#enthrallinglyeden

The time the wolf spent within confines of the town — with the concrete ground and the brick trees — was always short. The moment it shifted, it tended to find its way to whatever patch of woods was closest. The soft dirt beneath its feet were more familiar than the sidewalks, and it preferred being beneath the trees to being surrounded by buildings. It also preferred the distribution of people there. While the wolf certainly enjoyed a chase when it came to its prey, human or otherwise, it disliked how bunched up people were within town. It made it difficult to focus, hard to decide who best to chase.

And so, when Rory shifted on her way home from work, the wolf made a beeline towards the woods. It was later, with no one out on the street. This was probably a good thing, if only because the screaming could get annoying when not accompanied by the thrill of a hunt. And in the moments just after a shift, when it was still getting its bearings, the wolf preferred quiet, anyway.

This did not mean the wolf would not take a chase when one was offered to it, though.

It smelled its prey long before it saw it. The quiet wafting of an unfamiliar scent coming through the air. Human, but not entirely. Human, but with something else beneath it. Curiosity thrummed through the wolf as it followed the scent, catching sight of a lone man walking away. He didn’t seem to be looking at it; he may not have noticed it yet. But the wolf, as large and looming as it was, could not be ignored for long. Especially not as it began to bound after the man.

—

Control had been one of the most important things that his mother had drilled into his head — both in terms of control over others, but more importantly, control over himself. It was probably that way for most sirens who were integrated into human society, but it was especially important for someone like him who had such a public-facing human life. Of course, the irony wasn’t lost on Eden that his decision to be famous had been something completely out of his control, but the reasons why he resented his mother all started to merge together after a while. 

Control was necessary. Control was survival. Control was something that Eden had always been good at, which was what made the uncontrollable prickling sensation throughout his body all the more noticeable as he locked up the library for the night. He hadn’t felt completely comfortable in his body ever since his first shift in Wicked’s Rest, but whenever a potential loss of control threatened to take over, he was usually able to suppress it with some effort. He was having no such luck tonight, and Eden wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead as he continued to run into the woods. Although his car was the only one in the library parking lot, he felt safer letting his body do whatever it was trying to do within the privacy of the trees. 

Leaning against a tree and forcing himself to take three deep breaths, Eden started to feel the tension in his body subside. “Calm down…” he muttered to himself in Mandarin, his fists unclenching as he took in his surroundings. Good, he hadn’t wandered too far from the library, so it woul–

A sudden crack of branches was the telltale sign of someone else’s presence, but Eden didn’t spot the creature until it had bound up mere metres from him. “Wh–” he started to say. Luckily for him, his feet chose to move faster than his mouth in this instance as he immediately started sprinting. To where? He had no clue, but this unidentified creature didn’t look like it planned to stop, so neither could he.

—

The man moved towards the woods, and the wolf was happy to follow. It was almost as if he was inviting the chase, wasn’t it? It was almost as if he wanted to be hunted just as badly as the wolf wanted to hunt him. Maybe he did. There was some instinct that existed within prey, sometimes, some quiet semblance of a thing that knew its place. There were creatures born to hunt, and there were creatures born to be hunted. Humans straddled the line between the two extremes, but perhaps this man had chosen his side. This would not lessen the wolf’s enjoyment of the chase. Prey that knew it was prey still ran, after all.

And, as the wolf made its presence known, the man did just that. He bound off, further into the woods, and the wolf let out a delighted howl as it followed. It had not been expecting to find a chase so soon, but it was glad for the turn of events all the same. 

For most of its life, it had chased lesser prey. Rabbits and rodents, things so small that they disappeared down the wolf’s jaws with such little fanfare that they barely registered at all. The wolf always ended the night ravenous, starved for both food and entertainment. Since Rory’s separation from her family, this was no longer the case. The wolf missed its family, in its own way, but it did not miss the restrictions their presence had put upon it. It did not miss being confined to small areas with nothing worth hunting. It liked this. It liked the power that came with it.

Its feet slammed against the ground. Though it was a bipedal creature, it took to running on all fours in order to lengthen its stride. It didn’t run at full speed, however; it wanted a chase, and giving this pursuit its all would end things more quickly than the wolf wanted. Things like this were more fun when the prey thought it had some chance of getting away, and so the wolf would give the man that. It would let him run; it would let him pretend he had some chance at escape. And then, it would crush his head between its jaws. He’d make a fine meal, it thought. He’d fill its belly until the next shift.

—

Eden often wished that sirens had the night vision capabilities of some other species. Perhaps if they did, he wouldn’t find himself in situations like this. He couldn’t confidently make out what the creature was while on the move — even one glance over his shoulder would slow him down, giving the creature a chance to catch up. 

He ran until his calves started to burn, then he ignored the pain and continued. The creature was not letting up, and the consistent slap of its paws against the ground was getting louder. His dress shoes had done the best they could carrying him this far, but as his breathing grew more laboured, he could feel his feet starting to go numb. At least his vision was well-adjusted enough to the darkness that he could dodge incoming branches without issue. The rocks and roots on the ground shrouded in darkness were another story.

Eden registered his foot snagging on the root early enough to put his hands out, his palms pressing against pebbles and wet soil. He was quick enough to save himself from injury, but the second spent on the ground was enough time for the creature to catch up. Scrambling to his feet, Eden’s hands remained out as if the imaginary barrier he was setting between them would be enough. 

“Stay back,” he said in a low but steady voice, knowing that he couldn’t let the creature catch even the slightest waver. Now staring directly at it, he could tell it was a wolf of some kind. The wolf had stopped its chase, but not to give him mercy. Eden was familiar with the gaze of a predator, and the wolf was simply taking in the sight of him before making him its next meal. He opened his mouth again, ready to tell the wolf off once more. He did not expect a familiar melody to fill the woods instead.

The last time Eden had been unable to control his enthrallment, he was 15 years old on a set filled with unsuspecting people. He had gone through extensive training since then, never wanting his powers to slip like that again. But here in the woods, potentially staring into the eyes of death, his heart was forcing him to sing. “Leave me alone. Find a meal elsewhere.”

—

As the man ahead of it tired, there was something almost leisurely about the way the wolf ran. It could have picked up speed and overtaken him in an instant, but then the chase would be over and the game would end. The wolf would have a full belly, but no more entertainment to enjoy for the night. It would rather extend the chase for as long as possible, rather have the chance to enjoy the kill like a cat batting a mouse between its paws. 

But when the man stumbled and fell, the wolf knew that it signified the end of the chase. It lacked the patience and self control that would have been necessary to allow him to get up without pouncing, and the game would be less fun if he knew he was being played with, anyway. And so, the wolf slowed to a stroll, approaching the fallen man with drool dripping from its hungry jaws. 

The chase was over, but it could still kill him slowly. There was fun in that, too.

He spoke in a firm tone, though his words were lost on the wolf. It was utterly incapable of understanding human speech; it had only even heard speech a few scattered times throughout its existence. Most of the time, the only sound it heard torn from human throats was screaming. Even if it had understood, it would not have obeyed; a predator had neither desire nor reason to listen to the whims of its prey, after all. 

The wolf continued its slow, deliberate walk towards the man, tongue shooting out of its mouth to lick at its lips in a way that made its intentions clear. It took one step, and then another. And then… and then, the man spoke again. And this tone was utterly unfamiliar to the wolf, with its melodic thrum. The creature faltered, its legs locking in place. Its head tilted to the side. Confusion washed over it — confusion and something else, too. 

—

As confused as Eden was to hear the melody fill the space, it was also comforting. Even if he wasn’t in control of his singing right now, it meant that he was at least in control of the situation. He watched as the creature’s previously intense gaze softened, its head tilting to the side as if breaking its aggressive facade. He was safe. For now.

With the creature seemingly dazed in place, Eden tested the waters with a small step backwards. The creature did not move, so he backed away even further. If he could just keep this up, he could make it out of the woods. Even if his control over the wolf broke, he could at least put up enough distance between them to safely make it into his car. Surely his car would outrun a creature, right?

