#mermer

His fingers pressed to his chest, rubbing the site of his growing mark, the tendrils of its influence extending tirelessly over the months. He couldn’t hide it anymore with tattoos on his shoulder and neck. The lines of his infection's power reached his eye, making it milky, making him hide it under an eyepatch even as it worked just fine.

Such was his vanity. A sin almost as great as his ambition.

Gale folded his arms over his chest, the crushed purple wool of his long coat damp with spray. At least the Tara was making good time to Bhaal’s Cove. At least he might be within reach of a cure to his disease.

His folly. Gale’s folly, one might call it. For that’s what it was to love a queen, to serve her at sea and in her bed, and then to lose that love over something so stupid. He sighed to think of that time, treasured in court as her Fleet Captain, her chosen, most adored Privateer. But his romantic heart had wanted more.

And so, he had plundered the seas for the most forbidden of treasures. Damn it if they had been rumored to be cursed. Karsus’ treasure was supposedly worth it.

Supposedly. If only as he had settled for diadems or roses… but no. Gale Dekarios was a man of grand gestures. In this regard as well.

His mind grew foggy. His hand rubbed at the Orb in his chest, the pain flaring at the memory. He recalled how he had taken that locked chest with the Orb inside, only to have its claws and magic gnaw its way into his chest, making this mark and—

“Captain Dekarios! Land Ho, Captain Dekarios!” twittered an excited if maternal voice. The woosh of the Tressym’s wings blew the long dark hair off his shoulder before four paws landed smartly on its spans. Tara, the namesake of his vessel, self-appointed First and Second Mate, purred softly in excitement for her master before cleaning her patchwork of brown fur, her little pink tongue lapping the way the salt air made her fur stick. Then her paw worked to fix his tendrils of little braids and beads that held his hair back, batting the little top knot to get his attention. “Captain. You are unusually silent.”

“Perhaps this ballet of waves and wind has inspired… introspection,” he muttered, turning to squint up at her with his one good eye, fingers returning to the center of his chest to rub out the pain.

The Tressym knew better. “It’s the Orb again, isn’t it? It needs tending?” Tara sighed. Her feline head nuzzled against Gale’s temple, even as shouts of excitement passed around the crew as land, indeed, came slowly into sight. “Perhaps what lies ahead for us in the Cove will stop its pain, its hunger. Tsk.” She sucked her little feline teeth. “About time that blasted Orb found something other than your precious heart to sink its fangs into. Especially after Mystra…”

“Enough, Tara,” Gale chided. A bit peevish but none too harshly. “I deserve this fate for what I’ve done. But it won’t stop me from seeking this curse’s cure. Even if it’s just my own dea—”

“Pish posh, Captain,” now it was Tara’s turn to chide, digging her claws into the fading purple wool over his shoulder. “Not on my watch, Gale.”

Gale rolled his eyes, grateful for the excited shouts on the deck below as an excuse to reach for his spyglass and examine the virgin shore before them. Bhaal’s Cove. The shoreline was black with rock and white with sand. Scanning the geography, he spied the outcropping of legend. A strange circle of tear drop rocks on the cliff face. “There!” He called back to the helm behind him. “Bosun Ancunìn, make for that point, three points to larbord!”

The silver haired elf gave some half sarcastic means of acknowledgment, and with a roll of his crimson eyes, he adjusted course.

“Take caution, Astarion. The legends say all sorts of murderous creatures lurk in these waters. We shall be extra vigilante,” Gale turned, locking eyes with his current helmsman, a smile on his face.

A smile returned with yet another roll of those eyes. “Here’s hoping your blathering on about the mating rituals of Gnolls might bore them all away…”

“Ah, good one Fangs!” Karlach chimed back, clapping the elf on the shoulder hard before setting her cherry red hands to the mainbrace to ease the rope. As usual, a smile was permanently fixed on the Tiefling, a flicker of mirthful fire in her face and demeanor. “Maybe we will get to see something amazing! Like a selkie or a kraken!”

