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Seaside villages are dangerous for the unprepared, she has always been told. Every little siren learns this lesson.
Don’t swim too close, lest you get caught.
Don’t swim too near the surface, lest you be seen.
Don’t swim too deep, lest your song be silenced.
Don’t swim too far, lest you lose your way.
Don’t swim too shallow, lest you run aground.
It is hard work, a delicate balance. But Sakura is a diligent siren; she studies and practices everyday. She knows the range of her call, she knows the nets she can slice through, and the ones that promise imminent death. She knows how far her tail will take her, and how quickly. She knows which currents will sweep her away forever, and which will carry her home.
Humans are enraptured by their songs and beauty. They write odysseys about the allure of the deep, wax poetic about the elegant creatures that swim beneath the surface. Artwork of beautiful temptresses with long tails and stunning faces, sculpted by the sea gods for the sole purpose of luring men to their deaths.
Sirens fear the humans. In all her studies, that is the lesson Sakura comes to learn best. Fear the humans.
Humans wage war without knowing it; stealing away children and poisoning their homes at their core. They kill and plunder, destroy and decimate; they create wreckage upon wreckage in the world below, all without a care. Sakura understands the dangers. She understands the horrors. But she still has questions.
“Why can’t we just tell the humans they’re killing us?”
“Humans do not listen to reason, little siren.”
It is a rather useless answer; it is hardly an answer at all, and when she tries to glean more information from her teachers, she is met with evasion.
Sakura is a curious sort of creature, though, and curious creatures do not do well with unanswered questions.
Don’t swim too close, lest you get caught.
The ways in which the world below would rage should they come to know what Sakura has done. She shudders to think of it.
But if they will not answer her questions, then she will have to find the answers elsewhere. Who better to learn about humans from than...well, humans? They don’t seem so scary. Most of them can hardly swim, and the ones that can swim are quite slow. She is able to make it rather close. Close enough to see their gangly legs kicking around in the water as they try to stay afloat.
Humans are better on land, she tells herself. Looking at them in the water proves to be deeply unsettling, so she moves along to observe them as they walk about. She swims along rocky ledges, where the waters were too choppy and rough for humans to attempt swimming, but where the land is still walkable.
She learns that humans, too, have many questions. They talk in questions. Every other thing they say seems to be one question or another. Sometimes they even answer with questions. It is the first indication she has that perhaps humans and seafolk are not so different, after all.
Don’t swim too near the surface, lest you be seen.
One day, she finds one sitting alone.
He catches a glimpse of her tail before anything else, but it is enough to catch his interest. She waits a little lower down, beyond the rays of sunlight that penetrate the water, just watching. Watching to see what he will do, how he will react. Will he convince himself it was a trick of the mind?
But he simply returns to his book, unbothered. She ventures a little further up to the surface, just to catch a glimpse of the pages that have him so enthralled that the promise of spotting a supposedly mythological creature cannot distract him.
She waits there until the sun begins to set, and he decides it is time for him to take his leave. The next day, he is there again, reading that same book, and so she is there, too; reading him.
One day, he isn’t alone. Someone is with him, someone bigger, older. They look alike. Family, her mind supplies. That’s something she has learned about humans in her observations. They come together in families. She can’t hear them speaking, but they move so animatedly. It’s very different from the way she has seen humans communicate before. She doesn’t understand it.
She travels closer still, toward the surface. Close enough that the sun’s slanted rays can reach her face, and the older human has turned to leave, but the little one has glanced down at her. He sees her.
He doesn’t shout, or point, or do anything she expects him to. He simply looks at her as curiously as she looks at him, and then he tucks his book away and follows after his lookalike.
Don’t swim too deep, lest your song be silenced.
She has always been taught that her voice is powerful, and should only be used in an emergency.
Long ago, sirens were the first line of defense against the world above. Since then, their powers have dwindled, and now, they hide in the depths of the seas. Sirens of the past would lure humans to their deaths with a simple song. Their voices could crack the strongest man in seconds.
Sakura has only ever sung her song deep below the waters where no human could hear her. She has no interest in luring humans to their deaths, not that she understands how she might do that, in any case. Perhaps humans would be driven mad by the sounds of the waters. Perhaps that’s why they cannot swim so well.
Regardless, she is always silent as she drifts close to the land. The object of her studies has grown, as has she. She is no longer a guppy, and neither is he. It’s interesting, she thinks, that humans and sirens can exist in such similar ways, yet so vastly different. He, too, never uses his voice.
