His taste still lingers on my tongue. I can feel his warmth beneath my fingertips, because I haven?t quite uncurled them from the fold of my palms just yet. The whys and hows of where my life took a turn onto this road still form the queerest of puzzles in my mind; I cannot list them, for there are far too many I scarcely know where to begin. The ?what?, however, is something I am very familiar with, and I have no shame in admitting it.

I love this man, this seraph, my seraph, Victor Faeraar Kazon.

It is this name I take across my lips over and over again, fervent and hungry, like a mantra a soldier might take to their deaths in battle. I will not die however; I can?t die, it?s simply out of the question. The variables are many, yes, but my resolve is hundreds of years old, a thing cultivated of centuries beyond the realm of those who might call me enemy. Well, save the harpies of my old nest, the siren; my kinswomen.

Even now as I stand naked before the pier, feeling the cool, dark air so ripe and pure with the waning of the full moon?s lights play a soothsayer?s tune across my flesh? I hate them, and I love them. They are my roots, the oyster from which my pearly body emerged. For this reason alone I cannot forget them. But they are also my greatest bane, a hollow of my worst year?s tormenters, and a noxious reminder of how stagnant our greatest minds have become. For this reason alone I cannot ever truly keep them. Half hating, half wanting? ?Tis the story of my life, one of many, in fact, but a main thread that?s seen me through this long existence thus far; duality, a series of contrasting halves, of yes?s and no?s, of being a creature incomplete and ever on the knife?s edge of nonpareil and flawed; a gem with a cursed fog through it?s richness.

I learned to embrace this fog, work through it, and even use it to my advantage. It was not a life of my true sisters, but a life I?d carved out as my own. A life to be proud of, and one that jolted the society my kinswomen had come to worship since the Great Beginning*.

All that came to a violent, passionate halt since my Victor, my vischa, or as my wretched kinswomen have come to know him, my land-bound mate. Oddly the name does not do his magnificence justice, for my Victor is anything but bound by the land, and while he may not swim, he most certainly can soar. Defying all laws of nature and old world reason, he is exceptional, regal, powerful. My Victor, my sweet angel at times seems more than man, a complimenting contrast of metal and mortal mesh, it is painful to imagine, I find, that come another four centuries, I?d have his body long burned, and his bones a memory of dust kept in some antiquated memento moir? of Mithril and mother pearl.

It is the reason I stand here now, at the precipice of this city?s oldest pier, naked and frozen stock-still, open to the elements and humble before my one and only mistress; the sea. I pray to her power, I lay my immortal soul bare before her grace, and ask only to take passage through her domain, so that I may visit her eldest voice, her First**, her abyssal disciple. I will ask for the key to life, the key that is rightful to those with a mate worth battling the idols and prophets of fate and time for.

A storm is brewing, I can see it on the horizon like an angry gloom, writhing, living, breathing, and roiling all it?s own. Clouds are forming great black maws that threaten to steal a man?s soul. No spirit nor vehement sea serpent dare leave the ocean floors this night, for they too fear my mistress? wrath. The moons are still full, and their faces are tinged a most romantically despicable red.

There are truths to some things in this realm and many more; a sky just between night and morning painted varying shades between vermillion and wine bodes well for no soul, well? Save that of my vicious kith and kin.
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*Great Beginning: One of the many things Anyanka and her fellow siren have been taught about their sea mistress, the great ocean goddess they worship. All siren are taught that the when the world was created, before the land was formed and all manner of life began, there was nothing but the ocean and the sky. The ocean was self-created domain of their mistress, the great ocean goddess, and the sky was her lover. Together, their greatness formed all the life that fills and dominates the oceans, and eventually, the land. The land soon became inhabited by their ever-smart and evolving children already living in the ocean; it is known as the Great Beginning.

**First: Another one of the many chunks of legend, lore, and truth from the siren followings. The ?First? is the first true, sentient, powerful daughter of their great ocean goddess and her sky-lover. The ?First? eventually found a great lover; a sea beast born between a powerful, angry mating between her ocean-mother and her sky-father. Their sea beast had the strength of the world, the teeth of razor edges found only in the sharpest of diamond edges, and the longevity of time itself. The ?First? is considered mother to all the siren, both Anyanka?s nest and all other manner and make of siren.

