Of Stars and Sirens

The Song Beneath the Moon

The moon hung low and cold above the sea, its reflection fractured by waves that whispered your name, a silent shackle holding you to its waters. You quietly hovered just above the surface as you always did, observing, monitoring, just existing despite the constant voices that echoed along the winds. Your now iridescent scales mixing with drying skin, reflecting the waters below as the moon's light shone softly. All quiet reminders of a past struck from you. All the while the waters caress your skin like the finest of silks—the touch as if an old lover you never left.

Silence ruled here. No birds. They were a rare luxury. No wind. Only the distant echo of sails cutting through night and the slow thrum of something ancient, waking. Sailors over past centuries had adorned the name of this cove as 'The Drowned Choir'. Our songs echo off these ageing walls, shipwrecks having piled up against one another in its centre, creaking and groaning with the passing of winds. The cove itself opened like a cathedral once passing its waterfalls entrance, its cliffs rising high on either side, slick with salt, growing vines of moss and veins of barnacle. Water lapped against ruined hulls and shattered masts—grave markers of ships past once lured to their doom.

The name alone had made previous sailors mutter prayers under their breath. No charts you had seen washed up had ever mapped this place. No compass pointed here willingly. It was a ghost location—half myth, half memory. Only ever mentioned in warning by sailing sea witches looking to lure others here to add to their collections of trinkets.

Your fingers brushed the jagged rocks of the island's edge from where you perched by its entrance, all sharp enough to draw blood, yet almost green with moss and age. It didn't matter. Very little ever did. The pain reminding you, you were still real. Still cursed. Still forever waiting.

Then you heard it: Its echoes going unmissed through the sharp silence. Wood groaning under weight, of the canvas snapping tightly against the winds. A ship. Large. Bold. Foolish.

You smiled. In what seemed like years. A faint smile actually graced your features.

"Another crew of scavengers chasing legends," you thought. "They truly will never learn."

As you slipped back into the water before carefully floating upward, your eyes sat just above the surface as you let yourself hover half above the waters—your eyes gleaming, unnatural, the colour of sea glass and secrets. With the mist breaking, soon emerged a looming black ship with ivory silver sails, slicing through the waters like a blade through flesh. It bore a name that burned a crimson red, into the hull in runes you hadn't seen let alone heard spoken about in centuries: Halateez.

Your breath caught.

Not because you feared them—but because you had dreamed that name. Over and over. In the endless sleep between storms. Passing sailors had briefly mentioned the name once or twice over the years. Most in fear. In shame. Through the assumed experiences of crossing their dreaded path.

They had come. Finally in the flesh, not in dying whispers or on bated breaths.

Sailors and fellow travellers had called them the Ghosts of the Broken Sea, a crew only ever whispered about in port taverns and sung about loosely in outlaw shanties. No navy could ever catch them, though some had been told to have tried, yet said crews weren't heard from again. No storm could ever sink them. They are ATEEZ, rulers and lords of the tides, and their ship—The Halateez—is unlike anything to ever touch the saltwater seas.

The Halateez is seen to cut through the waves like a blade. Sleek, fast, and fearsome, it's a dark-hulled galleon laced with ethereal metal—blackened steel etched with strange, shifting runes that seem to glow faintly in red when the moon is high. Its sails are jet black and embroidered with silver thread in patterns that resemble constellations. When unfurled, the sails look like the night sky itself is descending upon you. It's said that the Halateez isn't just a ship—but a memory of freedom, given form. It sails through realms others can't reach—through dream currents, alternate oceans, and siren-plagued voids. It answers only to its crew and the call of rebellion.

If you see eight lights on the horizon in perfect formation, disappearing and reappearing like stars blinking in and out—don't blink back.

Before you can realise. The Halateez has found you. And there would be no looking back once it has.

At the prow, a massive carved figurehead looms: a blindfolded angel wielding twin blades, one stained red and the other wrapped in silver ivy. Some say it represents fate. Others say it's the spirit of the ship itself.

As you looked along its deck you counted the eight of them. Their presence being felt almost instantaneously before you could see them fully—each aura distinctively different to one another. The captain, you assumed, stood at the helm, broad shoulders squared against the wind, hands resting atop of the deck, eyes fixed forward like he already knew this place would be costing him everything if not approached correctly.

Your head tilted. Curiosity drawn seeing the colours contrasting sharply with the seas around it.

So you did what you had sworn you wouldn't ever do again.

You sang.

It had only started soft, no louder than a breath— yet low and full of longing. The notes swirled along the waves, a beautiful mix of sweet and deadly. A lullaby for the damned.

And one by one, the crew looked up. Each adorned a mix of emotions. You watched as each member's head lifted, gaze searching the surrounding area around them.

Except for him. Why him? Why now? How did he seem to be different already. And why did this mess with you more than intended.

Your gaze snagged on said one figure as he seemed to be leaning against the mast, with his arms crossed, eyes locked on the sea as it danced around the Halateez. Eyes that lay on you- wait. Actually on you. Despite the growing tensions from the waves cutting under the wood. He still found you not far from the rocks.

His lips didn't part. His expression didn't shift. He heard you. He saw you—but he wasn't falling.

You faltered. Just a moment. Just enough. A falter that gave them a chance. The song had cracked. The breath of silence breaking. Its sounds going unmissed by all around as said sailors shifted. Now stiff and turning back to their captain. All except one.

And for the first time in centuries, the Siren felt seen—not as the monster you were always seen and labelled as or as the myth repeated through sailors tales, but as something far more dangerous.

Something now very real.

———————

hii!! and welcome to this silly little work! im super grateful for anyone stopping by, this is my first work ever on here so i am incredibly rusty and am still unsure if this idea would even work when being written out but i do welcome any and all kind of feedback and comments, i would love to hear what people think!!

i hope you all have a lovely day wherever you maybe <3