The currents between the atolls that he calls home are best known for gently carrying seafaring folk to sweet death. Long ago, or so the songs tell, there was ample traffic in these waters. Wide-eyed fishermen rowed small boats, their innocence carrying as alluringly on the waves as fresh blood. Those souls usually came easy when they called, eager to leave behind their cursed, land-bound existence.
The crews of the large and stately vessels were prone to fighting back, but worth the danger of enchanting when the sailors dressed all pretty like a feast and the bellies of their ships were full with gold and other things that now light up the darkness of the deep waters with a beautiful sparkle when hit by an errant ray of sunshine.
It had been a time of plenty, when they could afford to let a ship pass now and again. Sometimes they'd allow but a glimpse of themselves to be seen and let the unfortunate few to leave to carry back strange tales to faraway places.
More would always come.
Until they didn't.
These days those who still brave the sea have taken to sailing around the innocuous looking cluster of mostly barren islands and the azure lagoons in between. They would rather chance an encounter with the creatures that had risen from the Deep to lurk in the straits or in the open water, putting their trust in swift, noisy boats and witches' charms.
These days, the atoll is a quiet place.
Quiet, but never silent.
He drifts above stretches of white sands that shimmer with merrily dancing lights and hears the scuttling of crustaceans. He hunts among the reefs and follows the crack of a school of fish that turns as one to flee a predator. He sleeps in the twilight of the kelp forests and the voices of his brothers and sisters surround him.
When he listens closely, the tide whispers to him. It tells him of the creatures that do not come here and the fish that do, of cold currents where the water is refreshing and of storms he knows are broiling long before the first clouds appear in the sky above.
Today, he hears the distant string of a note that does not belong.
He dives low and swims towards the echo of a song that is not song.
No one sails these waters anymore, save for the desperate, the damned and the Singing Man.
He supposes he cannot blame them. Land dwellers who come here will die, yes, but in turn they get to stay forever. It seems like a fair trade to him.
The Singing Man is the sole exception. He came and left and then he returned, time and time again.
The captain of the modest fishing trawler does not keep to any specific schedule. He doesn't have to; the flow of the sea is always benevolent here. Deep canals allow for safe passage as the skeletons of ships that never left these shores have long since rotted and sunk beneath the waves and the shoals are home to large schools of fish.
He catches up to the boat easily, guided by the noise of its prow cutting through the swelling waves and quietly pulls himself up its side. A few of his kin have already taken the bow, the bright light of the Above reflecting blindingly off their glittering scales.
He pulls himself closer until another siren hisses a warning at him. There are four of them and he is alone but as long as he doesn't make a move on the soul they each try to claim as their own, they will tolerate him. He is curious to see whether they will succeed today.
They all wait patiently while the Singing Man paces the deck, laying out his fishing nets.
"Now, now," the Singing Man says, a mild sort of reproach, whenever one of the sirens takes the liberty to caress his shin or ankle, but he doesn't stop his work and they don't hinder him further.
They will not pull him under; to take by violence is sacrilege. A lover's life has to be given, willingly.
The nets hit the water with a splat and the Singing Man straightens and heads back towards the bow where he makes himself comfortable on a coil of rope.
"How 'bout a song now, to pass the time?" the Singing Man suggests with a flash of white teeth and a twinkle in his eyes.
They are all too eager to comply. The first siren sings of riches buried in the depths. Lilting notes of the tantalizing glitter, it's a song as old as either of their races.
He swishes his tail idly and delights in the siren's choice, because if the Singing Man was lusting after treasure, he would have followed their call on the first day.
The Singing Man listens and nods and strums his instrument, very much not enchanted.
The second siren's voice brings forth the images of adventure and the unknown. It rises high and then low, and the Singing Man hums along. Clearly, he's heard this one before.
The third siren's song is slow and almost mournful because it tells a tale of love, endless and deep as the ocean itself. The Man seems to like her song best and plucks a few whimsical tunes on his instrument.
"Sorry to disappoint," the Singing Man says in the expectant pause after the last notes of the music dance away on the sea breeze gust of wind and sets his instrument across his thigh. "Hope this'll make it up to you."
He can tell that his kin are getting frustrated with their efforts having no effect on the human, but they settle when the Singing Man begins to play. In return, he gifts them one of his strange songs of the Above and all ill will towards the Singing Man and his unnatural resistance drains like water through the deck's planks. It's part of his charm and one by one, the sirens slip back into the sea, pacified.
