Strange seas

Siren woke with a start, confused when her wrists were chained in the dark room. Slowly she calmed down and looked around. Her eyes adjusted to the dark cell and the soft rocking of the ship. She sighed, sinking back into the corner of the small room. When she stretched her legs out, she could touch the opposite corner of the room, but Siren stayed curled in the corner. With the nightmare still vivid in her mind she found the confined space oddly comforting. The cool metal of the shackles on her wrists soothing her racing heart. She didn't like to remember that night, yet the nightmares haunted her, refusing to let her forget her heritage.

She had been mistaken for the poor farmers daughter and, despite the ignorance of children, she had the sense not to correct her captors. They thought she and the farmer were an unfortunate pair of commoners trapped on Levithius during its blazing defeat by one of the three Capitol Lands.

Merciful wasn't a word she would ever use to describe the men, but she knew her fate could have been much worse. Shed seen girls like her get on boats like these and never make it off, but she had been sold into slave labor. The farming background they thought she had made her appealing to the land and plantation owners of Terris. However, the labor had taken a toll on her, Siren gambled she had been 8 when she was taken and considered herself 19 now, the vibrant child had been reduced to a severely malnourished and calloused girl. The land tore her hands and feet and the whips, her arms and back. She had stopped healing properly years ago, about when the pain stopped bothering her so much. Her dark grimy hair was matted and stayed in a knot behind her head and her skin was dark with dirt. Her attire wasn't much better, save for the shackles, those were new to her.

They reminded her of the other changes soon to come, despite her frame she had become to large to be of any use in the fields anymore. Siren knew she still had strength, but she wasn't strong enough to be moved out of the fields either, so they sold her. Good things don't happen to girls her age on the market and that thought stayed dancing around the edge of her every thought.

Finally closing her eyes again siren tilted her face heavenward and shaking the fear from her mind she focused on the tilting of the ship. Back and forth she spent her hours trying to immerse herself in the sea, wishing the air would bubble up around her and carry her away. The same swaying as the vessel, but the rotting wooden walls wouldn't let her escape.

Sometimes siren wished she would've learned some of her mother's magic, or shown interest in her father's swords, maybe it could've been different. She vaguely remembered her mothers face, the marking on her wrist. Indicators of a magic that died with her kingdom, with the fall of Levithius. She had tried so hard when she was younger, calling to anything and everything to grant her the strength to fix this, but nothing ever answered, and Siren grew up. For the first time in years, eyes still squeezed shut and head to the heavens, Siren begged. A tear slipped down her face, she knew she would finally lose the last shreds of herself when this ship reached its destination and she would rather drown.

As if the tear sealed some kind of deal, Siren felt the ship shudder. With a crash the spell the waves cast on her was broken and Siren scrambled to her knees, about as far up as the shackles would let her. The soothing rhythm of the sea was roughly interrupted as the ship jerked sharply to the left. Siren heard the horrific splintering of wood and in her terror began screaming, her voice joining the hundreds trapped on the ship.