Fear the Waves [A Twisted Wonderland Fanfic]

Chapter 3 | The Siren

T/W: Pirates being cruel. No graphic detail though. Hopefully, Floyd and Y/N will be able to escape from the pirates soon.

Y/N scrambled away from the cage walls as much as her ruined back would allow, her hands gripping at the rotten straw that littered the bottom of her cell. As she moved further away, eventually freezing when the cold bite of the iron walls met the wounds on her back, the siren moved forward, digging his claws into the wood as he pulled himself forward and into the light of the porthole. 

He wasn't anything like what Y/N might have imagined a siren to look like. She had heard the tall tales of sailors that described women and men of ethereal and impossible beauty who could bewitch you with a single glance. She had heard of how a single word from a siren could ensnare your senses and leave you as dumb as a sea cucumber, guiding you towards the edge of a ship with whispers and promises to fulfil your every whim and desire until all you wanted to do was throw yourself over the side of the vessel and succumb to the temptation of a siren's call. And from what she could recall, they had been rather human in appearance, save for their tail that was always hidden beneath the froth of a stormy sea. But this siren... he seemed different. For one, his face was as pale as snow, paler than Y/N had ever seen, and where his ears should have been were fins like a fish. Like his face, the front of his torso was as pale as the sea foam, but the rest of his body was the colour of the deep ocean, where the darkness stained the water. In all honesty, he seemed more eel than he did human.

"Are you sure you're a siren," Y/N asked.

The boy - she guessed he was a boy as he didn't seem to be fully grown just yet, but then again what did she know about siren biology - smirked at her and grabbed the bars of the cage. "You don't believe me, fishie~"

"No."

"Should I prove it?" He seemed entertained by the fact that Y/N didn't believe him. 

"No."

He pouted and released the bars. Then, he turned and scrambled back to the shadows of his cage. As Y/N listened and watched, she heard the sound of splashing water and assumed that he had been given some water to keep himself alive as they sailed to who knows where. But the tub was nowhere near big enough for him, as his eel-like tail continued to sweep across the floor of the cage, just on the edge of the light. 

"Can you not breathe outside of the water?"

There was the sound of water splashing again and once again, she was met with the two brilliant golden eyes of the siren. "You're a curious little fishie, aren't you?"

"Can you blame me? It's the first time I've met a siren."

"If you believe that I am a siren."

Y/N did believe. "I do."

The siren giggled. "I can breathe out of water for a little bit, but I dry out fast."

Y/N pursed her lips and nodded, not quite sure how to progress the conversation from there. She turned away from the siren and pulled herself away from the bars, craning her head around to try and see the damage that had been done by the whip. She could still feel the burn of the leather on her skin and the tiny fragments of metal that had been embedded into the leather. She was just glad that none of the metal had stuck in her skin.

"Your blood smells delicious ~"

Y/N glanced back over at the cell that held the siren. That comment was a little... concerning. 

But she was saved from giving a response when the door to the brig swung open and a small group of pirates stomped in. One carried a bucket, a bottle of alcohol, a cloth, and what looked like a roll of bandages. Another carried a ring of keys that swung teasingly back and forth from his hand. The last two carried nothing but a set of iron manacles and a coil of rope. Y/N didn't want to think about what they would be using that for.