"No siren did ever so charm the ear of the listener, as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren." - Henry Taylor

All legends are birthed out of some semblance of truth. A godly war was once an earthquake, a dragon was once a weirdly shaped tree on top of a mountain, and Lord Niklaus Mikaelson was a son of the Earl of Pembroke. This is where the solid truths end though. The story of Captain Nik and his mermaid bride was a love story that had been told for generations, tweaked, padded and elaborated for the various audiences until not even the original storyteller would have been able to recognize the tale.

Unlike Tristan and Isolde and many other historical love stories there were no facts, records or statues to perpetuate that this legend was anything other than fiction. On the contrary, historians have proven that Lord Niklaus Mikaelson was the third son Lord Mikael Mikaelson, the Earl of Pembroke by his wife, Lady Esther. According to reports of the day, Lord Niklaus disappeared from society after a dispute with his father, he returned seven years later, apparently having travelled the world like many titled young men of the age, with a large fortune and a beautiful, mysterious wife, Lady Caroline.

What had transpired in that seven years is what the rumors are made out of, in the early years it was believed that he had joined exploring troupes commissioned by the crown, others still insisted that he had joined up with rival ships from Spain and by winning lands for the crowns he had earned his gold. But the story that enticed storytellers and amateurs alike was that the young Lord Niklaus became the most ruthless and notorious pirate that the seven seas had ever seen.

Little is known about how Lord Niklaus made the transition from nobleman to dirty pirate but it is believed that even before he left England he had run in's with the law that his father covered up - petty thefts, quarrels, gambling - that the jump to piracy was not such a big stretch. But this was where the legends stepped in…

He always loved the ocean. When he was six he went on vacation alone with his mother to visit his grandparents in North Yorkshire, this was the first time that his mother fully allowed him to run free. At home, with his father and various governesses around, he always had to adhere to a strict code of conduct but in the seaside town, he could eat sweets and run in comfortable clothes, and he even made friends with a local fisherman, Ansel, who would take him out on his boat.

Every couple years, the two of them would return to the town for a visit and perhaps a reprieve from Mikael, until Niklaus was 16 and his mother, Lady Esther died in childbirth. He visited North Yorkshire one last time after his mother's death when Ansel revealed to him that he was a product of an affair between his mother and Ansel. They were childhood sweethearts who could never marry because of their class difference but he never stopped loving her, as he told Niklaus.

That was the day that Niklaus vowed he would never fall in love.

Lady Esther's death meant that Niklaus no longer had her protection at home, and even though Mikael knew that Niklaus was not his son, his reputation with the crown could not afford a scandal that his wife's adulterous behaviour would bring. So to the outside world, Niklaus was simply Mikael's third son, but in the confines of their home, Mikael kept no pretense as to how he really felt about Niklaus - restricting his movements, berating him at every turn, in some cases the altercations turned violent - and he forbade his staff or the other siblings to talk about what was happening in their home.

For the longest time, Esther tried to shield her son from Mikael's brutality, but when she died giving birth to the couple's final, stillborn son, there was nothing standing in the way of Mikael's rage at his wife's indiscretion and the walking proof that lived within the halls of his home.

Luckily for Niklaus, he was sent away to school and then university, but when he returned to his family home after his schooling, it became obvious that Mikael's aim was for him to marry a daughter of one of the rich members of British society so that he could use the dowry to further his own plans. Niklaus was not about to sacrifice the rest of his life, cooped up with some society girl in order to make Mikael's life better - so he fled.

Unbeknownst to Mikael, Esther's parents had left Niklaus a ship when they died, that was previously maintained and protected by Ansel, and years later, this was where Niklaus ran to, so he would not be forced to bend to Mikael's will.

Within years, Seven Stars, sailed across most of the known world and Niklaus immersed himself in other cultures and ways of living, he worked odd jobs, making money in order to feed himself and his crew until he discovered his true talent - pillaging and plundering foreign ships for resources. He started small, with little ships as he was mentored by Francois l'Olonnais and then he moved up to attacking the large fleets of Spanish resource ships - stealing and killing, until he usurped his mentor as the Pirate King of the West.

