Veya

(set to 'No Time For Caution' -Hans Zimmer )
There was a pause. Too long for a breath. A pause as pregnant as the sudden dropping of hearts into stomachs. The men glanced from their positions upon the deck at the captain and she held back a grimace as she quietly muttered. "Come on girl. Come on..."
But no sound came.
"First mate." "Aye captain. On my way."
The woman jumped off the helm and onto the deck shouting orders to the crew. Orders that were half followed as all eyes remained fearfully on the captain. The first mate descended into the bowels of the ship to the resonant chamber and pipe organ. Salabrina could picture how her feet skipped stairs on the way down. She envisioned how quickly she could get there and the first mate was just as fast.
There was no sound.
The abyssal clouds around them began to glisten and darken. The air turning sharp with the fear of her and her crew as the clouds themselves of this warping plane began to turn on them. A storm was coming. The first mate had to have made it there by now.
There was no sound.
So with a click of her boots she turned to the blanch faced helmsman. Her sable skin brushing past him to the wheel. The work of runeforging lighting up at her touch as she looked at the various holographic displays. Pressure was good, all systems were green. The system wasn't broken. So the problem was worse. The siren was at her limit. It was a longer path through the abyss but they were so close to Atlantis. A brush of the captains hand over some of the rune-forged technology and the helmsman retook the wheel, his eyes on her just like the crew.
And then there was sound.
Not the sweet sirenic voice they all enjoyed. It was the guttural pain of rasping vocal cords and of the organ, of crystal shuddering with sound. Of a system running on fumes as it's musician and care-taker was. Of imminent doom and escape. The drow felt her blood run cold as she began to bellow orders. The crew no longer looked fearfully to her for direction. They threw themselves at their tasks. The same cold grip of fear held all their hearts as the abyssal storm began to swallow them. The siren's organ and rasping voice barely keeping the ship together. They had to escape. They were so close. This was no place to die. This was no time for caution.

To be born Siren is to crawl across the sands as a newborn, from the communal clutches of eggs overseen by both Aria and Siren. To be Siren is to be urged with every inch forward until welcomed amongst the embrace and song of the Sirens in the shallows. It is to be lead by the hand to their cities and coral vales, to grow in a village of communal caring and song.

Veya grew as many Siren, her song was sweet, her hair grew longer by the year, a flowing trail in the water behind her. Her temperment was kind, her wit as sharp as the teeth of her omnivorous species. She grew amidst a people caught between the shallows and the deep, the surface and the sea floor. Sirens were akin to an uncivilized tribe in the eyes of land-based humanoids, in their cities and towns and buildings. The fact that sirens had little to give beyond their songs, gatherings, and trinkets only further enforce this notion. However, the sirens still make their place amongst the ports known and, especially amongst sailors and for festivals to the titans of myth, they are venerated.

Veya herself, upon coming of age was brought with other volunteers of her kind to a festival of the titan Apollo. The great titan of sun, music, medicine, and poetry was to be honored and Sirens, their songs nigh unmatched, were often trecked across the land in water-filled 'cages' before being allowed into the pristine waters of the pool in the Titan's greatest temple. Once there, after being confined for so long, they were allowed to play and enjoy the supposedly magical waters that bestowed even greater ability to sing and charm other humanoids.

Once there, the Sirens would, at the sound of the festival beginning, emerge amidst the pool, tantalizing festival goers and singing songs of praise to the titan. Other, bawdy and crowd-pleasing songs would be shared, often taught to the sirens by sailors and enshrined by oral tradition alongside more serious compositions.

All the festivities would however, come to a head when the Titan himself graced the festivities. Forming together in a chorus, the playful sirens would become somber and sing together, weaving a song of praise and beauty specially composed for a time such as this. If Apollo found their offering pleasing, the sirens could be sent home with riches and the titans favor.

But among the clarion voices, among their beautiful faces Appollo's glowing eyes fell upon one in paricular. Her hair raven black, her eyes so blue they threatened to put the sky to shame. Her name was Veya. And as there are myths of Apollo's infatuation coming to unseemly ends, so to did Veya's time at the festival.

The titan invited the siren enter the temple and so she did, born upon a litter by Apollo's temple priests. Once in a room alone with the titan, he bade her play his lyre. So massive was it to the siren, it was more of a harp. Still, the titan bid her play a solo as it had been too long since he had been given such a pleasure by a mortal.

Veya faltered and instead, begged a compromise. She believed herself unable to truely play his instrument well enough and so asked what sacrifice she could give for the wisdom and ability he desired for his task. Apollo was pleased by her humility and agreed. In return for an eye she would recieve wisdom and musical ability few could hope to have. Veya instead reasoned aloud that if such musical ability could be granted for one eye, would not the titan of the Sun desire her give both eyes to be the best? Apollo was only further pleased and profured a hand. Veya herself gave up her eyes willingly into the palm of a titan and, as they turned into a golden dust in his fingers, her gently tilted her head back and annointed her head with the sand. As the sand cascaded through her hair and over her empty eye-sockets, the wounds healed and she was imbued with tremendous inspiration.

Blinded, Veya began to strum the lyre, testing the cords by hand as Apollo waited as patient as the mountain before the shortlivedness of the wind. But as Veya plucked at the strings with her claw-like hands, a song came to mind. A songbird's symphony. A work of pure life and inspiration flowed from her fingers and the lyre and cause the titan to surge with the light of the very sun and illuminate the room. So pleased was he with her playing that whenever the song flagged and Veya sought to draw it to a close, he bid her continue.

The light of the sun titan scorched the room with heat, uncomfortably drying the skin of the aquatic musician. And yet Veya continued, the song and notes swinging between melancholic and fiercely energetic, manic and depressive, slow and frantic. But as she played, the lyre grew hot in her hands. This solo became a concert but, eventually, Apollo bid her to finish. The final crescendo of Veya's song blackened her claw-like fingers as they played the strings win an dizzying speed.

When she was done, she wept in pain for her hands and Apollo thanked her for her offerings. A warm, comforting, body-encompassing hand lay on her back before scooping her up and bringing her to his breast. The titan pressed a finger to her forehead, still dusted with gold, and gave her true inspiration. Her mind filled with the magical means to make a magical device, an organ of notes and tones of her voice. Never would she have to play a lyre again, instead her beatific voice could be a very real instrument. The magical organ of her dreams.

Apollo then bid her leave, lest he keep her as a songbird. As she was carried away by the priests, she heard the shutter of a magical orb, the same kind she could clearly picture in her mind and would eventually build. Her song had been magically recorded and, as the priests carried her from the temple to the cheers of the festival, the song encompassed the temple grounds, silencing all with the beauty of the work.

Veya would be treated as a hero, her tribe showered with more gifts than any festival before. Her wounds would heal and she would be nicknamed 'the suntouched' for the beauty of her compositions and help in preparing the choirs to other festivals. But eventually, she left the safety of home for an adventurous life. A pirate in search of braving the abyssal sea had need of a siren and Veya had an aching need to build the object of her inspiration, the Crystal Organ.


It is said that Apollo still listens to Veya's song on occasion, though the song is so eerily beautiful and magically charged none of his priests ever remember hearing it before. A favorite amongst a wall of similar voices of the blessed, a record well worn.