He has seen her many times now. She supposes it’s only fair, since she sees him often, as well.
He has started sitting closer to the water, his body angled in such a way that she can come and go and remain perfectly hidden in his shadow. He even puts his book down sometimes to smile at her. He waves hello when she breaks the surface, and waves goodbye when it is time for him to walk away.
That is all they exchange for some time. She smiles back at him. On the days she is certain no one will see, she raises her fin to wave back at him, as she does down in the depths, in her home. He seems to like that better than when she shyly flaps a hand at him.
That exchange is enough for her, for a while. But she has many burning questions, and she thinks that perhaps this human—this boy—is her friend. Humans love questions and answers, and this boy is kind. She is sure he will answer her questions.
She is nervous to use her voice. She’s never used it above water before, and she’s afraid it will scare him. Still, she breaches the surface and fixes him with a smile. He is quick to smile back, tucking his book into his pocket.
“What is your name?” she asks in her softest of whispers, because she thinks that is a good place to start. He blinks down at her, silent, but otherwise unbothered by her voice. She repeats herself; slowly, a little bit louder. He is concentrating hard on her lips as she speaks.
His response is a series of quick gestures. She recognizes the movement as what he had once used to communicate with the bigger human that looked just like him. She recognizes it, but she does not understand. She tells him as much.
He shakes his head back at her, gesturing his ear and his mouth, and he is trying to tell her something, but she does not understand. He holds his hands up, beckoning her to wait, or so she assumes.
His book is back out, and with it a pen. He is scribbling something down. Sakura has learned to read. It is important that the sirens understand the ships that pass through their waters. They must recognize the letters stamped across their hulls. Some of those ships mean little more than wake. Some mean certain death.
He holds a torn page up to her, a series of letters printed across it.
KAKASHI
She tries it on, saying it to herself. She hopes she is saying it correctly, but it does not seem to make a difference to him, one way or another. He scribbles something else.
DEAF
He cannot hear her at all, then, she realizes. How strange that she has swum so close to the surface to meet this boy who cannot hear her.
She is in the shallowest waters any siren has ventured into in millennia; and it is here, in the shallows, that her song is silenced.
Don’t swim too far, lest you lose your way.
Sakura has strayed far from the sirens. If she is honest with herself, which she is wont to do, she has been straying for some time now. It starts with her questions, and it ends with the answers she procures from the strange, silent boy. As strange and silent as she is.
Since her deep dive into human life, she has developed a fear of her own voice, but he is immune to it. When she accidentally calls out to him, and someone nearby hears, she is reminded how dangerous she is. A woman blindly dives into the waters, flailing to stay afloat, desperately trying to reach Sakura. Enthralled, enchanted, cursed.
Kakashi dives in and pulls her out. Sakura remains deep at the sandy bottom, far enough away that the spell is broken, but close enough that the waves of shame crashing over her are more powerful than any storm-fueled swell.
She stays there until a pen sinks down to the depths to land softly in the sand beside her. The pen that Kakashi uses when his lip-reading does not suffice, or when her signing is too primitive. She picks it up and slowly approaches the surface. He’s alone when she breaks through.
“I’m sorry,” she says out loud. She doesn’t know the signs for that. He demonstrates them for her slowly and she commits them to memory. He smiles kindly as he always does.
“It’s okay,” he signs. “I haven’t had a good swim in a long time.” He has to repeat himself five times before she understands, but once she does she is so exasperated with him that she splashes him with her fin. He laughs; outright, unabashed, and loud. She’s not very eloquent with her signing, but she wants him to know that he is beautiful.
“Laugh. Beautiful,” she tells him, her hands unsure and wavering. Still, he understands. His ears are bright red. He picks up his dripping-wet pen to scribble something down on his tattered book.
Maybe we should find somewhere more private.
Kakashi is a good swimmer for a human, she thinks. He cuts through the water swiftly, and she is not quite so annoyed when she slows down to keep pace with him. She can admit to herself that she is probably biased, but being in her domain with him is nice. Floating on the surface with him is something like common ground between his world and hers.
They settle on a rocky alcove that is entirely theirs. It is in that alcove that he teaches her how to sign her name, and even gives her a name that only he will ever call her. She laughs when he tells her that he has essentially named her S-Tail. He was a boy when he came up with it, he explains, trying to negate his embarrassment. She thinks it is cute; both the name, and his embarrassment.
