Siren Song

I am known the length and breadth of the seven seas for my beauty. If you listen for the Song that carries endlessly on the waves, you will hear them sing of my eyes that gleam like the bioluminescent tide, my hair that waves like seaweed fronds, the mother-of-pearl sheen of my scales. Like so many great beauties of the ages, my life has been charmed, perhaps unfairly so. But I will take whatever accolades accrue to me, why not? Beauty is its own virtue. If others are kinder, wiser, more cautious, then let them sing of that.

My allure is that of the old sirens, the ones in the tales the sea witch tells me, goddesses long vanished from the waters of our world. In her barnacled voice, she tells me how no living creature could resist the siren's song, neither our kind, nor those who float upon the sea instead of in it. Peering from behind my rock, I can see the kind of men she spoke of – strange, weak looking things, tottering on land on their awkward stumps. Like the maker dreamed of us, but did not have time to finish her creation properly!

Theirs must be a damned life, with no knowledge of the enchantment of the depths, the way a shaft of sunlight looks a hundred fathoms down. The grace of the Song as it travels through the currents. They do not even know they have been denied paradise.

I should not be so far from that paradise, the hadal trenches where we make our home, especially not alone. It was the sea witch, with her tall tales and her sly insinuations, that made me venture so far. But now that I am here, I find that I am curious. What harm could it do, to take my chance, perhaps my only chance, to observe these poor creatures who live in the kingdom above ours?

With a flick of my tail, and the faintest of splashes, I swim a little closer.