Gale only chuckled, knowing that her enthusiasm was only out of zest for life and an ignorance for just how fearsome said creatures were. “Not on my life, Cliffgate. Best we keep far away from mon… sters…”

For once, Captain Dekarios fell silent, head snapping back to the shoreline.

“Fucking finally,” Astarion snipped, “you know Gale, your rather pleasant when you’re…”

And the Pale Elf fell silent too, handsome face blank of its usual mischief as he also looked to the isle.

A thin melody floated on the wind. A voice.

“Oh, oh no.” Tara murmured, trying her best to flap in Gale’s face. But the lad was enamored.

Her wings beat harder, flying towards the elf at the helm, but those dexterous pale hands already had changed course. Far more dramatically than the captain’s orders, the ship was headed right for the sand. “Snap out of it!” She shouted at that angular face, hoping to knock some sense into any of them.

But the music only grew louder and louder. That female voice wrapped around them, the air itself vibrating with her haunting tune. Sad. Longing. And composed to never quite end.

Tara knew it for what it was. A monster to be sure.

A Siren.

She flew back to Gale’s shoulder, bapping her paw in his face even as he reached for the rail and leaned out over it. “Wake up, Gale! Snap out of this, I order you!”

Nothing.

Not even a blink from his one, undefiled brown eye.

To her immense dismay, all his companions and crew lined the rails, the ship's wheel left to spin and spin with loud wooden clicks. Sails flapped loudly as, but all of it was nothing to the way the music only crescendoed. A swell of this Siren song, and suddenly the whole vessel lurched.

Run aground, the whole crew spilled into the sea, knocked head over heels into the drink. Tara flapped wildly, shouting for Gale above the wooden groans of the ship. “Captain! Captain!”

She whizzed over the shallow waters, watching as the crew sputtered to the beach, some swimming, some dragging others. But there was no dark haired, eye-patched privateer to speak of.

Gale barely noticed falling overboard, nor the slap of chilling waters, nor the way his lungs burned as he swam.

There was only that song. And only silence and the echoing gasp of his own breath as he broke above the water. A sea cave, wet and swirling as the tide was coming in. The rocks were jagged and wet, and the spray and rush of incoming tide pounded the cave walls. Gale swam to a ledge, drawn by a sliver of light.

He needed to get his bearings. His eye patch was gone to the tides, as was his jacket. Only his thin cream linen shirt and breeches now covered his tanned and tattooed body.

A matter to fix once he escaped this death trap. His eyes scanned the cave as he treaded water in the rushing waves.

An opening, thank the gods. He swam for it only to find it was too small for his whole body..

Stay too long here and die, he thought. At least he’d be rid of this blasted curse. Gale almost resigned himself to his fate, to just let go and let the curse win.

But then he heard it again, that voice. She was close, just on the other side of the opening.

That lyrical flutter of her music drew him toward the opening, a crack in the wall large enough for him to reach an arm. “Um, hello? A hand? Anyone?” He knew it was silly, maybe futile, even as the wet rocks at his feet barely held him up, even as the water kept rushing in.

He waved his hand, reaching as he tried to slide further to freedom. Then he felt something wet. Something, someone, slapped his hand, followed by a cool breath… sniffing it? Gale cringed, praying whatever it was didn’t bite it off or something strange.

A little trill of music, and Gale knew who his potential savior was.

“Please, please powerful Siren,” he begged, just knowing he wanted to get free. Damn it to the depths if he would die disgraced. “I need help, and I’ll… give you anything you want. Just get me out of this blasted hole.”

First there was silence, then a purr… and then a wet hand gripped his. Gale fought the instinct to pull away, an instinct that was soon abated as she started singing again. Haunting and sad, that’s what it sounded like, this… Siren. Her song made the rocks crumble around him, widening the crack as she pulled.

But the longer she sang, the more Gale felt on fire. Enthralled. Like he could listen to this voice, this melody until his dying day.

A romantic notion, to be sure. One that was suddenly and swiftly ended as the opening split wide and Captain Dekarios went sailing through the air to land back in the open sea. The splash of his body back in the water almost rendered him senseless, but he was aware enough to feel two hands grip under his arms and drag him to the surface.

