𑣲s.oul

Michaela spent the following days in an impromptu routine with the siren.

She’d wake with the sun and lay staring at the rays peeking through the roof. She she found the strength to get out of bed, she’d eat, nurse her wounds, and plan a way off this island.

Futile planning because she hadn’t a clue where she was and how she’d even get off. There hadn’t been a vessel to sail past the island in all her days there.

At about midday, a cry would come from the shores. It wasn’t much a screech anymore. Either Francesca had learned to modulate her voice or somewhere along the days spent with her, or her ears had adapted to the screeching. It was just below pain tolerance.

She and the siren had grown accustomed to their afternoon meetings. Francesca would call and Michaela would descend the rope ladder, limp across the warm sand, and spend the hours until dusk letting Francesca touch her hair, trace her collarbone, press a cool ear to her chest.

They'd practice words, sit in silence and when the light began to fade, Michaela would retreat to the safety of the treehouse.

That was the unspoken agreement.

She hasn’t learnt anything new from the creature. Every day, she’d take the picture with, hold it up to it’s face, call her a name it could barely pronounce and hope for a flash of recognition in its dark eyes. And every day, the creature wouldn’t bear mind to it, interested only in the curls Michaela insisted on wearing up.

She’d take down the hair, eagerly watch it flop down to her shoulders, lift it up with her own hands and watch it go down again.

“Focus,” Michaela would say, pushing the image into the siren’s face who didn’t care about the woman in the picture. She ducked her head around the picture, eyes locking onto Michaela’s soft features.

“Mee-la,” the siren would whine, taking the picture away from Michaela, chucking it behind her, somewhere in the sand.

She’d wrap her hands around the sailor, pulling her down, resting all her weight on her tail. She would then lay head near her heart, and sing.

Trapped under the siren’s hold, Michaela could only accept defeat and let her eyes flutter shut. She was silent as the siren went on to the beat of her heart.  

It was comforting, reminding her of all the times she’d spend in a lounge, and the voice of the singer would be carried around a room of bewitched men. They described them as sirens, draining all rationale in a man’s mind and replacing it with nothing my desire.

Quite ironic that she was listening to an actual siren at the moment.   

“Wait a minute-,” the realization hit her like a cannonball. Isn’t she supposed to be under a spell?

The siren had always sung in her presence, and she’d never had the urge to do anything against her will.

That night when her crew went overboard, she’d gone with them, her ears had been uncovered. She didn’t have protection from the song in the sea but there was no hypnosis. She’d been sane when she surfaced, and she heard the song until she drowned.

She couldn’t wrap her head around that fact.

“Francesca.” The siren didn’t respond, she just brushed her nose against Michaela’s collar bones, absorbing as much warmth she could from her. “Your song.”

The song never stopped. Neither did it get louder or softer, the siren hadn’t acknowledged the sailor’s words.

Michaela lifted the siren by her cheeks, bringing her up to face her. The siren’s soft eyes glossed over her features. Her song came to a practiced end, all done with purpose so the sailor could get her attention. Her face was so close to the Michaela’s that the coolness was frosting off her skin onto her, effectively cooling her.

“Your song,” Michaela tried again.

“Song?”

Michaela pursed her lips and tried to explain. She mimicked the song in the form of a hum, then said song afterwards.

“I song.”

“Yes, you sing. Why?”

The siren pressed her forehead against the pirate’s head, eyes half shut as it’s nose gently grazed the sailor’s. “I song.”

“Sing.”

“No touch. No find. Eat fish. Song. Find. No move.”

“Do you eat people?”

“People?”

Michaela brought her arm up, pushing it in between hers and the siren’s faces. She pressed it against the siren’s lips then motioned for her to bite by opening her mouth and biting herself.

Quite stupid of her, for this could have been interpreted as an invitation to be eaten but she had to know.

The siren sat up, if she had human features, she’d probably be displaying disgust on her face.

“No eat. Mee-la. No eat, you. Fish only.”

“Why do you sing then? Your song killed many of my friends.”

The siren looked at her confused. She could only process so much English before she became sick of it. It was more frustrating when the sailor would vocabulary that she didn’t know.

She animatedly jerked her head in annoyance, a deep huff coming from her chest and she did the unthinkable.

Michaela was shushed, finger on her lips, talons in her hair again.

She took the hint and didn’t say anything to the creature.

On her fifth day on the island, she slept in.

It wasn't intentional. Sometimes when she was alone, flashes from the night the ship went down would creep up on her, leaving her with many unanswerable questions. She made it a point to not think about that night when she asked the siren about the accident, and she wouldn’t get an answer. There was no point in asking now.

