A/N: Posting this today for no other reason than to say 'Hi!' and I still love CluClu. xD Since not everyone is on Tumblr. That and I wish I had enough motivation and inspiration to write more.
[Sequel to Sea Witch posted last year.]
The Last Siren Kiss
A quick glance to the right revealed a sleeping Nunnally, a dreaming princess tucked safe and warm underneath the rich duvet, clutching her favorite feather pillow. Sighing, the Crown Prince of Britannia smiled and closed his sister's prized book of fairytales. The very first of its kind and custom-made for his sister's 13th birthday. No matter how old she was getting, Nunnally always loved it whenever he read to her. When he wasn't too knackered from his Princely duties, she'd often coaxed him to please, please read her a story.
Helpless against his sister's charms, Lelouch would always acquiesce.
It was the fanciful tale of the mermaid that beguiled her tonight, ending their story time with a simple question that he found himself lingering on.
"Are mermaids real, Nunnally?" He whispered into the shadows of her candlelit chambers. "I wouldn't know."
A renowned Prince and naval commander was he, and he still had yet to encounter such a creature.
He'd heard stories for sure, but how true were the accounts? Fanciful tales and imagery born of an overactive imagination often plagued sailor's tales. It was a woman with a fish's tail in one, and a woman with tentacular appendages the next.
"Darling?"
"Mother?"
Startled, the Prince flinched. So engrossed in thought, he failed to hear the heavy door open or notice the silhouette of the Empress approaching. Marianne saw her son's stiff form on the high-backed chair, Nunnally's prized fairytale tome clutched in his hands, and she smiled.
"It's time for you to rest as well." She chided him gently.
Picking the delicately embossed bookmark on Nunnally's bedside table, she carefully tucked it in between the pages, where his finger was placed to keep the book from closing. Her son (now more of a young man, really) looked at her with the same purple eyes she first saw twenty-one years ago.
He didn't protest much as she took his arm and escorted him to his own bed chambers, where she let him have his privacy to dress for bed, and then, in an act of motherly fondness he hadn't seen since his 18th birthday, Empress Marianne tucked him into bed. She smiled at him with that same glorious smile that beguiled his father before pulling his blankets up to his chin, and then leaving her trace of motherly love on his forehead.
Twas the routine that sent the Crown Prince to his own dreamland - one full of twisting coral spires and crystalline palaces underneath the unfathomable sea.
vVvVv
Waking up to the kisses of the sea and the smell of the ocean brine wasn't an experience all too strange. Not anymore, anyway. Not after being shipwrecked and tossed around by the cruel waves. Groaning, the lost Prince tugged on his dirtied and soaked shirt as he peeled his heavy lids open, coming face-to-face with the light of the blue moon, and his lover's pallid face.
"Had a nice nap?" She hummed, threading her fingers through his damp hair.
The sea groaned as waves brushed the outcropping of boulders and rocks. From her perch beside him, the siren - his siren - watched as he gathered his bearings and slowly sat up on the hard bed he'd made for himself. He didn't answer her question, so she settled for shifting closer to him. He let her intertwine their arms; let her bury her face into the crook of his neck, where she inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of the sea and of him.
Lost in his own reveries, he pressed his cheek to the top of her head, and joined her in her nightly vigil.
How long had he been living in her grotto?
Truth be told, it was hard to tell. Sans calendar or timepiece, and nothing but the sky and ocean around for miles, the days and the nights blended together. It felt like living in a different world. An experience so surreal… There were days where he found it was difficult to distinguish reality from the dreams he'd had as a boy, and as an older brother sharing trifling stories with his little sister.
"I have a question for you." He said hoarsely, finding his voice.
Acknowledging that she'd heard, she pulled back just enough to gaze upon the face of the handsome Prince she'd stolen from his home. He hesitated and didn't speak for the longest time, and she let him be to organize his thoughts. Instead, she watched as he toyed with each of her fingers half-covered in piscine scales. That ever-curious stare wandered and skimmed over where there should have been human legs.
"Lelouch?" She finally coaxed, suddenly conscious of the way his gaze lingered too long on her tail and its many shimmering scales.
"If… If I told you I wanted to return to my family, would you-"
He didn't need to finish. "I've told you ever since, remember? You are free to go. You are the one who keeps choosing to stay."
That was true. He regretfully met her eyes and willingly drowned himself in the oblivion presented by pools swirling with blue and ethereal gold. Her expression, no matter how much she tried to hide it, was but a reflection of his own. The words and the simple suggestion was painful. And truth be told, he hated it too.
"This was inevitable, anyhow." She whispered, reading the resolve evident on his face and the regret reaching out to her from the depths of his soul.
"It's not a matter of want."
