🗡❤️A Siren's Lullaby 💙🔱 (Sonic x Shadow) (au)

The Melody of death

Shadow

I stared at the empty stage in the bar while Silver and Big chatted.

We were at some bar in the town and I had a bottle of rum clenched in my fist.
Rouge had taken Cream off to the marketplace and Sarah had gone to find more medic supplies with Honey.
Gadget, Midnight, and Omega, went to go find more tools and artillery supplies for the ship.
Big had already gotten food stocked up easily and Silver really only needed some stitching tools since, along with being the navigator, he was kinda the ship's seamstress.

Now here I was with the two of them at a table in the crowded bar.
I stared blankly at the stage but listened to the conversation around me.

The two men behind me had a conversation that caught my interest.

"Ya'hear about the Siren people keep seeing around here?" Asked one of them.

"Yeah they said some people keep seeing a siren on the west shore. Maybe we should go there sometime and see if we can catch it!" Chuckled the other.

I huffed and rolled my eyes.

It was probably just some big fish that people were freaking out about.
Sirens weren't real.

If they were then that would mean we have to fear their melody of death.

The melody of death was what they called the voices of sirens that sung sailors to the rocks and to crash their ships. The stories were that they feasted on the corpses of the sailors who died and crashed on the rocks, and that if you wore a siren scale around your neck you were immune to their song.

I didn't believe it though. I think it was just a silly story to explain incompetent sailor's crashes.

I then heard the bar talking, quiet down to a mumble as a woman in an elegant red and purple dress walked on stage.

The piano started to play as she sang an old sea song, "My Jolly Sailor Bold"

Her song filled the bar and I closed my eyes.

I could practically feel the vibrant hum of the song all around the bar, as all eyes were on her.

I closed my eyes and breathed softly.

Silver and Big mumbled something amongst themselves but I didn't care too much about whatever they spoke.

The world around seemed to blur out and all I could clearly hear was the singing.

She eventually ended the song and the piano started to play another one, one I knew too well.

"This one's a bit of a classic, but I'm sure you all know it." She said, charmingly, out to the bar.

It was the Black Sea lullaby again...

I groaned as she started to sing and pressed my forehead against the table.

I was sick of that song.
I was sick of just even someone mentioning it.

"Cap? You alright?" Asked Big.

"I'm fine...I-I'm just...ugh, I need some air." I said, standing up, still clutching my bottle of rum in my fist.

I turned and headed towards the door, past tables and some people looked at me like I was crazy.

I rolled my eyes and stepped outside.

The cool wind blowing on my face. I could smell the sea and the salt of the ocean.

I walked down towards the shore and set my bottle on a windowsill once I finished it off.

I continued walking, watching the stars in the sky.

That song haunted me. It haunted my dreams and I couldn't get rid of it.

My dreams with them had been as confusing as it was as well.

Every dream, I saw myself floating in dark waters, eyes closed, as figures swam in the darkness around me.

My mother would always tell me that I had a sixth sense for these kinds of things, but I thought they're just strange dreams, not omens.

I listened to the sounds of the town around me as I walked down the path to the shore.

The jingle of carts and the distant muttering of gossiping ladies and the far away drunk singing of men.

I sighed and looked up at the stars.

It was a beautiful night, as the candles lit the pathways through the village. The sky was clear and I got closer to the shore, I could see a thin layer of misty fog over the ocean.

I loved the ocean, it was one of the things that brought me joy.
The sea was a beauty but she always rose up to my expectations with challenge.
Being able to feel the wind in my quills and the salty sea mist against my face breathed life into me and my ship.

The crew all enjoyed it was well.
'Twas the life pirate.

The ocean was our friend, and we never dare part from it.

And that ship we sailed wasn't just a ship, it was home. The Cursed Pearl was everything to me and if it ever went down then I'm sure as hell going down with it.

I had no attachment to anyone anymore.
My father knows the risks it means to be a pirate, and my mother knows I may not come back home one day. Rouge knows that if I die she's gonna become captain, and I had no lover I owed my life to stay.

Many women over the years had sought my affection, but to be honest, I never really swung that way.
For some reason I never found attraction to women.

At first I thought I wasn't attracted to anyone at all but then there was this young sailor I met that I may have swooned over for some time.

Then I found out he was only showing interest in me because he was working for Mephiles as a spy.

I've never trusted anyone with my romantic love ever again.

I walked down by the harbor and then hopped up onto a lone abandoned barrel, looking out on the dark, moonlit sea.

It was nice like this.
Nights like this one reminded me of Maria...

My dear deceased sister...
I wondered if her spirit watched the sea on nights like this one too.

It was quiet and I could hardly hear any town from this spot.
I liked it that way.

I sighed and hummed contentedly.

But then I heard something.

It sounded like faint screeching, like an animal in pain.

I sat up and looked towards a darker shore in the distance.
The noise was coming from there.

I squinted and I swear I could see a form jerking around and moving like it was entangled in something.

I jumped off the barrel and headed towards the beach.

It was probably some animal caught in a fisherman's net, that had washed up on shore.
And there was shame in letting it die.

I walked over the cobblestone and towards the wooden dock down to the beach. I walked down the steps and the darkness was a little less blurry.

Something was definitely there, and it was hissing and screeching and making clicking noises.
Ones I didn't recognize from any animal.

I climbed down the steps and looked up onto the shore, expecting to see some dolphin or maybe an angry wet cat.

Then my heart stopped, when I locked my gaze with a pair of feral emerald eyes.

It was no animal.
It was a mobian, a hedgehog one, but they didn't have legs.
They had a fish like tail in place of those...

They were tangled up in a net, and hissed angrily.

No this wasn't a mobian.

This was a siren.