Under The Sea

Chapter Three

Siren Song

Vast and blue. Waves lulled around eachother, the water dancing with itself in a way that was ancient. The open ocean was just that, broad open water, schools of fish swam through the water, traveling and eating what they could. Dolphins made passes through the water, sharks did as well. Pods of open ocean mer, quite nomadic and rebellious mer, traveled through the various seas. Migration was their way of life.

Seduction was Jewel's way of life.

She sat perched upon a rock, allowing the warm air to surround her while the sun beat down onto her skin, and heat up the stone beneath her. Jewel loved the sunshine. She loved feeling her skin pinken under the rays, and her already red hair to grow lighter and develop fiery yellow highlights. Jewel knew she was attractive, she was the epitome of beauty. Her tail glimmered in the sunlight, scales shades of maroon and red, light pinks and oranges reflected the light perfectly. Everything about Jewel complimented her, even her eyes. Golden in color and cold to look at, but she was entrancing. No human man could resist this mermaid, like they couldn't resist others of her kind. Technically, she was an open ocean mermaid, but that was in name only. She held that title because of location, but Jewel was the death of the sea: a siren.

Curiously she gazed out, watching the water move rhythmically and hummed along with the deep sound the waves made. It was time Jewel start into her life as a siren, her sole purpose to seduce the loud, drunken men that sail the seas and disrespect her. Their vomit mucked up the waters, their alcohol they spill overboard was poison to the sea life below the surface, and their wild tails of spotting mermaids jumping in and out of the water were just plain dangerous. It was time Jewel picked a sailor, preferably a good looking man who wasn't too vulgar, and reproduce. Same as her mother did before her, and grandmother.

The mermaid sighed as she pondered her future life. No sirens she was friends with knew their human fathers, but part of Jewel longed to know hers. Something had always felt off about her parentage, her mother was beauty personified but the woman always seemed so sad, so heartbroken. She remembered as a little girl, sitting on the rocks with her mother watching her in amazement as she sang out the most lovely sound she had ever heard, but the sadness within her eyes was unmatched. Her mother's songs were always so foreboding, they nearly repelled the sailors instead of calling them in.

Jewel dove back into the water quickly, leaving nothing but a quick splash at the surface, as if she had never existed above the break of the water. She swam deeper through the endless blue, taking a breath in and adjusting her lungs back to the oxygen within the water instead of air.

Emptiness surrounded Jewel as she traveled, she took a route she knew like the back of her hand, passing small fish and the occasional turtle. It was quiet and calming, unlike the chaos sirens are suppose to enjoy and harbor. Something stirred deep within Jewel. She was suppose to be around chaos, just not the type the others were.

She arrived to her destination, a small stone room hidden well within the kelps and seaweeds. This was Jewel's hidden gem of a home. She quickly swam in, hidden from the outside and flicked her fingers at the wicks of each candle scattered around her belongings, igniting them in waterfire. The pink flames illuminated the room clearly for Jewel to admire. The large pirate ship's steering wheel on the wall, from the first ship she took down on her own just three years prior at the young age of thirteen- Jewel was quite the prodigy at siren song. Below the wheel sat a miniature table, adorned with trinkets she collected over her lifetime, some from friends and some from family, some she found while exploring and some she stole from the coat pockets of pirates. Various sea plants grew from the sandy floor of her little abode, granting a pop of color the sandy and grey hues of the walls and flooring.