He moves a little closer now that the others have vacated the bow.
It takes the Singing Man a while to notice that he still has an audience. When he does, his brows rise up, forehead creasing.
"And who might you be?" the Singing Man asks and the look of surprise does not detract from the handsome features of his face.
His name is the breaking of a wave on a rock and the bubbling, frothing retreat of it through trembling grains of sand. He would sing it to the man if he could.
"You gonna tell me your name, Brown Eyes?"
He shakes his head.
"Won't or can't?"
How is he supposed to answer that? He frowns and after a moment's hesitation, points towards his throat. The Singing Man must have understood him, because while his brows knot together, his eyes soften.
"Ah."
It's an uncomfortable silence, charged with everything he cannot say and the Singing Man won't.
"You're still welcome on deck," the Singing Man decides with a kindly smile.
He smiles back, the tentative flicker of an expression that feels foreign to him.
o
"I gotta call ya somethin'," the Singing Man says when they meet again. What he comes up with is merely an approximation of his name, but it's a passable one.
The Singing Man calls him Din. He even shares his own name in return.
It's Cobb Vanth.
Din hums it to himself that night as he floats close enough to the surface to be able to see the stars. He never strays too close to the Sanctum where his kin keep their companions, the souls that have come to dwell in the murky twilight of the kelp, where the sirens sing to them so that their love may never die.
Those souls are treasured beyond everything else and the sirens they belong to will would not hesitate to attack him.
For Din, there is nothing down there but the remainder of what he cannot have.
o
The other sirens are slow to give up on vying for the Cobb's soul, but eventually, they let the boat pass uncontested on most days, rarely bothering to raise their voices above the surface anymore.
Din slips on deck just as the wooden planks capture the first warmth of the morning's sun. He keeps out of Cobb's way while the fisherman works, content to bask in the light when it doesn't yet burn and blister his skin. Din breathes in the mingled scents of fish, salt, drying algae and hot tar and lets his thoughts drift on the breeze.
When the nets are cast and Cobb sits down in his usual place at the stem, he appears glad for the company.
"Let's see what dinner's gonna be today," he says cheerfully as his eyes flash over to Din. "Want me to save you some fish?"
Din considers the offer. He is hungry, yes, but he prefers to hunt and to feed fresh so he shakes his head and points to Cobb's instrument, the one that makes the not-song.
Cobb shrugs. "More for me, then," he says with that easy smile of which he must have hoarded a great many to deal them out so freely, and begins to play.
He sings too, and Din hums along – quietly, so that Cobb won't think he is trying to weave a spell into it and bid him leave.
The music is just for them so when another of his kin slips on board, Din's tone slips into a low pitch of displeasure that is, as per usual, overheard. He uncoils his tail, whip-like and slams it into the other siren, sending them overboard and into the water with a screech of fury. They don't resurface.
Cobb is slow to close his open mouth and not before a laugh bubbles out.
"Someone doesn't like competition," Cobb remarks.
Din hums, pleased. The others had their chance to woo Cobb. Din may not have much of one, but he will take it nonetheless. Cobb talks enough for the two of them and doesn't seem to mind that he rarely gets an answer in the form of a few gestures, but for the perhaps first time Din physically aches with not being able to talk. He wants to ask Cobb where he came from, what the Above is like and how it comes to be that he dares to sail where others won't go anymore.
Yet how is he to phrase questions like that? He points from Cobb to himself and the boat and makes an enquiring noise.
Cobb tilts his head in that thoughtful manner he always adopts when Din tries to make himself understood.
"I s'ppose I can let you in on my secret," Cobb muses and swipes an errant strand of hair out of his eyes. "I come from a place far away."
Din tilts his head and motions Cobb to go on. He enjoys these kinds of tales. He dips his tail into the sea and lets the water run down his back in a rivulet and then stretches out comfortably, pillowing his head on his crossed arms.
"It was called Tatooine, I don't suppose you've heard of it."
Cobb is right, of course. Din has not heard of Tatooine before, never having paid much attention to the distant towns of the landdwelling folk. In the Below the names of places are not as trivial a matter that their entirety can be summed up with a mere word.
Din points at the water.
"Was there a sea?" Cobb guesses accurately.
Din nods, intrigued.
"Well, yes. It was called the Dune Sea. But it was all made up of sand, not a drop of water."