The Great Spire*, my kinswomen's most coveted piece of property. A symbol as enduring an inextinguishable as the great ocean goddess herself. A siren cannot be called a siren if her mother's blood was not spilt in those great halls to slicken our path into existence.

Perhaps that is why I've always hated it so.

I was not an eternal born of truth and privilege as my kind are so made to believe they are once born in those imposing, goddess crafted halls. I was; I am a rogue, an abomination, a picaroon, a wretch, a mongrel. For all my years these names and many more are what I have been called, what I have been made to understand they are what I am; what my mother was; what I would always be. Rape is near unheard of amongst my kind. We are strong, vicious, dominant, and violent creatures. We prey on the men, the men do not prey on us. Near unheard of, however, does not mean it has not happened.

Hundreds of years ago I killed the man whom enslaved, poisoned, and ruined my mother. His joy was her madness, her body his temple to covet and keep, her womb to fill with a babe cursed to bare her sire's inadequate genes and her mother's beauty. The poison weakened her, the enslavement slowly turned her crazed, the pregnancy stole what little life she had left. When I was old enough to strike, long after my mother's death, I returned to the only place that my heart called for as a home; the sea. Though I've no memento of my mother's likeness, it wasn't long before I learned that all I had to do to see her glory was touch my own face, my kinswomen knew who I was by sight alone. Unfortunately, their was no real welcome for a thing they found diseased and imperfect...

So ironic, then, that I lived to be one the more revered and feared of all my nest. Of all the nests far and wide.

With Claudia leading my steps, we make our great ascent past the hollow cliff faces and their timid sea of youngsters, up the Spire's grand staircase, and into the sunlight bowl of the inner meeting chambers. A true feast for the eyes are we two.

Blood still lingers pink and bright beneath the cusps of my nails, my hair dangles half dried from the ferocious breath of our mother sea at my back. Claudia clasps her token and a new level of pride, proceeding me with one bare foot before the next in a way the altar keeper does their priestess. I bare the upper hands of treachery and surprise like two proud halos. Keeping the smile from my face was impossible, so instead of fighting it, I displayed my sharp teeth proudly. The shock stricken across the pale, beautiful faces of my kinswomen present and the Eldest was gratifying. Their disgust and fear was a scent without parallel.

Myrr approaches first; she is one of the Eldest, after all, pity our last meeting was no less different, their seems to be a pattern for her seeing me a picture of elegant violence. For the last time we met was not long ago, and the last time we met... Well.

My vischa can attest to what a vision Myrr and her women made littering the pale tile of my kitchen floor during their attempts to kill me and harm what is mine. She and I did not leave off on the most splendid and amiable of standings, in fact, she left tail tucked and bleeding for home whilst I kept the abused youngest in their midst and my standing as an independent from their infected flock.

They are wary, and they have good reason to be. I've many a suspicion floating through my head, but I let nothing save that slow, pleased stretched of teeth show; it is an expression they've come to know, expect, and loathe. Despite the unease I feel humming amongst them all, Myrr continues to approach, and speaks! Oh what a joyous day... What an unexpected and unimaginable delight. She is apologizing, invoking the forgiveness of mother goddess in the realm of one sea child humbly kneeling to another, an equal. Either something is brewing in the Eldest's head, or she's merely making a spectacle of herself to save face and set examples of timeless protocol long set by the First.

My bets are on the former, but I am open to all possibilities at this point. I have no choice to be otherwise. If their is one thing I've learned about my kind, it is never to underestimate, or let one's guard down.

As Myrr's voice subsides, she calls for the young one who'd escorted me; Claudia. She does not disappoint, and again to my surprise, reviews the entire story from a completely non-biased, third party point of view. Now my mind is on double time, split between duty and the intrigue of my kinswomen and their behavior.

The matter quickly comes to a close quickly; the story's clear, my actions clearer, and there's still the question of my purpose for visiting.

Ah, if I'd only my seraph's equipment to stake still-scapes, photographs, with one blink of an eye; I'd frame the myriad of expressions pointed to me and keep them until the end of my days. My smugness is justified, there has not been one of us willing to make the journey that was not one of the Eldest in a long, long time. But my haste is great; I can feel my seraph's unease, I can taste is aching; we are connected far deeper than most would suspect, siren or no.