So she buried her thoughts in a mystery she had better chances solving. Was the siren, Francesca?

She’d stayed up late the night before, reading and re-reading Eloise Bridgerton's journal by the faint light of the moon, searching for clues she might have missed. Until now, all she had were Eloise’s words and the pictures. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to drown out the haunting screams of that night until she passed out from sheer exhaustion in the early mornings.

When she finally sat up, the sun had already peaked, its golden light flooding through the gaps in the roof, painting stripes across the wooden floor. Her mouth was dry, ankle ached from falling asleep upright, but it was the silence that caught her attention first.

No cry from the shore. No "Mee-la" drifting through the afternoon air. No slap of a tail, no hissing, or curious face bobbing in the shallows.

She didn’t know why, but it bothered her more than she’d liked. Having not one else, the siren had become a pleasant companion. She stood by the doorway and listened. She heard the soft waves crashing onto shore, the wind in the palms, the cry of a seabird in the distance. That was all.

It was odd. Deep down, it unsettled her knowing she was all alone on that island. And lost somewhere on the ocean. She decided that maybe she should do something other than coop herself up and depend on the siren for company. She had survived worse than solitude.

She stumbled down the rope ladder, and carefully limped towards the shore. The sand was hot beneath her bare feet. She'd decided that maybe she should opt for a swim.

The absurdity of it struck her as she reached the water's edge. She'd been on this beach for about a week and had never once gone for a swim.  A pirate mind you.  She'd been so focused on survival, on Francesca, on the journal, on her grief, she'd forgotten something as simple as the sea.

She went in slowly, the water lapping at her calves, her knees, her thighs. It was pleasantly warm, as if the ocean had been left out in the sun too long and just cooked like a warm bath. The heat soaked into her muscles, loosening knots she hadn't realized she'd been carrying. The salt stung the small cuts on her feet,  but the sting that vanished almost immediately.

When the water reached her waist, she pushed off and let herself float.

Her eyes fluttered shut. Her arms spread wide. Her hair fanned out around her like dark seaweed. For a moment, she forgot where she was. There was only the warmth of the water, the weightlessness of her body and the distant sound of her own breathing.

She had not felt this relaxed in years. Perhaps ever. The sea had always been her enemy and her employer, never her friend. But here, floating on her back, the sun on her face and the salt on her lips, she thought she understood why her crew had walked into the waves.

It would be so easy to just… let go.

About five minutes passed when her eyes shot open.

An eerie feeling crawled up her spine, setting every hair on her body on end. Her blood ran cold despite the warm water.

She felt the water shifting, vibrating? A low thrum that traveled through the ocean and into her bones, making her teeth ache. It wasn't exactly a sound; it was more of the presence of something large. Something large and moving fast.

She carefully sat up, legs fluttering to keep herself afloat. Water droplets slid from her lashes, blurring her vision. She wiped them away and squinted, scanning the horizon and the stretch of beach behind her.

There was nothing. Just the push and pull of the tide, the glitter of sunlight on the surface, the endless ocean.

But she didn't trust her vision. What kind of First Mate would she be if she relied only on her human senses? Especially on an island where she'd already encountered one creature that defied explanation. Especially when she didn't know what other possibilities the ocean carried alongside it.

So she did what any sane woman would do. She began to make her way back to land.

One deep breath. One dive beneath the current. She paddled as quickly as she could, her arms cutting through the water, her injured ankle dragging behind her like an anchor.

Clearly not quick enough.

It had barely been a meter, maybe less—she couldn't have covered more than a few strokes—when a sound cut through the water. A shrill, piercing keen that stopped her dead in the middle of the sea.

She couldn't move. Her limbs locked. Her heartbeat quickened. Mostly because she knew exactly where it came from. She was too familiar with that screech.

Francesca might have been her friend. Francesca might have let her braid her hair and touch her scales and sleep on her chest. But Francesca was still a predator. A much larger, much faster, much more environmentally evolved predator than Michaela could ever hope to be.

She would be a fool to believe that their relationship would mean anything off land and that the siren was earnest in saying that she didn’t eat humans.

Michaela's mind raced through scenarios, each one worse than the last. Drowning. Dismemberment. Being dragged to the depths and eaten alive, piece by piece, while the siren's song played soft and sweet in her ears. All the different ways her life would end that afternoon.

They all ended the same way. With Francesca's teeth in her throat. Enjoying her the delicious flesh of humans.

How quick and painless it would be was the only mercy she could hope for.