Din wrinkles his nose, not sure whether Cobb just made that up or not. Either way, he doesn't like the sound of that one bit.
"It was hot and dusty and miserable," Cobb continues and leans back with his hands behind his head. "Never looked back once I got away. See, I love my freedom," the wistful tone of his voice hardens. "And bein' enticed into drownin' myself ain't exactly my idea of it."
He doesn't tell Din to leave though and over the coming months they fall into a rhythm like the flow and ebb of the tides. Din will seek out the boat and Cobb will talk or play or sometimes, they will let time slip through their fingers in comfortable silence.
o
It is late in the season when the tide sweeps in from the heart of the ocean and the sea roils wine dark and ugly and screaming from the presence of the aberrations it never wanted to give birth to. Cobb's fishing is the one of the few constants in Din's life but for the first time Din hopes that he will not see Cobb today.
When the boat makes its steadfast way over the choppy waves, Din motions for Cobb to turn back. He hisses a warning and when it goes unheeded, he tears Cobb's nets.
Cobb gets angry then and there is nothing more Din can do but watch as the sea-serpent rises from the Deep and smashes a hole in the hull of the small trawler. Once that single, fiery eye focuses on Din, he has to swim for his life. He makes for the shallows until the serpent gives up pursuit and retreats back into the deep abyss where it lives.
When Din resurfaces, he finds Cobb standing on a large protruding rock that belongs to a cluster of impertinent islands that have resisted the sea's embrace far longer than Din has lived.
Cobb is looking over the half-sunk remains of his splintered ship. "Were you trying to warn me 'bout that?" he asks softly.
Din nods.
"Shit. Guess I shoulda listened better."
Din shrugs. He did what he could but supposes he wasn't being very clear. Cobb listens just fine and much better than others.
The fisherman's expression is troubled and Din makes a questioning noise. Cobb's eyes are better suited for laughter. Din doesn't like to see him like this.
"Don't look like there's any water around here."
Din thinks it's a very peculiar thing to say when they are surrounded by it. He cups a handful of water, lifts it above his head and demonstratively lets it trickle down.
Something in his expression makes Cobb bark out a laugh. It doesn't sound as light and warm as usual. "Yeah, I can't drink that."
Din doesn't understand what that means, but Cobb doesn't seem to expect him to.
Cobb rests his hands on his hips and looks out over the horizon. "Think someone will come by?"
Din shrugs. Maybe someone will. Maybe the creature from the straits or the Deep will drive others to use this passage again. But if they come here, they will not leave and not be able to take Cobb back. Din thinks that's good. Cobb can be with him now, sing to him.
His instrument, unfortunately, lies broken at the sea floor.
"Yeah, me neither," Cobb replies and his shoulders drop.
"It's nice to have company though. Even though you'd probably eat me if I die." He clears his throat. Mutters, "when."
If he died, yes. But Din doesn't see why Cobb should. Cobb might need his nets to fish, but Din will hunt for the both of them. Din hums softly in consolation and encouragement. They'll have it good here. Cobb will come to see.
The corner of Cobb's mouth ticks upwards but his eyes remain stormy.
Cobb doesn't sing that day, doesn't so much as whistle. He spends hours alternating between pacing the island where Din cannot follow and sitting next to the wrack of his ship, watching as the fish and crabs he hunted make its shell their home now.
He doesn't sing on the second day either. In spite of Din's limited knowledge of land folk, he thinks that Cobb looks worse than before when he wakes from the restless sleep he had eventually succumbed to.
"Shit," Cobb croaks as he rights himself, rubbing the palm of his hand over his face. "There goes my hope this was a bad dream." In the flat light of the overcast afternoon, his eyes and hair appear dull. Cobb even sounds wrong. Something in his throat rasps and Din can see him swallow and not hide a wince of pain.
The fish Din hunts and brings back for him, Cobb barely looks at before he shakes his head. He is twirling something between his hands, water lapping at his ankles.
"Guess this is it, huh?" Cobb asks, picking up a conversation that he must have led with himself during Din's absence.
Din looks questioningly at the object and when Cobb notices his interest, he lifts it for Din to see better. It's a piece of metal torn from his ship, sharp and jagged.
"Found this washed up on shore," Cobb says without being prompted, turning the metal so that it catches the light. "Guess I could slit my wrist, I hear bleedin' out ain't too bad."
Din shakes his head violently.