Barely conscious, lungs burning from seawater, Gale felt his vision darken. All that just to die on the beach, he grieved.

A final slight to his pride. Fitting.

He gave one last ragged breath he was sure was his last before something pressed against his mouth.

Cold and wet. Her again. Forcing his eyes open, her face consumed his whole vision.

Kissing him. She was… kissing him. Gale blushed, suddenly feeling the rush of Healing Magics filling his body, lungs clearing and pulse steadying. His eyes slid shut, mouth trembling to feel the way she pressed her lips firmly. To taste the sea salt on her kiss as even her cold lips set something burning inside him.

Magic. Had to be. Surely. But even still, he wondered how his hand found its way to the back of her head, fingers nestled in the wet strands of her sandy blonde hair. But as he felt her part her lips the smallest crack, he pulled back.

An awkward grunt as he cleared his throat, he let go of her completely. “Apologies, I’m usually better at this… introductions and that sort of…”

His voice trailed off as he looked at her. Really looked at her. The long tail of her hair hung over her shoulder, pulled haphazardly by the sea and his fingers. Pretty, to be sure. But it was her face that held his attention. That left him speechless.

Two-toned eyes stared at him. Wet and inquisitive and intense. One red like blood, the blood she should have spilt as a Siren. One clear and shining and blue as the sea itself. Rimmed in dark lids, they didn’t blink but once as he gaped at her.

Her tanned, sun-kissed skin was dotted every which way in freckles.

But the longer he gawked at her, the wider her berry lips turned in a smile.

And she started to trill and purr as his eyes drifted down to her bared breasts and her curled pale blue tail, its scales shimmering an incandescent rosy hue in the sun. Gale couldn’t help the blush on his cheeks as he took her in, ignoring the fact it was the first body he’d seen naked since his beloved Queen back home.

“I’m… I’m Gale of Waterdeep,” he murmured, soft and steady, hoping not to spook her away.

The Siren only fanned her wide finned tail on the surface of the waves that swept over the beach. A little hum of a small musical scale and she gave him a sharp-toothed smile. A bit predacious, perhaps, Gale thought, but thrilling and beguiling none the less.

Gale was undeterred, he needed to know more about this creature. His curiosity far outweighed self-preservation. “Can you understand me? Can you speak?”

The Siren nodded once, Gale thought, before tilting her head.

“Will you allow me the pleasure of knowing what you are called? After all, you saved my life and… I did promise you something in return.”

The Siren’s lips pressed tightly, she sang her wordless song once more. Gods, his eyes pricked with tears now to hear it, so very haunting and mystical. A single palm lifted, she unfurled her glass hand, revealing a single red rose bud. Her song continued, the rose opening its petals slowly, sea spray clinging to the velvety bloom.

A rose and her song. Those were her answer.

“Rose? Is that your name?” Gale chimed excited, a bit shocked as the Siren extended her hand for him, flower in her fingers for him to pluck.

She shook her head, however.

“Not Rose then… can’t you just tell me?” He furrowed his brow, desperate to learn more.

But she only wiggled her pointed ears a little, laughing loudly, clearly enjoying their little guessing game.

Her lithe body leaned back in her mirth, and his eyes drifted down to her breasts again, now noticing a shining stone pendant between them. Three points of red and pink and purple, three stones held into one triangular gem.

And the moment his eyes fell on it, Gale’s chest throbbed. “Hells,” he groaned, the lines of the Orb lighting up people under his damp white linen shirt and flaring up the side of his neck. “Where, Rose… err not Rose… where did you find this?” He snapped, voice strained in pain and hunger. “The Netherstones are just what I seek.”

He bent forward, crying out in agony, lifting his head to keep his eyes trained on her and that treasure. “Please…” Arm shaking, he reached for the stones.

But the Siren darted out of reach, afraid perhaps. Or sadistic. Even as the pain of his Orb flared, as his vision darkened, and as his body laid out on the sand now… he heard her splashing back into the sea.

