The Fate of The Sirens

Chapter 5

She decides to take his hand and goes into the water with him. He pulls her closer to him and puts his arms around her.

He says softly, "Don't worry. Hold your breath and hold on tightly."
Aurora thinks, "Let's just get this over with."

She holds her breath as he starts to take her underwater. He swims fast and Aurora holds onto him tightly because she's uncomfortable at the moment. She's fearing for her life, but naively, trusts him.
Aurora passes out when she reaches the bottom of the lake. Her frail body hangs as if it's lifeless but her heart is still beating. Nathan sets her down onto the floor of the lake. A blue light shines on her legs and she becomes a siren. Her skin is restored. All her scars she had from the accident are all gone. The clothes she had on her bottom were disintegrated.
Nathan smiles and plans to tell her that she has been healed when she wakes up but he hears the ruffling of seaweed. He picks Aurora back up, keeping himself in front of her, and checks to see if anyone is there.

"Look who we have here..." an older muscular guy comes out from the seaweed bush.
"Looks like he's found himself a little girlfriend."
"I'm not in the mood right now, shark thuggyboo." Nathan responds.
"Who you calling thuggybo- ahem." He collected himself. "Give us the girl and we'll let you go, for now."
Nathan responds, "And what if I don't?"
"Then it's gonna get real ugly."
"You'll have to catch me first," he smirks and starts swimming fast. He's going so fast it seems like he is cutting through the water. Aurora wakes up, not knowing where she is. She starts looking around, trying to focus on one thing. He is going so fast that she can't even process what's happening around her.

"You know you look delusional right now!" He said as he continued to swim away.
"Ehhh... wait, where are we?!" Aurora asks.
"Looks like you finally came to your senses, Riri!"
"We gotta run away from these bad guys."
"There's bad guys down here?!" she shouts.
"I'll explain later!" he says.

He continueds to swim but then he gets stopped by two more of the shark thugs.

"Where's the rest of your crew?"
"Looks like he's all alone, with one little girl."

Nathan smirks, "Didn't wanna do this but since you guys insist."

Nathan, still holding Aurora, lunges his tail at the four enemies. The pressure from the magic immobilizes three of them. The leader gets up, wobbly, and strikes Aurora in the arm while Nathan isn't looking.

"Ah!" Aurora winces.

She holds the part of her arm that got hit. Her bracelet falls to the bottom but she doesn't realize it. She pulls herself together and sees the leader coming towards Nathan.

"Watch out!" Aurora warns.

Aurora moves from Nathan's arms and attempts to punch the leader. Her punch looks like it's in slow motion. In his weak state, the captain grabs Aurora's right wrist. They look at each other face to face and Aurora pushes him in his stomach with her tail.

Irritated, the leader smirks and yells, "Is that all ya got?!"

Nathan punches the leader in his head. It wasn't a normal punch. He uses his siren water manipulation abilities along with his punch.

"Agh!" The leader fell to the ground.

Aurora looks at the four shark thugs lying down, aching in pain. Nathan is still continuing to unnecessarily finish them off. It almost seems excessive.

"Uh... Nate. I think they're good..." Aurora quietly confronts Nathan.

Nathan is out of breath and takes a long stare at Aurora. He takes a look at his surroundings, the pain he had caused onto his enemies. The blood floating in the water.

"I guess... I got a little carried away," he gently put his hand on Aurora's shoulder and guides her as they leave. Aurora didn't feel so safe after seeing how he almost enjoyed taking the thugs down.

The leader picks his head up and sees a shiny object in the sand. He crawls over to it and sees its Aurora's bracelet. He smirks and grabs it.

—

Nathan takes Aurora to a small cabin. He lays Aurora on the shell sofa. He looks at her arm.

"Are you alright?" he asks.
"I don't feel anything right now," she replies.
He reassures her, "You'll be fine, we can heal."

She looks at her once bruised shoulder.

"I guess that explains why I lost all my bruises." She gets up and spins around, "I'm not even in pain!"
He softly smiles.
"You want something to eat?"
"Sure, but what even is there to eat underwater?" she wonders.
He chuckles, "I have some sea grapes and seaweed, that's about it. Makes me miss being human."
"You were a human?"
"How do you think I got here?" he laughs.
"I guess I just thought you spawned here!"
"You're too much, Riri," he smiles.

He makes a bowl of sea grapes and a side of seaweed.

Aurora looks at his back as he prepares it and thinks, "Can't this guy put a shirt on? He's basically naked."

Nathan turns around to give her the food but sees that she's rolling her eyes.

"Uh, what's that look for?" he leans over.
"Why can't you put some clothes on? In fact, none of the sirens I've encountered were fully dressed!" she leans back.
He smirks and leans back, too, "Hm, I see what this is."
"What? What does it mean?" She asks.
"Don't worry. If I was a girl I wouldn't be able to resist myself either!"
"In your dreams!" she laughs and shakes her head.

He hands her the sea grapes and sets the plate of seaweed on the coffee table. She looks at it in disgust.

"H-Here goes nothing..."
With her nose turned up to it, she puts one single grape in her mouth and chews it slowly.

"Wait, this is actually good!"

She grabs multiple grapes and eats them unpleasantly. Nathan smiles at her disorderly behavior.

"Guess you were hungry!"

She looks up, wipes her face, embarrassed of the way she just ate.

"I guess so," she laughs.

She looks outside. The ocean is quite beautiful despite the unknown danger lurking in the distance.

"I should paint this," Aurora says.
"Paint what?" Nate responds.
"The lake."
"Oh yeah. It may not be the best out here but... the view is absolutely breathtaking," he says, looking at his food.

She looks at a harp in his cabin.

"You play the harp?"
He returns his eyes back to Aurora.
"Yes. I do, but I haven't played in a while so I'm a little rusty." He fixed his hair. "Gotta find things to do, being down here for five years."
"Five years? How did you become a siren?"
"Yeah, five years. Why don't you try and finish your seaweed," he closes himself off.

Aurora looked down, sad that he didn't feel comfortable enough to share what happened to him.