The Siren's Call

Chapter 38

The longer the grey eyes looked at me, the louder I could feel my heart beat. It was like all the voices in the air were trying to talk to me, in different languages and I didn't know which one to listen to. 

The water goddess's daughter looked frail, she was leaning heavily on the stick as she closed the last distance between and I could smell the sea on her. Her thick, dark locks covered most of her body, each curl was as wide as seaweed, draping her to below her waist.

"It's been a while since I last saw you." her voice however, sounded of a young teenager. "You were just a baby." she lifted a hand placing one against my cheek, tugging at a flake of skin that was loose. I didn't feel any pain but I could hear Draven's soft growl in the air. He didn't like her pulling at my skin.

The water goddess's daughter looked at Draven, her grey eyes narrowing, "She's our child, tell the moon goddess we aren't parting another one of our children." the water goddess's daughter turned to my mother.

"We need to take her to the water goddess, she needs to heal. The damage is all the way to her heart, if she stays here any longer, she'll turn into sand." she rubbed her hands against the flake of skin she was holding, and like she said, it turned into sand, falling onto the ground. My heart was going to become sand?

My mother wrapped an arm around my shoulder sighing, "Surely there is something else we can do."

"She is our child." The water goddess's daughter was getting angry, there was a shine to her eyes. 

"She is ours as well." My father's deep voice boomed, "She's not just a water child. That's the problem isn't it. She's neither a full siren or  wolf, she's somewhere in between which is why she can't be just a human, there is no human place between those two powerful souls. She needs to pick. The choice is hers."

"The choice is made by the water goddess. She no longer wants to give up any children." the daughter was unwavering in her guidance. She beckoned for me, and I nearly went. The hand on my arm stopped me. 

I looked up to see Draven's green eyes staring at me, surely there was a reason his eyes matched my tail, we were matched for a reason. Besides my siren never liked me, she could die.

You could die

"We must take her to the water. We decide this later." The water goddess's daughter turned, rushing out of the house, wobbling on her stick. My mother followed suit, casting a look over her shoulder at me.

There was a sad look in her eyes that I couldn't cope to see. I followed them.

"Thelea wait."

But I didn't because something inside of me was forcing me to follow them. I walked up towards the bank with them, the ground was wet and muddy from the rain earlier in the day. 

"The water goddess is waiting for us." the daughter said as she headed towards the water. She chucked her walking stick aside, now that she was knee deep in water she didn't need any support. She shrugged off her cloak as she sank into the water as she completely disappeared. When she emerged, she was transformed into her siren, appearing years younger. 

The further I went into the water, the more burning sensation I could feel against my legs.

When I was knee deep I stopped, looking at my mother and the water goddess's daughter who were patiently waiting for me, "It hurts."

"It will. The ocean's salt is going to always hurt you from now on. Just keep walking."

Why would the ocean's water hurt me, it never used to. With every step I took, the pain only increased and got worse when I was neck deep.

"Shift."

I could barely hear them over the violent waves pushing me back to the shore. 

"Shift one last time and you can choice your host forever." 

The tide was coming in, and the further out we went the bigger the waves were. You don't generally think of how powerful the ocean and water was, molecules of water getting together to be powerful enough to break big vessels. For the ocean, I was just another dust particle in the way of a wave.

When the next wave came, I ducked underneath holding my breathe, allowing me enough time to shift into my siren form. It was always painful but this time I could feel my human skip ripping and falling as particles into the water. They were no doubt bound to be part of the ocean floor. 

I watched as my legs bound together, my bones cracking as they reformed, scales wrapping around my feet like seaweed before becoming my tail. I couldn't even make a sound because of the pain as I couldn't breathe under the water, I couldn't allow myself to drink this poison. It wasn't until my tail flicked in the water that I knew I was ready to breathe.

Breathing underwater felt like I was a parched human with no water for days before I finally tasted fresh rain water. There was nothing more fresh than breathing the underwater oxygen. I could make out two shapes in the distance, my mother and the water goddess's daughter and I swam towards them.

"Come child. Let's fix you up." 

I knew she was referring to my tail, chunks of vibrant green scales were missing. It didn't hurt as much as it did when I was human, at least under the waves, the cold ocean water protected me from the salty wind rubbing against any open wounds. 

The water goddess's daughter swam in front of us and my mother fell back to swim next to me. She reached out grasping my palm in between hers as we swam, "You'll be okay you know. We all had to make this choice."

"What choice?"

"Some of us are fated to be with other people. That is the cruelty of our world. You can't be both. You're either a wolf or a siren Thelea, you cannot be both."

"What did you choose?"

"Me?" She asked as she casted a look at me. 

"When you met Father, you choose the water didn't you?"

My mother stopped swimming, pausing, she looked up at the top of the ocean as we saw a wave pass us, she sighed. "That was different. It was already too late by then. I would have choose your father but...I had to choose you." she grasped both my hands.

"I choose you. I was already pregnant with you before my skin started falling apart, it was too late then to choose to be a wolf. Otherwise I would have done that first before having any kids. But you have that choice now. You have Draven, you can pick to be with him."

"But I won't see you?" I asked. 

"You will see me. Come on we better hurry up, the water goddess's daughter doesn't like to be kept waiting." Mother started swimming again, her hand tugging mine as we caught up to the shiny vibrant silver tail ahead of us. 

We didn't have to swim long till we saw the water goddess, i had never seen her before and I couldn't even phantom to think what she would look like. She was perched on coral, leaning against it as she waited for us. Next to her were fish swimming in and out of the coral, not bothered by her at all.

She was much younger than her daughter, her skin was glowing the colour of her sand, her eyes as bright water you can find in the ocean, a mix of all of the blues and all of the greens, and her hair long and thick like seaweed, similar to her daughters hair.

"Thank you mother for coming to visit us." The water goddess's daughter swam up to her mother, embracing her.

"Of course, if any of my children are in trouble, I come." She rose to her full height, swimming towards us. Her tail was longer than any other siren's tail I had seen, her fins at the end wide, colourful and powerful. Her scales were all shaped in different ways, reflecting the moonlight that came through the waves back up.

She stood in front of me, looking down at me, a sad smile upon her face.

"I'm afraid it might be too late." she said as she reached for my hand. When I placed my hand in hers, I realised what she meant, and why my mother wouldn't let go of it.

My skin was gone, in place were just the bones underneath the flesh.

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