"I am aware. And I understand."
If only there was a way to split her tail into two legs. To let her walk beside him on land. If only there was a way to end her curse, bring her to his palace, and eventually, marry her. But then he caught his own thoughts and his selfish wishes and immediately regretted them. He wished she was human… He wished she was but a simple maiden.
But that wasn't her… That wasn't his Ceiana. And she would never be that way.
Because, would he have fallen for her if she was anything but what she was?
He had grown impervious to her façade - had seen past the enchantment and the songs to not just glimpse, but behold the beauty of the creature that lay underneath.
To many an ocean she may have wandered, countless sailors she must have bewitched, but she, herself, confessed that she'd never had something as delectable and sweet and wonderful as what they had shared.
"The heavens have blessed me. And yet, it has been so cruel to offer me a taste of sweet and true love, when we both know it will not last."
"Would that I could take you with me." A melancholy sigh brushed past the palm that cupped his cheek and stroked the skin gently.
"Would that I could be anything other than what I am."
The beginnings of a frown crumpled his brows. Amused, she flashed a coy smile and smoothed the wrinkles out with her thumb. Her hands on his face drifted lower and wound around his shoulders, spindly cold fingers stroking the hair on the back of his neck. He leaned into her gentle touch, pressing his forehead to hers in solace and quiet sorrow.
The celestial being on high cast her otherworldly form in shimmering light. In the dark, every scale in her body appeared to glow, tipped fins fluttering in the gentle sea breeze. The chilliness of the air failed to hold a candle to her warmth - to the very essence of life present in the kisses she peppered across his face.
He may have decided to finally return home… But no one said he had to do it now.
"Come swim with me."
A smirk and then an impish and mischievous giggle followed. A violent spray of salty water hit him in the face. And as he spluttered, gasped, and accused her of such crass gestures, her silvery laugh echoed across the expanse of the sea within their vicinity. Groaning, the Prince rubbed his eyes clear and blinked a few more times, staring hard and long enough to see the flicker of her glimmering piscine tail disappearing underwater.
It was hard to question his own sanity sometimes. Nobody warned him about this creature's fickle and oddly playful nature.
Shaking his head and doing his best to hide the amused smile that no one could see, he shrugged off his soaked shirt and dove into the dark depths after her.
He couldn't see her anymore, but she'd find him. Just as she'd done when they first met and attempted to lure him with her tempting songs in the middle of a turbulent and churning sea.
The ocean enveloped him like familiar arms. Comfortable weights on every side. He pushed through the pull nonetheless, and resurfaced with the familiar feel of salt burning the corners of his eyes.
"Cei- Ah! Stop it!"
He groaned and tried to shield his face from the spray to no avail. Appearing as if out of nowhere, most of her torso slowly broke the surface. She had a smile plastered to her face - a smile that said she wanted to forget the crushing loneliness she would soon feel at his permanent departure. If only for a fleeting moment… She wanted one last night with the man who had offered and given much, even if he didn't need to.
"Why do you feel the need to do that?" He spluttered, spitting out what went into his mouth unbidden.
"It's the least you could endure if you're leaving me forever."
It was a joke, but it was sobering. The briefly forgotten outcome reared its ugly head between them again as the sea maiden spoke her words. She seemed to realize it as quickly as he, because she turned her face away in uncharacteristic shame. How could she have allowed her emotional vulnerability to show so easily? How could she show her selfishness now, when it was clear that there were others who needed him? Other people who were far more important. People he'd known all his life.
What was her measly existence compared to his?
He had a life to live and to return to. She did not… Hers was eternal wandering. And it had no place for someone like him, as much as they tried.
She failed to register his silence and his approach. Startled, she gasped a little as his arms wound around her, and the familiar shape of his human body pressed against her side.
"Forgive me." He pleaded quietly, his hands wandering over the mesh of scales and skin across her body.
She had always known it would come to this. So… how would she tell him that there was simply nothing to forgive?
A heavy silence fell on them both, naught but the music of the waves coming between them. Turning to each other she embraced him with as much love as she could muster, her tail winding around one of his legs underwater to hold him close. He nuzzled the side of her face, fingers tangling in soaked tresses.
He wanted a kiss. Just like the ones they shared in their little pocket of the world. He wanted her lips, yearned for her surrender, and the thrill of being consumed by her person, devoured by love and desire as turbulent as the ocean that surrounded them. Gentle breaths in between, fingers traced over slightly parted lips-
The beginnings of a song filled the night air, whispering the first words against his mouth. Her own silent prayer - full of adoration, devotion, contrition, and supplication. An ode to the man who took her love and gave her his in return. The very last song she would sing in his presence.
