"Yer still here?" Cid asked Vincent, coming on deck in the morning.

"I never said I ceased in hearing that magical sound," Vincent said. "It still be calling to me. Do you think I would have left my post when I was so enraptured?"

"Thought ya might stop ta eat be all. Even Sharkbait sneaks out of that perch o’ hers now’n then."

"I do not eat."

"No’ne said ya went down last night. Ya been here without sleep?"

"I do not sleep."

"Ya ain’t very lively, even fer a zombie."

"I apologize."

"Quit that. Ain’t no way fer a pirate," Cid said, touching Vincent on the shoulder slightly. At that tiny touch, two sounds, simultaneous, hit his head and refused to leave until his finger left Vincent’s shoulder. One was harmonious and soothing, almost pious in its gentle beauty. The other was a fearsome screeching wail of no creature Cid had known. The two clashed and drowned each other, making a neutral sound like the waves of the ocean given a voice.

Cid stumbled back a step, earning Vincent’s attention. Vincent turned his head to ask what the matter was, but the sailor shook his head and left without a word or an opportunity to ask one.

 

………………………………………………………………………………

The next day they found Vincent’s wounds dry of blood.

On the second day, he complained of fatigue and Cloud finally got up the courage to apologize for his outburst, but Vincent was sleeping and too concerned with visions in his head during it. Cid was amazed and stopped often to see if the ‘zombie’ was actually sleeping.

On the third day Vincent was feeling better, but still said he was exhausted. Cid had managed to talk him into trying some of the last of the food, but Vincent found himself retching over the railing in less than an hour.

On the fourth day Erik, who had been searching his notes ever since the contents of the unholy box had stopped its bleeding, laughed.

On the fifth day, Tifa said Shera had not long to live.

On the Sixth day, the crew arrived at their land, severely disappointed.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

There was no port. There were few fruits and none had ripened yet. There was barely water to fill the stores.

Vincent ignored Yuffie’s insults of him being sea sick and the worst pirate she’d ever known and stumbled blindly onto shore, holding his head and watching that his feet met the ground correctly.

"I can hear it..." he mumbled, almost tripping and falling on Cloud. "I can still hear it"

Barret grabbed Vincent around the waist and pulled him towards him. "Ye’re jus’ skin tied over bones," he said, turning Vincent’s face and examining it. "Ain’t scurvy."

"I be not ill!" Vincent yelled, shoving Barret away, though not very far. "I still hear it. I have heard it since I opened that damned pendant. It is cursed for me. Why do I not see my children? Why do I bleed? Why has it lead us here, the sound is louder! The rock is screaming!"

"I dun hear nuthin’" Cid said. "He git hit with somethin?"

"The puppetmaster calls for his dead servant!" Vincent yelled. "I shall cleave you in two for the trouble you give me!" Vincent ran off down the rocky beach.

"Thinks he et summat weird," Yuffie said.

"We best follow him," Barret said.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Vincent was unsteady on his feet and had no clear idea of his true destination, which made it easy for the crew to catch up. Yuffie had joined in the chase, wanting to know what he had been complaining about for a week.

Tifa stayed to watch Shera, and Nanaki looked for food.

Yet fear gives wings to feet and Vincent was terrified of many things. He feared to bleed again. He feared the voice, that Erik was mocking him, that the creature was tormenting him, that he was insane. He feared he was dying, truly dying now, his spirit to leave his body and let it wither. That maybe he was not dying, for he was already dead, but the two portended the same: he’d be kept from his revenge.

The crew lost sight of him after he lost his footing and took the faster way down a bluff.

Now they not only sought the nightmare to save Vincent from it or to prove to him it was not real, but they sought Vincent himself.

The group scattered and began calling his name, and soon Yuffie called them all to her.

"I heard a splash. Either is him or one whopper of a fish. If a fish, I is eatin’ the thing!" she said, pointing to a the water went right in as if welcomed by a sunken mat. Thankfully they had arrived at low tide. If they had not, nothing more than a fish could get into the cave and survive the trip.