She is pleased to know he thinks her tail is beautiful. It’s long and strong, and it takes her everywhere she needs to go. She, too, thinks it is beautiful, but beauty is different under water. The light is softer, cooler; her scales glow faintly and shimmer softly. Under direct sun, they twinkle and gleam. It is sharper and brighter, and it is so jarring against its surroundings.
Under the sunlight, while he reads silently, sometimes she sings. He cannot hear her, and there is no one else nearby, and the more time she spends above the surface, the less often she is able to sing. It feels good to use her voice.
She catches him staring at her.
“Your face is beautiful,” he tells her. “When you sing, you are beautiful.” She must have derision written all over her face, because he laughs and his ears go red. “More beautiful,” he rectifies. “Happy.”
“I am happy,” she signs back. He smiles softly and takes her hand in his. He has done this before. It’s a human gesture, but she finds it comforting.
“Me too,” he tells her with his unoccupied hand. He continues to read, and she continues to sing, and their hands stay locked together, sitting in the sand between them.
Don’t swim too shallow, lest you run aground.
There is a cautionary tale that all sirens hear about, but no one ever confirms its reality. It is another unanswered question, and frankly, up until now, it is an answer she has never concerned herself with very much.
It isn’t until Kakashi seals his mouth to hers one day, in their alcove, after they spend an afternoon singing, and reading, and laughing, that she realizes how important that question is, and how foolish she was to set it aside.
A kiss. She has heard of that before, in her studies. Both underwater and above it, kisses are something she has heard about. On the ground, a kiss is a gesture of closeness. Underwater, it is something else entirely.
Little sirens love to jabber about handsome humans that are too clever and cute to fall for their songs. Handsome humans that will kiss their fins right off and replace them with legs. Sakura was never interested in this tale. She has always loved her fin. Legs are strange. There are two of them, they flail around, are too angular, and made of breakable skin. Humans are terrible swimmers because of those legs.
It is all tripe. Sakura knows that for certain. Any human that can hear a siren’s song will fall prey to it.
She never considered that there would be a human who could not hear her song.
Sakura has been swimming too shallow for some time now, and she has run herself aground many times over. When Kakashi kisses her, she understands the lessons that have been ingrained in her since she was a silly little siren.
She sees herself in both worlds. She is a siren of the deep, and a woman of the land. Kakashi kisses her so deftly, she feels roots grow into the sand. Two roots, digging deep; strong and sure-footed. Two feet, ten toes. Ankles, knees, and thighs. Skin. So much skin.
Kakashi is startled, but not as startled as she is. She dives for the water, and as she does she feels her skin scale and morph back into her tail, and she swims, and swims, and swims until the sun cannot penetrate her.
No matter how far she swims, she still has roots. No matter how cool the water around her is, her lips still tingle, and her skin still blooms with warmth from his touch.
He is waiting for her the next day, though he looks nervous. She sings as she approaches him, because she does not have any words to speak, much less the words to sign. He smiles at her, kind as ever.
When she drags herself ashore, her tail splits and settles into her new roots, and she thinks that legs are perhaps not as horrible as she had once believed.
Kakashi agrees. She is still beautiful without her tail and fin, he tells her. He kisses her. She kisses him. He reads and she sings, and their hands remain entwined in the sand between them. Her legs tangle with his.
He asks her if she would like to see more of his world, and she does not hesitate to agree. She hopes she can one day show him her world, too. He smiles and his ears are red again, but for once, she does not understand why.
“You’re naked,” he tells her. It’s a foreign concept to her; just as foreign as the concept of standing and walking. She is clumsy and awkward, and naked, whatever that means. Kakashi is laughing and smiling and blushing, but he stays with her. He is a patient teacher.
“No laughing,” she chastises. “I don’t laugh when you swim.” He laughs harder and his whole face goes red. She is laughing with him. They laugh so hard her legs wobble and the two of them tumble down into the sand.
“I can show you my world some other time,” he tells her. She thinks that’s probably wise. Besides, she is still getting the hang of her hands and lips. Her new legs will have to wait their turn.
Sakura has broken every rule she has ever learned in her quest for answers. She has relearned all of her lessons, and she has found answers she never anticipated.
Sea villages are dangerous for the unprepared. But Sakura has always been a very diligent siren.