"Well, I never liked heights so I don't fancy jumping off the cliffs," Cobb says to an even more violent protest from Din. "Unless you know a spring? A well? Fresh water?" Cobb adds with hope dying on every syllable when Din fails to react affirmatively.
For all that he spent his life surrounded by water, Din has heard of no such thing.
Cobb sighs again.
Din wrenches the piece of metal out of his hand and throws it in a wide arch.
Cobb's eyes track its flight listlessly. "Didn't much like that option anyway."
By midday it becomes even more evident that something other than homesickness ails Cobb. Din wants to help but he doesn't know how. He offers his hand to hold and Cobb takes it after a moment, runs his finger over Din's knuckles.
"Guess I can at least pick how I'll die," Cobb murmurs so softly Din almost misses it over the rumble of the waves. A muscle ticks in Cobb's jaw.
Din startles when Cobb's palm cups his cheek, gentle and rough at the same time. He marvels at the warmth of it.
"Been wanting to do this anyhow."
And then Cobb tilts his face up and kisses him.
It's the sweetest of feelings, ecstasy rushing in to fill a void he had carried in him all his life. Din tangles a hand in Cobb's soft hair and slips them both into the water.
They sink down, down where the light is dim and soft and nothing will hurt his love anymore.
Cobb's fingers dig into his arms.
The sanctum is just below. Here, they can dwell together. Be at peace and Din can –
The initial ecstasy turns bitter.
Din can sing no more to Cobb's soul it in the depths than he can at the surface. Peace will become silence, both of them without a voice. There will be no more music and Din can find no joy in that thought.
The body in his arms begins to convulse.
Din kisses Cobb again and breathes out slowly, Cobb all but sucking the air from his lungs.
He gasps when they break the surface and Din hums a low song of deep sleep. This time, it takes hold. Cobb goes slack in his arms and Din carries him – not in the direction where Cobb came from or where he went, but land is land, isn't it?
It's further than he swam in many years, but not as far as the journey Cobb's boat makes every day, before Din comes across a ship, the atoll long since lost in the distance. Din laboriously pulls himself up and lays Cobb onto the deck. He then picks up one of the ship's tools and bangs the metal against the railing, loud enough for an alarmed shout to ring out from the stern of the ship.
Cobb's eyes briefly flutter open.
"Din?" His lips form the question, his voice long having gone.
"Oi! What's goin' on there – "
Footsteps approach them and Din sinks back under the waves with a soft splash. He observes from below the surface as the other land dwellers find Cobb and turn him over. There is more shouting and then they pick him up and carry him inside.
o
Cobb doesn't return that year, nor the following. He doesn't return for nigh a decade.
The waters darken. Those of Din's kin that still have companions in the Depths, spend all their time singing to them in the Below, their voices growing reedy and thin.
Din picks up his own companion in the form of a curious little creature. It must have come from the Ocean Deep. It's green, toothy and voracious, but it's just a youngling and vulnerable even in this sheltered lagoon. Din protects it from harm, but he doesn't feed it. That it manages to do just fine on its own.
Grogu, he calls it, because it brings to mind gnashing maws and gorging on brittle-boned creatures but also because of the way it nestles on his chest when they rest, its curios wonder at every new thing they discover together.
Din stops listening for any music, which why the first notes to carry to him rouse him from where he had been dozing. Grogu becomes agitated and Din snaps wide awake, heart suddenly racing with a hope that kept burning even underwater.
A boat appears out of the morning mist, a creaking, fat-bellied thing that wobbles slowly into the lagoon. A man is singing on deck. It is quiet, a song sung to oneself to ease the loneliness, but the voice is unmistakable.
Din hauls himself up onto deck and the song cuts off abruptly.
Cobb, alerted to Din's presence by the splash, hurries over. His face is more lined and his hair has turned fully grey but there's still kindness and laughter in his eyes. He doesn't hesitate to drop to his knees, to draw Din into his arms. To kiss him, long and slow.
"There you are," Cobb whispers against Din's lips and kisses him again, and again. "There you are."
Of course he is here. He never went anywhere.
Cobb begins to laugh as he presses their foreheads together. "Wasn't sure I'd find ya again," he murmurs and swallows. "Never got to say – thank you."
They drink each other in, the changes that time made permanent and sameness that the passing of years couldn't touch.
"That ship you brought me to took me far from home," Cobb tells Din later. "Was a while before I could make my way back and save up for this boat."
