Damari's mother lay fast asleep as he set her on a small cot that was situated in the far corner of their living quarters.

Her even breathing assured him that she was all right for the moment before he turned and returned to his room.

His fingers trailed against the stone bricks that made up the home he had grown up in as a child, a small fountain with a statue of the goddess Aphrodite erect in the middle of it trickled with crystal clear water as he passed through the courtyard.

Stepping through his doorframe, he began looking under cushions, throwing aside old parchments and sifting through his bedsheets until he came across a small leather bound book.

At one time it had been his father's, a token of his that Damari had taken from one of his mother's trunks.

She was always so discreet about his father's life at sea, and although at a young age he had accepted that he wouldn't know everything about his father, he still questioned what truly happened to him when he was away.

The red leather was worn with years of use, the spine bent and the covering wrinkled with the number of times his father's hands had run over it, as was his habit.

Opening the front with care, Damari skimmed his fingers across the stained paper, the black ink scrawling over the sheet feverishly.

He flipped through pages of the journal his father had kept while gone, he had read through it millions of times when trying to figure out how his father truly thought when he had to leave.

Dates, months and years flashed in his eyes, times where his father had written about the pain it took to leave his family to make a living, the days on end with no sleep, and thinking about his children.

It made Damari's heart soar when he read that his father missed him, it helped fill the hole he left whenever he was gone.

The entries were memorized in his mind as he had flipped through its pages countless times to try to remember the sound of his father's voice when he had spoke.

Sometimes he could hear his voice and other times he couldn't, the deep baritone he had so closely grown to as a child fading into nothing more than a passing memory, further pushing him into the depression of not being able to better know his own father.

"Where is it, where is it?" he complained to himself, skimming through the pages at lightening speed, rushing to find the one page he had been looking for.

When he finally came upon it he couldn't contain the joy that encompassed him as he bolted out of his room and raced towards the front of the house.

"Rayen, I'll be back home shortly, I have some business to take care of."

Her short frame stuck out of the kitchen doorway, her hair still in a disarray from her quarrel with the pot. "But Damari, what about dinner?"

He paused briefly to grab the basket from the hall near the entrance of the house that was overflowing with silver finned fish, setting it on the counter opposite the oven to his sister's astonishment.

"When you said you'd brought home dinner, Damari, I thought maybe a measly fish or two, but not this!" she laughed before catching his frown and casually coughing to try and hide it. "No offense." she added, dodging quickly to avoid his playful swat.

"I can bring home dinner once in awhile and make it decent," he replied, "is this not decent enough for your liking?"

"Are you kidding?" she asked. "This is enough to keep us stocked for at least two weeks! Thank you, Damari."

He almost fell over from the impact of her barreling into his arms. It irked him to think of how old she had become, how much of a woman she was now.

Everything was changing, including himself and he wanted to scream to the world that it wasn't fair.

He wanted to have his life back the way it was before his father died, to be careless and free, to be granted the obliviousness of a child. No responsibility and only love.

To hear the soothing vibrato of his father's laugh one last time, to hold him close and hug him, enough time to tell him he loved him before he was ruthlessly torn away from them.

He held his sister close and gave her a tight squeeze. "I'll always love you, Ray."

Her bright blue eyes came up to look at him with admiration and gratitude. "And I'll always love you, big brother."

She shoved him into the door purposely with another laugh and grabbed the basket. "I'll just skin these then and start cooking them in Mom's favorite soup when you get back."

"You got it, kiddo." he yelled back to her with a sudden farewell, flying down the path that led to the ocean.

He had spent many moons walking the shore as a child and had discovered a small outlook that provided a breathtaking view of the waters stretched out in front of him.

It was his own little paradise, and he was going to use it to find the answers he had been searching for.

The sound of the waves smashing against the rocks made Damari smile, it was the first genuine smile he had had in months, his muscles taut from countless nights of fishing that had proved his efforts of finding food fruitless.

Making his way to the line of the coast, he found a small crawl space that would have been overlooked if someone his height didn't know about it.

Crouching down, he slid himself through the tunnel to find himself back in his safe haven, the one place that made sense to him because it was as if time hadn't ravaged the small slice of land.

The sand tickled his toes and warmed them with its heat, reminding him of days when he had come back home a gravelly mess and his mother would reprimand him for not staying clean.

Though Rayen never faced his mother's wrath he noticed, he had always believed it was because he was the oldest and held more responsibility than her, the thought made him chuckle.

He walked over and sat down on the sun-heated rocks, their warmth radiating into his palms and filling his body with a comfortable heat.

Pulling the book out from the pocket in his shorts, he read the page he had desperately been looking for.

June 19th, 1821

I am lucky to be alive.

I have to believe that it is a omen from the gods that my life has more purpose, but I'm not sure.

The entire crew of The Surilian is lost to the sea, save for me and I can only say that I thank the gods for sparing me. I'm not sure if I should trust what my eyes have seen, for there is said to be madness in these waters and I don't know if it is madness or pure fantasy.

Perhaps my eyes play tricks on me, but I cannot be sure till I see the eyes of my boy and wife again.

I sing to them every night, wherever I am, but I never thought someone else would be listening ...

I know the crew never did, for they always sang of their women and beer, their drunkenness being their guide.

But as I sit adrift on this piece of wood.. I must believe what I saw.

A maiden like no other has saved me.. I was warned of such dangers once as a young lad and now my greatest fears have come true.

Her voice pierces through the night with such a sound that it would drive any sailor to do her biding if only ti ease her infernal suffering.

I know not what a poor creature such as her could have suffered in this life time, but she is to be feared as she is not what she appears.