I waste no time, and wait for no more approval. I speak, I bow, I turn and stroke along the obedient Claudia's cheek, and a move through the small sea of bodies towards the nearest sill. The sea awaits me with open arms below with words and tones much more calming than that of the clamor of the creatures behind me.

The air caresses me, the ocean accepts me; I dive; my swim begins anew. This time I will not stop until I reach the First.
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*The Great Spire: A construct said to be crafted by the great ocean goddess' lover, the sky, one of many home he would craft for their childre. It is a tribute, gift, and honor made by one lover and given to another; a testament of the ocean goddess' power and all the lengths the siren as her children should aspire to reach. In addition to that, the stone edifice is also a reminder as to what level of devotion a siren should expect from her prey; the willingness to make nothing out if something, if only to please her. Now it is the home, haven, and mecca for chief Siren and the Eldest.

All the world was a dark, black womb of swollen sky and froth riot clouds. Am I still below the violent ocean swell? Am I still deep beneath the surface of the airy realm of man caught in some endless web woven by the First? No? It has merely turned to night. How odd, how queer. Down below, time seemed to stand still; all was silent and impenetrable; imagine my surprise to see the day had left my old cliff side home far, far behind.

The surf had calmed significantly, as if the mother goddess herself was at peace with the world and keeping her touch gentle at my back as I pull from her graceful body and feel the cold, sandy stone beneath my fingertips. The world seems so new, so rich and full of sensation. It?s almost maddening. How could anyone survive keeping a second life?s worth of immortality within their body? The answer eludes me completely, truly. My skin itches with the urge to be rid of it, to deliver it to it?s intended home within the body of my seraph. The First said naught on the method, but somehow my body aches with a need I?ve never known, and flares with a design of purpose that?s as foreign and fresh as the precious gift I hold within my paleness.

Victor.

My pulse beats in a pair of rhythms that match the syllables of his name.

??Victor.?

Thinking his name makes it worse; my throat is sudden dry, and all I taste is the salt from the shore?s heady air. Shaking my head, my fingers seek the spaces between the wet slick of my hair and send it slapping against my spine. There?s someone descending the winding stone stair from the spire above, several someones, three to be exact. It?s a practical number whilst approaching one such as myself; less chance of me taking suspicion there?s a plot against me, yet enough to know their coming is for me and me alone; there is a purpose about them, somehow I can taste it in the air that rushes in before their steps even hit the ledge before me. The sea?s at my back, and the siren are before me, two I do not recognize, and one I do. The one is Claudia. I?d know Claudia anywhere now, my scent is a quiet halo about her neck now, braided into a strand of shredded leather bits and fashioned into an unbreakable fisherman?s braid? Such a clever creature. Seeing her gives me hope, but her voice dissuades the drifting nature of my thoughts.

The Elders have sent them with the most humblest of wishes and hopes for me to appear in the Spire one last time before I set off for home, they desire to congratulate me. What a joke. The ire in me rises at the farce. The Elders wish to know of the First, they will attempt to glean from me all they can about one of our most revered of deities, only because they themselves lack the heart and soul to swim before her and seek their own desires. Deep down they know better; they know their worth, and they acknowledge it?s lacking; who am I to not indulge them one last look at a soul who?s salt is a treasure, not a travesty, on the moist of their brow?

I smell men, and the thin throat of one out of the two at Claudia?s back is radiating with a faint warmth, there?s also curb dirt on her feet; there?s been a recent bespelling up above along the shore side roads. There is sure to be a feasting of the flesh awaiting me at the Spire?s top stair no doubt. I have no choice, the invitation is as enticing as it is infuriating. Up the dark wind we go, then back into the big bellied sprawl of the grand meeting hall from before. The night sees the hall set with candles and a low legged dining table all circled with countless cushions and swaths of supple cloths. From one of the back rooms I can see the braziers filtering in on the hands of some young ones. Despite my loathing of the place, I cannot deny something in me misses the sweet blend of incense that sits in their still unlit hollows.

As I assume a cushion at the far end of the table, I incline my head to a passing brazier barer, then another; they keep following the table around in a procession. Mm, all the ceremony confirms my suspicions, as does the filing in of the Elders and the older of the nest. Once the young ones with the incense bowls leave, there will be no others. This finalizes my conjecture, for no young ones are allowed to witness the deeper, more profound meetings of their elders.

