“ I CAME HERE FOR A REASON,
BUT I DON’T KNOW THE PURPOSE. “

CALLAN resented how the stepping stones of the Spire felt familiar under her heel, more than the shifting sands of her Marionsport shore.
It was almost unsettling, returning to a metropolis that could never betray itself to remain rooted where it was, yet was so wholly similar to how she left it. 

There were more caravans, cottages sprawling throughout lush, green plains that mimicked the rolling sea under the breath of the sky.
Even those same docks, where she had knelt, begging and lamenting for the Siren to forgive their follies against her shores, had grown; sturdier. Steadier. Fishermen coming in and out from the sea with their catches, buoyed by all the exciting minutiae that came with such a simple, consistent life. 

There had been a time that that life was all she had ever wanted; to hear the bed strain against their weight as they pulled their fisher’s boots on, to build callouses dragging heavy nets onboard alongside their fellow fisherman. 

But upon returning to that life after fleeing, stumbling, fucking escaping that city, that Spire - sound had become muted. Time had become cyclical. The ships of Marionsport would head out to sea, testing the Siren’s patience - but would never push out far enough for her to give them a true test of willpower. Of character.  She had swam out to sea each and every morning, desperate for the Siren to overwhelm her, to resuscitate her - to remind her that there was something to be revived. But the call was far, a thread she could barely grasp within her mind.

Only to be heard, clear as a bell, here. That thrumming, vibrant hope that was visible in every journeyman’s gaze, blinded by the light of their blade and their excitement to make something greater than themselves.

That - that was the key constancy when it came to being in this city. And she resented each one of those kindly folk who looked at her with the belief that she deserved it.

That hope was a dangerous substance, one that this city was overflowing with, until it made each civilian drunk with the prospect of a glorious life.

She didn’t want it. She could not want it. To accept that all was forgiven meant it was time to forget. But she wasn’t ready to forget - the world had lifted its punishment, but something within her wanted it to suffer for making her commit the crime in the first place.

What did she want then? Could she still want anything? Was there more to the ache in her chest, the apparent emptiness in her hands?

It seemed only time would tell. She would bide her time then, as she did in that dark, dim cell. She would discern her purpose, perhaps make a new name for herself under the dictates of no one but her own. 

“ AFTER A YEAR - A ONE ROOM HELL. “

CALLAN drew her tunic from the inn room floor, slipping it over her head. A hand went to withdraw her trident and blade thrown haphazardly underneath the bed the night prior; only to find purchase, with the cool, dusty floor of her cell. Not again, she thought to herself, taking a sharp inhale. 

Her other hand went to jostle her resting companion, but her touch met the grimy stone of the dungeon wall. There was a slight, horrid jangle as she looked down at her wrist then. That angry, biting manacle, digging into her wrist -  the plaything of the necromancer and the tool of the warden. 

A controlled exhale breathed from her lips, her gaze extending outwards to the rest of the broken, lonely room. She saw them there, THE MATELOT,  knelt before the edge of jagged, shattered flooring, the other manacle loosely binding their foot to the ground. There, the dark, purple-hued ocean lapped against the stone, cyclical in its flow.

“I know what you’re thinking. I’m wasting time. I’m indulging in mundane whims, responding to baseless instincts.” Callan winced as she lowered her feet onto the cold floor, feeling the grime gather with each step as she moved closer to the being. She moved as close as the chain allowed her to go, kneeling just a foot away from THE MATELOT. They shy away slightly at the warmth, turning to face her.

“It is like you have already forgotten.” Her voice reverberated in her ears, yet the figure’s lips did not move. They brought their knees to their chest. Callan shifted back slightly to allow them space. “Favor has turned its warm face towards you again, but do you remember what it was like to be here? Fed dirty, foul fountain water by the practiced hands that also fed you that immortal’s poison. Consoled, comforted by the woman whose pen condemned us both to this fate, long after you had escaped their walls. Now you bring shame to yourself, sated by the pardon extended by that same hand?”

“You are only upset that I have not spent less time with you. You are only upset that you are not real, wrecking havoc on the world with all the resentment you feel.” CALLAN retorted, turning away with a scowl. The reprieve from the figure’s line of sight was brief, though, as she felt that calloused hand grip her chin, forcing them to meet eye to eye. A blue ocean meeting a blackened, expansive one.

“What you experienced here is real. Your resentment is real. The comforts of a bed warmed by someone who would soon enough leave you cold is not. That is why you are back here - why you come back here, every time you think you find sanctuary elsewhere. Favor, attention - they are cyclical, in the same nature of the waves we adore. Soon enough, you will find yourself in conditions not too different from these. Do you mean to tell me that you forget how quick fortune comes and goes?” The voice was desperate, but THE MATELOT remained placid, resentful in their glare.

“What then? You wish for me to remain anchored here, to not even welcome fortune and folly when it appears at my door? That would be to deny the Siren’s gifts, her generosity - that would be like refusing to go out from the shore, in fear of the very storm that may stir a bountiful, watery harvest just moments after.”

