In all her dreams she drowned.
Perhaps they had been nightmares, once. The overwhelming pressure in her chest, the blurry vision, the light-headed disbelief— at one point maybe these sensations had terrified her. But now… now they were her only hope.
Her chains bound her to the ship; her fate inextricably linked to that of dark wood floating upon the sea. She stared out at the water as the sun beat down on her every morning, and yearned for it to rise up and crush their ship each night. On the nights when even the moon was nowhere to be found, she dreamt that the sun would never rise again, and she was grateful.
The men—if they could be called that; she wasn’t convinced they weren’t monsters—were oddly normal while the sun shone. They busied themselves about the deck, largely ignoring the girl in chains in the center, beneath the main mast. They leered, sometimes, in the quiet moments. They watched her from the corner of their eyes, circled around her like sharks circling in the ocean. Waiting for the moment they could dart in and take just one bite. One bite, and claim her life. And then they returned to their work, and she sagged, gasping, in relief.
These men, who were patient hunters in the day, turned into animals in the night. The sun set and the stars broke through the dusk and reflected on the water, and the men shed their masks. Their smiles turned to snarls. Silence morphed into sinister laughter, like jackals barking. She waited for the drink to flow and the music to deafen her, and then they turned to her. They touched her skin with rough hands, unkind hands, and robbed her of any hope she had.
And she danced for them.
If the sound of her chains dragging along the deck bothered them, they never showed it. They only jeered and tracked her movements with hungry, swirling eyes. The swing of her hips, the dip of her body deeper into the music, the shimmy of her shoulders and the way it shook her breasts. They watched her slim, lithe body, and she knew they were dreaming of all the ways they could tear her apart.
“Faster!” one of them ordered.
“No,” barked the captain. Wine dripped from his smile and stained his teeth like they were bloody. He leaned forward and his voice dropped an octave. “Slower.”
The music changed, lowering itself into a smooth, seductive melody. Her swift steps subsided into a graceful sway; she turned, slowly, around, arms reaching for the sky, and her chains pooled around her feet.
When it wasn’t enough to watch just her, they gave her cloths that she ran between her fingers, around her thighs and hips. They jeered, throwing empty bottles at her feet. Blood trickled from her soles as she tread on the broken glass. But she never flinched. And she never stopped dancing.
She danced like this for hours—a lifetime in a night. Her hips ached and her legs quivered by the time the sun began to rise. Blood stained her feet, and blisters swelled on her ankles where the manacles clamped tight. Most of the men snored, heads occasionally jerking up if the ship crashed against a particularly aggressive wave. But for the most part, they were asleep, and still she danced. This was how she kept her life. If she kept moving, kept swaying even a little bit, they were satisfied to watch.
Her bloodshot eyes burned when the sun finally broke the horizon and splintered across the deck. The men rose, groaning, and ignored her as they made their way to their stations. The captain returned her to the main mast, lashing her hands together behind her back, and wrapping her chains around the pole. They granted her no leverage, no chance of escape. She could not even fall forward if she wanted to.
If the ship ever went down, she would drown with it.
She didn’t dream often, anymore. She hardly slept. She told herself she would when they reached the shore. She would escape this dreadful ship, escape these horrid men, and finally she would rest. She prayed they’d get wherever they were going soon. It felt she had been aboard this ship for several lifetimes, instead of just a few months. But she knew, from the phases of the moon in the sky, laughing at her misery, that she had been their prisoner for nearly a year.
And while she wished she’d never see it rise again, the sun was her solace. Always most so at dawn, during these few moments when the men were at their busiest. She was safe, in a small space between the skyline and the shore… the gap between two mouths just before they kiss. This was where she hid. This was where she survived.
Survived, at least, long enough to hang her head and dream of drowning.
Today felt like any other. The sun warmed her against the chilly sea air. A fine mist blew across the deck as the waves beat against the hull. The serpent figurehead sneered at the water, and the men scaled the rigging, tied knots, cleaned the deck, and mapped their coordinates. She knew they were close to land—she could see it in the distance—but she knew they would sail by it.
Then there was a voice.
At first, the men thought it was her. She knew they thought it was her because they had never heard her speak. She had never once begged for her life, not even in the beginning, when they slaughtered the other women they’d brought aboard with her. The other women… they refused to humor the men. They screamed. They fought.
When they came to her, she only stared, defiant, and lifted her chin. The captain lifted his sword.
Somewhere on the distant shore, someone played a mournful song, for the women taken and the men murdered. Someone played a ballad to tell them—We will not forget.
She didn’t know she was going to do it. She didn’t know why she did. But, with a sword at her throat, she began to dance.
She had been dancing ever since.
Now they were looking at her, looking to see if that lovely voice was coming from her, but her lips pressed closed and her brows drew into a scowl as they stared at her in bewilderment. The captain’s confusion swiftly morphed into furious concern.
“Aye, lads!” he bellowed. “Lower the sails! Get us out of here!”
“We’re windbound, Cap’n!” one of the men said back, calling from the foredeck. The captain swore, and the girl watched as he clambered to the helm. He spun the wheel in desperation and barked orders she couldn’t understand. He had a guttural, thick voice—he sounded like he was growling. Now, the crewmates leapt in fear at his ferocity. They scrambled to do his bidding, and the girl bound in chains wondered what there was for him to fear.
The voice sang, crooning, and it seemed to echo off the peaks of the waves. Each one that broke against the ship seemed to increase the volume of the voice, and the captain’s bellowing grew more frantic.
