THE LAST TIME I’D witnessed this powerplay, I was still a human- one who grieved over her lost brother- and Aven, a siren- one who simply wanted to become human even at the cost of another life. Times, however, have changed, and we no longer belong to either of the races. 

The midnight blue shadows enveloping Victor’s body start from his abdomen, tying him with his arms and continuing down his legs like vines creeping up a building, flickers, and I snapped back from shock. “Stop!” I yell at Aven. “What the hell do you think you are doing?!”

Aven’s eyes meet mine, and they no longer carry traces of anger but are vast and hesitant, a little stubborn,  hinting vulnerability. The sight pains my heart but at the same time makes a satisfied heat form in it. My mind begins humming. It seems to sing something in my ears: Go ahead, Clara. Claim him as yours. 

That’s what you want, right?

“Ugh-” I grip my head. The voice continues singing to me, whispering tempting notes repeatedly, all involving that man looking at me in understanding. He looks…guilty. 

But I am not in a position to determine his emotions, I am in a hurry to stabilize myself from whatever was happening to me. From the look in his eyes, it is probably some siren side effect. 

The flickering of the shadows continues as I observe it with my half-lidded eyes. “Stop it, Aven.” I manage to command. 

Aven laughs and looks down at Victor and then at me. “You want me to let go off this bastard who doesn’t know his place?” He laughs mirthlessly. “Never, sweetheart. He dares put his hands on what is mine. I despise it when people claim what is mine as theirs.”

I glare at him. “I told you to fucking stop.”

Aven falters. “You-”

Maybe he senses that I am starting to get irritated and decides that is enough, but I could feel that a part of him stubbornly holds on to the hope that I won’t protest and let him have his way with Victor. He couldn’t be more wrong. 

My glare becomes colder and harsher, and Aven pales in comparison on noticing something, and so does Bastian, who looks troubled by everything. Amid the staring competition, Victor falls with a thud, choking and gasping for a gulp of air. 

“Victor!”

I break the eye contact and rush to Victor, along with Bastian. I gather him in my arms and sit on the floor so that I can rest his head on my lap. “Breathe, Victor,” I instruct. “Follow my lead, alright? Slowly, yeah, like that. Now let go-”

Aven scoffs. His eyes look down at Victor with such distaste I didn’t know he could muster. His brows are knitted together in a frown, the usual azure eyes the same shade as those shadows from before. 

“The fuck are you scoffing for? You nearly killed him!” I yell at him. 

Victor coughs violently. “What- what the hell is he?” 

Bastian sighs. Jeoghan avoids eye contact with him and instead stares into mine. They try to unravel my thoughts bit by bit. I couldn’t feel it before, but now I do. Stop staring asshole. 

Aven squints, obviously displeased. Bastian rushes a hand through his auburn hair and speaks. “It’s…complicated.”

He finally takes pity on the man lying down, peering up at us, searching for answers. “Remember the book where we read about Cameron’s forever obsessions?”

“Warena’s-” he coughs, “tears?”

Bastian shakes his head slowly. “No. Origin of Sirens.”

Sensing the air shift around us, I help Victor sit up straight. He smiles at me in appreciation and turns to Bastian, confused. 

“What about it?”

Bastian licks his lips, red and parted and answers with an awkward smile. “Well, you see, he is a siren.”

None of us breaks the silence that prevails between us like the shadow from before, one that threatened to break out necks or kill us from asphyxiation. Instead, we all waited for one to respond, for Victor to respond, for getting our secret revealed was neither mine nor Aven’s plan. Unless Aven never had intended to keep it a secret from the very beginning. 

I stilled. “How the hell did you find out?” I ask Bastian. 

He laughs in embarrassment. “It sort of clicked?” He meets my eyes and frantically waves his hands in the air. “Don’t worry, it was not him. I found it on my own.”

I narrow my eyes. “How?”

He raises his perfectly shaped brow at me. “I mean- you guys were all over the place with your hiding. And everything just made sense when observed properly,” he shrugs. “That’s all to it.”

