Syrena

let the water take me

It was strange for the siren not to be still. So long had she stayed in one pool or another, moving only enough to find a new nest every now and again (and with that new nest, new prey). What a strange thing to go from being the hunter to the hunted, though there were few predators around here. Only her own mind, and the constant lapping of the sea that brought with it too many memories.

Still she comes back to the water’s edge. Time and time again.

Though lately, she has been here less. Lately, she has been trying to live the way normal horses do. Picking a rank (crafting, she thinks), building things with her own two feet. It was a far cry from the beautiful monster she once was. It was a far cry from be beautiful monster she still wanted to be.

In the Falls, unless she was hiding in a pool somewhere, she wasn’t even beautiful. Just gray, with her wet, seal-like coat. One patch of her mane was stained pink and purple from the charm that sweat water, but otherwise, she is so little of the mare she once was. This place. This cursed, miserable place.

Her muscles still ached from building that roof. Yes, she’s built something, and yes, there was some pride in that. But mostly, she was miserable. She wanted to be herself again, though that was not even a remote possibility. She wanted not to ache, and that at least, would come in time. She wanted so many things she would not have.

And like always, when she finds her mood slipping, she comes back to the sea. Even though it reminds her of all she has lost, still, there’s a comfort to the water. Today, she plunges in, swimming the length from the shoreline to the Isles that lay beyond. She needs to forget, needs to pretend if only briefly that she is still a siren, still all that she was born to be.

When she surfaces, a mare on the edge of the Isle catches her attention. This mare is stunning in the way Syrena is not. Her coat is that of a seahorse, colored with sand and lines of bright aqua. Jealousy hits like a punch. Syrena has never been one for mares, really (her life had been about luring stallions to their death, after all, and she was better with them), but this one? This one looked like everything Syrena dreamed of being.

Still, she cannot help the small bit of curiosity that stirs as well. Why? Because this mare seems like her, a creature of the water, forced to live on the land. They were not made for it, and yet they did. The gray mare crosses the rest of the distance, her body now a swirl of greens and blues in the cold water. Here, in the sea, she is beautiful. It is the only time.

She emerges on the shore not far from the other, the color slowly fading from her body as the water drips away, returning her to gray. “Hello,” she says to the mare, who’s eyes are downcast on the water, a stance that Syrena is all too familiar with. Not that she can know what’s going on in that mare’s mind – perhaps she’s just tired – but still, she rather likes to believe she’s not the only miserable soul tethered to the earth. Misery loves company, after all.

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