by Julian

Content Warnings: Mentions of Violence, Brief Descriptions of Injury and Death

I believed in kraken, sirens, the like. It wasn’t hard to believe that the stories that had been told had to come from some form of truth. But as my ship sailed on its own for the first time in a decade, I didn’t expect to come face to face with such a creature.

Gently, softly, I was lured. His eyes of a blistering blue and hands reaching out as I passed. It was far more tempting than I’d expected.

The tales of Odysseus, being drawn in by an image of his wife. Or of Orpheus, whose singing granted passage through the infested path.

None of the stories of the beasts mentioned just how at peace I would feel.

For the first time, my mind was quiet. My breath was calm. My hands were steady. My lungs didn’t beg, my joints didn’t ache. I’d made it. Back to him, somehow. Someone I’d never met, and yet I knew everything about. It was a face unknown to me, but a spirit I recognized. And he saw me, too. His scales and feathers dipped into the water. The glittering feathers of an angel matched with a smile that put the sunlight to shame, I had no choice but to fall. No, not just fall but to dive in headfirst. If he could love me for all my flaws, my human mistakes, I could love his monstrous talons and fangs.

My crew was horrified. All I had worked for, all I had sacrificed to bring me on this journey, it was thrown away in trust. Tossed aside without a second thought, not caring for the

collateral. The crew watched as their once strong and fearless leader gave up his life of stability on a whim of the unbelievable.

A fantasy. A lie.

I jumped into the arms of a creature who’d never known love. I knew what he was. What he’d done, what more he was capable of. I fell for his trap. But I was at peace. As he sang his siren song, my vocal chords were torn from my body and my human blood filled the water. I was finally his. One could argue that it was all a ploy, that the affection we’d quietly shared in those moments weren’t real. And maybe they’re right about that. He got what he was after.

Yet so did I.

I was finally wanted.

For my life, my body, yes. He may have been holding my lifeless body with the talons that had shredded my skin moments ago, but at last, I was held.

Julian (he/him) is an anonymous, unpublished, fantasy author who simply enjoys creative writing.