Eden made sure to never turn his back to the wolf, holding its gaze as if to show it that he wasn’t afraid. He was almost out of the clearing, and once into the denser part of the woods, he could make a run for it. However, something pricked at his skin once more, sweat beading at his temple despite the cold winter air. His heart skipped a beat, panic seizing it as the rest of his body grew restless. The desire to shift, the desire to lose control – it was back.

Continuing to sing through gritted teeth, Eden’s fists clenched as he tried to regain his composure. There was pressure in his fingertips as his talons threatened to emerge, and a voice clouded his mind with a message that he hadn’t expected. 

Kill the wolf. 

Eden shook his head almost comically, as if this action would actually shake the thoughts out of his mind. He did not want to kill anything. But then again, the creature had tried to kill him in the first place. Even if he managed to escape, would it stalk into town and make someone else its prey? Possibly a weak human who would have no way of defending themselves like he did. How guilty would he feel if the wolf killed someone, knowing that he could’ve put a stop to it?

Paralyzed by his indecision, Eden squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. His siren song grew louder, more desperate.

“Just leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Please.”

—

Hunger gnawed at the wolf’s stomach; rage burned at its throat. It wanted, more than anything, to tear the voice from this man’s throat, to swallow the tongue with its melodic thrum and to open his chest to expose everything else within. It wanted, and yet, it didn’t. It wanted and did not want, all at the same time. There was hunger and there was rage and there was something unfamiliar, too — peace, maybe, or tranquility. It warred with itself, legs still locked in place. 

The man was backing away now, his eyes still on the wolf even as his body made a retreat. And the wolf could only watch, could only stew. There had been so few times when its prey had escaped it, so few times when it had wanted to sink its teeth into flesh and not felt the instant gratification of blood on its tongue. It had happened more in this town than it ever had anywhere else, had been more of a problem with the people here than it had been in its time since coming here. Perhaps it was an inevitable thing; before this, after all, the wolf had targeted mostly animals due to the absence of human prey to chase, and animals were easier to catch than people. That was what made people fun. But this logic had no place in the creature’s mind. The wolf knew only that it was hungry, and that it had not been fed. The wolf knew only that something it wanted was being kept from it.

The wolf growled, low in its throat. It thought that this would be the end of things — that the man would make his retreat, and the wolf would go hungry for the night. But then, something happened. The man faltered. His jaw clenched tightly shut. His fingers shifted into something else, the scent in the air changing slightly with it. The wolf felt it too, the surge. It sent a new bout of rage through the creature, strengthened its resolve. Its teeth would tear the man’s flesh. It would taste his blood, would swallow his tongue, would rip his head from his shoulders.

Fighting through the enthrallment, the wolf managed to move one foot forwards. It was a herculean task, but determination clung to its muscles. It threw its head back, let out a howl. Maybe the sound would break the man’s concentration enough to quiet him; maybe then it could have its meal.

—

His song grew louder, yet the wolf did not retreat. It was as if Eden’s body was vibrating now, as if some inexplicable force was attempting to take control by making him lose control. He clenched his fists, only to feel sharp talons dig into his palms. The shift was happening, whether he wanted it to or not. 

It only took one second of lost concentration for everything to fall into chaos. He watched the wolf fight back, the creature using every ounce of willpower to take one step forward. The echoes of his song, the thumping of his heart, then the feral howl of the wolf rang in his ears. 

Whether it was because his body sensed the impending danger or because he was finally losing himself fully, the shift felt quicker than usual. Just like the wolf only needed him to falter for a second to regain its strength, his siren only needed one crack to claw its way out. Eden felt the familiar pressure everywhere, a sharp pain striking his face as his bones cracked. A horrendous sight to witness, and just as horrendous of a sensation to feel. But when all was said and done and Eden stood up straight, he couldn’t deny that it felt good. 

When the wolf had howled, his throat had seized up and silenced his song. But now that he was fully in his siren form, now that he stood much taller than the other creature, Eden let out an unrestrained screech. He bared his dagger-like teeth at the wolf, letting his wingspan stretch out fully. He did not immediately lunge at the wolf — once again, he didn’t want to hurt anyone or anything if he could help it. But he needed to stand his ground, silently praying that the sight would intimidate it enough to stand down. Try me now, he thought, looking down at the wolf and holding its gaze. An energy filled the air that he couldn’t quite explain. He wondered if the wolf could feel it too.

—

The creature before it moved in a way the wolf was not entirely familiar with. Not quite man and not quite beast, the creature shifted with rippling skin. The wolf knew, on some level, that not everything that looked human was human. The wolf understood, to an extent, that it did not spend all of its time in this form, and that logic dictated others to be similar, too. It had even seen creatures shifting between one form and another, had watched the man with unseeing eyes turn into a catlike creature, had witnessed a woman with a familiar scent shift into something more like the wolf itself. But this — watching someone go from man to avian beast — was new to the wolf. 

Curiosity tickled its throat. Much as it had when the cat man had shifted in the woods, the wolf could not determine whether it wanted to swallow this creature whole or run with it through the trees, could not determine if it was a packmate or a meal. The wolf tilted its massive head, almost like another canine-like creature trying to determine how to make sense of the situation before it. What to do next? Attack? Or play? 

The bird screeched, the pitch high and a little painful on the wolf’s sensitive ears. The beast took in the creature before it — the sharp talons, the deadly beak — and it wondered if the bird would make a formidable opponent. The wolf had never really had a real ‘fight,’ so to speak; it had only ever had meals. Most of the things it swallowed did not stand much of a chance when it came to fighting back. But this creature would. And the wolf, proud and arrogant, was uncertain it wanted that.

Hesitantly, the wolf took a step back. The air around it felt energized, as if something invisible was sparking feelings it was incapable of understanding. In the distance, someone screamed. The wolf turned towards the sound with interest. If it could not fight the bird, perhaps it would find someone else to rip into instead.

—

The only sounds piercing the silence of the forest had come from the two of them up until now, which made the scream in the distance all the more harder to miss. Eden’s head turned with the wolf’s, eyes widening curiously as if there was any possibility of analyzing the situation from here. He wasn’t quite sure how he would’ve reacted on a normal day where his mind was clear and he was human, but right now, the siren’s instinct was to find out more.

The densely-packed branches made the option of flying near impossible, so Eden started to run. He did not look back to confirm that the wolf was following him, but he could sense its presence trailing behind just moments after he took off. Thank god for his siren form — the wolf would always be fast, but now with his taller stature and long legs, he’d at least be able to hold his own.

But his attention was not on the wolf, nor did he think the wolf’s attention was on him. Another scream — undeniably human — rang through the air, and both creatures quickened their pace. His talons crunched against the snow as a tantalizing smell started to fill his nares. It was metallic and thick and a sign that a potential meal was close by. 

No, no, no. He did not yearn for a meal. He was sprinting to the danger out of curiosity, in case someone needed aid. Perhaps better yet, to protect the poor, weak human from the wrath of the wolf, since he knew the screams would be hard for the other creature to ignore. Eden would not satiate his hunger if it meant directly taking life. But maybe if he was lucky, the individual would be dead on arrival.

Coming into another clearing, the smell of gore was inescapable now. Even in the faint moonlight, the dark stains of blood were hard to miss against the snow. Eden’s eyes followed the trail to the edge of the clearing where a human lay on their stomach, their arms and legs sprawled as if they were attempting to crawl away. His stomach lurched — partially from the uncertainty of what to do, and mostly from his sheer hunger. 

Something brushed against his wing, and Eden looked down to see the wolf stalking towards the body. “Stop,” he said hesitantly. A meaningless command. 

—

The bird creature ran, and the wolf ran, too. It was no longer certain if it was chasing the bird or chasing the sound. Perhaps on some level, it was chasing both. It thought it still wanted to break the bird’s bones between its jaws (would they be hollow, like those of the sparrows it swallowed in New Mexico?), but the scream offered an enticing alternative all its own. Greedy jaws wanted both, wanted to taste both the bird and whoever was screaming. But one was an easier target than the other. The bird had made it clear that he would put up a fight; whoever was screaming in the distance had already named themself a victim with the sound.