The pain too great, his eyes closed as he passed out on the shore.

And he could swear he heard her laughing his name from her lips, trilled and sing-song as she bid him, “Farewell, Gale…”

Something wet and… furry smacked him in the face, and Captain Gale shot upright. “Bloody hells… Tara!” He groaned, covering his disfigured eye with his hand, even as bodies knelt in the sand beside him. Two pale hands grabbed under his waterlogged arms and dragged him further from the waveline. Astarion, Gale looked up to see that smug smirk in the dying light.

“Where is she?” he managed to say, turning to scan the waters for anything breaking the surface. “The Siren, where is she? She has the Netherstones, the treasure we came to this wretched isle to find.”

A pale face screwed in a taunting smirk of ire leaned into his vision. “Oh… oh good. And here I was worried when we found you unconscious on the beach, we should be worried you lost your mind.” Astarion scoffed, feigning to wipe his brow. “Shows me.”

“Mr. Ancunín. Lay off it and help me get him up.” Tara flapped to rest on her favorite perch of Gale’s shoulder once he was sitting up. “The Siren? You saw her then and she let you live?”

“She saved me, actually.” The Captain replied, looking at them all with his own mismatched eyes. One dark, one white. Not unlike the pair that had greeted him when he had awoken the first time on the beach.

He pressed his lips together, as if he could still taste her lips, sweet and salty. Her kiss. Well… no. Her transfer of some sort of bardic healing magic, he suspected. Not that specifics mattered when she tasted so… good. Gale shook his head to return his thoughts to the present.

“She’s remarkable. I’m almost convinced she can not only understand Common but… I think I heard her speak it.”

His name.

“C-Common, I mean…” his tanned cheeks grew hot, and dammit all to the hells, his Orb faintly flashed.

“Tsk. Gale. I saw that purple glow. Was your mermaid pretty?” The pale elf teased again, giving his captain his dry jacket, helping him to dry off in the setting sun.

Gale held up a single finger, pedantic and authoritative. “Actually, she’s a Siren. Not a mermaid. I’m sure Rose… err, not-Rose wouldn’t appreciate being confused for a lowly mermaid.”

Astarion arched a brow. “Rose?” he gave a biting giggle. “You asked her for a name? My my, so chivalrous.” His face screwed into a devilish look, red eyes glinting with humor. “Bet you got a good look at her. Your Rose. What’s she like?”

Gale fought the urge to tense up, to give a sigh and look wistfully at the sea whence she disappeared. “One eye blue like the sea, the other red like precious rubies… her skin perfectly freckled all over,” he cleared his throat as if he wasn’t also imagining the way even her breasts were bespotted. “A-and her ears were pointed not unlike yours, Astarion. And she must have powerful magic.”

He looked to the high cliff face, the opening still visible from whence he had burst forth. “I washed up in that sea cave, and she pulled me out by opening it wider with her song. And then, she conjured a perfect red rose when I asked her for a name…”

Sighing, he could almost ignore the incredulous looks he was getting from his Tressym and the elf.

It was finally the pragmatic feline that thrust her face in Gale's line of sight. “Pardon me as I interrupt your interspecie reverie, Captain, but did you say she had the… Netherstones? As in the ones we need to unlock the greatest treasure of Karsus’ treasure?”

Her voice was a bit on the shrill side, but chipper from encouragement. So close, or at least one step closer to their cure.

“Indeed,” Gale groaned, bringing himself to his feet with just a little help from his Bosun. “So I have to find her again, the Siren.”

A firm pat on the back, dexterous hands brushing the sand and seaweed off Gale’s shoulders, and Astarion led him back down the beach. “Well, all things considered, you’re lucky you survived one encounter with the monster. Can’t say as much for the ship. She’s run aground something fierce.” A sarcastic giggle punctuated Astarion’s snide if true comments. “Gives you plenty of time to seek your siren out for another near-death experience and to get your Netherstones.