The shrill grew louder. Which meant, she was closer. It came with a sound she'd become deeply familiar with over the past five days; the slap of a tail against water. But this slap was different. Harder. Faster. More urgent. It was so loud and omnipresent, that it felt like it came from all around her, from above and below, from inside her own skull. She didn't know which way to turn to brace herself.

Then she felt it.

A glare at the back of her neck, like the point of a knife pressed against her skin.

She turned.

The world came to a stop.

The siren was swimming directly at her at full speed. Not the languid, curious approach Michaela had grown used to—this was a hunter's charge. Her eyes were completely blacked out, the gold rings swallowed by dilation. They narrowed into a precise, predatory glare. Her mouth was wide, jaw unhinged in that impossible way, revealing all three rows of teeth. Her face was scrunched, every feature sharpened, every sense heightened. She looked like a shark that had dreamed of becoming a woman and then changed its mind.

Her tail slapped the water once, twice, three times. The distance between them shortened with terrifying speed.

Michaela's eyes slammed shut. Her hands came up in front of her face—a futile gesture, she knew, but the body protects itself even when there's no hope. She braced for impact. For teeth. For the end.

To living a great life, and dying a great death, she recited.

The siren reached her.

And—

Continued past her.

Did not turn. Did not stop. Did not so much as glance in her direction.

The force of Francesca's passage churned the water, spinning Michaela around like a leaf in a current. She caught a glimpse of the siren's tail as it cleared the surface and disappeared again, propelling its owner toward the shore.

Michaela treaded water. She was stunned, confused and alive?

She watched Francesca cut through the shallows, watched the water explode as the siren torpedoed out of the sea, crashing onto the sand. The impact was violent enough that Michaela felt it through the water—a dull thud that traveled up through her legs and into her chest.

That was it.

The siren did not get up.

She lay curled near the base of Michaela's tree, her body twisted at an awkward angle, her tail stretched out behind her. The path she'd carved through the sand was a deep, gouged trench—as if someone had dragged a tree bark across the beach.

Regaining herself, Michaela swam to shore faster than she'd ever swum in her life. She grabbed the cloth she'd left on the beach, wrapped it around herself as she stumbled, dripping and breathless, toward the siren's body.

"Francesca!" She cut through her breaths, ignoring the returning ache in her leg.

There was no response. No hiss or a curious head tilt.

The siren looked like she was asleep. One hand was stretched out above her head, fingers half-curled. The other was tucked between her ribs and the sand, as if she'd tried to cushion the fall. Her eyes were half shut, the black irises visible but unfocused. Her lips were slightly parted, her jaw slack, relaxing in real time as consciousness slipped further away.

She was still breathing. Thank heavens, she was still breathing. Michaela could see the rise and fall of her chest, though the rhythm was wrong. It was too fast, then too slow, then too fast again.

Carefully, Michaela knelt beside the siren's head. "Hey. Francesca. Can you hear me? Are you awake?"

This time there was a response. A sharp, guttural hiss that made Michaela jerk backward, her heart slamming against her ribs.

Francesca's eyes flew fully open. They were darker than Michaela had ever seen them. The gold rings that usually glowed around her pupils had vanished, replaced by a deep, muddy red, like blood stirred into ink. Her gaze darted wildly, unfocused, looking everywhere and nowhere.

Confusion, Michaela realized. She doesn't know where she is.

"Hey." Michaela kept her voice low, soft. She positioned herself directly in the siren's line of sight, making sure her face was the first thing Francesca saw when her eyes finally focused. "Hey, it's me. It's Michaela. You're on the beach. You're safe."

She slowly reached her hand out, giving the siren every chance to see her coming. Much to her disappointment, instead of welcoming her comfort, Francesca thrashed. A full-body convulsion that sent sand spraying in all directions, some grains landing in Michaela’s eyes, mouth and hair. The siren’s tail whipped once, twice, three times, carving deeper trenches in the beach. Her mouth opened in a screech but no sound came out, just a rush of air and a glimpse of those terrible teeth, though one of the rows had disappeared, the second only halfway visible. But the expression on her face was unmistakable. Fear. A real, primal, desperate fear. The kind Michaela had only ever seen in wounded animals.

The siren was scared.

Michaela scrambled backward, putting distance between them, blinking rapidly to treat the sand in her eyes. She held up both hands, palms out, the universal sign for 'I am not a threat. "Okay. Okay. I'm backing up. See? I'm not going to touch you. You're okay."

Francesca continued to convulse. Smaller movements now—tremors that ran through her body in waves, starting at her shoulders and rippling down to the tip of her tail. Her breathing was ragged, her gills (Michaela hadn't noticed gills before, but there they were, slits along her ribs) flaring open and shut. Her eyes rolled back, showing white, then forward again, then back.