“You are not bothered by that fact at all?” I feel torn by his answer, so I try again. “About everything?” Especially the part where I lied to your faces?

Bastian extends his palm towards me and ruffles my hair, making a mess of it. My normally wavy hair becomes a tangled mess because of his actions, but I find it hard to bring myself to be angry because of it

 “Silly girl. I could never be mad at you.” he stops smiling and squints his eyes. “Why the hell are your eyes sparkling blue right now?”

My eyes widened in shock.

 Oh no.

 I glance at Aven for help and find myself at a loss for words when I notice his eyes have turned into a beautiful shade of brown- the colour of the wooden antiques that Cameron makes- yet again. 

Bastian and Victor follow my gaze and gasp in surprise at the sight presented to them. Bastian swiftly twists his neck and inquires me with his harsh gaze, trying to pry me open the casket of answers that I won’t provide him. “Clara, what the hell is going on?” Victor decides to ask instead. His voice is heavy and raspy, a little slurry on the side, possibly the remnants of the previous incident. 

I glance down at my fingers, and there it is. Scales- azure in colour- glowing and dimming simultaneously, maps my entire skin with no intention of disappearing anytime soon. I frown. But we didn’t even kiss-

“Clara?” Bastian taps on my shoulder, and I jolt awake. 

“Uh, yeah?”

“You didn’t answer me,” he states. Gulping, I nodded. “I- will explain. How about we go to the living room, hm? After all,” I glance up at the neatly piled up mountain of orange slices. “I haven’t fed you orange juice now, have I?”

The men look at each other in contemplation. It is Bastian who decides that’s enough. He rises from the floor with his palms pressing down on his firm thighs. “Well, need any help?”

“No. The juicer will do its work.” I say, and watch him nod. Bastian helps me up and speaks at the same time, “Don’t put anything in the juice. Just bring a bottle of honey with you. We’ll pour the required amount on our own.”

I roll my eyes. “I hope the juice is sweeter than what I make for you.”

Bastian laughs. “God! I hope not.”

An eternity later, I return with four glasses of orange juice on a wooden tray. Stretching from the nookmost corner of the platter is a climbing mass of ivy painted with the most auspicious shade of lustrous yellow and sap green. It pans to almost an entirity of the platter- a creation of my own. 

During desperate hours of waiting, you ought to pick up new hobbies and habits. Around a year ago, during Cameron’s visit at a friend’s residence on the nearby island, I received this discarded promotional paper for a newly opened pottery shop. 

I picked up pottery and artistry back then and tried applying them to Cameron’s creations. Every time I drew something on his creations, even something as simple as a petal or a lonely stray leaf, Cameron’s copper brown eyes would shimmer in delight. It occasionally ruined the original work’s beauty, but I found myself doing it a lot, enjoying myself in the process until Cameron begged me to stop. And as things naturally are, my adoration towards that hobby of mine was simply ephemeral. 

Victor and Bastian’s visits to our home didn’t start yesterday. They began way back in time when we were just children. How Cameron picked up the duo remains a mystery to me, for both men are older than my brother by age; if anything, Victor was closer to his age while Bastian was to mine. 

I hand over the glasses to them, each carrying traces of my creative spur. I had taken the old glasses from the cupboard, for no one would dare take them, but I was wrong. The moment Bastian’s eyes fell on the glass, he claimed it as his own, and Cameron fought for it only to settle for another one, and naturally, Victor chose the remaining glass with flushed cheeks. 

I hand over a glass to Aven, one that is free of such artistry. Cameron always took the glass with him for his trips, and I never made an effort to draw on any other glass from then. Aven seems to be thinking of the details on the glass but doesn’t voice it. 

“So,” Starts Bastian. Victor waits for the older man to speak, taking his sweet time sipping the juice. “Now, care to explain what’s going on?”

Aven and I share a glance, prompting the other to speak up. We might’ve only been together for a month and a half, but it feels as though we’ve known each other for more years than we could count with our fingers. Familiarity and ease unusually surrounded Aven, for all he does is threaten my existence by all means. The time we spent together is enough for me to gauge what he is expecting to do. 

