Siren (SIGH-ren)

Silvery, Broken Dreams

Written by J. L. Gryphon

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Ambient sounds courtesy of tosha73 and EminYILDIRIM

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Greetings to those below. I am Death, though Azrael is the name I hope you know me by. Today, I will do something a little different. Today I will tell you a story, a fairytale, and you can decide for yourself how much of it is real and how much of it is fantasy.

With that in mind, perhaps this should go in the myths section, but then again, it is as I said last time. The sirens are not exactly real, except even something imagined has the power to hurt you if you believe in it enough. So then, along with my story.

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A Sailor's Dream

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by ImaArtist from Pixabay

Once upon a time, there was a sailor who dreamed of love. But in his search for it, he had dabbled in darker things that earned him a curse. The day he found love, the curse said, would be the day he died. Which is why every day he set sail, he would dream of beautiful women and the life he might lead with them, only to imagine heartbreak and violence at its end.
Alas the fated day came, and he knew it when a beautiful merrow swam to him from the depths. This green beauty beckoned him, saying sweetly in her musical way that she had left home. Her husband was ugly as all merrow men are, and she’d rather not return if she could help it. She offered the sailor her red cap, because if he took it, she would instead belong to him and, in return, love him forever.
The sailor screamed. He fled back to shore telling tales of beautiful monsters tempting men to their watery graves. Everyone laughed at him, of course, but he was so afraid, he believed in it with all his heart. Alas, this was the very thing that sealed his fate.
That night, he dreamed of his evil watery mistress. Like a ghost, the dream floated from his mind and hovered over his bed. Something imagined can still hurt you if you believe in it enough. A water beauty she was, but not the merrow who had loved him. This was a siren, an invention of the sailor’s terror. She was gorgeous, lethal, terrible.

by J. L. Gryphon via Artbreeder

Her scaly tail flashed in the moonlight, her claws flexing with hungry desire over the man’s head, and to let him know she was there, she crooned a silvery song into his ear. The man awoke, screaming anew, and with a wicked grin, she rained the oceans down on his head. The day he found love was indeed the day he . . . drowned.
The curse fulfilled, the siren whisked away to the place all dreams are found. She was going home, but as she followed her tether across the world, she caught a strange sight glinting beneath her. A group of fairies were playing in the starlight, laughing and dancing and feasting as fairies are wont to do. To the siren, though, it wasn’t the food that tempted her. It was the men. After all, that was part of the dream she was. But no, she had to go home, and so she followed her tether toward the star door that would take her there.
But as she was about to enter the land of dreams, a fairy opened the door. Too soon the door opened, and it hit the siren on the head. Instead of entering as she was meant to, she bounced back into the waking world. Her tether snapped. She hissed in pain, but the mistake had been made. Her tail turned silver, the color of broken dreams, a thing that told her she could never go home. Enraged, she launched herself at the fairies, but two of them caught her by the tail and threw her across the world. She landed in those inspiring ocean depths, and her singing shriek echoed long into the night.
More sirens joined her . . . eventually . . . because she had become the marker for all future dreams similar to herself. So she became the siren queen. So the sailor’s curse extended its claws to haunt all men. So the fairies continued laughing and dancing and feasting as fairies are wont to do.

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The End

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by Sergei Tokmakov Terms.Law from Pixabay

And there we have the end of my fairytale. As with all fairytales, there is truth lurking beneath the fantasy. I will be curious to know how much of it you believe, if you believe any of it at all. Then again, perhaps not believing any of it is wisest considering the circumstances. Hmm. I will defer judgment to you on that matter. I am Death, after all, and as such, I cannot dream. Not in the same way, at least.
So, then, I will bid you goodnight, those below. Have a good sleep and . . . sweet dreams.

Signed your storytelling narrator,
Azrael the Star of Death

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Book Information

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To learn more, hop on over to the books page OR hop on over to the teaser and get a sneak peek of Chapter 1! For more articles like this one, have a peek at my Worldbuilding Journal and explore Orosta.

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Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Merrow
• Tressian

Lifespan

Immortal

Average Length

10’0″ feet long (tail included)

Geographic Distribution

• Altyma
• The Aeternus Sea

Related Organizations

• The Cult of Azrael

Languages Spoken

• The Deep Language (native)
• Faolainn (original)
• Orostian (worldwide)

Brought Into Being by
A sailor's dream