Cobb notices Din's critical gaze and laughs. "She's barely fit for the open waters but she'll do. Listen, I met someone," Cobb says and the urgency in his voice holds Din captivated. "They couldn't hear, so they spoke like this." Cobb moves his hand in a set of gestures that look much too deliberate to be just excitement.
Din's attention snaps to the way Cobb's hands move.
"I," Cobb says, accompanying the word by the simple gesture of pointing to himself, "am happy," – another sign – "to see you."
And Din understands.
"I live at the old lighthouse," Cobb tells him.
Din follows him back that eve, Grogu nipping at his fin so Din doesn't forget and leave him behind. As if he could.
Cobb takes Grogu's presence in stride, expressing only curiosity at the little green creature.
"Hello there," he greets the pair as if surprised yet happy to see them. Cobb sorts through his meager catch right at the pier, storing the fish he guts with practiced ease in a small ice box. But night catches up to them quickly and the light of the small storm lantern can no longer hold back the dark. Cobb stands up.
"Sorry, love. I can't stay."
Din makes a distressed noise but Cobb is not swayed by the pleading look in his eyes or the lingering kiss. "I'll be back tomorrow," Cobb says over his shoulder and lifts the ice box. "Promise."
Grogu easily follows Cobb to both their surprise, shedding his sea skin for something that's more suited to land. He's halfway to Cobb before he realizes Din isn't following and awkwardly trudges back to the shoreline. He likes to explore the caverns in the rock that the lighthouse stands on.
Din likes the shallows near the beach. He likes it best when Cobb joins them though he never wades in higher than waist deep.
"Can't swim proper," Cobb confesses and Din thinks that's alright because Din can swim well enough for both of them.
He takes Cobb by the hand one day, leading him ever deeper.
"No dragging me off to the depths?" Cobb asks with a hint of skepticism.
"No," Din gestures. "I promise."
They spend a little time adrift, Cobb's head resting on Din's chest while Grogu flits around them. Much too soon, Cobb gets cold and Din takes them back to the shore. Cobb sits on the pier with his legs in the water.
The sun will soon set. Cobb will head home, towards the lighthouse up the hill. Din will watch the lights go on and sink back beneath the waves, adrift until the dawning of a new day.
But not this time.
Din grasps Cobb's hand and holds on, bids him to stay.
The sadness returns to Cobb's eyes. "Love, you know I can't," he says softly.
Din knows. Cobb cannot stay.
But Din can.
He pulls himself on the pier and ashore, all the way, before he can think better of it.
His kind will shun him and the sea will reject him, but he'd rather have a cursed life with Cobb than one without him.
The change comes upon him swiftly and the pain lights him up from the inside. He'd scream if he could, but the only noises that escape him are grunts. Cobb tries to shove him back towards the water, but Din beats him off as well as he can while still hanging on to his hand.
He gauges bloody furrows into Cobb's forearms as his bones break and rearrange themselves and his scales melt off. In the aftermath he lies prone and panting wetly.
He feels wrong. He has too many appendages and joints where there shouldn't be any. Grogu curiously sniffs his new toes.
Cobb is as pale as a drowned man. "I… I did not know you could do that," he rasps, taking in Din's new form with wide eyes, glazed with receding panic. "Can you… uh,… go back?"
Din shakes his head and lifts up one finger. Once the gift of the sea is broken it cannot be reclaimed without a price.
"Okay." Cobb swipes his hair back from his forehead, muttering, "okay." He gets to his knees and pushes his shoulder under Din's arm.
"Think you can stand up?"
Din tries and fails and tries again until he finally succeeds in standing upright.
"You're doing great," Cobb encourages, breathing heavily under the brunt of Din's weight. "Takes humans 'bout a year to learn it proper."
Din thinks about fish, swimming the moment they are born and wonders if he did the right thing.
"Almost there," Cobb says with every agonizing step. "Almost there."
Cobb takes him to the cabin at the foot of the lighthouse that fell into disrepair with the decline of ships that needed its guiding light. The house painted a pretty dark red with white windows and a thick carpet of moss on the roof.
Din sinks into the bed, too exhausted to wonder at the existence of such a thing. His bones feel too heavy in his skin, suffocating him under his own weight. He wants to float, weightless.
"Must seem pretty bad, huh?" Cobb murmurs and the bed dips where he sits down on its edge.
