Sometime ago. States away.


Above her - them, a shape moves, gently rocking as oars propel the vessel forwards. Anticipation rushes through the rest of the Song. She sees a song-sister grin, equal parts delight and menace, dark hair floating around her, before darting away, her fins tailing after her, even as they allow her the speed and manoeuvrability required of all of the members of the Song.

Before long the Song-hoard was beneath and around the little boat, before long the Song began to sing.

Before long, the men in the boat were lured away from the safety of their little dingy. Before long they’ll be swallowed by the Deep, drowning, dying, dead.

She wakes with a craving, but no memory, only the lingering sting of sea-salt in her eyes.

It takes her a moment, but eventually she sits up and swings her legs over the edge of her bed, pausing to look at them. Two sticks of flesh and bone, muscle and tendons, she flexes her toes.

Then on steady legs she makes her way to the kitchen, with the lights still off, she blinks, momentarily blinded as she opens the fridge. Reaching in for a ziplock of sandwich meat - turkey - she pulls the sliced meat out, staring at it dully, and tears into it. Turning the slices into raggedly torn strips.

A moment between stillness and action, she brings a strip to her mouth, and then another and another, and another, all the while trying desperately to convince herself that she didn’t wish it was another, different, better all together forbidden kind of meat.