There was another scream, and the wolf picked up pace. All four paws slammed against the ground, disrupting the mud and the dead leaves spread across the floor of the forest. The wolf was hungry, and it supposed it did not matter what eased that hunger so long as something did. The bird might taste better, but it could focus on the easier target. (It could devour the bird another day.)

The scent of blood and fear caressed the wolf’s nostrils, rising up to meet its snout like steam from a hot meal. The sound of whimpering and harsh, strained breathing met its ears, mingling with the scent. These senses returned to the wolf long before the scene was in view, offering it a preview of what it would find. A human, already half dead. Not the most entertaining meal, but certainly something worth taking a bite of. 

The clearing stretched out in front of them, and the wolf crouched low, stalking forward. The bird murmured something, words the wolf could not understand. The tone was desperate, like it had been in the woods when the wolf had prepared to eat him, too. But it meant nothing to the beast; nothing was heavier than the scent of the blood or the sounds of the whimpers. The human turned its head towards the approaching beast and let out another scream, weaker than the two that had drawn it here. And the wolf, pleased with the sound, rose up and bound forward, closing the distance between itself and its meal.

The human was scooped into the wolf’s jaws, screaming and struggling weakly. Its mouth closed around the midsection, another shrill scream rising up. Louder, now. Fear of certain death added a shot of adrenaline into the system, as did the pain of the teeth digging into the stomach. The wolf shook its head back and forth, the thrashing human stilling with the motion. Teeth sank in deeper still, and then —

The legs fell from the wolf’s mouth; the torso remained locked in its jaws. The human had gone still and silent, heartbeat stopped. Entrails hung out, blood stained the snow. And the wolf felt some hint of quiet disappointment that the game was over so soon.

—

As he expected, the wolf did not yield at his request. It observed its new prey as it had observed Eden just moments ago. Despite the growing dread that filled his chest, the siren could not bring himself to intervene. Perhaps it was the weak whimpers that that human was letting out, their final attempt at a scream solidifying the thought in Eden’s head. The human had been left for dead, and in this moment, they would be better off dead. 

The siren had come to terms with what was about to happen, but it still did not make the sight any less jarring. He watched as the wolf snatched the human into its mouth, a flicker of desperation flashing in the victim’s eyes as the wolf further sank its teeth in. Eden wanted to look away as the wolf started to thrash the gradually stilling body, yet, the siren was transfixed by the scene. The bird’s desires were beginning to overwhelm him. Bright scarlet splattered on the snow and the smell of iron lay thick in the air as organs and limbs fell pathetically from the corpse. It was a horrific scene, and it was unfortunately stirring his appetite. 

Eden’s thoughts were becoming hazy, the line between his thoughts and the siren’s getting harder to identify. He took a tentative step towards the wolf, deeply inhaling the cold air as he began to salivate. Though the victim’s heart did not beat anymore, the siren could still pinpoint it in his mental haze. Energy surged through the air once more. Or maybe he was playing it up to justify allowing his animalistic side to take over. He did not exactly remember what happened next. 

One moment the siren was merely observing, and the next he was lunging towards the wolf with an echoing screech. He looked it in the eye, shrieking in its face as if his life depended on it. And perhaps it did — the siren didn’t know how much longer he could hold out without sustenance. He screeched until the wolf dropped the torso from its jaws, and when it didn’t immediately do so, he pecked at its face for good measure. When the victim’s torso finally tumbled to the ground, the siren stretched his wings, pushing the wolf aside as best as he could.

With nothing in between him and a freshly deceased heart, the siren used his beak to hack at the corpse’s chest. He got past layers of skin and muscle, then the bird hammered at the corpse’s sternum with a desperation that mirrored the victim’s final moments. Hearing the sickening crack of bone, he had what he wanted. The siren dove into the ribcage, his tongue finally getting a taste of the hot blood that he had craved for so long.

—

For the wolf, the hunt was never truly about the meal. It was hungry, yes, but it was not starved. It never needed to earn its sustenance from the creatures it tore apart, and though it had little concept or memory beyond the vaguest flickers of the hot meals Rory ate when the wolf was a girl, it understood that its stomach was rarely truly empty. Often, the wolf didn’t finish whatever meal it earned for itself in its entirety, left parts and pieces behind for someone else to find. The hunt was more a game than a meal ticket, all things considered.

This did not mean it enjoyed the concept of sharing. 

Instinct dictated the wolf to be a pack animal, but the bird creature was not something the wolf considered to be a part of its pack. Perhaps if it had had a better concept of shifters in this form, if it had understood that the siren was like it, like Rory, it would have felt differently. But the wolf was all instinct, and concepts like this were hard to grasp. The siren was not like the blind cat had been, friendly and brave in spite of the wolf’s sharp teeth. This bird creature proved itself an enemy with a screech that hurt the wolf’s sensitive ears.

There was no camaraderie to be found, then, when the bird swooped in to snatch the wolf’s prize. The bloody torso was snatched from the wolf’s hungry teeth, a beak pecking its face and taloned feet shoving it away. The wolf stumbled, though it refused to fall. It watched the bird hack at the corpse’s chest and let out a loud, furious roar.

The wolf pushed forward swatting at the bird to protect a meal it did not truly even want. This was more about pride than it was about anything else. The kill belonged to the wolf, and so did the aftermath. It would not give up so easily, would not relinquish its meal even if it also would not consume it in full.

—

Eden would’ve said that intercepting the wolf’s hunt was an unchivalrous thing to do, but the siren did not care. The bird was starving. How long had it been since his last proper meal? He had stopped keeping count after multiple trips to the beach in the dead of night, desperately searching for an unfortunate drowned soul only to come up empty-handed each time. Now, a fresh heart had essentially fallen into his lap without him having to do any of the dirty work, and the siren was not going to let an opportunity like that go to waste. Perhaps he was more like his mother than he realized.

The siren had anticipated resistance from the wolf, had anticipated the ear-piercing roar that it let out though it still made him wince. All he had to do was reach the heart and grasp the organ between his teeth before the other creature could properly react, then the bird could fly far away from this mess that he’d stumbled upon. But the wolf was sharp, and the siren’s own technique had become sloppy after his idle years. He’d taken too long, and the bird had only been able to taste a few drops of blood before claws were swatting at his wings. 

Loose feathers floated through the air as the siren frantically shook off the wolf, but the other creature had a tight grasp. Blood dripped down his chin onto the snow, the proximity of the metallic scent making it hard for him to focus. The bird hissed in frustration. Just the heart, he tried to say, but the words got caught in his throat as they often did when the siren dominated his brain — when he could feel his humanity slipping further and further away.

The bird let out an annoyed screech into the night sky. He was a siren, for god’s sake. If something was not going his way, he simply had to take control. Closing his eyes, the words to the Chinese folk song began to fill the air, the melody thrumming through him. “Hand over the heart. Just the heart. Then we go our separate ways.”

—

The wolf snapped at the bird, protecting its meal with a mixture of instinct and rage driving it. Was it not the strongest thing here in these woods? The bird might have been crafty, might have been a more complicated prey than the wolf was interested in while something easier lay on the ground ready to eat, but the wolf was still bigger. The wolf was still more capable, still stronger, still in charge. It could tear the bird to pieces if it had the motivation to do so; the feathers that floated through the air were proof enough of that. 

The screeching was annoying, though. The wolf had sensitive ears, and the sound was harsh and bordered on painful. It let out a furious howl in protest, though this did nothing to stop the bird’s assault on its senses. Instead, there was something else — a song that the wolf could not comprehend, and an urge that was just as impossible to understand.

The bird’s efforts had left the heart mostly exposed in the corpse’s chest cavity and, without knowing why, the wolf pulled it out with teeth that were almost gentle. It tossed the organ towards the bird with a huff, then gathered up the rest of the torso in its massive jaws. Still unsure why it was moving at all, the wolf turned away from the bird, walking in the opposite direction with the torso in tow and leaving the bird with the bottom half of the corpse… and the heart.