Michaela sat down; arms wrapped around her knees, and watched helplessly.

Was she about to lose her only companion for millions of kilometres? What could she do to help? Absolutely nothing. She knew nothing of sirens and even if she did, she had no clue what caused it to behave this way. She was useless. Utterly, completely, useless.

A tear or two might have dripped down her cheeks as she accepted defeat. She angrily wiped them away with the back of her hands for crying when she should be doing something, but they kept coming down.

The sob that came after caught her by surprise. It tore out of her chest and made a sound so ugly it physically pained her. She pressed a fist to her mouth, trying to shove it back down, but it was too late.

Everything came rushing in at once.

Everything that had happened to her in the past few days finally sank in as a sob broke out from her. Her shoulders shook. Her breath came in ragged gasps that scraped her throat raw.

She thought of everyone she had lost, all dreams that died along with them and the home she’d never see again.

Part of her was scared that when Francesca would leave her, she’d be left alone.

The island felt too small, Francesca felt too big and no matter which direction she looked, it didn’t calm her.

It was no use crying, she tried to tell herself, wrapping her arms around herself for comfort. She rocked back and forth, forcing herself to come to terms with that fact.

The convulsions began to subside.

Michaela calmed herself down.

The tremors became twitches, then stillness. The siren's breathing steadied—still sharp, still audible, but no longer panicked. Her eyes drifted half-closed. The red hue faded from her irises, replaced by the familiar gold-ringed black.

Michaela waited. Counted to sixty in her head. When there was no more movement, she crawled closer.

She looked over the siren's face first. The tension had drained from her features. Her jaw was slack again, her lips parted. She looked almost peaceful, if you ignored the sand caked to her cheek and the way her tail was twisted beneath her at an angle that couldn't possibly be comfortable.

The song had stopped. The shrieking had stopped. The only sound was Francesca's faint, steady breathing.

The siren had fallen asleep.

𑣲Okay so...is this a filler? Well yeah, sort of. All because someone had no plan going into this and hit writers block after the second chapter...

I had to get the story going and get some things out of the way. Trust the process! I know I am.

See you soon! (hopefully)

𑣲tags:

On one hand, ATLA fans treat his skill as inferior to Katara's potential and Aang's ability to break out of bloodbending with his avatar state.

It seems that people (yes, I know I'm referring to fandom and most people watch the show with their eyes closed) don't understand that potential, ability and mastery are not the same thing.

Yes, Katara is a prodigy waterbender, one of the best on the world and was able to grasp bloodbending at first try. That's great potential. The ability? Not unique because every waterbender should be able to bloodbend. But Potential, she undeniably could never be as great bloodbender as Yakone, Amon let alone Hama.

And this all can be attributed to the fact that while she has the ability unlocked, she'd never mastered it let alone taken the time to strengthen her skill.

Yakone could bloodbend, I don't know about him being a prodigy, but him unlocking psychic bloodbending should speak for itself. He was clearly a master. Able to bloodbend an entire courtroom without moving a limb like Hama did. This courtroom included older Aang, Toph and Sokka.

People argue that if Katara was there, she would have been able to stop him because she learnt bloodbending in one night. Again, every waterbender has the ability to bloodbend. So I won't deny the fact that she would be able to learn it in a night.

But mastery takes practice, and she didn't practice blood bending so what was she going to do in that courtroom?

"Break out of his hold like she did with Hama," well sure, and then be held down again because I'd like to reiterate, Yakone needs no limbs to bloodbend. She's not stopping his mind from putting her down again.

Yes, Katara is resilient but there's only so much you can do against a person with the ability to paralyse your body with his mind.

Which brings me to his son. Described as a bloodbending prodigy.

Noatak, aka Amon, was able to grasp bloodbending by the age of twelve and by fourteen he'd mastered his father's psychic bloodbending ability.

By fourteen. Around the age Katara was when she faced Hama.

He shortly ran away from home due to the tyranny of his father and would later be the leader of the Equalists under the alias Amon.

By the time we meet Noatak again, he's roughly the same age his father was when Aang took his bending away. Which means, walk with me now, that this man had over fifteen years to master the skill he'd already mastered when he was fourteen.

Using common sense and the media literacy Beyoncé continues to gift us, we can safely assume that bloodbending came as easy as breathing to this man.

How do we know that?

I have this theory that Yakone had to see you to bloodbend you, seen by the way he looks at Toph when she tried to restrain him in the courtroom. He doesn't have to keep looking at you but he has to first see you for it to work.

