Siren Call

Escape

With crystalline tears prickling her stormy grey eyes, Adalynn clambered down from the stone wall and onto a lonely dock that lay well away from prying eyes and suspicious men who could create harm.

The sun, having found forgiveness by her flight into the dark, peered out behind squalid clouds and shone fully across her back, causing the ocean water beneath her to ripple and breathe with gem-lined breaths as she collapsed onto the dock and slowly dipped her feet into the cool, green water, placing her knapsack firmly tucked against her side.

The salt licked eagerly at her wounds, and she hissed in pain, but did not pull away, for the pain opened her eyes up to the realities of her situation.

She had escaped the greedy Tal in exchange for who knows what — another looter desperate for coin without any thought of the harm left in his wake?

Adalynn let the tears slide down her reddened cheeks as she tried to piece together a plan for her survival but could arrive at no certain conclusion.

Were they looking for her, she mused, as she swirled her feet around deep in the water. Was her father searching for her after he had given her brother a warrior's funeral? It must have been a sight, for no warrior had ever died of assault in nearly three generations; such was the power of the secrecy they had threaded into their lives with fine stitches until it became the only possible way of living.

Every man and woman who passed on in their kingdom was floated out to sea under the cover of night with a candlelight vigil, for as her professor stated, "As they lived in darkness, so too shall they pass in darkness." Even in death, their secret must be protected at all cost, and in the dark, their candles only appeared to be glimmering stars scattered across the far horizon.

 She had only been able to attend one; the funeral procession of her own mother. It had been solemn and beautiful, as if they were releasing a heavenly angel back into the stars. She had kissed her mother one last farewell, and watched with glistening eyes as the small boat which carried her mother's sleeping figure slipped silently into the dark.

As if the sun overhead glimpsed her jumbled, sorrowful thoughts, it took refuge behind a large cloud and Adalynn shivered from the absent warmth.

"Hey there, what are you doing here? Don't you be knowing that this here is a dangerous place for a young girl?" a gruff voice called out as heavy footfalls thudded hollow and firm against the weathered wooden planks.

Whipping around, Adalynn scrambled to her feet and stood warily by the edge of the water, ready to jump if needs be. There before her stood a vast, wide man, as if he had been built with stone and logs instead of flesh and blood. A fine charcoal beard was scrawled across his face and hair darker still was gathered into a low bunch at the nape of his neck. He appeared to be a diluted form of a Xianggian man and mixed with a burliness that she could not place. Perhaps he had not lived here always.

"Now now, no need to be spooked. I ain't here to hurt you. What's your name, girl? Perhaps we can get you home to your parents," the man offered in as genteel a tone as he could manage, but the rough masculinity emitting from him made him a person to be wary of.

Adalynn shook her head and clung to herself as she backed towards the very edge of the splintery dock.

"Don't be scared, miss. I gots a brood of my own, I ain't going to do nothing against yer will. I was only thinking that you looked like a girl to be missed is all, and I want to help you get home. Like I be saying, the docks ain't no place for a young'un such as yerself."

Once more, Adalynn shook her head and tears began to spill over, sliding down her soft cheeks with little trouble.

"Haven't you got a home, child?" the large man asked and Adalynn glanced around as words struggled to slip past the prison of her lips but to no avail.