The department store stretched out in front of her, countless displays showing off everything a person could ever need (and a whole lot of things no one did). Kit had always liked shopping. It was a nice way to lose one’s self for a while, a fun way to distract from all the horrors of life. Money hadn’t been a problem for her in lifetimes now, not since she was first starting out. She knew how to invest, how to save, how to make sure the bank account she had in one life could still benefit her in the next. It meant she could do things like this freely, meant she could browse the sprawling store without any worry of insufficient funds. And it was a nice feeling.

Striding down the aisles, she ran a hand along a shelf sporting blankets. The home decor aisle wasn’t of huge use to her — her apartment was already pretty expertly decorated, after all — but she liked looking around, anyway. Someone who could regulate their body temperature at will didn’t really need a big fluffy blanket, but there was something to be said for the coziness of it all, so she threw one into her cart before heading over to the next aisle. A mirror at the end of it caught her eye — or, more specifically, a reflection in the mirror.

It brought her back in a jarring sort of way, transporting her through many, many lifetimes all the way back to the start. When she was fourteen for the first time, and her little brother’s reflection in a dusty mirror showed more than she’d known to fear. She shook away the feelings that came with the memory, shook away the stab of guilt and grief she pretended meant nothing after all this time. Squeezing between the stranger and the mirror, she tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “You should watch your back,” she murmured lowly, inclining her head back towards the mirror. Her reflection blocked his now — a quiet action she hoped he’d understand to have been made in his defense. “Literally. Those things are tricky. Don’t want the wrong kind of person spotting it.” He was lucky it was her who had.

—

Eden liked his new home in Harborside. It was nothing like the sterile penthouses he grew up living in, where perfection was expected from him even in the confines of his own home. It was an older building with chipped paint and mismatched light fixtures that actually made coming home feel comforting, not suffocating. That being said, there were undoubtedly some blemishes that were a sight for sore eyes. There was no way that he was going to take on the task of repainting the whole house, so he figured that simply covering the scratches on the wall up with some generic art would have to do for now. Now after days of putting off the task, Eden finally managed to drag himself to Wicked’s Rest’s department store. Shopping had always felt like a chore to him — he didn’t have fond memories of shopping with his mother as a kid, usually dragging behind her as she pointed out the season’s hottest designer purse to her assistant. 

So that’s how Eden found himself browsing through the aisles without a single thought in his head. It had already taken him a good few minutes to track down the home decor aisle, so his patience was wearing thin when it came to actually choosing something out. Skimming through the pile of framed art, he suddenly felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to face the individual, a shorter woman whose face seemed somewhat familiar, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where he’d seen her before. Eden leaned forward to catch the woman’s words, largely expecting her to tell him to move out of the way or something along the lines. However, he furrowed his brow at her low whisper. What is she talking about? 

The stranger suddenly tilted her head forward and as Eden’s gaze followed the slight movement, he felt his stomach drop. Though his face was obstructed by hers, he could unmistakingly make out a feathery pair of purple wings. His wings. Eden jolted back from the stranger without a second thought, stammering as he tried to find the words to defend himself. A mirror. How could he be so careless? A million thoughts ran through his head as he debated what to do next. The fact that the woman saw enough to say something meant there was no point in denying the matter at hand, and even if her words felt more helpful than accusatory, he couldn’t just let her walk away either. 

“Look, I’m pretty sure I know what you saw,” Eden began, putting his hands out to shield himself. “And I don’t know what your intentions are with this information, but how I handle this situation will depend on the next thing you say.”

—

His reaction was about what she’d expected it to be. Kit knew, better than most, how dangerous it could be to be found out. Throughout her lifetimes, she’d seen the world morph and change into something almost unrecognizable. Technology evolved, human nature shifted, borders moved, countries were renamed. The number of things that stayed the same between one life and the next was a very, very short list. Hunters always found their place on it.

It didn’t matter how much time passed between one life and the next, didn’t matter if Kit was dead for moments before being hatched from a new egg or if more time stretched between death and rebirth. Every time she was reborn, every time she grew back into her memories well enough to investigate any changes in the world, she always found the same thing. Hunters remained, as dangerous as ever. As long as people like her and the man in the mirror existed, so would they. And no matter what they did, no matter how good they were, those hunters would always have the worst of intentions in mind. She’d seen firsthand what hunters could do, more than once now. She’d experienced it.

So the look of fear on this guy’s face was valid. She understood it. She took a step back as he jolted away from his own reflection, gave him room to breathe. It was a kindness she might not have usually extended. Kit was an inherently selfish thing, and she tended to look at every situation with a question of what it might stand to gain her. But… it’d been a while since she’d run into another siren. He wasn’t a phoenix, but he was still… familiar. The sight of that reflection still came with the barest hint of camaraderie, even if she was different now.

She held up her hands in the universal sign of surrender, amused in spite of herself. “If that’s a threat, you should really work on your delivery,” she told him. “Like, maybe throw a growl in there, hunch your shoulders forward a little. You could probably be scary if you wanted to! You just have to put in the effort to see the results, you feel me?” She flashed him a grin. “But it’s super not necessary in this case. I’m not the kind of girl who carries big, scary knives around with me, if you know what I mean. I’m a friend! A friend with something in common, if you catch my drift. I’m not here to harsh your vibe, buddy. I’m here to… spread my wings?” She paused. “Does that count as subtle? I’m really bad at subtle.”

—

His inherent distrust in others was a problem he had to work on, Eden knew that. It was a result of years in the public eye and interactions with people who simply wanted to use him for their own gain. It’s not like the people of Wicked’s Rest would give a damn about who his parents were or how much was in his bank account, but he knew he had to keep his guard up for a completely different reason now. Even if his move was still somewhat fresh, he had heard enough whispers about the supernatural beings in town — and the hunters that dedicated their lives to tracking them down. 

So that’s why Eden felt conflicted as he watched the woman in front of him, her hands going up in surrender. His brain was telling him not to be deceived, especially in a town like this. However, his gut was telling him that there was something different about her. She would’ve had no reason to…look out for him if she planned on harming him. After a brief but fierce debate in his mind, Eden finally let himself put his hands down from their defensive position as he let out a scoff. “My words are threatening enough that I don’t have to resort to such over-the-top actions, thank you very much,” he grumbled under his breath, unsure if his commentary was even audible to her.

The woman continued on, flashing a grin at Eden as she assured him that she held no weapons. That was a relief to him, though he still kept a watchful eye on her. With how focused he was on her every movement, her next words almost went over his head. Suddenly she was going on about friends and wings, saying the two of them had something in common when they literally just met moments ago. Eden was starting to question whether his comprehension of metaphors and the English language as a whole was regressing, when his eyes drifted back to the mirror and it started to click. The fact that she had gone out of her way to call out his carelessness, the way she didn’t seem to feel endangered in his presence, the supposed “things in common” about them — was it possible?

“Are you saying that you’re…also…” he trailed off, not wanting to say the word out loud as if doing so would incriminate his identity further. “Wait, but no. Your reflection. It was human. I saw it.” Eden took a precautionary step back, completely unsure what to think now. Maybe he should’ve stayed home after all. 

—

She continued to watch him, made note of the tension still clinging to him. He was smart, she thought; it would have been foolish of him to trust her immediately, even if she had stepped between him and the mirror. People like them — supernatural people, people who spent their whole lives being hunted — could never really be too careful in situations like this one. The ones who were trusting were the ones who didn’t make it very long out in the world. Kit had seen that proven time and time again throughout the years, had watched supernatural people of all different species and backgrounds fall to their own gullible hope. It hadn’t been true of her in a long time now. Evidently, it wasn’t true of this guy, either. Good. She didn’t like seeing sirens die.

Her expression remained amused and unconcerned at his mumbling, and she leaned casually against the shelf. “I mean, if that were true, I’d feel more threatened, wouldn’t I? I’m not feeling very threatened here, birdie.” She punctuated the statement with a wink. It was true — Kit didn’t carry much fear with her in a crowded department store. This siren wasn’t going to attack her outright where he’d be easily caught by the crowd, and he wouldn’t want to attack her once they were somewhere more private and she’d explained the situation. There were a lot of people who wanted to see Kit Adebayo dead — hunters, vampires, zombies, mares, probably even a fury or two from her earlier days — but she had her doubts that a siren would find himself on that list.

