*a fantasy short story
“My darling is a beauty, and a lover of the sea.
Kelp woven into her hair and dressed in filigree.
Her heart is buried treasure; only I may hold the key.
For though she adores ships and waves, she also adores me.”
The ocean was typically an excitable, changeable thing. Much like a child with nothing to do, it could never seem to sit still and let the adults hear themselves speak, much less sing. Times in which it was willing to settle had to be seized upon and cherished, and if you didn’t cherish it hard enough, it would punish you by starting up again far too soon.
Even with the bothersome distraction of a galleon ship barreling her way from the corner of her eye, days like this were what Rayope lived for. The wind was on her side, and the waves were gentle. They brushed against the debris of an old, wrecked schooner, painting the hull and lapping at the end of her misshapen tail.
It was impossible for Rayope to leave the island she’d once washed up on. Born without fins, she could barely crawl through a creek, let alone battle the currents. She’d had to develop new techniques for harvesting food never before seen by her people. In spite of it all, Rayope thought this life suited her well. If she ever felt like attempting to live among humans instead, she’d have to patent her fishing technique.
It was just baited wire attached to a pole, really. Who knew fish were stupid enough to fall for that?
Moving away would mean Shuna could no longer visit, though. Shuna was the whole point to these still, sunny days. Ever since they’d fallen in love, Shuna was Rayope’s reason for singing. She’d never known another siren, but she could say with confidence that Shuna was the loveliest to ever live. She possessed insurmountable beauty, smiled brighter than the moon, touched with the softness of sea foam. She inspired every word of every song Rayope ever sang and etched her own ballads into Rayope’s heart. She was the day, she was the night, she was those indescribable moments as one transitioned into the other.
When the sea was calm, sound carried all the way from Rayope’s isle of wreckage to Shuna’s lagoon. Only every so often did Shuna swim all the way over, trusting her coral garden to the Fates. They both put a lot of stock in the Fates. The Fates had been the ones to conspire and send Shuna washing up on Rayope’s land during a fierce storm, so they obviously had some sense.
If Rayope could swim, she would’ve just gone to live with Shuna in her treasured lagoon. There was so little coral left, Shuna considered it her sworn duty to protect it. She couldn’t leave it behind, and Rayope couldn’t manage the trip.
Still, they would be together again soon, whenever Shuna had the opportunity to get away… or if Rayope could figure out a method of travel. In the meantime, Rayope had songs to lift her spirits.
Her hands fluttered in front of her face, keeping a sharp ear out for Shuna’s voice. Shuna continued to sing,
“Never have I known another lover so lucky,
For no one else has kissed her lips or held her tenderly.
I didn’t know that I’d been trapped until she set me free.
For though she adores ships and waves, she also adores me.”
Delighted, Rayope’s tail thumped against the deck of her favourite ruined ship. She waited breathlessly for another verse, but when none came, she didn’t assume that Shuna had simply lost interest in singing. It was just her turn to do the serenading.
Rayope pulled herself upright, drew her most recently invented verse to the forefront of her mind, and began her song. Against all of mankind’s coveted logic, it would reach Shuna all the way across the ocean.
“My love is transcendental;
It crosses time and space.
I long for the next moment
In which I can see your face.
There are no melodies so sweet,
Or words that can impart
How you reside in every beat
Of my enamoured heart.”
Only knots away, the galleon picked up speed towards Rayope’s island. They did not heed the silent threat of the jagged hills surrounding her private spit of land, the ones that effectively kept her from climbing aboard a vessel, herself.
Rayope sank back down in a blissful heap, basking in the knowledge that Shuna had undoubtedly swooned. Love was not a competition, but if it was, the two of them were winning by a large margin.
She had definitely been wooed, for Shuna began singing a tune with no lyrics for Rayope to harmonize with. The music they made was undeniably beautiful, but it was more than a tune, to Rayope. As it bloomed against her eardrums, her heart lifted, her nerves lit up like an aurora on a blessed night. It felt intimate and magical like nothing else did.
Rayope couldn’t believe, in these snatches of eternity, that she’d ever feared she’d be alone all her life.
There had been a time in which she wondered why she had to have been born broken. If her tail was the reason she’d been abandoned, for surely no mother or father would be willing to stay ashore with a little siren who couldn’t swim. Rayope got by, but without hope. Without knowing or caring why she was alive.
Now she knew better. She knew Shuna, who tended to broken coral no differently than she cared for the whole. No piece was more or less beautiful than the other. It was all worth cherishing.
Moreover, being “broken” didn’t make the coral any less “whole.” Just differently shaped.
If only distance weren’t such a pest…
They continued to sing with and to each other and did not stop until the ear-splitting scrape of a keel rudely interrupted. Shuna didn’t hear it, of course, but Rayope knew this would be yet another story they could laugh about later.
This happened all the time.
With a silent apology to her love, Rayope outstretched her arms and smoothly moved along her broken ship, dragging her tail like a serpent with her strong biceps. Every dip into the water improved her mood even further, and she patted the barnacles stuck to the detritus on her way to shore.
