the spirits around us? Tell me! I need to know!"

"Oh, Sir Raihan, that is a very difficult thing to do. Why, the only way you would be able to do that would be with the help of very powerful magics, from a powerful witch…."

"I'll do it! Whatever it takes. Lady Opal, please! Tell me what I have to do!"

"Sir Raihan, please. It's late. You don't know what you're saying. Have you gone mad?" She veered her hand up in protest.

"Tell me, right now! What do I have to do to become one with nature?!"

"Why, Sir Raihan...you must give up your very soul."