Yuffie eagerly went in, obviously hoping for a fish. The others looked at each other dubiously, but soon found themselves wandering in, soaking their pants up to their thighs.

Vincent was there, standing perfectly still, his gaze fixed on a woman all of them had seen, but only he had known in more than a dream.

Yuffie was pouting and sitting on a rock, and seemed about to yawn.

Lucretia resembled a classical Greek statue, the strings of her corset undone, her dress sliced and falling offer her shoulder, revealing one breast. Her cut and soaked clothes resembled silk scarves than actual coverings. Two chains crossed her hips binding here to the rock.

The crew that was gathered thought it was a trick of the water, but her skirts seemed to blend into the rock, becoming gray and veined.

Cid lifted his hand to pull Vincent away and take him back to the dry shore, but Vincent suddenly spoke. "Lucretia…" was all he managed, and he began walking towards her.

She reached out a hand to him and beckoned him with her fingers. "I have waited for you," she said. "I called for you, why do you fear my voice when you loved it so long ago?"

"What are you?" Vincent asked, one pace away from her.

"Vincent," she said. "Come to me. Come to my arms, I wish to embrace you. Come."

Vincent’s eyes closed and he took the final step, and her arms went around her, her bosom pressed against his dirty shirt, her face in his hair, then seeking his lips.

Her lips found something other than his face and his eyes opened. He held the tip of his pistol to her mouth, threatening to take off her lovely face if his fingers slipped.

"Do you not love me?" she asked, pulling away only enough to speak.

"More than life," he answered, not moving the pistol.

"Then why do you not wish to kiss me?"

"Oh I wish so. I wish so more than I wish for revenge, and that is all I have dreamt of for twenty years. If it would truly make you happy I could press this pistol to my lips and ‘twould be the most beauteous kiss a damned soul could ever know. But I dare not touch my lips to yours. Erik has tainted them, and I could not bestow upon you death, let alone the unnamed that lies beyond."

"Put your gun away, Vincent," she said.

He hesitated, wincing and trying to draw back and clutching his chest. "Why?" he asked. "Why hurt me?"

"What a fool you be to refuse a siren," she chided. "Come. Come back into my arms."

"No!" he said, pushing away and falling backwards into the water.

"Why do you refuse?" she asked.

"Why do you insist?" he asked, standing up.

"I sense the darkness in you. I can see through you how you were wronged, who wronged you. I have merely waited for you. I have been singing just for you ever since I fled one night… the night you were near murdered."

"The body went missing," he said blankly to her.

"I went missing, I fled over the boat, called by the waves. It was as strong a call as you heard in previous days."

"I was blamed for your disappearance."

"I would have stayed. I would have explained, were it in my power, but I was naught but bound to the sea, and now to this rock where I as foam washed upon."

"If you were foam before I died, then how did you know of the darkness your husband gave to me?"

"My husband? No, the darkness was from the creature."

"Your husband passed it from your mermaid to my lips. How and why I dare not imagine. If you believe it not to be him who dealt me so, then look through me again. See the words he spoke as he gave this fate to me. I have known his lips in life, and yours only in your death, and I am truly sorry for what I could not return to you."

"Why for? I am alive here and now. I see now he was the carrier, he admitted it more than once to you. I did not look at first, for I feared to find it. Let me bestow upon you this kiss, let me try to set right—"

"No! Blast you, I shall not share with you my curse!"

"Vincent," she said, reaching out and tracing the edge of his jaw. "Come to your siren. I called you to cure your darkness, not to take it unto myself. I wish not to torture you, but to mend you. I called. I have called for so long, but you could not hear me, the darkness in your ears would not let in the light."

Again Vincent felt his eyes close, and he complied, diminishing the gap between them as best as was possible.

He fell lax, as a man at the gallows waits for the noose while wishing heaven would come sooner. Expecting little more than hot press and the lightest tap of the skin of her lips, he was caught completely off guard as she grabbed him around the back and swung him into a kiss so passionate, the onlookers felt like voyeurs watching an open window of a brothel. Yuffie opened her mouth to say something, but Cid clamped a hand over it before words escaped it.