Just like most kings, his reign was short, but what undid him was not a rival or even a friend, it was the weakness that crippled most men of the age - love.

Her father once said that everyone is born with a song in their heart, they just needed to discover it, and she had been searching for years. In her father's court, they were taught a variety of songs, but sooner or later each mermaid will discover her own and add it to the repertoire, and Caroline was the only one of her sisters who had not found hers yet.

Your own song is different to that of others because when you sing it, it appears to come from inside you, it lights up your being and draws others to you like magnets.

Her father, King Triton, often said that their roles in the world was to make things in the sea a little bit more fair. They would lure evil pirates to their deaths in order to make sure they don't terrorise the honest explorers and traders, but she always felt guilt about using her gift to cause the death of others.

The day she discovered her song, began like so many other days - she collected shells with her sisters, she watched as her sister Katherine caused the death of a destructive pirate vessel, and she was about to attempt her first solo, when she saw him.

Katherine was a lot like the King, in that she revelled in the chaos that she caused simply by opening her mouth, and this week's wreckage was just part of the casualties of war. But hearing the cries of those who fall to their death was something Caroline never thought she could ever get used to; the prayers for a deity to intercede, for someone to save them. No matter how many times she was told that these were bad men who had done bad things, it did not minimize the empathy she felt for them.

The Seven Stars was Katherine's target for the day. The notorious pirate ship, lead by nobility was infamous for distracting and disarming explorer ships from all opposing sides of the continent.

"We will be doing the humans a great favor," Katherine said, as she tossed her long brunette tresses over her shoulder and prepared to sing, "Not like they deserve any favors from us."

Caroline watched the familiar pattern: one of her sisters starts to sing, the air electrifies, all the ships in the vicinity begin to reroute itself to the direction of the singing voice, collides with rocks and all the occupants fall to their death. But this time, things were little different.

Yes, Katherine began to sing, yes the air electrified, but the Seven Stars did not glide towards the rocks as ships usually did. It seemed to be constantly tugging back and forth. Caroline could see Katherine's eyes narrowing in confusion, it appeared that there was a struggle on the ship. The ship was moving, but it definitely was not smooth sailing.

The closer the ship came to where they were perched on the rocks, the clearer the scene became. It appeared as if a man on the deck of the ship was pulling the seamen away from the steering gear and the sails, as they, entranced by Katherine's song, attempted to steer the ship to the rocks. It was perplexing, Caroline had never seen a man immune to the song of a siren.

He looked up, his eyes focused on Katherine, as he seemed to resign himself to his fate before he blinked twice and went back trying to wrestle control of the ship again. Caroline looked upon the man's face - his brow furrowed in worry, his strong arms fighting, his eyes confused and disturbed - and she felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, a warm emotion, a sense of purpose. There was something about this man that made Caroline feel linked, tethered, apart of, there was something deep within her that told her that this man cannot fall to his death, this man cannot be another corpse littering the ocean floor, another life lost in sacrifice to the hunger of the open sea. And that is what she told herself when she launched her hand in front of Katherine's mouth and ended the song.

He felt the water enter his lungs, and his first thought was that he had always figured that he would die at sea. Of course, he had regrets, like any sane man, but his regrets were mainly that he would never see Mikael's face as he arrived back in town, his arms filled with riches and with enough money to exclude Mikael from any space that he desired to.

It was a bitter thought that even in his last moments, that monster was present, albeit in his mind, even though there were millions of miles between them, Mikael's hold on him was still as tight as it was the day he left his home.

He saw the bodies of his shipmates float to the top of the ocean, as he struggled to stay afloat, there was no true loyalty in piracy - no matter what the fairytales would have you believe - Klaus always knew that if another ship had to offer his men more gold, they would jump in a heartbeat, but he still felt a sense of comradery towards them. These men had fought in the trenches with him, protected him, gotten drunk with him, even fed him, and now they were no more, because a song caused them to go insane.