He’d never admit it, but his red eyes scanned his friend, his captain’s face nervously. The lines of the Orb had extended so quickly lately, his companion stood on a precipice over imminent death… blasted curse. His concern for the better of him as he put a hand on Gale’s back between his shoulders. “We will find it, if it’s what can break your curse and bring the Orb under control once and for all…”

Gale’s milky eye opened wide at him, turning to give the elf a look of appreciation and a little bit of shock. “That is surprisingly kind of you, Mr. Ancunín.”

“Yeah well… don’t get used to it. We thought you dead,” his tone returned to sharp and snide, his hand pulling away as if he was disgusted by the intimate moment. “It was your cat that insisted we search the beach this way… current and rip tides something, something.”

They trudged in the gathering dark towards a distant light. The signs of a makeshift camp around a roaring massive bonfire on the beach was a sight for sore eyes, and Gale smiled.

Until his gaze settled on the Tara, his ship not too far off the beach, her hull snug in the sand, unmoving and trapped.

Just like they were.

Trapped, but safe. As if willed to be here, guided by a providential hand, perhaps.

His crew were half-tucked into bedrolls, the other half were three sheets to the wind to toast their survival. Not one soul lost.

All present and accounted for… save now being short what was probably several bottles of Ashkaban Rum.

Ever the dutiful captain, Gale made his rounds, making sure everyone saw him home and hale from his near-drowning.

It wasn’t the fear that kept plaguing his mind. No, no it was his saviour. Those mismatched eyes, he could swear he caught them from the corner of his eyes from the shoreline, from behind the crates of Plum Fizz… even from the clusters of palm trees on the beach.

Little glowing flashes of red or blue.

And then the night settled. Everyone laid wrapped snug in their bedrolls.

But not Gale.

Even if it wasn’t for the way the Siren had already beguiled him, the Orb in his chest ached too much to let him sleep. So close to the Netherstones, the ball of Arcane Hunger in his chest burned too great to grant him any reprieve.

Not to mention the low hum of laughter he could swear carried from the sea the moment he tried to close his eyes. He would really have to do some research on Siren biology: how far away could they see? How far could their magical voice extend? Could their eyes glow? Was their kiss potent enough to bewitch a man?

He turned face down in the leather of his bedroll, if only to muffled the groan… part from the ache in his chest and part from this equally cursed ache in… other places. He knew legends of Sirens walking among men, shedding their tails for a tenday to live as the mortals do.

To love as the mortals do…

He gripped into the leather, hips rolling a little against the warm sand beneath the bedding. Gale sat up, ignoring the burning in his chest and loins. He had to cool this pain, had to sate the hunger before the curse advanced further. He blinked, spying the jolly boat beached in the surf. Just a little jaunt over the very chilling sea water. Yes. That should set him aright for tonight.

Trudging through sand, he swore he could hear a voice on the breeze. But every time he lifted his head and looked, it would fade.

Beguiling Siren.

Hands on the hull, Gale shoved the boat into the sea, the waters unnaturally calm. The winds long abated. As if they had been stilled.

More magic? Gale knew not, only that burning that drove him to get on the water.

Oars in hand, he rowed, a patch of moonlight on the dark waters was his destination.

Sirens love moonlight…

Inwardly, he told himself to stuff it, that this was to cool the hunger his Orb had flaring…

But his heart still skipped a beat when some dark shape swam his way in the very moonlit waters he traversed.

“Gale of Waterdeep…” that voice he knew so well after a day bubbled from the surface just off his port side. “I was wondering when you’d answer your Siren’s call.”

His lips opened to reply before his mind could advise against it. “‘Tis I, precious rose,” he bowed his head, always a gentleman, even to this creature of the sea.

Her red and blue eyes caught the moonlight, giving that otherworldly glow. Her pointy teeth were almost equally bright, which made Gale nervous. But at least she was smiling. “I am not quite called Rose, even if you are close… RoseSong… or in my tongue, I am called Merelind.”