Enthralled, he listened and basked in the beauty of her voice. It washed over him, covering his entire being as she embraced him and swayed them gently. They rocked with the rushing waves, with moon as witness as he kissed her forehead, the bridge of her nose, her eyelids, her cheeks, every inch of skin above water that he could reach.
As her haunting voice rose in volume, so did the emotion. Everything she couldn't say to his face, she sang to him instead. Memory after memory played in his mind's eye as the siren's song resonated in the depths of his being. She sang about the wonders and pleasures of the soul, of a Prince and his compassion, of banished woes, of the love that bloomed. She sang of blissful days and enchanting nights, of a mortal winning the fickle and stubborn affection of the sea. It was her invitation to come and see - to read and witness what she had written in her heart.
One by one, the tears rolled down her face. Mesmerized yet just as sad, he brushed the evidence of her sorrow away with his lips and the tips of his fingers. Every single wonderful thing she had found with him, she was about to lose it all.
They were about to lose it all...
He delicately held her face as she continued to sing. What was once an ode of love and happiness broke apart with hushed and near inaudible sobs.
Now it was about finding love and being cursed to lose it for eternity. She sang of a timeless being bound to wander the ocean waters for eternity, forever pining for the loss of a Love. Because it was her fate, and her inevitable future.
She began to sing of a king on his lonely throne, ailing and suffering from a shattered heart - a prophecy of her Love's demise should he refuse to forget about her. She was telling him to forget about her, wasn't she? That he would be better off living his life without memories of her? It was better for her to suffer alone and carry both of their sorrows, rather than burden him.
She could make him forget, she sang. She could make him forget her if he desired, to spare both of them the pain of a final goodbye.
Her delicate hands cupped his face, singing to him with this question hanging between them. In answer, the Prince shook his head 'no.' He didn't want to forget. He wanted to remember everything. He wanted her face imprinted on his mind and on his very soul, to make him remember that his humility and compassion was born from an impossible love between an ancient creature and a mere mortal. That her presence in his life taught him something too.
Reaching up, she bid him close his eyes as she kissed his forehead and continued to whisper the last dregs of her final song to him.
Every word she uttered and sang into his being was heart-crushing but invigorating. Wishes for a long and happy life; that he may always find strength and courage. That he may find love again, in whatever shape or form.
A blessing from the ancient seas.
The end of her song lacked her usual composure. And the weight of her sadness was the final blow that cracked it.
Fresh tears poured over the drying tracks on her face as she quietly sobbed in her Prince's arms. A pitiful sight to behold, really. A timeless monster weeping and mourning over the loss of something that was never meant to be hers.
But that's not what her Prince thought. It was the farthest thing from his mind as he embraced her tightly and wrapped his body around her. As much as it hurt and pained him too, he knew what that last song was, and he knew why she was so overcome with emotional pain.
This was their farewell.
With tears still wet on her face, he reached for her as she clung to him. The warmth of their connection invited them both to yield - to surrender to a yearning so deep, that to refuse it would just be painful. He bent her head back across his arm, faces blurring and darkening - disappearing underneath closed eyelids, as they kissed. Soft at first, and then growing in intensity. It made his skin flush and her minuscule scales flair. That insistent mouth invited her lips to part, sending pleasurable tremors down both of their spines. Twas a lovely dizzying sensation that made him want to sink and disappear into the ocean depths with her, where they could, perhaps, live out their romance together - maybe even until the day he succumbed to his mortal limitations.
Still, even if it was not to be, it was hard to deny the cry of the heart.
"I love you, my Prince."
vVvVv
The next time Lelouch awoke, it was still to the sound of crashing waves and the smell of seaweed and brine. This time, he was in neither grotto nor rocky shores, but on… a bed?
Confused, he hurriedly sat up and nearly hit his head on the low-lying wooden beam of what he now realized was a lovely cabin fit for the captain of a ship. Rubbing his eyes that still strangely stung, he blinked a few more times to gain more of his bearings, and finally noticed that he wasn't alone.
"It is good to have you back with us, Sire." Well-tailored suit, a booklet about cures and illnesses clutched in one hand. It was a physician. When he tried to stand, the eccentric doctor hurried to stop him and quite forcibly pushed on his shoulders to coax him back onto bed. "Please lie down, Sire. You must have drifted for quite a while. I shall fetch the captain. He would be so glad to hear this news."
He barely had time to catch himself. "Your name. What is your name, doctor?"
The funny man sketched a regal bow. "Lloyd Asplund, to be sure. By your leave."
Numb, the Prince just nodded - emotions surging and churning within him. If his assumptions were right, this ship (whoever she was) found him drifting in the middle of the ocean? But wasn't he- ?