THE MATELOT lurched forward, tackling CALLAN to the ground. Their manacle was gone; instead, it seemed to be bound to her leg this time, the chain drawing her limb prone against the stone. She screamed, attempting to wrestle them off of her. Another chain seemed to snake around her torso.

“Of course not - It is shameful to watch you practice restraint - it has never been your strong suit. Do you remember that fortune bestowed upon you, all those moons ago?” CALLAN sputtered and as the being forced their forearm against her throat.

“That rugged, wild stallion - restrained by mortal hand. You despised your family for sending you to the Spire, to come up with a story worthy of your birthright. That man speaks of you only as a story, one to observe until his eyes glaze over. You bow under the weight of your audience’s gaze, but you wail when they turn elsewhere for their fill of  glory. You are the hand that binds you to this halfway fate.”

“ YOUR AUDIENCE HAS VANISHED.
THEY LEFT WHEN YOU WEREN’T LOOKING. “

“Is that how you wish to live, then? Caught in this endless cycle, performing acts you despise, like a jester to a bored king?” CALLAN lurched forward, slamming her forehead into THE MATELOT’S. They stumbled back, and she leaped upon them, one hand against their throat.

“Or will you become something undeniable? Something so bright, that you will never find yourself here  -with me- again? Become a story, a legend, that the sound of your name, in the tune of your own choosing, becomes insurmountable? Untouchable?”

Blood dripped from both of their noses, with the being’s resembling the churning, blackened liquid of the dream sea behind them. CALLAN groaned as their knee slammed into her gut.

“Just imagine - your life, full and bountiful, as an offering to our lady of the open waves. Her generosity, her blessings, not having gone to waste.”

Two hands grabbed her collar, feeding her to those very waves.

. . .

The dream was over, but she was not back in that small room. She had washed up on the shore, the glittering waves caressing her against the support of the sandy earth. 

A newfound treasure, a crisp pearl within her mind’s grasp.

“ NO ONE EVER LEAVES A STAR. “

" I PRAY TO CATCH YOU WHISPERING
I PRAY YOU CATCH ME LISTENING. "

The GUARDIAN appreciated the anonymity, the predictability of most days. 

Wake at dawn - or whenever the babe woke first; tend to the child, tend to the netting. Bind the child at one's breast or one's back, whichever ached less from the night's repose. Lace up the boots, sweep the floors from the granules of sand brought in from the night before. Though the shore out the window looked nothing like the glassy waves of Marionsport, they were steady. Consistent. Cyclical. Predictable.

She grunted as her knees lowered onto the sand, one hand kept on the bundle against her chest - chest, this morning - as she lowered her head as much as she can towards the mouth of the tidal pool, the sacrilegious site where she had lost all her faith - in herself, in her Siren. Behind her, her footprints remained, slight indentations in the sand that were sure to be wiped away with the cool winds soon enough, time still in the clutches of Frostfall. 

A small cry escaped from her form - though not of her own lips, interrupted in their utterance of the spoken hymn she had decided upon in their walk towards this contradictory site - one that contained the Siren's multitudes, yet left her empty at the remembrance of the Fey that tempted her. The wintry winds, she mused, were no suitable for a child - and if she were to admit it, those winds had a way of penetrating her armored skin.

Glancing up at the sky, where the sun had only began to make its ascent past the clouds, the FISHERMAN ruled that there would still be some time before the first boats rolled out for the day's catch. With a hum, she made her way to stand, brushing off her form before they began their trek west of the Spire, up along the coast.

She tried to ignore the slight heave within her breath as they made the walk along the shore and she recounted those warmer days, her wiry form warring against interlopers within the waters. Day's labor and bearing the babe outside of her body were all she could do these days to retain this form. One marred by affection, divinely etched - one that slept calmly and soundlessly, angst poured out from her cup and into the basin of the one from her dreams, returned in the form of a plain feather. A fishing spear overly sharpened for war and glory, dulled once more for the piercing of fish.

And soon enough, the decaying proof of man's folly came into view - the shipwreck of the Alimony's Due. Her free hand flexed for want of the holy trident, now shoved away in the back of her closet of fishing paraphernalia, having rationalized that perhaps the Siren wished her to serve her in a way less volatile and to leave the shows of strength, the fits of passion, to her waves and her storms. A thought that embittered her, she quietly admitted, grateful that the life-blood, the water of her form, remained exactly that, within her veins, her mind - so that the Siren and no others would read her, see her as unhappy.

Yet as the WORSHIPPER found herself sat within the shelter of the broken hull of that accursed vessel, she felt that futile tremble within her hands. A desire to serve. To break from this self-imposed container, from the monotony that she had grown to associate this faceless stability with. To spill out into the world, to reclaim it. Perhaps the Siren would finally see her here, asking for forgiveness and guidance among these mistakes of man, and call her once more.

She leaned her head back against deteriorating wood, inhaling the cold, salt air, exhaling warm breath out. Her eyes shut in prayer once more, having forgotten all notions of daily catches and little hands grabbing at her fins, her collar.

The waves lapped a bit closer to shore, and retreated back out.