Siren's Silence

Chapter 14: A Father's Request

Siren

  I sat on a boulder by the beach front, watching the water as the sun began to creep over the eastern wall of the island. My mind meandered from topic to topic, never ceasing. Always in the back, was Alvah. I was constantly wondering what he was going to do, how long it would be before he found us. How long would this place remain safe? How long could I balance satisfying the pirates whose support allowed me to journey the seas freely, remaining untouched by foreign Navies, and fighting Alvah, all while keeping Haven safe and secret? It was becoming harder by the month. Now the foreign powers were no longer satisfied with leaving the Griffin as an enigma, they wanted to know whose side I was on, if any. Alvah's spies were becoming more common and more clever. The pirates were demanding my presence more frequently and becoming more hostile at my continued successful plundering of Edon's infamous watercraft, a lucrative venture that they wanted a part in the profits of. They had become too comfortable, forgetting that without my help, they, like every other watercraft traveling these seas, would suffer the Wolf ships' wrath and that this plunder was my price, my payment for keeping them safe.

Meat tumbled from the high cliffs into a mass of black maws ringed with sharp teeth. There was once a time where I shuddered at this eerie sight. Now, there was a certain dark beauty to it. After all, the world of pirates and scoundrels looked much the same, though less honest. Kelpies showed you what they were before they killed you, a scoundrel would not be so kind. You would feel their knife between your ribs, look back and still see the same face. You would die, never truly knowing what killed you.

My eyes met with the grey orbs of one of the carnivorous beasts, a leg of beef trapped between its lethal teeth. I gave it a respectful nod. It tossed its meal in the air and swallowed it whole, answering with an alien scream. Its tail splashed the surface, driving it underwater.

"Let the Celebration of the Kelpies begin," I thought.

•~•~•~•~•

I was back on my rock as the sun reached its zenith. My whip lay by my side along with a staff that I had made during the feeding hours that morning. I was the watchdog, the extra enforcement should anyone or anything decide to overstep its bounds. I had yet to have a situation where the staff and whip were necessary, but I always kept them for the same reason I donned my sword during the Celebration of the Mermaids: just in case.

The Kelpies had a set order. The elders kept the youths in check and the youngest remained by their mothers. It was only the mature creatures who were left to themselves that I had to worry about. The Kelpies had set up a tail of sorts for me to assist in dealing with these beasts. One elder would join me by the rock and accompany me whenever I moved, generally assuming that I had noticed something that needed to be taken care of.

The elders were the first to surface. Their age and experience made them the least risky. I assumed there was some milestone they reached to become "elders", but I had never discovered what it was. All I knew was that there were relatively few of them. Only a little over two dozen would arrive every year and I already knew most of them.

The Kelpies took shape from a large wave that crashed onto the beach, their white equine forms defining themselves once free of the turbulent water. Each looked over at me and gave a slight bow of their elegant head, a sign of respect which I returned. The last to surface was a stallion named RedTail.

It was he who joined me first. I offered him the bowl of wine beside me, which he accepted. He took a seat on the rock in his human form, a rare thing for his kind to do. I found myself wishing he hadn't. Like most mythological creatures, Kelpies were extremely attractive and RedTail was no exception. He looked young. Were he human, he'd be in his early twenties. He was reddish tan with long black hair, his prominent cheekbones and thick brows framed a pair of dark, piercing eyes. He had a defined, slightly rounded face and wore no shirt, leaving his muscled torso exposed. A pair of pure white pants covered his legs, but his wide feet were bare. He radiated heat and the salty fragrance of the ocean.