She watched his face as he seemed to register her words, watched the unease give way to confusion. It was always hit or miss, explaining what she was to people. Sirens were common enough, but phoenixes were a much rarer phenomenon. Back when Kit was young, the first time she’d been young, she hadn’t even known they existed. That had been a very long time ago, of course, and the world had changed so much since then. Were young sirens taught about the more fiery variant of their species? Did they know how such a thing was born? Kit tried to imagine what the fire that had killed her might have felt like if she’d known the death would result in a transformation, tried to let herself invent a world where it had been more exciting than terrifying. She wasn’t sure such a thing was possible. The fear had been so palpable; she often felt that it had choked her more thoroughly than the smoke had. 

The siren’s eyes slid back to the mirror, to Kit’s human reflection still shining within it. She smiled, shrugging a shoulder. “Well, it’d be a shame if my reflection were all feathery,” she hummed. “I’m pretty hot. If you know what I mean.” God, she hated subtle implications. She wanted to just say it, but there was no telling who might be listening in. 

—

As much as Eden always tried to put up a front for other people, he had been finding it harder to do ever since leaving home. Perhaps that was a good thing. The fact that he didn’t have to constantly bottle up his emotions anymore meant that he could feel more freely, “live a more authentic life” or however the self-help books at the library put it. The Eden of the past would’ve forced himself to come up with a rebuttal to the woman’s teasing so he could have the last word, because she was obviously teasing him at this point with the pet name and the wink. Birdie, how juvenile, he thought to himself. The last time he had been called that was when he was a child, when his mother still had some genuine love for him left in her heart. 

For now though, he decided to let the teasing go, instead responding with a disapproving tch that he tried to fill with as much attitude as possible. Shifting his focus to the actual important matter at hand, he listened to her words carefully. Eden was never one for subtlety either and would rather someone spit their words out than beat around the bush. However, he knew that she couldn’t do so under the fluorescent lights of the department store, surrounded by the sounds of shopping carts clicking and customers chattering in the aisles around them. It was too risky to be so vulnerable here, so he would have to make do with her riddles. 

He racked his brain for his limited siren knowledge. Eden knew that the traditionalist elders that grew up in his colony didn’t tell him everything they knew, simply only the things they wanted him to know. Topics that were brought up that shouldn’t have been were simply passed off as myths, but he now knew that was far from the case. Although he hadn’t gotten the chance yet to do much personal research at the library as he had planned, just spending a few weeks in Wicked’s Rest opened his eyes to the possibilities of the supernatural. So Eden tried his best to piece it together — this woman was claiming that she was like him, yet her reflection didn’t show any hint of her siren form. Now she was emphasizing how hot she was, and while Eden knew he could get pretty absorbed in his looks from time to time, their current discussion hardly seemed like the place for vanity. 

“I don’t think I’m following…” Eden said with a frown. He never felt this stupid in Chinese. “Like a hotter one? A nicer looking one? Or actually hot, like you’re sweating?” Eden couldn’t recall if it was even possible for him to sweat in his true form. Their colony in the mountains overlooked the ocean, and it always maintained that cool sea breeze to it. The only time he had felt any sort of suffocating heat was the one year where a forest fire broke out nearby. His mother had used it to teach the young sirens about avoiding fires at all cost, that they needed to do so in order to prevent turning into…oh. “Oh.” He repeated again, this time out loud for the woman to hear. “Like…fire…” he trailed off, finding that even the word bird felt too potentially exposing now. He could only hope that she could practically hear the gears turning in his head. 

—

He didn’t seem quite as amused with the situation as she was, which was fair enough. After all, he was the one who’d been caught with his pants down — or his feathers out, as things went. The desire to egg him on a little more was strong, but Kit wasn’t sure it was the kind of thing she ought to be partaking in. She was flippant about most things, sure. She liked turning mountains back into molehills, liked making jokes of serious situations and acting as if nothing could touch her because if you acted hard enough, if you fooled enough people, you could pretend it was true, too. But… she understood the unease that came with being discovered. She understood what it was to feel vulnerable and naked in front of a stranger, even if she’d made sure she hadn’t felt that way herself in this lifetime. She was an asshole, but she wasn’t a complete asshole. She could have empathy, sometimes. She’d passed therapy with flying colors, thank you very much. Top grades! (All right, she might have lost out on some points when she’d insisted her therapist give her a scorecard and grade her ‘performance’ but, whatever. That guy was a total hack, anyway. That was why she’d stopped seeing him.)

So, no more nicknames. No more teasing, no more pushing the siren into proverbial corners just to see how he might react when the walls started closing in. Kit had turned over a new leaf in regards to that kind of thing in this new life, wasn’t the type to push someone just to see how much they could take before breaking anymore. She was better now. She put people back together instead of taking them apart. (And, sure, she got a little hungry during surgery sometimes, but she’d never actually eaten a patient’s heart before, and that probably counted for something!)

She leaned back, watched the gears turn in his mind, forced herself to be as patient as she knew how to. And it occurred to her that, even without a blade in her hand and a body on the table, she was partaking in a kind of experiment here. She was asking a question, she was performing a test to study the results. It was a hard habit to break, harder still for a born scientist. Kit wanted to know how much the world of sirens had changed since she’d last truly felt like she was a part of it. She wanted to know if this siren knew more about phoenixes than she had, back when she was one. And she wondered if this was better, if there was any kind of experimentation on an unknowing test subject that could ever be anything resembling ethical. (She wondered, too, how much she really cared about ethics. She was a doctor, a surgeon. She saved lives. She wasn’t sure that meant she cared about them. She wasn’t sure redemption was possible if she didn’t.)

“Oh, I don’t sweat,” she replied, as if that answered things. “I am nicer looking than most people. Most birds, too.” But that was less to do with the phoenix thing, and more to do with the fact that Kit was, by her own standards, a stone cold hottie. (Matter of opinion, yadda yadda yadda, she knew that. It didn’t do much to touch her arrogant confidence.) For a moment, she thought this was proof that he was as clueless as she’d been, back in that first life. She was ready to make note of it, to put him out of his misery by offering to explain things a little more concisely because he was like she used to be, or because she was bored, or because she liked talking about herself, or whatever. But then, she saw it — that moment when the pieces fell together, when things clicked. It was one of her favorite sights, really. For someone like Kit, driven by knowledge to the point that the pursuit followed her from one lifetime to the next, realization was a beautiful thing on any face. Her grin was wide and bright and excited in a way she so rarely got to be anymore. There it was. “Hot like fire,” she confirmed. “Now you get it. Mirrors don’t bother me nearly as much as the rain.”

—

The other woman’s face lit up with a smile, a sparkle in her eye that only genuine excitement could bring out of someone. At first, Eden didn’t understand where it came from. Why would anyone find joy in someone exposing their identity, let alone someone of the supernatural variety? He had always been taught to suppress, suppress, suppress. Don’t let them know what you are. But then he thought back to the past few years since he left home — no matter how much resentment he held for his controlling mother and colony, at least they were just like him. There were some nights where he would long for a connection with another siren, just anyone who would know what it was like, but it never came. (And how could it when he hid his identity from everyone? How would another siren ever think to trust him?) For there to finally be someone standing in front of him that could understand him, perhaps the thought did deserve a small smile after all. 

Now for this connection to come in the form of a phoenix, that was truly fascinating. He had been taught to avoid fire for this very reason — not that becoming a phoenix was anything to be ashamed of, quite the contrary actually. Many of the elders saw it as an honorable fate. However, the idea of becoming immortal terrified Eden to his core. Would he have the will to live multiple lives when the first had already brought him so much pain? Sometimes it already felt like he had lived multiple lives. Perhaps he could eventually pick this woman’s brain about it, or was it considered taboo? He was getting way too ahead of himself. After all, he and this woman were still practically strangers.

