Cutting through the waves, she felt a rush of ecstasy run through her tail to the tip of her fins. No matter how many times she'd speed through her frigid territory, the cold would always send shivers of joy across her scales.
She took a quick look back. Isa, the Bavarian nixie from the Danube, was only a few meters behind. The nixie of the Rhine had challenged the one she acknowledged as a little sister to a race she knew she'd win in a rout. While they were at it, they would simultaneously look out for humans to drown or mess with, depending on their current mood.
Loreley increased the speed. Gushes of water came her way as she swam against the Rhine's icy current, passing few aquatic creatures. She saw the wooden stakes of the pier and declared that the goal line for their race. Really, outswimming Isa was too easy.
All of a sudden, from above, a body crashed into the river, forcing her to come to a halt.
Right in front of her, it sunk, dark, short, blond hair covering the human's face. She licked her lips. If prey presented itself like that, she would be the last nixie to let this opportunity slip.
Apparently, Isa, who had caught up in the meantime, thought the same and began to circle the sinking human, salmon-pink claws ready to attack.
"My territory, my prey!" Loreley hissed at her fellow nixie, baring her fangs. Her friend backed off immediately, yielding to her command.
The Rhine nixie, a grin on her lips, swam closer and firmly grabbed the human by the shoulders. It was a male. To her surprise, he didn't put up any resistance and with her clawed hand, she lifted his chin to take a look at the tallish man. As her azure orbs locked with his dark brown eyes, she gasped.
He was conscious? She had thought he wasn't – why didn't he flail his arms, kick his legs like the other humans usually did when they were confronted with her presence? There was no trace of fear whatsoever. On the contrary, she had never seen eyes so devoid of life before. Confused, she eased her grip.
Had he really intended to drown himself? Didn't prey have the instinct to survive? Usually, it did, as far as her experience went.
From the other side, Isa stared at her impatiently, lurking around the two of them. Loreley focused her attention on the human man again.
Somehow the thought of drowning him was a lot less fun. With that attitude of his, he wouldn't writhe in pain as he'd choke and drown at her hands. Killing him would neither give her the thrill she craved nor satisfy her primal instincts.
With rapid speed, she darted upwards, dragging the man by his white collar behind her. Out of the blue she jumped, crawling onto the shore next to the pier, the stranger in tow. She placed him on his back to drench his soaked self in the warm rays of the summer sun.
As he coughed up water, she banged on his chest with her fist, resisting the temptation to bury her claws deep into his ribcage. The stranger looked back at her, eyes widened.
"You've been spared by Loreley, the Rhine nixie. Remember my name and never come back into my territory, human, or else I might reconsider my decision," she hissed and immediately plunged back into the river without even waiting for his answer.
Coming back to the frigid cold, the Bavarian nixie surrounded her azure-scaled older sister the moment of her return and immediately started the interrogation.
"Loreley, what happened? Why did you save him? Weren't we gonna drown him?"
Her confusion was warranted – they never had spared prey before and this certainly would be an exemption rather than a rule, so she swore to herself.
Nevertheless, the nixie found herself unable to support her argument with solid reasons other than 'it was a heat in the moment kinda thing'. So she opted for the most obvious answer she could give.
"I don't like killing prey who wishes to die. What's the point in hunting the sick?"
Loreley didn't know what had gotten into her, but this day, for the first time she had shown mercy. Mercy that would be the prelude of a tale of tragedy leading up into the distant future.
𝕹 𝕴 𝖃𝕰 𝕿 𝕺 𝕽 𝕰 𝕿𝕰𝖄
Claws scraped the stone as she heaved her tail out of the water, long blonde curls sticking uncomfortably to her body. Despite her difficulties, Loreley managed to seat herself properly and turned around to face the person she had already expected.
"Ley. You're back." Sitting on the shore, their usual spot, the stoic man skimmed stones, a thin reed dangling from his mouth.
Upon meeting the gaze of dark brown eyes staring at her, she sighed heavily.
How many times ever since then had she warned him to cease this nonsense? Right after the incident, she had noticed him frequenting the spot next to the pier. Each day, when the sun began to settle, the sky immersed in rosy hues, he sat at the river's site and observed the Rhine's waters, waiting for her to surface.