He still didn't understand completely what had happened. Everything was on course, he was still laughing with Marcel over a lewd joke when suddenly Marcel's face changed, his pupils dilated and his mouth went agape and he suddenly rushed to steer the ship in the opposite direction - towards the rocks. Klaus immediately looked around for one of the other men to help him, but Tristan, Vincent and Joshua were under the same spell, and were assisting Marcel to lead them to their death. The necklace around Klaus' neck burned warm against his chest as he fought the enchantment surrounding the melodic sound in the air, and he attempted to get the ship back on course. God forbid, Niklaus Mikaelson goes to his death without a fight.

He began to lose consciousness as the ocean enveloped him, his last thought being his mother, and the look on her face the first time that she introduced him to Ansel, his eyes drooped as something yellow and warm seemed to engulf him, that was the last memory that he had of that night.

Her father always warned them about getting too attached to the world of men. He told them horror stories about other sea inhabitants who were impaled, killed for sport, eaten, their voices and tails taken away from them. He taught them that men were cruel and evil, he taught them to be afraid. But as she brushed the hair off the forehead of the man she was holding who was struggling to breathe, she couldn't help to think how helpless he looked, a man who was so beautiful could never be truly evil.

The warm feeling at the pit of her stomach returned, as his breaths became more and more stagnant. She had lead him to a cave close to the point where his men had lost their lives. Caroline had a little knowledge in healing, but she knew that she could take a human back to the kingdom to be helped by their healers, and there would be hell to be dealt with once Katherine reported to her father what Caroline had done.

Realizing that there was very little she could do to keep the man alive, Caroline gave into her tears, she allowed the feeling resting in her to be released - except that the scream or cry that she expected to happen, never came - instead a beautiful melodic sound filled her ears, illuminating the cave, and slowly the man on the ground's eyes began to open. It took Caroline a minute to realise that the sound was coming from her, she had found her song.

Yellow. That's the last thing he remembers seeing before he lost consciousness, and it was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes. Light, unlike he had ever seen before, filled the cave, and the most beautiful creature he had ever seen was making a sound that seemed to slowly warm his body.

"Where, where am I?" he stuttered.

The creature, which, as his eyes became more focused, he noticed was a woman, seem to startle at the sound of his voice, and the singing became softer. She smiled at him, and he noticed the tear drops littering her cheeks.

"My lady, why are you crying?" he asked.

"You are alive," she whispered.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Your ship was in an accident, and and everyone died, except for you," she murmured, turning her eyes away from him.

He looked around the cave, exasperated, "But how did I survive? My father always said I was a curse onto the world, I should've known it would culminate into something like this one day." He added in a sneer.

Caroline tentatively reached out and pulled his necklace from out of his doublet, "This necklace protected you from the power of the siren." She softly traced the vial attached to the end of the cord of the necklace that he had gotten years before from Ansel before he had embarked on his exploration.

"What's a siren?" He asked, confused at what that had to do with him surviving a shipwreck.

"Sirens are dangerous creatures that lure sailors and seamen to their deaths by the use of enchanting music," she answered, almost monotonously.

"And you, you saw one of these sirens, lure my ship to the rocks?"

She laughed, "Saw? I learnt at the court of the Siren King, I was baptised with the waters of the Mediterranean to be able to bring death and destruction to generations of humans. I am the heiress of pain and ill-will. What do you think brought you back to health?"

There was so much bitterness and pain maring her beautiful face that Klaus couldn't help but to reach out and stroke her cheek, in an effort to comfort her.

"What is your name?" he whispered.

"Caroline," she said, equally as softly, "My sister, it was my sister who sung the song that caused your men to shipwreck, and when I saw you fight it, I knew you were you unlike anybody I had ever encountered before. It was you. You were the one that was created to make my heart sing. And I couldn't let you go down with the ship."

Klaus was awestruck. He had known his mother loved him, even if he wondered at times if she cherished him because she saw Ansel in his face, his grandparents seemed to tolerate him, Ansel was certainly fond of him, and his younger sister adored him, but there was something so appealing of someone wanting him, desiring him, seeing something special in him.

