Beneath Our Disguises

Salty Waters(Siren x Reader)

Your eyes catch the cresting of gentle waves along the shore, gently washing away the bare footprints you leave behind. The ripples forced into the black sand by a gentle hand that carves it away back into unknown depths. You can't see them though, all you see is the contrast of light and dark, the cresting of white before it splashes to black, breaking like hope upon the shore of despair. Your arms wrap the pale shawl around your shoulders, clutching it tightly to your body as you force your eyes ahead, staring at the glinting rock formation that breaks the dark landscape before you, blurred slightly as waves break away the solid base.

The several story high stone resembles a bone coral, white in a slimming moon as it welcomes you with its cold embrace, a shadow reaching out to grab a hold of your form as you are swallowed into the divet carved from the uneven surface. Specks of glowing stone greet your blurry eyes, not that you need them anymore, you know the smooth worn path with your eyes closed. Trusting the smooth gravel marked by hundreds of feet you follow the winding path in a gentle slope down, getting damper as you stumble along. A sob echoes along the cave walls, a choked sound of utter despair as you stumble once more, your foot catching on something unusually sharp as you flop to the ground, letting go of the shawl to catch yourself, fingertips gripping the solid ground beneath you as you lift your head slowly, opening blurry eyes to reveal the blackness that suffocates the eyes and drowns the ears. As you sit up straighter you feel the wet splat of your hair against your face, hitting you gently to remind you of where you are.

One hand slides across the ground, dislodging pebbles before open-air greets your palm and then a few centimetres below is the wet wave of water, caressing the finger that touches the surface, and then the hand that enters its depths, taking hold like a lover, leading you forward gently, centimetre by centimetre until you are up to your elbow in the depths of unknown. Yanking your arm back you sit up, letting out a soft sniffle as you bring your legs around swaddled in white silks down to your ankle. Dipping your feet slowly a choked cry escapes at the harsh sting of salt water against scrapes from the stone, biting your lip you force back anything else, blinking to let the tears rain down your cheeks to hit the stone that was so cool against abused palms. A shaky breath breezes past your lips as the stinging finally subsides as the water reaches your knees, soaking and tugging at the dress, urging you to fall into the depths.

Instead of letting yourself fall into the water that urged you to sleep beneath the waves forever you call out. Voice raspy from hours of sobbing, you call to the being of the bay, "Locke, please, please come." It was a whisper, disturbing the peace of silence and darkness as uncalloused fingers cling to the lip of stone, digging pebbles into stinging palms.

A loud splash and sudden brightness forces your eyes closed, squinting against such a blinding disturbance, waves drench your thighs, soaking the sandy dress as it clings to your skin, shaking with your shivering body. Another tug of the tide and the rush of water recedes, the scraping of scales and sploosh of something huge echoing rather quietly as you force your eyes open once more.

Before you sits the most beautiful creature you have ever seen, skin as white as sand and hair as dark blue as the sunless depths of the ocean is a merman. His eyes are fixated on yours, the intense bright green of the washing waves and pupils as dark as kelp, his face only a foot from your own with hands hauling his body mostly out of the water as he only just stares into your eyes, perfectly perched with only the slight weight of his stomach pressed upon your knees. You would have expected the spear-wielding, formidable king of the sea from him, but instead, there was a leanly muscled and very thin man, ribs poking out even with yours. The bright glare of light had faded significantly but was obvious with his ever so slightly pulsating tail with their luminescent scale patterns and designs upon a tail 2 to 3 times the length of his torso and covered in the smallest nearly black scales possible, rippling with muscle.

"I can't. . . I can't see you anymore." rasps out your hoarse voice from the sobs that had destroyed it not long ago. "The uhm . .engagement, it is official, starting tomorrow, I can't. . . I can't escape it now," you whisper hoarsely, avoiding such intense eyes for fear they would paralyse you, keep you there with the not even man your heart wants to be with. Your heart that loved the ocean before you could swim and yearned for the strange adventure that led to the discovery of such a sacred place when you had been but a maiden of honour for the manor. And you couldn't change it now, you couldn't go back on your word, you couldn't disappoint your family, and you couldn't lose your position. You had made it so far and were not going to give up on your dreams now. Even if your soon to be husband was forgetful and horribly ill-tempered, you couldn't afford the fallout that such an action would end up having.

The rough scales on the back of Locke's hand brush under your eyes before resting his soft palm on your face, sliding his fingers under your chin to tilt your eyes to finally meet his. It is hard to look into his eyes, to keep looking into them. But they were a predator's, sharp and calculating like a shark's in bloody water. You are suddenly very aware of how trapped you are, laying back on the rocks and sand with his body hovering above yours, caging you in as water drips onto the dress, scales scrapping smoothly against your legs forcing the dress up ever so slightly. You can see the flare of gills along his neck, covered by flaps of thin fins matching his tail and ears that held back a lock of his long, dark hair. He smells of salt and seaweed, but not rotting, no, it was clean and beachy, almost good smelling but a sharp something kept it from being pleasant.

"Stay" He says, his voice soft but forceful as he looks over your face, stroking his thumb along the edge of your chin, "Please?" His eyes are pleading, but there's something dangerous behind the pain within them. He seems to read the answer in your eyes and they harden into emeralds, eyebrows lowering and his teeth apparent between the lips that had curled back in a snarl, showing pointed teeth of a predator. He squeezes tightly to your chin before letting go, turning around with a loud splash that douses you in salt water, dress nearly see through from the water on it now as it mixes with tears that slip down your face as you pull back from the water's edge.

You can't remember the walk back to the beach but you find yourself standing along the moonlit sand, waves washing over your feet as you kick off a bit of sand into the crashing water. Then the sound reaches your ears, it is like the crashing of waves against a cliff, rhythmic and consistent. It was ebbing and flowing, loud and then soft, it was. . . singing.

Come to me my darling dear
I call to you from far
you shall come to me my dear
and our love will be a star
come to my lover dear
you will stay with me a while
now stay with me my darling dear
I promise it will by worthwhile

For you and me my love
The sea will be our home
For you and me my love
The land shall be your tomb

You can't move as from the water emerges Locke, his hand held out for you to take. He motions for you to join him and how could you resist. You can't feel the numbing cold of the water as you walk slowly, wading into the cove towards your lover, the man you have always loved, the man that loves you back. The man beckoning you to your death. Soon enough you are forced to swim, feet tangled in the long dress as you struggle to reach him, taking his hand in the end. As soon as your skin touched you snapped out of the trance. Grabbing tight to his hand and clutching at his shoulders you panic, looking around. "Wh-what did you do! Locke! How dare you! You can't just. . .!"

Your voice dies, drowned by the water it is filled with as you are dragged under the surface by the siren, held tightly as he traps your arms by your sides, tail beating your legs to hold you suspended in the calm water. Face to face with you as he leans in, face beside your ear as he finally speaks a full sentence. "You are mine and the seas, you will never belong to that pitiful male." He murmured, his voice the usual soft drawl as he flicks his eyes downward, and with declining vision, you see the body of your fiance below on the ocean floor. A mouth is pressed to yours, forcing air into your lungs and making you dizzy. "You will never leave me now my darling dear, for the sea has taken your legs and I, your love." He grins with all his shark-like teeth, now stained with most likely human blood. Your last thought before losing consciousness, I will never be yours, never escapes your lips as you feel the burning of forming gills on either side of your neck, but they wouldn't be ready soon enough as everything goes dark around you.