“Merelind…” Gale repeated, the music of her own name sweet like a melody and heady like the fragrance of her namesake. He gaped down in the water, that pretty face emerging from the surface, her hair pulled back to reveal patches of pink scales on her skin that simmered in the moonlight. Still water, clear water, he could see her tail in the moonlight, a pale blue that disappeared into the sundering dark. It undulated in the depths, and Gale couldn’t help but lean over the rail to catch a full glimpse of her beauty… further, and further…

Until a wet, cold hand stayed his descent and pressed on his chest.

The Siren’s hand shoved him back hand right on his Orb, a gasp from her pretty pink lips as a jolt passed between them. Purple light flared from his chest, and the triangular pendant at her neck hummed and glowed in a simultaneous flash. Air warmed and reverberated between them, a rhythmic pulse, almost like a heartbeat pounded against both their chests.

She frowned. “Ah, I was right. You are not like the others,” she murmured as she swam back the distances they had been repelled. “You come for my treasure with part of its magic already in you…” her mismatched eyes scanned the glow of purple under his shirt.

Gale also frowned. “You can sense my curse, can you?

Merelind nodded. “It is why I spared your life… You and your crew that now camps on my beach.” An eerie smile crawled over her berry-pink lips as she bobbed in the waters at his side. “By rights, according to my own curse, your life is mine, forfeit the moment you entered my waters.”

Even as he stared down at her, her skin covered in patches of light pink scales, even as he realized she could pull him body and soul into the depths to drown, Gale could only stare at her pretty, bewitching face. “F-Forfeit?” he finally stammered as her meaning reached past the veil of pining that had fallen on the poor pirate.

“Aye,” she gave a musical laugh, reaching a hand to rest beside him on the wooden rail. “But the magic in your body is like mine. This artifact that holds me cursed and bound to this servitude.” Her mismatched eyes searched his shocked expression. “What lies within you, Gale of Deep Water?”

“Ahem, it’s Waterdee—, nevermind,” he swallowed down his pedantic nature for once to answer her. “The Orb of Netheril. This blight that has infected me with its curse…” The lines of his Orb pulsed a bright purple among the other dark tattooed lines on his neck. “I’ve tried all sorts of magic to be broken from my curse, but the only thing that might free me is…”

“The Crown.” Merelind interjected, even as the same words fell silent on Gale’s tongue. “The very treasure whose keys rest about my neck. The very treasure whose existence binds me body and soul to this wretched island, that keeps these Netherstones, heavy on my neck, as my burden to bear.”

She rose from the water, her breasts bare and glistening in the moonlight, and between them shone that tricolored pendant again. Scowling, she pulled up from the water, crossing both arms on the rail and resting her chin on them. “I spared your life out of instinct, and every thought I have even now is screaming at me to save you from this cursed urge inside me to pull you under and wrap myself around your body until you grow stiff.”

Gale swallowed, the image making him grow stiff alright. He sputtered a moment as he pulled back in the dinghy to give her room. “Umm forgive me, but why resist the urge so much for me?” He couldn’t fight the smile on his bearded face. “Do you find me incomparable? …unparalleled? Inimitable?” His smile turned just a little more haughty and arrogant. “Am I special?

Merelind nodded slowly, even as her eyes locked on his own two-toned eyes. “I suppose one could say so, yes,” she gave a low-toned giggle. “I’ve never managed to resist killing my quarries before, but with you, it’s different.” Tilting her head, she reached for the faintly glowing purple lines at his neck. “Does it hurt you, your cursed Orb of Karsus?”

As her fingers met his skin, she could feel his shudder, could see his pulse jump in that same artery under his pretty tanned skin.

Gale nodded. Somehow, the usual shame that accompanied discussing his affliction didn’t rear its ugly head, not with her. “It needs to be sated. Fed. From time to time, I must consume strands of Weave or else the pain grows to be unbearable.”

His dark eyes flicked to her beside him, the way he skin glistened in the moonlight, the way it bathed each pretty freckle on her skin…. He shook his head, returning to his senses at last. “What will happen if you do not abide by your curse’s rules?” He asked softly, reaching to rest his hand on the wood rail of the vessel. So close to her elbow.