Din nods. He already despises the land, but his love for Cobb runs just a little deeper than said hatred.
"Talk 'bout a fish outta water."
Din smacks him on the arm and all traces out of amusement drain out of Cobb's face.
"It'll get better." He soothes the pain with gentle touch and voice. "I'm here. It ain't much, but I'm right here."
It may not be much, but it's everything.
o
Everything is new and strange.
Din feels sick with how weighted down he is. All around him his surroundings are frozen in permanent stasis. Nothing moves. There is no ebb and flow, no swaying in the currents. Cobb holds him close and rocks them both. It makes it better.
In time, Din adjusts.
He learns that he has to drink now and that food needs to be cooked.
He still loathes the idea of dressing because the garments feel abrasive and irritating to his skin until Cobb brings him soft, cool clothes of a material that flows right through his fingers and is the closest thing to water that isn't.
Cobb says they will have to save up for another set because it's quite expensive, but he looks pleased nonetheless.
Another time, Cobb hangs up an ornament of broken, stained glass and mirror-pieces. It clinks softly when the shards knock together and reflects mottled dapples onto the walls and ceiling. Din spends the day looking at them and doesn't know if it makes him ache for the sea more or less.
His legs cannot carry him very far still, but it's enough to get around in the house while Grogu does his best to trip him up. If he takes breaks, Din can even make his way down to the pier and back again.
They practice the signs Cobb has taken from their original owner and painstakingly brought back to Din. And they find out that in lovemaking, their bodies have a language of their own that does not need any words.
Din likes how uniquely suited his new form is to receive pleasure from Cobb's hands, his lips, his cock. It's only when Din's sated that Cobb will let himself be satisfied too and Din will eagerly take him in his body or in his mouth.
Cobb shudder and crests and peaks. He tastes like the ocean.
o
They return to the sea, to fish. Din has taken to carrying Grogu, who has followed Din onto land without hesitation. Din is afraid what it means for someone that young, but the moment Grogu slips into the water, he sprouts fins and gills and scales and it's like he never had legs in first place.
The little one has a power quite unlike Din's then, and Din is glad to watch the little one swim like he no longer can.
Cobb is apprehensive of taking them back to the atoll, but caves upon Din's insistence many a week later.
Their passage does not go unnoticed, and soon the alluring siren-song wraps itself around the boat and crew of two. Cobb is as unmoved by it as he was when he first arrived here. Din knows it's because Cobb still loves freedom best. But now he's free now to love Din as he wants and that is as it should be.
"Will they sing to you too?" Cobb asks as he steers the boat through familiar channels.
"I don't know,"Din signs back. "Probably."
The sirens sing of riches and Din thinks about his home, decked in soft blue cloth, shells and the light-mirror. Trinkets and baubles, Cobb calls them. But Din thinks he has all the riches he needs.
They sing to him of love and he smiles.
He has a son. He has a companion, not spell-bound but his all the same.
Din is equally unswayed by the lure of adventure.
He has been on land. He has known more adventure than the sirens have.
And then his heart trembles before a beautiful song. It is a tale of the sea, the muted blue depths of it, kelp swaying gently in the current and cool water of creatures hunting and devouring each other and the terrible wrath of a summer storm.
One day, Din thinks, overlooking the lagoon, he will return to rest in its embrace. Maybe Cobb will come with him willingly that time.
The song changes, fills him with an ache so old he's almost surprised he can feel the pain for how long he's endured it.
"What are they offering you?" Cobb asks softly. He has come to stand at the railing beside Din and watches him out of the corners of his eyes.
Din only glances at him.
"A voice," he signs. "They are offering me a siren's voice."
It is Cobb's turn to hum an acknowledgement. "How rude," he proclaims and Din huffs a laugh. Cobb bumps a shoulder into Din's so that Din has to look at him. Cobb's eyebrow quirks up, teasing. "Tempted?"
Din bumps him back, a little harder than is maybe necessary. Cobb takes in good stride. "As if."
He'll never sing and Cobb talks plenty for the both of them, but Din has found his voice. Cobb meets him halfway, their kiss every bit as sweet as the first.
When they break apart, the sirens have left.
Cobb picks up his instrument, slightly different than the first, and begins to pluck its strings. Din lies down on deck with one eye on the waters below where Grogu flits in and out of sight, hunting small silvery fish.
"Here's a song to my siren," Cobb croons and begins to play.
Din hums along.