I exhaled sharply, feeling the rush of air outside my body taking away the pain and doubt clouding my system together with it. 

“Uh, you two are familiar with the tale of the origin of sirens, right?” I gulp. “As Bastian have said before, Aven is a siren. Or half siren, I don’t know anymore. We met one night after Cameron’s disappearance. I was lonely and…tired, so I went to the sea for a walk where we had a…moment. Like the tale suggests, he is back on land to complete his quest of becoming a human.”

Victor glares at Aven. “Oh, and how exactly is he planning to do so?”

Silence. I moistened my lips using my tongue and glanced at Aven for help. He is not even looking at me when he starts, “The same way as the story states.”

“You mean by-” Bastian starts, with his eyes wide.

Victor completes. “-Kissing?”

I scratch my scalp in frustration. “Yeah.”

“And you let him?”

I look away. “It was not like I had an option to avoid it.”

“Clara, you do know what happens when a siren kisses you according to the tales, right?” Victor inquires, getting agitated. 

“I know.”

It is Bastian who speaks next. “Clara- pardon me for butting in but” he stops. “You have kissed him, haven’t you?”

I flush red at his question. “I’m sorry.”

A fist slams down the glass table, the loud thud startles all of us. Victor glares at Aven. “You fucking-”

Bastian senses the shift in his mood and places a hand on his body, preventing him from moving. “Don’t.” He warns additionally. “It is shocking to hear that, Clara, but I don’t get it. You both are still human-”

“About that-”

“We are not.” Aven cut me off. Sipping on the orange juice as if we are not discussing matters concerning him and me, he voices his thoughts smoothly. “We both are stuck in mid-transformation.” He shrugs. “It is not possible but not impossible either. I can still use my powers while Clara remains mostly human with slight siren appearances. It becomes prominent when she is in distress:” he takes my hand in his own and tilts it to show the men. Azure blue scales rapidly grow on my skin, and I try to retract my hand in an attempt to hide. But what needs to be seen is already seen. 

“See. Water, mostly sea water, is what keeps us true to our nature as a siren. Clara cannot hold on for so long for her siren self is manifesting itself by passing seconds and likewise I am losing mine.”

“How can you be so sure?” Bastian’s voice is rough and full of emotion as he asks it. 

Jeoghan’s blue eyes fall on me. “The eyes. They changed colours; you saw it too, didn’t you?” he takes another sip of the orange juice while holding my gaze. “Siren’s depending on their nature, develop contributing powers. Mine is that shadow vine. Hers must be mind control.” he slams the glass down on the table. The pebbles inside the glass shake by the force and make a rattling sound. 

“She managed to enter my mind and alter my actions after all.”

I scoff in retaliation. Can you be more ridiculous?

“Is there any way out?” Victor asks through gritted teeth. “To stop this transformation for once and for all?” His fists are clenched on his lap, squeezing and unclenching, carving his nails into his palms. 

“We are looking for it,” I say absently. “We are not sure if it will work out in our favour, but it might be our only way.”

“What are you two planning to do?” Bastian asks, defeated. I look down while Aven answers. “We find someone to transfer the curse onto."

“What the-”

“Think about it- it works to our favour. Another person apart from Clara can be a vessel for the curse freeing us both from it leading us to a perfect ending.”

Victor sneers. “You don’t mean to bring down some innocent person with you, do you?”

Aven doesn’t falter, instead, he looks straight into his eyes and says, “If it is needed, then yes. And as far as I understand”, he smiles sweetly, “our situation suggests that we do it, doesn’t it?”

An eerie silence follows his statement. I feel two pairs of eyes upon me, scratching my skull and squeezing my throat for desperate answers. “Clara,” It is Bastian who speaks this time. “Tell me you didn’t agree to it.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Please.”

My heartbeat is supposed to be thrumming violently against my ribcage by now, but it is oddly silent inside my flesh. Too calm. Way too serene. 

“I’m sorry.”

And just like that, the tranquil glass layer of protection bestowed upon me by my closest aids is shattered and reduced to mere sand and dust.