Merelind shrugged, the briefest forlorn flash on her face. “I know not. You are the first I’ve ever spared from my urge.”

“Then let me help you, Merelind,” he replied so quickly, almost speaking over her. “We can break our curses together. Once I have the Crown of Karsus, I’ll set you free from your obligation to guard it. I’ll use the stones to unlock its power, and you will be a free woman… er… free siren.” He spoke so rapidly, thinking out loud as he reached to rest his touch on that arm so close to him. Her skin so soft, if cool and damp, he noticed.

Blue and red eyes flashed up at him, wide and shocked. “You would? You would see me cured and not cursed?” Her voice trembled as she spoke. “You’d see me no longer a monster, a terror of the sea?”

“You aren’t one now, Merelind,” he spoke softly, her name sweet on his tongue, looking down at her as she seemed to creep closer into his vessel. To approach him or to drown him, he wasn’t sure. And he wasn’t sure he cared. “You are no more a monster than I.” Gale gestured to the lines of purple that marred his cheek and led to his white, milky eye. “If left uncured, who knows how disfigured I could grow, how rotten and veined my body might become…”

Merelind pulled herself to sit on the rail of the boat now, her powdered blue tail dangling into the water. Her simmering fin still caught the moonlight just below the surface. It mesmerized him, making him lean over the water a little…

…a little too far. The skiff rocked and bobbed off balance, and two wet hands gripped into the arms of his jacket to tackle him into the bottom of his vessel. To save him from tumbling into the drink… from drowning. Again.

“Oof!” Gale muttered, inhaling a sweet floral scent so close to his nose as he got his bearings. Opening his eyes, his vision was filled with blonde wet hair and freckled cheeks and mismatched eyes…

And Gale froze, surely blushing. “S-See, you saved me! You’re not a murderer!” He exclaimed a little too loudly as he sat up and shifted to give the Siren some room. “You have no reason to avoid my help and, heh, cast me off…”

The Siren looked at him for his humor, pink lips turning regardless of the pun’s quality into a smile. Another mark in her favor. “Alright. I accept. I free you, you free me or die by my hand.” She nodded perfunctorily as if it was the most logical agreement ever.

Gale’s mouth hung slack, and then shut. “Very well, my word as a gentleman. We will help each other, Merelind, cursed Siren of the sea.”

A smile on her face, and she sat herself up from being sprawled on the deck of his skiff. A burst of rosy pink light, and suddenly… that captivating tail was gone, replaced by a long and freckled pair of legs.

Bare ones. Naked ones.

Gale blushed harder, thanking the night for being dark as he took off his purple wool coat and looked away. “Ahem, for you my lady.” He extended the garment for her, praying to all the gods who would listen that it was hopefully long enough to cover to her thighs.

She took it, shrugging it on and closing it to hang loosely over her lithe frame. “You mortals and your senses of decency are fascinating,” she laughed a little. “But I suppose if I’m to join your crew, I cannot walk on bare legs any more than I can wear my tail aboard your ship.” She snapped her fingers for his attention. And those eyes, one dark and one white, they gazed at her with the briefest flash of intensity, of ardor she had only heard tales of…

The ballads and drinking songs she would listen to for a moment or two on other ships before luring them to their demise.

“Join my crew?” Gale hummed, considering as if he hadn’t been concocting ways to accomplish that very same end. “Well,” he stroked the beard on his chin, a cheeky grin on his lips, “the idea has many merits…”

“Is this is an attempt at mortal humor…” she trailed off, until she gave a wide smile that was all pointy teeth with her musical laugh. “Or are you reneging on your offer to help? Is this the part where I hold my need about dying by my hand?”

“Humor! Humor!” He gave a nervous laugh, grabbing the oars and starting to row them back towards the beach and camp. A little hard and vigorous, as if that slight threat she made against him didn’t only reignite the hunger in his lower reshoots again. “One must always be a gentleman. I would not go back on my word to you. You and I, my siren, we will both be broken of our curses.”