“You’re the first I’ve ever met,” He said in a hushed tone, finally letting his shoulders relax and his jaw unclench. He leaned his elbow on the shelf, showing extra caution to ensure that his body was angled away from the mirror this time. “I mean, I barely even know any of my own kind. So a…you-know-what? That’s really…cool. For lack of a better word.” Eden couldn’t help the smirk that tugged at his lips. Hey, he had been a celebrity, and a pretty charismatic one at that. She wasn’t the only one who had jokes. 

At the thought of his old life, the sound of his mother scolding his etiquette suddenly invaded his brain. State your name with a smile. Stand up straight. Bow politely to the press. Fuck all of that, he didn’t owe anyone anything anymore. Still, he wasn’t a complete barbarian. Considering that this was a rare confrontation with a stranger that was actually playing out positively (and there was the fact that she essentially saved his ass), the least Eden could do was introduce himself. “By the way, I’m…” he began, but was abruptly interrupted by the clack of a cart hitting the end of the neighboring aisle. Suddenly becoming hyper-aware of his surroundings, Eden cleared his throat. “Perhaps here is not the best place to expose myself more than I already have.”

—

She’d known that phoenixes were rarer than standard sirens, but it was difficult to gauge how rare they were. After all, supernatural shit wasn’t something you could easily google without being sent to the Vampire Diaries fan wiki or a similar location, and things like that were hardly indicative of the truth. Even with the research she had done, specified and dedicated, it was difficult to tell how many phoenixes there were out there. There was no real way of knowing if signs of a phoenix came from a new one or an old one that had taken some time to be reborn again without speaking to them, and Kit had never had much desire to expand her social circle like that. Her experience with sirens was limited to her family, whose expectations had seen her suffocated. She wasn’t really looking for a repeat performance.

In fact, she’d never realized how lonely it was to have no one even remotely similar to you in your life until now. Meeting this siren in the department store, seeing the familiar sight of a reflection that didn’t look the way it ought to… it came with an unexpected rush of nostalgia. She missed it, she realized; that feeling of connection, of belonging. She missed feeling like she was a part of something, even when that ‘something’ had been a family she could never quite satisfy. 

But, of course, that feeling was a little too close to real for Kit to cope with, so she pushed it aside. Better to focus on the present than the past; when you’d lived as many lives as she had, there was too much past to swallow without aching. In the present, she had a siren telling her she was cool with a spark of humor in his eyes that told her it was a clever joke, and it was easier to grin at that than it was to reflect on sirens she’d left behind so many lifetimes ago, so she clung to it. She offered up a grin of her own, she held her hands out with a flourish. “I’m the only one you’ll ever need to meet, really. Best of the bunch.” As if she knew others. “And definitely the coolest. And the hottest. All kinds of temperatures.” 

He stopped short before introducing himself, which was… curious. Kit raised a brow, mentally dissecting the situation. Maybe he was worried someone had seen his slip up with the mirror and might track him down later; maybe his name would ring some bells when he said it. Either way, she wouldn’t push him to reveal himself here… but she was far too curious to leave it hanging, either. She nodded. “What do you say we get out of here? I’m not invested enough in the contents of this shopping cart to feel compelled to keep pushing it around, and I know of a good cafe nearby. A quiet cafe, with a quiet park within walking distance. You can buy me a coffee!” She had saved his ass with the mirror, after all.

—

Eden had always prided himself on being able to read people, but he didn’t have to be a genius to know that the woman in front of him would be a character. “I don’t doubt you are,” he said with a tinge of amusement in his voice. “I have a feeling you’re going to make it really hard for anyone to follow you up.” Though with the rarity of phoenixes in the world, he doubted that there would be anyone to follow her up. After all, it had taken him 29 years of his life to meet his first. 

No matter how subtle her body language was, he could sense that she was analyzing him. He knew the look of curiosity all too well, because Eden himself was one to never let a thread hang. Especially with such a riveting situation at hand, he doubted that the woman would simply just let him go on with his day without asking a few questions first. (As if Eden himself wasn’t intending on inquiring about her identity too.) So naturally, he had mentally prepared himself to receive such an invitation out. Taking one last glance at the pile of framed art and momentarily mourning the scratch on his wall that would remain for now, he nodded at the woman’s suggestion. “Sure, sure. To the cafe and the park, and the coffee that I will buy you, I suppose,” Eden dragged out the last syllable, rolling his eyes in feigned annoyance. 

In truth, a cup of coffee was the least he could do for her, and he was still counting his blessings that it was her of all people who had spotted him. Eden had always hated being helped — the overwhelming feeling of owing someone anything would consume him until he felt like he redeemed himself. But that had always been in the context of his career, whether it was his mother’s numerous friends insisting that they could squeeze him into a project or an individual claiming that any information could be scrubbed from the web for enough money. When it came to a matter of potential life or death like it just had, perhaps he would eventually learn to accept some help every now and then.

Following the woman’s lead, the two of them made their way out of the department store. Eden hadn’t realized just how suffocating it was in there until he stepped back out into the daylight, the slight breeze cooling down his flushed cheeks. The people on the streets of downtown Wicked’s Rest were in much further proximity than they had been in the cramped store aisles, but it still didn’t feel quite right to start divulging information on a sidewalk. Though, in the brief interaction Eden already had with the woman, she seemed to be the type to see right through a pathetic attempt at small talk. Instead, he opted to remain quiet, seeing if she would initiate a conversation first. 

—

“Trust me, I’ll ruin them for you. No one else will ever compare.” She wondered if it was true or not. Her blind confidence insisted that she was the cream of the proverbial crop, but she’d never met another phoenix to be certain. Kit wasn’t the kind of person who was happy with metaphors and wild guesses — she liked to have facts. After all, wasn’t it her pursuit of those facts that had landed her where she was now? More enemies than she could count on one hand, all intent on killing her for crimes she’d already died for once? 

It hadn’t quite taken the wind out of her sails the way it probably should have. Kit still wanted to know, still wanted certainties to operate within. She wanted to understand how the world operated, wanted to know everything there was to know. She wanted to know about him, too — the curious siren who doubtlessly had a story to tell. He was here alone — did he have a colony somewhere? Were there more like him, like them both? She had no desire to join a siren colony, even if there was some nostalgia at the thought, but there was safety in numbers. Maybe surrounding herself with other birds wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe she could make use of the situation, somehow. If nothing else, it seemed she was at least getting a free coffee out of it, albeit perhaps a reluctant one. “I’m worth it,” she assured him with a smile. Maybe she meant it; even Kit wasn’t sure anymore.

She left her cart where it was, leading him out of the department store without a second thought. Nothing she’d been thinking of buying was anywhere near as interesting as a discussion with another siren, particularly not after so much time. She had questions, even if she’d mask them behind jokes and innuendos. Had the culture changed much since her first lifetime? How often did he shift? How good was he with his siren charm? (The fact that she’d mostly lost hers when she’d made that unwilling transition to phoenix was the only thing she’d admit to missing, even if there was more she ached for.)

The walk was a quiet one. They couldn’t talk about what they wanted to talk about out in the streets, and Kit was too worked up to feign an interest in small talk when there were answers to be found. She led him to the coffee shop, they got their drinks. She was nice enough not to order anything overwhelmingly expensive, and she pulled him towards the private park nearby as soon as money had been exchanged. And, finally, things were quiet. Finally, things were private. Kit took a sip of her drink, gesturing to the empty park around them. “Here we are, mystery man. Nary a soul in sight. Are you ready for a real conversation?”

—

The walk to the coffee shop ended up being one that was practically silent, but it wasn’t the typical stifling silence that made Eden want to turn and run the other direction. He knew those moments all too well — he says something he’s not supposed to say to the press, or maybe his mother is disappointed in him for the nth time. It would be a stretch to call this silence comforting, but it was hardly a bother either. It was clear that they were both just engrossed in their own thoughts, going over the mental list of questions that they’d soon get to dissect. 

Not that Eden was really a coffee snob, but he was always one to appreciate quality and this shop was exactly that. He made a note to himself to come back some other time, maybe a time where he wasn’t on his way to have a heart-to-heart with a stranger. As he followed the woman to the nearby park, the number of people on the street started to dwindle as if on cue. Almost like they could see right through the two of them and knew that these special individuals needed their privacy. 