It looked like most of the crew had abandoned ship when they realized it was going down. A few of them had managed to escape being crushed or caught while it sank, and they used their arms to paddle towards her island like there was no tomorrow. Which, for them, there likely would not be.
It was an interesting way to swim. If Rayope could emulate it… but no, it looked like it was only much good for short distances, even in calm waters.
“’Hoy!” she called, pulling herself through the sand. It stuck to her like a layer of new skin.
One of the sailors hauled himself onto solid ground, sodden and exhausted. She took him for the captain, based on his fine, drenched coat. “What…? I don’t…”
He was disoriented. They always were. Rayope pushed herself upright and coiled her tail, smiling patiently while she waited for the ship captain to find his bearings. The other sailors spat saltwater onto the ground and collapsed in heaps.
“A mermaid!” one of them announced, pointing at her with his mouth agape.
The sailor beside him struck his companion upside the head. “That’s not a mermaid, you fool! Mermaids’ gots fins!”
Rayope didn’t correct either of them. She forced a smile instead; men responded best to sweetness over threats. She didn’t want to fight. “You seem to have lost your way!”
“Yes,” the captain replied, slow and thick with fatigue. “We’d set a course, for… but then, the sailing master called for a change of heading, and…”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Rayope’s patience only lasted so long when she’d been interrupted. “It’s just that, you see, you aren’t supposed to be here.”
“But something—someone—called to us,” the captain argued.
“Afraid not. I was calling to my beloved, across the sea.”
A third sailor lifted himself on shaky arms. “Can I be your beloved?”
“I already have one actually, but thank you for asking.”
He looked disheartened.
“I’m sure you can’t do much with that ship of yours now,” Rayope said, “but if you’d care to attempt to leave, I probably have enough wood lying around. You could cobble some kind of raft together and perhaps make it to the shore of some other island.”
Hopefully an uninhabited one, so these men wouldn’t barge in on anyone else’s love affair.
“That’s very generous,” the captain said weakly. He still appeared to be coming to grips with the loss of his ship and his confusion. A siren’s song tended to fill their prey’s brain with fog thicker than his skull and could have lasting effects. Greatly useful when Rayope intended on eating what she lured, but she was outnumbered and not as physically able as her whole-tailed brethren.
More importantly, she wasn’t hungry.
“I would give you a hand, but I have other matters to attend to,” Rayope informed them. “I also don’t like your odds, to be honest.” The wood scraps lying around barely supported her without splintering apart. She’d tried, before.
“That’s alright.” The captain’s brow furrowed. “So, you’re… not a mermaid, then?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Legend always said that seeing a mermaid meant good luck,” the captain went on, apparently not listening. All the more grating, listening in on Rayope and her lover, uninvited, had gotten them into this situation.
“Not for you, it seems.” Rayope waited another few seconds, stretching her goodwill to its gossamer-thin breaking point. “Will you be going, then?”
“I think we ought to,” the captain answered. He blinked blearily at the wreckage of his ship. Some of the planks dashed on the rocks were probably usable. “I’ll just… take up a slab of the debris and try to paddle my way home, shall I?”
The sailors behind him mumbled weakly, mostly in favour of that plan if the alternative was being marooned.
“It was lovely to have the company,” Rayope lied, just to be polite. “Safe travels!”
Unaware of all that was going on, Shuna was still singing. Rayope began climbing back over to her favourite spot but thought she should probably keep quiet while the men figured out which direction to row in. She didn’t want to break their concentration.
Even better—expertly, Rayope clambered over and through the dips and angles, getting comfortable on top of the new wrecked ship. This was nice—she was getting even more height from here.
After a few minutes, she saw the captain lying atop a long, flat board, using the front stroke to lead the way towards Shuna’s song. The surviving sailors eagerly followed from their planks and barrels.
They truly hadn’t been thinking straight. From her angle, Rayope got a better look at what was still above water. Her heart leapt—there were boats hitched to the galleon.
A raft wouldn’t get her far, but a lifeboat… That was a different story.
It took Rayope time to clamber off her ruined schooner, dropping into the water gracelessly. Her energy was spurred by Shuna’s tune, keeping her determined as she paddled with her arms to her new hope. Her biceps burned a little as she hauled herself up to the deck.
If there were other survivors from the crash, they were nowhere to be seen. No one to intervene as Rayope lowered one of the lifeboats, severed the rope with her pointed teeth, and dove after it.
She reevaluated her hope for the sailors’ chances. So kind of them, to deliver her a way to travel just like the humans. It would take her days of rowing, but it would be well worth it.
With a broad smile, Rayope took up the oars and resumed her song.
R. Haven (he/him) is a fantasy and horror author hailing from Toronto, Canada. His debut novel, The Other Face of Sympathy, is now in limited supply, and he has won a short story award from the Inkwell Literary Festival.
Website: theirritablequeer.com
Instagram: @author.rhaven
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