Myrr sits the farthest from me; this comes as no surprise really. She may have apologized, but she knows I hold more trust in the bottom dwellers in the great seas beyond than in her at this moment, or in any future moment really. It makes no difference. I?m paying barely a spec of true attention to her as she begins to speak and the others spend their eye?s lengths between myself, the feast of fresh, raw flesh being set before us, and Myrr?s quivering lips.

The movement of the last brazier setter barely garners my attention for all the space her arms take up in front of me as she lights the bowl. I eat nothing and I drink nothing as I listen and lounge, I merely listen, but not to the words, to the quaver in them and the tight bundle of nerves the room resonates with. I unnerve them, for they sense the power I cradle now. How odd, how unbelievably odd and pathetic; my disgust rises, and it?s then that I begin to feel my stomach turn. The uneasy feeling doesn?t strike me as odd right away, for my nose it already full of the wonderful incense I?ve rediscovered how much I adore.

Victor.

His name is in my pulse still, and it is the only thing that keeps me from feeling the illness sink deeper.

??Victor?

It?s only when I think the monumental sound that is his name that the realization hits me? Something?s wrong. Something?s terribly wrong. My limbs are numb, the muscles of my throat are closing up, my esophagus seems tight against the inner cage of my lungs and ribs. The nausea threatens to overtake me and empty the bile in my belly.

Poisoned, but how? My eyes immediately fall to the bowl of smoke before me, and it is only then that I realize my intense blinds of vanity and anger and pride have finally turned themselves into the transports for a great failure. They sat themselves away from me, keeping with the evening's wind from the sea so it would drift past them and keep the poisoned smoke in my direction. Devious, conniving, fiendish little sea witches. I'd have each of them dead and gaping like the dead fish they are on their backs if I could only rise from my seat.

?What have you done?? Each nuance of every word costs me greatly, and as the many faces, both shocked and intensely criminal begin to whirl and shift around me, I feel the world begin to rise up and crash around my consciousness. I fight it, but in vain, this poison is not a thing that power can overcome, for it strikes at the heart of our very nature. It is the Undine?s Despair*, I?d know the effects anywhere, Myrr herself described them to me long, long ago when the subject of my mother and her captivity were spoken of. Like a sleek bit of blade, it is easily used to deliver death, but when handled just right, a painful dealer of submission and torture. Betrayed again, how utterly ridiculous.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times?

The last of that wretchedly ironic saying eludes me as the black of fathomless pain howls up through my body and clouds the bright white of my vision. My hands sift up and claw at the closed veil of my lids, my skin burns like a fire?s crawled in to hide inside of it, I can?t breathe, but somehow before the world disappears, I see a figure approach and the sea of my traitorous Elders part.

?She?s so exquisite?? Is the last thing I hear before a distorted echo takes away my hearing. They are thick and hollow, deep and baritone; they are the words of a man. A man, what was a man doing in the Spire? Impossible. The acts of betrayal and blasphemy never end.

'Victor...'

The thought is the last thing that fills my swollen brain as the poison takes me away into it's razor edged grip. His name is the greatest prayer I have ever known, the best, the one, and the only that I could ever hope to wish for. With his name I can find the end without fear. With his name comes an eternity no other could give.

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*Undine's Despair: A fairly odorless, poisonous kelp found in only the deepest of oceans. In any form of it is extremely harmful to Anyanka and her siren kind, and in many cases, deadly; however, the results of it being administered is very dependent on the health and age of the siren in question. Ingestion and inhalation are the primary means of use for the poison, but in any shape or form it is very harmful, even contact with the skin. The effects range from blindness, nausea, loss of hearing, shortness of breath, weak muscles, loss of feeling to the limbs, paralysis, and the appearance of rashes and epidermal scarring. All of these things can range from permanent or temporary. Undine's Despair is the very same poison that was responsible for keeping Anyanka's mother prisoner, and was not only the main culprit responsible for her death, but the reason for her inability to escape. Among the siren, one using it against one another in any manner is considered unforgivable and a sin in the eyes of their mother goddess.

Countless hours, endless torment, seemingly infinite agonies; I fight at first, but the poison is something I simply cannot war against. It eats at my very body, weakening and crippling in one felt swoop. The power I cradle inside... It has no meaning here in a vessel so horribly crippled. Crippled... Crippled because he again delivered more of the Undine into my body, enough to ensure I did not fall unconscious again after that first horrible wrench up from the darkness. I gave it my all as he mistakingly leaned in, and in that last moment of strength I'd reserved, making him pay but a small, small fraction of the debt he now owes my vischa and I with some meat from his throat.