Ever since stepping foot in a town that proclaimed themselves as a ‘supernatural hub,’ the thought that the more experienced residents within the town could see through his human form plagued his mind. Even if Eden knew that was largely impossible, the thought always caused him to do a double take at the rest of his very human body. But as they entered the park, Eden reminded himself that its emptiness was a mere coincidence and not the result of people running for their lives from the approaching siren and phoenix. They were just two individuals having a conversation in a park, and no one really had any reason to suspect otherwise. 

“A real conversation is what you’re going to get then,” he replied, pausing to take a sip of his coffee as if to calm the nerves that he didn’t want to admit he had. “My name is Eden. New in town, moved here a month or so ago. Siren, as you saw earlier. Now, I could continue listing these absolutely riveting facts about myself, or we can skip the formalities and get straight to business with whatever specific things you want to know.”

—

Eden. She turned the name over in her head, wondered why he’d been reluctant to say it in the crowded store. It wasn’t one she recognized, but she’d been separated from the world of sirens for lifetimes now. Would it be familiar to her if she hadn’t? If she’d kept in touch with anyone from her old colony — or, more accurately, she supposed, with their descendants — would the name ring alarm bells in her head? She hated that the answer to the question eluded her entirely, hated that she didn’t even know whatever it was that she didn’t know. Kit had always liked knowledge, had always wanted more of it. It had been her singular drive for as long as she could remember now, the thing that kept her going when it would have been far easier to stop. She wanted to know. She wanted to know everything.

That was why Eden’s offer was daunting. He asked her what specific things she wanted to know, and part of Kit wanted to laugh out loud, because the answer was all of it. She wanted all of it, wanted the knowledge to spill out and cover the ground enough that she could bathe in it. Specific questions were hard to ask when the answers you wanted were so vast and endless. How could she be expected to choose? 

“Why here?” She prodded carefully. She didn’t want to scare him off, didn’t want to reveal too much of her hand. She wanted information, but she didn’t want him to know how badly she wanted it. She didn’t want to give him the upper hand, even if she thought he could be an ally. “You seem like you came from pretty far. What was it about Wicked’s Rest that drew you in? Did you know about its… reputation ahead of time?” Kit hadn’t. She might not have come had she known the town was a supernatural hub, not when it meant there were so many of her enemies within its borders. But the hospital was hiring, and she’d needed a job, and she wasn’t sure she regretted it now that she was here. It was nice, being around other people like her, like Eden. It made her feel just a fraction less alone.

—

Eden had been asked that question plenty of times over the past month, and everytime he would give the standard answer. I wanted to get away from the city. The scenery here is nice. I thought places like this only existed in the movies. All of these statements were true, but none of them were the real reason either. The real reason was too risky — sure, plenty of normal humans saw Wicked’s Rest as a tourist spot. Most of the residents likely wouldn’t even bat an eye if someone said that their curiosity for the supernatural brought them to town. But Eden was a paranoid person by nature, and he wanted to distance himself from anything that could cause suspicion.

With his new phoenix acquaintance however, he had already exposed his biggest secret. His real reason for coming to town would be considered child’s play. Even if he didn’t want the trust to be there, it had to be there now. “I didn’t come here right away. Didn’t even know about this place when I left home. China, Shanghai. That’s where my colony is.” Eden couldn’t help but grimace. “Well, I guess my former colony. Anyways, I was in Canada for a few years doing school and I read about this place and its reputation. I’ve always wanted to learn more about what’s out there, and more about people…like us specifically,” he said, subtly gesturing between them with his free hand. 

He wondered how strange his desire to learn about sirens would sound to the woman. Why would a siren who grew up in a colony even need to learn more? Eden wanted to explain to her how isolated his colony had been from other sirens, and how his mother instilled in him that being a siren was something to hide, not embrace. Some days it felt like he barely knew anything about himself and he hated that. But that wasn’t the question at hand, and even if Eden felt this weird comfortability with the woman at this point, he still wouldn’t show all his cards at once. 

“So the answer to your question is yes, I knew about the reputation beforehand. I think that either makes me either the bravest man on Earth for coming here willingly, or the stupidest. You can decide for yourself,” Eden said with a faint smile as if to show the woman that he was letting his guard down for her. “Before we continue, I think it’d be best if I got your name so I can stop referring to you as ‘that woman over there’ in my head.”

—

In answering one question, he answered another. He had a colony — or he used to. He’d grown up around people like them, the same way Kit had in her first life. His in China, hers in Nigeria, and both of them lone birds now. Kit schooled her expression, unwilling to let her curiosity show on her face because even now, she wanted to maintain the upper hand. Even now, she wanted to be the one in control, the one holding all the strings. Eden was someone who had the potential, at least, to be a friend. Lifetimes ago, she would have jumped at the opportunity, would have grabbed it tightly with both hands and refused to let go. But things were different now. She was different now. 

So she remained carefully neutral, as if his answers mattered to her less than they did. “Why leave your colony?” She questioned, tone casual. “It seems like you could have learned plenty about people like us with them. Unless you mean ‘us’ in the wider sense.” Maybe he’d been curious about other shifters, too; werewolves, lamia, and the like. That was something Kit could understand. Her own colony hadn’t known much about other shifters, but she’d been fascinated when she’d discovered them. Still… there had to be a reason Eden had gone so far from his colony. He could have learned more about shifters without leaving China. He’d fled to another continent. There must have been a deeper story there, and Kit wanted to know it. Kit wanted to know everything. 

She smiled faintly as he confirmed he’d known about Wicked’s Rest before coming here, heard of the town’s reputation. That meant he’d done research; that was the sort of thing that made Kit like a person more, made her appreciate them. She wondered what it was he’d found that had solidified the decision to come here, wondered if there was one story in particular that stuck out. What was he looking for? Did she want to help him find it? (Maybe… if there was something in it for her.)

Before he answered anything else, though, it seemed he wanted more information about her. And that was fair enough, really. A game of twenty questions wasn’t much fun when only one person was doing the asking. “Kit,” she introduced herself, holding out her free hand for him to shake. “Katherine, technically, but I haven’t gone by that in a very, very long time. I’ll answer to ‘that woman over there’ too, though.”

—

Why leave your colony? It was something Eden had asked himself for years. Maybe he would’ve been better off accepting his mother’s demands, throwing his morals out the window for the sake of being in a safe space where he belonged. But that was the thing — Eden never felt like he belonged when he was with his mother. Leaving China wasn’t just a matter of learning more about himself, but it was also a matter of distancing himself from the people who sucked the life out of him. 

“I wouldn’t have learned shit with them,” Eden said with a quiet chuckle. “They were so isolated, so traditional. Only taught us younger ones what they wanted us to know, and I knew the world had to be bigger than that.” Taking a sip from his now-cold coffee, he watched as a pigeon flew overhead. “I wanted to…excuse my pun, fly free. You would too if you had a mother like mine.” Another laugh, but this time he made no effort to conceal his bitterness. “I left because I wanted to learn more, yes. But at the root of it all, I left because of her. Our relationship had run its course, whether it be colony affairs or my human life.” 

Eden could talk for hours when it came to his resentment of his mother, especially after years of bottling all of the complicated emotions. However, he figured that wasn’t what the other woman was here for. “As for why I decided to go so far, let’s just say that my former career would’ve made it difficult for me to live a quiet life. I like it here in the West. People rarely know who I am.”

Switching his attention over to her, Eden’s eyes softened as he shook the woman’s — Kit’s — hand. The fact that she had mentioned another name, clearly emphasizing that it hadn’t been used for a while, made him wonder just how many lifetimes she had already seen. “You see, you might’ve been okay with ‘that woman over there,’ but truthfully, it was getting pretty wordy in my head.” Eden said with a cheeky smile, as if trying to lighten the mood before he approached with his hard-hitting questions. “So, a phoenix. Immortal. How many lives did you live before this one? And were they all here in Wicked’s Rest?”