Was this supposed to be a gesture of gratitude? No, thank you.
The first few times, she had ignored him, but as time passed and he still had not given up, she had decided to give him a chance. After all, even among her own kin, she was a legend, so she could not blame a human for having the wish to see a creature foreign to them.
Time passed and the man who had introduced himself to her as 'Ruven' even had started to give her the nickname 'Ley' – as if they had become friends. Just because she had spared him once it didn't give him the right to do that, but she had to admit, the way it rolled of his tongue sounded kind of nice. Or maybe she just liked the accent, which differed so much from her own.
Before she knew what was even happening, them meeting had become a daily routine she sort of came to enjoy. Never would she have guessed there was this much to learn about the ones she called her prey.
"Ruven? Say, aren't you afraid of me?" she asked out of the blue, more than curious.
Playfully, Loreley bared her fangs and proudly showed him her blue claws, hoping to scare him at least a little. Would he flinch? Beg for mercy? Attack? Run away?
To her disappointment, Ruven did neither of those things. No reaction at all. As emotionless as ever, he only shook his head. "Not really."
He wasn't impressed in the slightest. How boring. Couldn't he at least feign some kind of emotion? Why was he this ... fearless in the first place?
She cupped her chin on her clawed hand. "I could drag you down with me and kill you anytime, you know."
Ruven threw a stone with more force than usual. He shrugged, eyes on the Rhine.
"I know. Worrying about it is futile if it can happen any moment. Why bother?"
The nixie tilted her head to the side. So Ruven was the type to simply not care about unnecessary troubles. After giving it a quick thought, she nodded, convinced.
"Besides, you already saved my life once." He gave her a side-eye. She snorted. Can't argue with that logic.
Her claws scraped through the small pebbles in front of her.
"I thought you humans were all the same, but you proved me wrong," she purred, "Ruven, tell me. Why are you so fearless? Why are you so different from the rest?"
For a moment, he froze. He took his eyes off the blue in front of him to face her azure orbs. When he spoke, Loreley couldn't help but frown at his answer.
"Because I feel nothing."
This was it? This was his secret? She couldn't quite comprehend the complexity of human emotions, but this – there was something in his words that evoked a strange feeling in her. It pulled at her heart strings and this was probably one of the few times she was able to feel pity.
"I just wish, that one day, I find something that makes me feel happy," Ruven continued, a faint smile dancing on his lips.
She heaved herself out of the waters onto the shore. Slowly, she crawled to him, blue fins changing into legs, scales dissolving into skin, claws shortening into nails in mere seconds.
Loreley didn't like the tint of sadness lingering in his brown eyes and if she had to, she'd smack him for it to go away.
"Continue to be this depressing and I'll drag you down the Rhine with me."
Considering he had already tried to do just that before, maybe this wasn't the smartest threat she could have chosen. But it was the only thing that came to her mind when attempting to make her own heart ache less at the sight of him.
His eyes widened. "Sure, but Ley?"
"What is it?"
Ruven averted his gaze, all of a sudden oddly focused on the waters in front of him.
"... Ley, please put on some clothes when you transform."
𝕹 𝕴 𝖃𝕰 𝕿 𝕺 𝕽 𝕰 𝕿𝕰𝖄
How naive to think she wouldn't notice the rippling of the nearby bodies of water. Just because she was relaxing, it didn't mean she didn't pay any attention to her surroundings.
"Isa. You're visiting often. Shouldn't you be in the Danube's waters? The Rhine is my territory."
Loreley yawned, stretching out on the warm stone, bathing in the sunlight. To be quite honest, she wasn't in the mood to hold a conversation with one of her kind right now. As of late, the Bavarian nixie's presence came to annoy her. Ever since the shore incident, she simply asked too many invasive questions.
"Say, Loreley, if you had the chance to give up being a nixie and live as a human instead, would you do it?"
"What would happen if one of us ever left our waters to never return? Would there be punishment?"
"Loreley, what if ..."
What if this. What would that.