"My men," he murmured, he thought of Marcel's laughing face before his free will was taken from him; Tristan who proposed to a woman at every dock, falling from the sails into the sea that he was his only true love; Vincent who could be so pious at times, fighting him to take control of the ship. These creatures had robbed him not only of his riches but of these men's lives.

"You killed them," he spat out, "Every last one of them, you creatures killed them. For what? For sport. And then you have the audacity to try and put me under your spell too!"

Caroline fell back against the wall of the cave, her face etched with hurt, "No, no I didn't, it was Katherine."

"I don't care who it was, your kind killed ships full of people for no reason other than your own enjoyment."

"You don't know what it's like!" She shouted back at him.

"Love," his gaze turned dark, "I'm no stranger to murder for chaos, I know how the texture of blood feels on one's hand, the sense of victory you feel when you watch someone take their final breath. The power of being the one to administer life or death. The sea is dangerous playground." His words came out in a whisper, his voice just as menacing as his words.

Caroline shuddered, she felt a strange need dwelling within her, a sort of unfamiliar feeling but yet something that felt as if it had been housed inside of her since her inception, and it was finally being released. What was it about this man that transfixed her against all reasonable doubt?

"It's not that!" she exclaimed, "I have been told my whole life that my destiny is to bring death and havoc to countless men, but every inch of my being has told me that that is not something I want to do. My father doesn't understand, my sisters don't understand, I am different. And no matter how much they want, I can never be the person that they want me to be. I didn't even have my own song until I met you. And here you are, accusing me of things, creating assumptions, when you don't even know me. What right do you have?"

Klaus was taken aback, something in Caroline's words, in her tone, in her posture made her seem so real to him in that moment. He saw himself, trying desperately to fit into Mikael's ideals, to be a perfect child even though the odds were stacked against him, competing with his siblings in a competition that he was never qualified for. Caroline broke down, and in that minute he hated himself. This woman looked so lost, so broken, so vulnerable that his first instinct was to comfort her.

Klaus was not a comforter. He had his fair share of women, being a good-looking pirate meant that his bed was never cold for too long, but he had not felt affection for another in so long that he barely recognised the emotion in himself.

"What did you say about your song?"

She looked up at him, her face wet with tears. "My song. Every siren has their own unique song which they use to lure men into their traps. It is caused in a moment of strong emotion - anger, sadness, joy, love. I was the only one of my sisters that did not have a song - until tonight."

Klaus remembered the beautiful melody he had heard when he had woken up. "Did you sing that song to seduce me?" he asked, perplexed.

She seemed embarrassed for a second, before responding, "No no, I was distraught when I thought you had died when the song came to me, it was the song that healed you. There had been murmurs of a myth that told that if a siren had found their true soulmate, their song could be used for methods other than death."

"But you don't even know my name," Klaus said, even more confused.

"Lord Niklaus Mikaelson, son of Mikael and Esther Mikaelson," she replied, nonchalantly.

"How did you know that?" He said, shocked.

"We had heard the rumours of the notorious Seven Stars, also it said so in your pocket book," she shrugged.

Klaus looked at her, his anger dissipated, and he saw the women standing there, luminant and determined and wondered what his life would be like if he opened it up to another.

"What now?" Klaus asked.

"I cannot go back to my home," she responds, "Not after I left my people to save a human."

"And I have no ship, no money and nothing to my name. I don't think I can offer you much for saving me," he replied with a sigh of resignation.

Caroline seemed to shrug in defeat before an idea struck her.

"You can help me end the senseless killings," she responded, a new enthusiasm in her voice.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I have been working on a plan for the last couple of years, a way to foil the plans of the sirens to murder countless sailors just like your men, all I needed was an ally from the outside, will you help me?"

Klaus watched as her face lit up with passion, and in that moment he was certain that he had never seen anything as beautiful. He knew right then that she was the one to eclipse all of his darkness.

"Have you ever been to Paris?" he blurted out.

She looked confused for a second before responding, "No, I haven't really been anywhere outside our home."

"I'll take you," he said, "I'll take you anywhere you want to go."

A/N: Lemme know what you think, I'm very very rusty. This drabble took 3 years to write