—

He’d left in the interest of learning. It was the best response he could have provided to Kit, who’d left her own biological family for the same reason. She’d no longer been able to thrive under her father’s contradictory expectations and her mother’s misplaced anger. Maybe it had been similar for Eden, who seemed so vehement about his inability to grow in the colony he’d left behind. Tradition was a stifling thing; few knew that better than Kit.

She nodded, understanding the sentiment more than she cared to admit. “My mother was… restrictive in her own way,” she acknowledged, looking at the cup in her hand and pretending she was doing so because it was a fascinating hunk of cardboard and not because it was easier than meeting Eden’s eye. “She disliked me, and I wasn’t much a fan of her by the end, either. My father had his own issues as well. I left for the same reason you did — to learn. There’s only so much knowledge you can obtain by staying in one place. Especially if the people around you don’t support your efforts.” It was an approval, in its own way; Kit’s method of telling Eden that she thought he’d done the right thing in leaving, even if she knew only the barest of details. She doubted it would mean much of anything to him, but she’d learned that it was important to tell people what you really thought and felt. Oftentimes, she did this the moment she thought and felt them.

He spoke of a former career, and it sparked her interest. She tilted her head to the side, brows shooting up. “You were recognizable back home, then?” It was clear from her tone that she wanted to know more, though she was uncertain he’d tell her. After all, they shared a few attributes, but they were still strangers. People were reluctant to share with someone they’d just met, and for good reason.

The amusement sparking behind her eyes matched the tone in his voice, and she shrugged. “Well, I suppose nicknames are more convenient when they’re short.” His next question was the expected sort, and Kit hummed thoughtfully. “I like to think of it more as… immortal-adjacent. Immortals don’t die. I’ve done that quite a few times now.” More than she liked to think about, really; death was never a fun experience. “Oh, I must be on… my tenth now. Eleventh, maybe. You lose track, after a little while. It starts to blur a little. I hardly remember my first.” It was a lie. There were lifetimes that were hazy, but the first one she’d led was as clear in her mind now as it had been the moment she was living it. Some things you couldn’t forget, no matter how much you might want to. “Not all in Wicked’s Rest. This is actually my first time in this town. I’ve lived all over. Traveled the world, been born all around it. Nigeria, Russia, England… You learn more when you travel, right?”

—

He noticed how Kit avoided his gaze when talking about her family, and Eden immediately understood. Hostility and betrayal always hurt, but it hit a whole new level when it involved the few people in your life who were never supposed to turn their back on you. It was a pain that Kit seemingly understood — maybe they were even more alike than he initially believed. “Especially if the people around you don’t support your efforts,” he repeated back to her matter-of-factly. Perhaps unbeknownst to her, but her words were a comforting validation to him. He could only hope that the feeling had been mutual. 

Kit’s face quickly lit up with the mention of his former career. From what he had observed of her so far, she was a person who liked asking questions. Not in an invasive way that the press would, and not in an accusatory way like his mother would either. Rather, she seemed to ask questions because she simply wanted to understand, and Eden could respect that. He hated talking about his past fame not because he was ashamed of anything he did, but it just wasn’t who he was anymore, and some people didn’t want to accept that. With Kit, however, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to divulge a little. After all, she was shaping up to be his closest semblance of a friend in this town, if not, then at least an ally. 

“Yes. My mother and father were both famous before I was even born. I was recognized from birth, then my mother pushed me into a few acting and modeling gigs and it continued from there. I believe the people here call it a…ah, what is qundai guanxi again…when you get famous off of your parents’ reputation, you know?” Eden furrowed his brow, trying hard to recall the word he had just learned the other week but silently hoping that Kit would fill in the blanks. “I was good at my job, in my defense. Even if I didn’t want to be doing it. Besides, how could my parents let such a handsome face go to waste?” He said with a subtle smirk, his words dripping with sarcasm.

Immortal-adjacent — Eden had never thought of it that way, and she was right. Every rebirth meant that a death had come shortly before it. Humans saw phoenixes as such a symbol of hope, but how would they ever know the pain that they went through? Would Eden himself ever have to remember the feeling of death? Let alone ten times over? He downed the last of his coffee, trying to buy some time as he struggled with what to say next. “I…it…couldn’t have been easy. But it seems like you’re making the most of the cards you were dealt. Gaining knowledge in every life, traveling and learning the ways of the world.” 

Of course, he still had his questions for Kit, but if she was anything like him, spending too much time reminiscing on the past would only do bad things to the psyche. Instead, Eden met Kit’s gaze and offered a small smile. “Who would’ve thought, two colony-less birds both ending up in this town at the same time? It’ll be nice…not to be alone.” He said with more vulnerability than he usually liked to show.

—

She hummed in acknowledgement, nodding her head. Perhaps a better person would have felt bad that Eden seemingly understood the plight she’d suffered. A kinder person might think that no one deserved to feel such rejection from the people who were meant to understand them. But Kit didn’t think of herself as good or kind. She was selfish; she wanted to be understood, even if she didn’t necessarily want to understand. She wanted to take without giving, wanted everything to be hers without having to sacrifice what already was. She liked that Eden knew what she meant; she disliked that she knew what he meant, too. Getting close to people was a gamble she no longer took.

She much preferred to hear about the parts of his life she didn’t understand; the fame, the crushing weight of it. Kit had never been famous. If she played her cards right, she never would be famous. It was a dangerous thing, after all, to be known. When you were someone born again after each death, photos of yourself existing in history books and news articles could lead the wrong kinds of people directly to your door. She was already struggling with how she’d navigate the next life now that social media had become so rampant in this one. She posted photos of herself online sometimes, after all; other people posted them with her in the background. What if one went viral? What if one was remembered? The idea of making up an ancestor was likely her best bet, but it seemed like a lot of work.

Eden would make a bad phoenix. For his sake, she hoped he wouldn’t have to make an attempt to navigate it. Dying after one life was a terrifying concept to Kit, but it would certainly be simpler for someone like Eden, whose face had been recognizable for as long as he’d had it. She smiled faintly as he explained, watching him search for the word. “A nepo baby,” she provided, smile widening into a grin. “You’re a nepo baby.” The complexity of her thoughts certainly wasn’t reflected in the expression on her face; Kit was good at looking easygoing, even when she was anything but. “It’s fine. Lots of people are nepo babies. It doesn’t mean you’re not talented or whatever, it just means you had a leg up.” She waved a hand, uninterested in the defense. What did it matter how a person got to be where they were? Most of the skills that had put Kit ahead in medical school had come from lifetimes of torture. It didn’t make her any less of a doctor. 

Her smile faded a little as he spoke, though she refused to let it disappear entirely. “Everyone dies,” she replied, as if it meant nothing. As if she didn’t dream about the more violent deaths, ache with the memory of the slower ones. “I just get to bounce back from it.” That was what she held onto each time. Dying was fine. It was inevitable. It happened, it couldn’t be stopped. But when it was over, when the light faded and the world fell away around her, Kit got to start over. She was supposed to get to start fresh, but… well, someone hadn’t gotten the memo this time around. It was fine. It was going to be fine. She refused to let herself think about it.

There was something about his smile that made her want to push him away, just a little. Kit couldn’t afford to befriend mortals. She’d learned her lesson with Ezra, seen the way loss could twist and shape a person. But… maybe it would be useful to have a siren around. Maybe she could manage to make something of it, just as long as she didn’t let herself get too close. She returned his smile, bringing her coffee to her lips and taking a swig. “Stick with me, kid,” she said brightly. “We’ll do our own thing.” Just as long as she kept him at arm’s length.

—

“Ah, yes.” The word sounded familiar now. “A nepo baby.” Of course, with all of the attention Eden had grown up with came the negativity as well. People saying that he’d be nothing without his parents, or saying that he didn’t deserve the fame that he had. A part of him wanted to scream that he never asked for it in the first place, yet he still took advantage of his opportunities, didn’t he? Hearing Kit’s words, however, felt validating. To be judged for what he achieved in the present rather than hang onto how exactly he got there, that was all that Eden wanted from life.