I too, pay for the viper quick means of retaliation with a swimming head that threatens my very insides with expulsion. There's only the bed beneath me now, all else is a foggy whirl. I can hear him swearing and stumbling, but I smell the strong, frantic beat of his heart as he tries to calm himself down; the wound is not mortal, and the faint, indistinct air of distilled magic brushes against my senses, answering many questions that only give way to a few more curious blooms.

"There's something about your eyes..." I can hear him say from across the room. His tone makes the nausea come again, and it makes me close my eyes for a whole other reason. "Something about the way they shine... Two oceans I could fall and drown in." The sweetheart tone of those words make me shiver, or is that the tension in my body from constricting inwards on myself as far as the chains would allow?

Those words, words a lover might spill during their pause between breathy gasps and gentle touches. But there is nothing sweet in the way the man strokes me upon reaching the bed once more, nothing lovely or gentle about the way he rose above, forced between, and mounts my immobile form again and again.

I smell his blood like some blackened miasma, taste it like some vile infection; it invades my brain and sends it in a spiral to a place I'd long forgotten.

A descendent... Impossible.

The very thought, rickety and broken as it filters through my distant thoughts, unfortunately serves as the anchor keeping me tethered to the here and now. There is no blissful oblivion for me through this; all is fresh and bright with pain in my mind. Memories come unbidden, memories of blood and rage and broken bodies.

Father...

Impossible. Yet the thought of my choking on the smell of another's man's exertions is also an impossible thought, so is the stick of his skin against me, as is the sickening slap his body. The edge of sanity taunts me, threatening to dance with me until I've spiraled over that edge into insanity and gibberish that awaits.

Victor... The brink was close, I can feel my tipping point.

He tries to get me to speak, this abominable creature. First he pleads, like the many times he's already pleaded. My teeth only close sharp and fitting all the tighter. He can see my jaw lock, and it sends him into another mad rage. Like the vile, repetitive pierce of him into my body, the blows are something I cannot fight either. Whatever restorative potion he's taken, whatever magic he's bought to make this all necessary, it's also made him a bit stronger; the bruises blossom too easily. I can feel them, even smell my own blood through the clogged, muted thick of my nostrils.

Then he's thrusting again, seeking his pleasure, yet crooning where he was roaring in anger a moment before. He strokes my neck, and I almost whimper. Each time was the same. He moved, she lay, he spoke, she remained a stone of silence in the ocean of his hurtful fury.

I killed father... Ribbons. I turned him to meaty ribbons before I escaped back to the sea, back to my kinswomen. It's been over nine hundred years.

My throat is thick with unshed tears, swollen and raw from the strain of muscles curbing back the other piteous noises my tormentor so craves. Then his raw tone changes, it's turning to that croon again, yet not. A song? No... Not that song. He can't know that. Unless.

"I've been, watching your world from afar, I've been trying to be... where you are." No blow, nor bruise wounds me as deeply as this. The song is proof, a horrible, undeniable proof. Somehow my father's evil seeds survived, somehow I didn't kill him. "... been secretly falling apart. Unseen." I thought I had, but now, lying beneath the horrible fruit of his victory, chained and aching, I see that's wrong. Sanity taunts again, my fingertips seek the edge once more with a tight grasp as I feel his pleasure flood inside me.

"I'll put a spell on you.." His words are slurred, tainted by the joy in his release. There's bile in the back of my throat, and it throws me into a violent coughing fit, shaking the heavier body above me. He steals the sensation of my body moving, and begins again... And again.

Only one real word holds my soul together; one piece keeps me whole. I cling to it with all my strength, yet there it is, hiding behind my clenched lids like the forgotten scribblings of a muse.

Victor...

Somewhere distantly, I know the man sees the thickening glaze over my eyes, and as he looks down to me, breathless and aching oh so sweetly, he dares to drop his forehead down against the edge of my collar bone. He's kissing the taste of his own sweat from me, savoring the feel of all he's put inside as I wish fiercely to drift back into the darkness of the Undine's Despair.

"We can be like this forever..." Those are the last words I hear... Then.

My angel calls.

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