The sloshing of the oars was the only sound for a time as he rowed back to shore. Gale kept his eyes up, watching the shore get closer, except when they would dart over her pretty freckled face every now and then. She looked away from him, those Netherstones resting on her chest just where the lapels of his coat closed around her.

Finally it was her musical voice that broke the silence. “How long have you had your…?” Merelind turned sharply, gesturing to the left side of her face.

“My curse? This blasted Orb? This macabre blight that is determined to make me suffer?” He suddenly pulled harder at the oars, out of irritation. Anger. “It’s been a year I’ve had it in my chest, slowly driving my body into ruin.”

She looked at him, those eyes blinking slowly. “It is curious. I only know of the Crown, and these, of course,” she lifted the pendant from her neck briefly. “How did you come by it? Your cursed Orb, I mean.”

Gale paused his rowing, watching her in the middle of the sea, their boat drifting towards the shore. His tanned face looked stricken, his eyes half-lidded and distraught. “I found an ancient tome, the magic inside it lost, and angry… and hungry. I had only wanted to read to find the location of the Crown to give to my lover… to my Queen.”

He sighed, swearing he caught a flicker of silver eyes and black hair beside him.

No. He chastised himself for imagining Mystra here. Now. No. She’d not be thinking of him, so why should he, her?

“Is that why you seek the Crown now? To give to some mortal Queen?” Merelind stiffened, slightly but perceptibly. Her nostrils flared, and Gale could swear her hand clenched on the fabric of his coat on her pretty body.

“No.” That was his reply. “No, I only wish to be cured now.”

Liar… his mind hissed at him. Had he not been contemplating offering it for his forgiveness and privateering contract back intact just today? Before he had met this beguiling siren. He caught himself staring at her face, just a little too long.

How his life had changed so much in a day. Again.

This time for the better, he hoped. This time, he hoped it was a chance to break his curse, not succumbing to it like last time. His heart was pounding, watching as she leaned in, that scent of a floral perfume in his nose again. Her cool breath, he swore he could feel it on his face as she huffed a laugh and smiled.

“Then I’ll be cured too,” she crossed her legs at the knees, bouncing the top most slowly, bumping his calf. “I’ll be free. I can leave this isle, my soul and sanity intact.”

Regal. Magical. The way she was bathed in the moonlight, how he wanted to stay awhile, to drink her in.

Gods… her lips turned in a hopeful smile, a real one. “Breathtaking,” he barely whispered. “Like a queen.”

“I am no queen, just a sea monster,” she tipped her head to the side, those eyes inexplicably lowering to his mouth.

Gale almost interrupted her self-deprecation. Yes, you are. And trust me, I should know…”

Her pointed ear lowered, her legs stilling, bare foot pressing against the side of his leg. That little bit of innocent contact suddenly feeling oh so less than innocent.

Gale couldn’t bring himself to turn away, even as his Orb burned more as he leaned in closer. A little purple light flickered and glowed from it as he drew barely a breath away from her own lips. Then those Netherstones began to glow too, a wash of rosy colors shining against her own chest. He swallowed, their faces bathed in pink and purples as he… as he leaned…

“Captain,” she whispered. Turning her head away abruptly. The glow of her pendant vanished as quickly as it had illuminated. “Your crew is waiting, and dawn will not be long.” Merelind cleared her throat, pulling back and shifting on the seat.

A disappointed grunt at the back of his throat, and he grabbed the oars once more. “Ah, forgive me. It is not every day one can thank the beautiful Siren that saved their life twice over, arguably thrice now.” He gave an easy laugh, one well practiced from his days in court as the queen’s chosen lover.

“Indeed,” she replied coolly, tucking the hem of his jacket under her ass.

So regal, risen from the beautiful sea itself, he watched the Siren as the boat drew up on the beach. The moment they were shallow, she jumped over the side, strolling with such grace up the beach towards the bonfire. Her figure wrapped in the purples lines of his coat. Her hair bright in the wavering light….

He had only seen two sorts of being with such grace… princesses and predators.

Gale wondered which one she was.

Or if she was both.

🎨 by @deannamb

Thank you for Gale to @redisbetterr