Amon didn't. Not only did he wear a mask that seemed to obstruct his peripherals, he didn't have to be in the same room as his opponent to be able to bloodbend them.

Now comes the part that irks me.

Something people seem to always forget.

Amon could take bending away.

That man could do something that only one other person in the Avatar Universe could do, and that person is the Avatar. (For those who don't know, he uses chi blocking not spiritbending to take bending away)

That's insane if you think about how only two other people have shown that skill,Aang and Korra (even though she only showed being able to return the bending he stole). But again, we can assume it works both ways, if Aang can do it both ways...?

What matters is, the Avatar and Amon are the only people with that skill. Not even his dad could do that.

Isn't that something?

And people want to say anyone can beat him.

Do they know they can beat him?

And the other hand, TLOK fans often overlook him in discussions of the most powerful villain in the show.

This might be due to many thinking his season was underwhelming (which I have other thoughts about. Find them some other day)

Amon was the only villain who wasn't defeated by the Avatar.

He lost, because people found out that he was a fraud. (Which I can hardly believe that this man had no followers after that revelation. Three cheers to Nickelodeon, am I right?)

He might not have been the strongest villain, but y'all downplay him too much.

---

"I'm going to going to give you one like it, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Then you're going to take it to, Y/n."

"Yeah."

"And you're going to be like—

Hey, Y/n, look I have an egg.

—and she's going be like—

Yuji, why do you have an egg?

At this point, Yuji was all giggles with the way Sukuna was switching between a baby voice and and a girly voice.

"Then you're going to go like—

I'm going to throw it.

—then she's going to be like—

No, don't do it.

—and you're going to throw it and then it's going to be a fake egg and you're going to be like—

Gotcha.

—Yeah?"

Yuji nodded his head frantically, excited to pull this magical heist with his uncle. He was more excited for the reaction he could get from you. Maybe you'd ne shocked, laugh then be impressed with him.

Sukuna pulled out a similar looking egg and handed it to Yuji who took it into his small palms. Although it was fake, he held it like it was a fragile egg.

"Don't crack it yet. Okay," he said, then pushed Yuji to the kitchen area by his shoulders.

It was too quiet, but you didn’t realize it yet. Usually, when your boyfriend his nephew weren't bickering, it meant that something was terribly wrong; someone was either dead or something was broken. But you didn’t pay mind to anything but the churros you were making, at least it was silent for once.

Spoke too soon because your attention momentarily grabbed by a little voice calling your name.

"Look what I have?"

You looked down to see an excited baby Yuji with an egg, twirling it in his hand like it was a magical object, his uncle in tow holding back his laughter. Yuji was beaming, grin spread across his face, almost bouncing as he was about to show you the coolest trick ever.

"Oh, why do you have an egg?"

"I'm gonna throw it."

You processed that too late.

"You're gonna wha—"

And he threw. Flat onto the floor with a loud crack.

Time seemed to slow as you all watched the yolk and whites spread across the floor in a gooey mess.

"Yuji," you dragged out in a dissapointed tone, your hand resting on your popped out hip, head tilting to the side.

Yuji stepped to the side, an accusatory finger pointing toward Sukuna who bit his lip to contain his laughter.

"Uncle Kuna told me to! He said it was fake!" His squeaky voice echoed through the kitchen, eyes tearing up and his lips quivering.

Chaos erupted as you were now trapped between Yuji's sobs and Sukuna's laughter.

You rushed to Yuji's side, avoiding even looking at the egg. You picked him up, sitting him on your hip and bounced him to calm him down.

"I'm sorry, Y/n, it's Uncle Kuna's fault. He told me it was a fake egge and he would give me a fake egg and he—," you couldn't understand the child's rambling, only glared at Sukuna who was doubled over in tears which agitated Yuji even more.

You coddled him, shushing him while you bounced him on your hip,"It's okay, baby. Sukuna's a meanie. Right?"

A soft 'mhmm', came from your shoulder.

"And he's going to clean it up, right?"

"Mhmm."

"And while he does that we're going to get ice cream."

His laughter halted,"Wait what?"

"Not so funny now, is it?" You shot him daggers, eyes going at the mess then back at him; instructions clear, leaving no room for argument.

"Come on, I'll even get you the biggest ice cream. Anyone you want?"

"With the chocolate spinkles?"

"With the chocolate sprinkles."

Yuji looked back at his uncle with a smug grin at his uncle, his tongue stuck out in mockery. His face was puffy, a little snotty which you had to wipe down but he was getting ice cream and his uncle wasn't.

"I never get spinkles." ~ Sukuna probably.