The Wicked Siren

Prologue

You know? He wasn't human.

He was the son of a creature of Faerie and a mermaid, and as such he showed to the whole world his lack of human blood.

He had eyes of the purest blue: the colour of the southern shallow waters where he was born, the crystalline colour the sea assumes on rocky coastlines, when blue fades in azure and in white and in green.

But his eyes lacked the white around the iris, and thin ribbon-like bands lined those pools of marine waters, like waves crested with foam.

He had hair of the colour of sand, which seemed to have a life of its own like dunes top swept by the wind, soft like silk to the touch.

But shiny green and black seaweed grew in his golden mane, intertwining with his blonde wisps.

He had complexion of the colour pearls, like the rosy and bluish inside of shells, and no flaw disfigured him.

But by the joint of his limb and where the skin was softer, it could be seen how this was replaced by tiny scales.

He had long and elegant hands, able to stroke and brush the world around him with incredible gentleness.

But translucent membranes linked his fingers together, like the ones who linked his toes.

He wasn't too tall; but he was slim, with broad shoulders and a well-toned chest, his arms and legs a rare harmony of strength and weightlessness.

But two pair of gills opened on the sides of his neck, vertical membranes quivering in contact with air, and along his spine there was a broad spiked fin, and two thinner ones ran along the outside of his thighs.

He was called François, "free man", by his mother, who couldn't keep him with her because he wouldn't have survived in the ocean; and he was called Bonnefoi, "good faith", by his father, who had left him among humans because he couldn't take an half-blood child with him in Faerie.

~::*::~::*::~

In part, this is his story.

François' story, about how his desire of knowing who he was and what his role on this world was led him into temptation.

For you know, my story begins when François discovered the difference between Living and Existing.

It begins the day he met a person able to read his soul with just one glance of his green eyes, it begins when this stranger made the half-blood's heart beat for the very first time.

And yet it's also the story of Arthur Kirkland, of how he offered François what he most craved for, like a snake offering with a smile a prohibited fruit to a naive passerby.

I'll tell you how this pirate feared in all the Seven Seas wrapped himself in secrets, and how François got so attracted by his nature, and why.

But it's also the story of... No, I won't tell you about him

I won't tell you who's the key of the whole story, who will, with his sole coming on stage, shatter all François' dreams and fulfil all Arthur's ones.

What? You want a "and they lived happily ever after"?

A piece of advice, then.

Don't get attached to François.

Listen to me as I tell you his story, but don't pity him, don't try to understand his feelings, don't accepts his decisions, don't empathize with his love and pain.

Because I can assure you he won't get a happy ending.

So... Sit down, children. Hand me that bottle of rum, and I'll tell you a story...