However, instead of sinking to my death as I once thought, I now believe I have a fighting chance because of her.

Perhaps it was my singing, or maybe I appeared to be different from the others, but for whatever reason, she has chosen to spare me from death.

And now while I return to my family slowly but surely, with another chance at living, I warn not only myself, but others that women such as this are not to be trifled with.

Killers.

That is what I think when I look into this woman's eyes, and yet.. she still knows what it is to feel.

I have no idea how much longer I will survive, but I continue to press on in hopes of saying a farewell to my family one last time.

~ L ~  

"They have to be out there somewhere." Damari said confidently, tucking the book away again and leaning over the rock to place his hand in the cool, luscious water.

"But where would they hide?"

He knew now that he couldn't possibly have been hallucinating, because if his father had seen the same creatures it was unlikely that he would see the same things as well.

They'd saved him, and he was going to find them even if it took him the rest of his life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Are you sure I'm doing this right?" Jesenia frowned, staring at the clam clutched tightly in her hand.

"Yes." Alena assured her. "You just need to spear it through now and open the shell."

Jesenia cringed, moving her sharpened spear closer to the clam before backing away again.

"I can't do this."

"What are you talking about? Of course you can! Its food and you need to eat." Alena argued, picking up her spear to sharpen it with a nearby rock.

Jesenia sat the clam down next to the pile that she and Alena had collected from the coves, her blonde hair dancing around her in swirls. "I can't kill an innocent creature."

"You're going to have to one of these days, Jesenia. It's who we are, nothing is going to change that." Alena said brusquely, scraping the rock harder against the spear.

"That isn't how we've always been." Jesenia said, her statement hanging between their charged silence.

Alena froze, her body rigid while she glanced up at Jesenia who was avoiding eye contact.

"What do you mean by that, Jesenia?"

Her question was greeted by momentary silence.

"I..I was just thinking out loud is all." she murmured quickly, darting past Alena's sitting form to reach the underwater garden that sat not too far away from the rocky shores.

"What were you thinking aloud about? Don't lie to me, Jesenia, I can tell when you lie." Alena said, following Jesenia through the moving plants.

Vibrant posidonia swayed in the calm lull of the ocean while the violet water hyacinths spread themselves over the sea floor, catching the eye of many fish as they swam by.

Jesenia flitted away from Alena again, disappearing into the green, slippery kelp that remained on the outside of the garden.

"You can't ignore my questions forever you know!"

"I can try." Jesenia shouted back.

Alena narrowed her eyes, dread and regret creeping into her heart at what she thought Jesenia could be thinking.

You know exactly what she's thinking, It's your fault you're this way, that your entire species is this way.

"I don't understand why you can't tell me to my face what you're thinking." Alena shouted, not slowing down as she continued to trail after Jesenia.

Her fury began to grow as Jesenia continued to blatantly ignore her. "Answer me, Jesenia! What is it you were thinking aloud?! That I'm a monster? Is that it! That you're a monster because of me?! Because --"

"--You're saying it all wrong and you know I wouldn't say that to you! You're like my best friend! And--"

"And what?!" Alena screamed, overpowering rage running through her veins.

Jesenia froze for a moment before lowering her head, not able to look her friend in the face as she spoke. "I'm not like you, Alena. You may think you are heartless and that you can kill anything, but I can't. It goes against my nature."

"That isn't your nature." Alena spat coldly.

"Then I don't understand why you think killing men is!" Jesenia cried out, a boiling anger taking over her eyes. "All my life I have been taught to kill and I can't do it, doing such a thing is so overwhelming that I grow sick at the thought."

"Because you have too much emotion!"

"And that's a bad thing Alena?" Jesenia convicted her. "Just because you have no emotion does not mean you control how I think or feel."

Pain. That was a feeling wasn't it? Alena couldn't remember, only that the constricting feeling of her heart in her chest and the way her stomach roiled  wasn't in the least bit pleasant.

She struggled to steady her breathing, but found she couldn't in the presence of Jesenia, so in a bolt of panic she swam as fast as she could towards the currents of the Yaelver, currents said to be so strong that the youngest of sirens had lost their lives to it.

"Alena, wait!" Jesenia shouted, regret staining her words. "Please come back!"

But nothing could reach her now, pain consumed her entire being. Blooming so harshly in her chest that it reminded her of that day when she had lain in that cursed field.

Flashes of Persephone talking to her along with Calanthe and Taryn appeared in her mind, the unbearable sound of their conversations from so many ages ago only increasing in their burning intensity.

She could hardly see where she was going any longer, her tail possessing a mind of its own as she swam through weeds and schools of fish and found herself storming back towards the port.

As she swam without really any direction of where she was going, she heard a faint voice, like that of a cool breeze flowing across her burning skin.

Its melody floated across the water and reached her ears, reassuring and calling to her unlike anything ever had before.

She couldn't explain it, nor understand why she was so ready to follow its solemn call, but it touched her spirit in ways she didn't understand.

Searching high and low for the decadent song, Alena found herself on the brink of insanity when the lyrics of the music came to her ears.

"T'was a long night at sea, and the stars shone above, as a maiden watched the moon."

She felt herself swimming faster, faster then she had ever gone in her life, before breaking the surface of the water with a small gasp of air.

"Head held high, she stared at the stars, and prayed to the gods for life."

Her heart beat faster when she caught sight of a man sitting on the rocks, his hair windblown, but the same coarse blonde hair she had seen so many decades ago.

She was dumbfounded and as the water poured down her face and the man's striking blue eyes pierced hers she could only mumble three words.

"It can't be."

~*~*~*~