Chapter 7 Lyx
SEVEN
Lyx
The stares are unsettling.
Not that they’re anything new. Lyx is used to thinly-veiled glances, an audience that can’t determine why it’s intrigued by her.
People never realize they’re looking at a siren, the creature of myths and stories relegated to the stormy depths of the sea.
What would a siren be doing here? She’s out of place on land, walking on two legs without a song spilling from her mouth.
Yet the ogling from the Indulgence is stranger still. The crew members don’t look captivated or entranced; they gawk like she’s some delusion made flesh. Even Cav looks surprised to see her.
In the daylight, she can get a better look at him.
His black eye looks more painful now, but that’s not the only difference from the grotto.
The chipped tooth she remembers has been replaced by glinting gold.
He’s still half-a-head shorter than her, but his shoulders and hips are broader.
Everything about him is more vibrant, skin and scales morphing from red to orange in the sun.
He’s striking. It’s irritating, so she turns to the people beside him. One is the tattooed woman who stopped Lyx at the gangplank. The other looks like a fleshed-out skeleton, tipping back their rugged captain’s hat to get a better look at Lyx.
So this is the infamous Heathen. Lyx was expecting…
more. Someone louder, crueler, a rival to Tidus’s arrogance, but Heathen doesn’t make a sound.
There’s something powerful about that. Heathen’s stature is small, but there’s a potency in their expression, their mind cataloguing everything that happens.
Lyx waits for Heathen’s gaze to dip down the curves of her body, but the captain’s eyes stay on her face.
Lyx keeps still. Let them get a good look. Tidus dressed her in the most bedraggled clothing he could find, a corseted dress in varying shades of brown.
“You need to look helpless,” he said, ripping a jagged slit up the side. “Wanton. Willing.”
Lyx is anything but. Her eyes flick to the barest speck of Tidus’s ship on the horizon. Everything inside her reaches for her song. This is truly a test of how far away from it she can be, and it shortens her already-diminished temper. “I’m here for a meeting.”
The tattooed woman’s eyebrow twitches. It’s clear she wants to say something, but after a moment, Heathen steps back and gestures toward the room behind her.
Lyx expected more of a fight, but she won’t waste this opportunity. Shoulders back, she pads across the deck with her bare feet.
Cav skirts in front of her to open the door. “I didn’t think you’d show.”
She wants to scrape her heel against his shin. “Pretend I didn’t.”
It’s the smallest captain’s quarters she’s ever seen.
Even in Tidus’s little sloop, he takes up most of the space below deck.
On the contrary, Heathen’s room is sparsely decorated with a ship wheel framed by a rope hanging on above the bookshelf.
There are no papers or clothing strewn across the floor, no day-old ale crusting in the corner, no smoking pipe out of place.
When the ship rocks, the books hardly move in their perfectly-fitted shelving.
The door shuts behind her. Heathen circles to her desk. She doesn’t sit, folding her arms and inspecting Lyx like she’s a specimen in a jar. It’s…disconcerting, like Heathen can see past her ratty clothes and down to some deeper part of her.
There’s a shuffling behind her. Lyx catches red in the corner of her eye and realizes Cav is leaning against the wall. Watching her.
Her teeth grit. “Does he have to be here?”
Cav’s hand moves for the knob like he might leave, but Heathen stops him. “Cavalier is the reason I’m taking this meeting, Ms…Lyx?” Heathen gestures to one of the chairs before her. “Is that correct?”
Lyx bites back a curse. Sitting would give up what little power Lyx has, so she doesn’t move.
She’s tempted to ask outright for what she’s after, but with Tidus it always requires flattery.
Flirtation. Some clever quip to weasel her way in.
“Interesting name, Heathen.” Lyx can’t help the quirk of her brow.
“Little on the nose for the captain of a pleasure ship.”
Heathen’s expression shifts before it settles again.
She rolls the cuffs of her sleeves up to her elbow, and Lyx can’t help but follow the motion.
She expected the captain’s sexuality to be far more straightforward, a short skirt and ample cleavage to draw in customers, but Heathen is nearly completely covered.
Her clothing is tailored. Her sensuality is controlled.
Lyx’s toes curl.
“I’m surprised you wanted to meet,” Heathen says. “I thought sirens preferred to sing to pirates, not talk with them.”
The reminder makes Lyx’s throat ache. “If only those pirates stayed out of our waters.”
“If only you stayed in them.”
Lyx’s teeth click. So Heathen knows more than surface-level myths.
Siren territory was always a nebulous thing — at least, to sirens.
Perhaps they dipped outside of their established boundaries from time to time.
Perhaps a few innocent ships were caught in the crossfire.
It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. Even if the sirens built a home beyond the reaches of man, the hunters would have still come chased after them.
Clearly, Heathen doesn’t care for beating around the bush. She braces one hand on her hip. “You’re here to ask for something.”
There’s no point denying it. Lyx lifts her chin. “I’d like a job.”
“What use would a siren have for a job?” Heathen wonders. “Surely you can demand anything you want from any number of people.”
Lyx swallows roughly. Admitting the truth is suicide; if she confirms she has no song, that a siren’s power can be snatched away… She won’t risk that.
“In any case…” Heathen waves the thought away. “My payroll is full. We have no need for you.”
Lyx digs her nails into her palm, like that might keep this conversation from slipping away. “A siren is a novelty. On a pleasure ship?” She forces the words through her teeth. “Customers would come from far and wide to bed one.”
A dark look crosses Heathen’s face, and she lifts her hand toward the door in dismissal. “That is not how I run my business.”
Lyx’s heart clenches. This isn’t working; it has to work. She has to get onto this ship. She has to get her song back. She has to get away from Tidus, and free herself, and —
“Someone’s looking for me. I need safe passage.”
The words escape her in a rush. She hadn’t meant to sound so distressed, but her voice wobbles. It gives Heathen pause. “You owe someone?”
Lyx shakes her head. The lie comes far more easily than it should, like she’s pulling from some well of truth inside her. “It’s an ex. I need to get him off my trail. If I lay low and sail to a few different ports…”
Behind her, the floorboards creak. She can feel Cav’s eyes on her, searching her face for answers. She keeps her eyes locked on Heathen. Heathen does the same.
“Why not return to the ocean?” Heathen asks. “Surely he couldn’t follow you there.”
The hollow place in Lyx’s throat burns. She can do nothing without her song. This conversation is just a reminder of how helpless she is, a drum struck again and again until Lyx can hear nothing else.
“Do you think…” Lyx clenches her eyes shut.
“That I would ask for this if I could help myself?” The words boil in her mouth.
She knows she should swallow them down, but it’s too late.
They flow past her lips and spill between them.
“Do you think I enjoy this? Debasing myself? Begging and pleading for charity?” Shame heats her cheeks.
Depths, she sounds absolutely pathetic. “I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice.
There is no other option. I need help. I need your help. ”
The air goes still.
For a foolish moment, Lyx wonders if she can feel Heathen’s mercy. If the captain possesses that sentimental lenience Lyx has never experienced herself. But when she opens her eyes, Heathen’s posture straightens. “I’m sorry. We have no room for you.”