Like a play on fast-forward, the memories flashed before his mind's eye. A moonlit night. Dark waters. Rocky shores. A chilly grotto. And a woman… No, a siren. His siren.
One of his hands drifted towards his bare chest, fingering the markings of a rare seashell hauled from the ocean depths. He did it instinctively too, as if he knew that it was already there. That it had been there even before his second case of being lost at sea.
An unbidden memory fluttered to the surface, breaking through the fog, inviting him to see and recall the last but hazy moment that he'd had with her. He was disappointed for the lack of clarity, but what he could remember was imprinted upon his psyche in brief flashes and sensations.
The wisp of the sea's currents as it rushed past him. Her arms around his torso, holding him and his strangely limp body as she navigated them through murky depths and sunlit patches of dark blue. Glimpses of her gradient tail, propelling the two of them through the sea - faster than the ship he once owned.
One final touch of her lips - a kiss he didn't think he returned, before the warmth and comfort of her presence left him.
Perhaps for some strange reason, his body saw it fit to give in to unconsciousness. But knowing her, she wouldn't have left him if she wasn't sure of his well-being right then and there.
The sound of clambering feet on wood jarred him out of his reverie, and before the lost Prince of Britannia even knew it, he was face to face with a gobsmacked Captain Jeremiah Gottwald - famous seafarer, aide-de-camp to Empress Consort Marianne, and the man Lelouch knew for most of his life. Jeremiah knew who Lelouch was of course, but the fact that the Prince was here and had been found, was still astounding in its own merit.
"Your Highness!" The Captain stammered, eyes welling with emotion as he took a knee before his liege. "It is an honor to be in your presence. And it is with great joy that we shall welcome you back to Britannia! I've sent word to the Royal Family. They are expecting your return."
Lelouch rubbed the back of his neck, completely missing the odd stares Jeremiah and Lloyd cast towards him and the peculiar-looking necklace slung around his neck. It was no royal jewel from the state treasury, or any family heirloom. It was the only accessory on his person, and from all his years knowing the boy, Jeremiah had never pegged their Crown Prince to be one for prioritizing vanity over survival.
"How long was I asleep?"
"Four days." Lloyd chimed in, bored with the Prince's visage and back to tinkering with bits of herbs and beakers on the only available desk in the cabin. "The better question, Sire, is how long were you drifting at sea?"
The doctor's curious question gave him pause. Truth be told, Lelouch had no idea how to answer or even what to say if they sought the truth. For them, the lies he would spin would have to suffice. They would call him a madman if he started raving about piscine women, breathing underwater, and siren songs. Plus, he'd rather not tell them about Ceiana.
"I'm… not sure." He said slowly, cradling his head.
"A rather curious thing." Lloyd tapped a finger against his chin, stepping closer into His Highness' personal space to examine him closely, as if Lelouch's weary expression held all the answers for every peculiarity Lloyd had noticed. "You were a picture of perfect health when we brought you up and examined you. No emaciation, dehydration, or salt water to cough up at all!"
Jeremiah, noticing the Prince's discomfort, immediately chimed in. Perhaps now was not the best time to question His Highness about the specifics. It must have been traumatic for the poor boy. "'Tis a blessing."
Lloyd ignored him and kept listing off his keen observations. "A mad man would claim you have special talents. Perhaps breathing underwater would be most likely."
Jeremiah frowned at the ridiculousness of it all. "Lloyd, His Highness needs his rest. We are fortunate to have him return to us in perfect health."
"Are you feeling well, Sire?"
"As well as can be."
"We shall give you your privacy."
As the door shut behind them, the Prince stared out the only available array of windows in the room. The familiar rocking of the ship beneath his feet brought back memories of brief moments before the fateful storm struck. It really was returning to the real world. He was painfully made aware of the date by the doctor's logbook lying open yet untouched on his bedside table. He was no longer dressed in simple pants and a soaked shirt - the outfits he'd grown accustomed to when he had been with her.
The only reminder of that surreal time, and the only proof that it hadn't been a dream, was the trinket resting warmly against his chest.
Gingerly, he held the fragile shell in his palm, wondering if this was to be the only reminder of her presence and her love that he would ever own.
Would he even see her again? He could venture out to sea for the rest of his life, but there was no telling if he would be lucky enough to ever find her again; if her enchanting song would ever grace his life save for that short moment in his ever-fading existence.
"Forgive me, Ceiana."
Throat tight, he squeezed his eyes shut, clutching the shell hard enough to cut the skin of his palms. In the privacy of the Captain's cabin, with feeble sunlight shining through the glass, the Crown Prince of Britannia wept for his stolen heart, for the lonely sea maiden he would never lie eyes on again, and for the love that died when he chose reality over fantasy.