Vincent flailed in her arms, but she seemed inexplicably strong. One hand tried to push away, but only managed to squeeze slightly her bare breasts, causing Barret to clamp a hand over Cloud’s mouth to muffle his giggling.

Eventually he dropped his pistol and pulled her eager arms off of him, falling in the water a second time in the process.

"Let a man breathe!" he said, standing up, unfazed and grabbing his dropped pistol. "There be the legend of the siren drowning the sailor!"

"You could always make me laugh, sweet Vincent," she said. "I cannot take from you the curse itself, but I can stop what change has begun. Tell me, before you leave me, how did you hear my song yet?"

"I opened a bewitched locket," he answered. "How it brought to me your song, I know not, but I am thankful."

"Locket?" she asked. "A pendant that creates stars from what be on earth?"

"You know of it?"

"Show me your offending locket, that I find why you speak so angrily."

Vincent produced the pendant from his pocket. "Play with it not for you deal with the fickle and unknown."

"’Twas my sister’s," Lucretia said, surprising everyone. "I wore its twin on my voyage with you, but I found it gone whence I took to the sea. This is gold. I had silver."

"Silver?" Yuffie asked.

"This ain’t a pocketwatch, Sharkbait!" Cid scolded and she pouted and went silent.

"Be careful in handling these. Some work the way of my kind, the sirens. Some work the way of the mermaids that tore down your mast by calling the storm as we dredged it from its sleep. Do not open it again, yourself, Valentine. I cured you now, and you shall not bleed from those wounds. Take back what is missing and they shall seal, though the curse shall carry."

"I knew not that you were such a thing, nor what powers you beheld."

"I knew not that I was a siren myself, and my powers only show after the death of my mortal half. As for the myths, I always found you such a fool for not knowing legends and admired you for wanting to make your own."

"Mortal half?" Cloud asked.

"I be half human, as was my sister, Ifalna."

"Can I…who can I kiss?" Cloud asked.

"Don’t get your pants greedy!" Barret said, slapping Cloud’s head.

"I could not cure you. I cannot stop the curse. I merely cured him of what the locket would bring him if the twins were destroyed. Sirens are life, but we cannot slay the darkness fully," she said.

"Be life?" Cid asked. "Kin I ask a faver o’ ya?"

 

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Indeed Vincent had found renewed strength and life to him. He seemed unperturbed at the notion and even helped steer the lifeboat with Shera in it, wrapped tightly in blankets.

After bestowing a kiss on Shera, the crew noticed her breathing immediately better, her face with more and better color, and took her away. Lucretia asked for a moment with Vincent, so he stayed while the others brought the lifeboat back to the ship.

"Do not seek me, Vincent, at least not only," she said, beckoning him closer.

This time he complied without fear or pistols.

"You heart belongs to the sea as well as to me. Share the love between your mistresses if you must see me again." She opened her hand to reveal the pendant.

"As much as I know I cannot have you, that you are bound to this rock and to the sea and I need the wings of my sails, I shall return. I must. My heart will not take otherwise."

"But I see you seek something before you take your mistresses," she said, holding him close, fearing he’d run again.

Vincent was silent and his eyes gave away nothing.

"You may show nothing and speak nothing, but I can read you soul. I can see what my husband did to you, and for that, I have no pity towards him. You seek revenge, and I wish you to have it," she said, opening the locket and then pressing her lips to his. "A kiss for luck this time, for I have already kissed you for life."

Lucretia knew it, but did not show how honored she was when she saw she was the first to see Vincent smile since his alleged death.

"Take this back, but do not open it," she said, handing him the pendant. "The young boy will need it one day. It will not stop the blood, but it will break half the curse."

"I thank you. For the first time in twenty years I felt warmth spreading through me, though there not be blood to carry it. I shall celebrate you over the finest whiskey I can steal."

"A pirate again," she said. "I liked you that way."

"And what else did you prefer of me?"

"A hat. You were much more handsome with one. Go, now, to you journey. Revenge waits for no one idle."

Back