How the hell could she have known? Although they had grown up like sisters, as the self-proclaimed older sibling, even she needed some alone from this exhausting existential dread time every once in a while.
A fellow blonde nixie surfaced, bearing similar features like the nixie of the Rhine. Apart from a few slight differences in facial features, the only really distinguishing feature was the color of their tails. Loreley's was the color of the sky and sea, cerulean scaled to the very finned end, while Isa's were painted a hue of salmon-pink.
"I can't when there are rumors across all waters that the legendary Loreley might have fallen for a human. The nix are whispering behind your back."
"Is that so? Let them talk." Loreley made a hand gesture as if to brush the unverified stories off and rolled onto her side. Her gaze went towards the heavens. As soon as the sky would turn indigo and the sun trade its place with the moon, he'd show up at the shore. She couldn't help but smile faintly.
"Is it true? Do you like him, Loreley? That one man we spared. You haven't killed him yet." The Bavarian nixie looked at her, dark blue eyes widened. Loreley didn't like that strange glimmer in them. She didn't know how to interpret it.
"I like human males as my prey," she simply answered, closing her azure orbs, "And I like them best when they are drowning."
Isa, for some reason, didn't seem that happy with her answer. "I see."
If only her little sister knew what a skilled liar she was, because Loreley, the legend of the Rhine, had already broken the law by meeting a human male each night, its original purpose of viewing him as prey long gone.
𝕹 𝕴 𝖃𝕰 𝕿 𝕺 𝕽 𝕰 𝕿𝕰𝖄
They had disappeared overnight so many moons ago. Without a trace, both, Isa and Ruven – gone. Her Bavarian nixie sister had not said a single word about her departure and the man she had grown fond of all of a sudden had stopped visiting their meeting spot, leaving the blonde waiting alone under the moonlight each night since six months.
In the blink of an eye, Loreley had lost two of the most important people in her life without knowing the reason why. Maybe the worry had humbled her fierce personality and reshaped her to be more timid, but ever since then, hunting had become less appealing and life less colorful.
Even though it was daytime, she sat there, in her human glory, the usual spot near the rock he used to sit on. A thin reed in her mouth, she tapped her toes. Human feet really felt different than fins, but remembering they had enabled her to dance with Ruven in the past, she had grown used to and even grown fond of them.
Pouting and out of pure boredom, she began to skim a few stones. Even though he had taught her, she couldn't do it as well as Ruven. Her stupid pebbles had the tendency to just sink into the Rhine after two or three skips.
"...Ley."
She gasped and hastily turned around, scanning the area. Ruven. It was Ruven's voice! Loreley rose to her feet. In the distance, spotting his dark-blonde hair, she saw him head towards her direction. She crawled closer to get a better look at him. After all those months, he had finally shown up. Where had he been all this time?
Just as she was about to call out to him, she held her breath. Her voice died mid-way, his name on her tongue faded away.
Right behind him, a familiar blonde curly-haired woman slowly followed, laughing heartily, both corners of her lips forming a wide grin. Clad in a white robe, one of her hands rested on top of her round, protruding belly, carefully stroking it with her hands.
It hit the Rhine nixie like a brick. A child. Isa was carrying Ruven's child in her womb, pretending to be her – Loreley. The man she had been in love with was smitten with the fraud who had used her singing voice to keep him in permanent delusion. Even worse, as a couple they looked so happy, strolling along the shore, while holding hands. When Loreley saw Ruven's hearty laugh, she remembered his words.
I just wish, that one day, I find something that makes me feel happy.
A single tear ran down her cheek.
Something in Loreley broke, leaving behind a vacant empty shell of what once had been filled with affection and admiration. Like a flower, these feelings withered, lost their intensity, died and got buried deep in her heart.
Do not fret, Loreley.
When that child becomes of age, it shall became a law for it to return to the sea along with his mother.
You may get revenge then.
Nodding, she wiped it off and plunged herself into the Rhine.
And so, years, where, out of pure spite, she spread havoc and instilled fear in sailors when her name was uttered, passed. The legend of the Rhine had been born anew as its tyrant.