It was hypnotic. Even to the girl, who had heard many beautiful voices from many beautiful people. She had danced for people who had songs to offer. But this voice… it was different. The song it sang was sad and sweet, and it crept beneath her skin. It caused an exquisite ache in her chest that bloomed slowly, but spread like wildfire through her body. She yearned to break free from her bonds, but she stayed perfectly still.
The crew did not. They halted the work they were doing, to be sure, despite the captain’s orders not to. But they were drawn to edges of the ship, peering over into the churning, gnashing water. The ship moaned as it rocked on the sea, and the men cared not.
There were two voices, now, circling each other, singing a lullaby that would coax them all into the depths. The girl could see it now. She could see the men preparing to throw themselves into the sea, desperate to find the source of the song.
She could not blame them. The yearning was nearly unbearable. She thrashed in her bonds, as best she could, fighting to loosen them. How impossibly lovely. How impossible to resist. She had to know where it came from. She had to heed its call.
The captain saw her, and stumbled down to her with crazed eyes. Even as his crew pitched themselves overboard, crying out in despair, he fought every instinct in his body that urged him to do the same, and he made his way to her.
Her eyes trained on him… he had jade eyes. She had never noticed this before. But even now, she was distracted from the striking green by a creature, swooping from the sky to pluck one of the sailors from the water. His screams echoed off the nearby cliffs, reverberating in the air as the creature, with its black wings and black talons, carried him away.
She watched, helplessly, in growing terror, even as the captain fought to unchain her. He struggled; she noticed the sweat beading on his forehead and his labored breathing, and knew he was fighting a losing battle.
He could not resist the song.
More men were being torn from the sea by more creatures. In horror, the girl realized they had faces. Human, female faces, contorted into grotesque smiles… and mouths open in song.
Finally the captain could resist their call no longer. His hands wrenched from her chains—loosened, but not free—like he was burning, and he lurched around, moving with jerky steps toward the taffrail, fighting his body. He couldn’t win. He would fall prey to the monster circling overhead as surely as the others did.
It was a miracle he lasted as long as he did. But it wasn’t enough. For the first time since she had been on this cursed ship, the girl opened her mouth to scream. It was a hoarse sound, through tired, disused vocal cords. It collided harshly with the solemn song of the sirens, and for a moment, the singing paused.
And then one of them landed in front of her.
Her talons collided with the deck in a thundering crash, knees bent, before she raised herself to her full, terrible height. The captain, behind her, was grabbed from the deck before he even completed his climb over the rail. The girl didn’t care. He deserved it.
But she didn’t deserve this. Her breast heaved in frenzied breaths while she avoided meeting the eye of the creature she was certain would claim her life. She looked everywhere but her face; at her glossy black feathers, her muscular arms. She took in the enormous black claws where there should have been feet and suddenly knew the men had not been screaming in terror, but in pain.
The creature’s hand lifted to touch her, and she whimpered, turning her face to avoid the creature’s grip. The creature paused… and then, gently, wiped away the tear slipping down the girl’s cheek.
She withdrew her hand, but now the girl found strength to look at the face which had so terrified her only moments before. She was surprisingly ordinary. Her brown eyes were set far apart, and her nose hooked just a bit at the end, but her wide mouth looked soft, and smiled at her.
The ship sailed on, devoid of its captain and crew, and the girl trembled in her chains. The siren stepped back, her talons scraping the wood beneath her, and gestured for the girl to join her in the center of the deck. Around them, more sirens landed, their talons bloody, but their eyes merely quizzical… watching, silent, as their apparent leader attempted to communicate with the sole survivor or what was once a full ship.
She shook her head. She had once found words to be powerful, and her silence more so, but now… now she had nothing. Her silence was not a choice; she had no words left to use, not in the face of these creatures, whose songs still ran through her bones. The girl shook her head again, and held her arms up helplessly. Showing them the chains that still trapped her to the mast.
The sirens exchanged looks, and several of them stepped forward, reaching for the twisted metal, before one of them cried out and lifted into the air. The girl tracked the movement with bewildered eyes, before dropping back to gaze ahead… at the looming cliffs the ship headed directly toward.
The other sirens rushed to her aid. They fought against her bindings, while others searched for a key. The girl tried to wriggle her wrists free, but finally, she stopped, and the sirens felt her resignation, and they stopped, too. The girl smiled a weak, small, sad smile at the siren who had wiped away her tear.
The siren nodded, spread her ink black wings wide, and flew away.
The ship continued on.
Its collision was harsh, sudden. It jarred the girl painfully, snapping her forward so her arms screamed in protest against the chains that still held her tight. And then it began to sink.
Above the creaking of the ship collapsing in on itself, another song rose. Another haunting melody, floating on the air around her, and the girl lifted her eyes to find the sirens hovering above the wreckage.
Singing, for her. Not to claim her. Not to scare her. A ballad.
We will not forget.
Slowly, the girl lifted her arms. Sea foam lapped at her toes, but she reveled in the feeing. The salt stung in her cuts, but she rejoiced in that, too.
And she danced.
It didn’t take long. While the sirens sang, and the ship succumbed to the hunger of the monstrous sea, the girl danced. She didn’t dance in time with their song, but it didn’t matter. She danced in a way that made her body hum with joy. This was not a seductive dance, not a show for hungry men. This was a dream.
She did delicate twirls and small leaps until she her feet no longer touched the deck. She rolled her hips in time with the waves. She swung her arms above her head until her neck submerged in water.
Her chains dragged her down with the ship.
The sun shone, happily, on the still bubbling sea.
And the sirens sang their mournful song.
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