20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
I lower myself into the sand, processing what he just said, and shortly after, Sable sits down next to me. The lantern sits between us now, casting a golden glow against the dark water in front of us.
For a considerable amount of time, neither of us says a word.
The village behind us has grown quiet, leaving us alone with the rushing of the sea.
I don’t know what to say to him, or rather, I don't know where to start.
I want to apologize for wandering off. For making him chase me down, even though I promised him to stay.
And I want to ask him about his inner demons, and if they had the upper hand when we first met.
Eventually, Sable shifts beside me.
“How did you learn that dance?” he asks, his voice breaking the silence.
I glance at him.
“The one in the tavern.”
I bite down on my lip, trying to decide whether I want to tell him the truth about my father.
It could change things, make it more complicated between us than it already is.
Telling him feels like opening a door I have kept barricaded for years.
I try to avoid thinking about my father, my pirate heritage.
It leaves me thinking about all the what-ifs.
What if he didn’t die? What if he picked me up on that day?
Would I be sailing the seas with him now, far away from the chaos of the Noctis?
I can’t help but wonder if I would’ve felt at home, with my father and his crew, if I had accepted the absence of my tail and grown to love and appreciate my legs for what they are – a reminder that I come from him. That I belong somewhere.
“My father taught me,” I say finally.
Sable turns toward me, the light catching his expression as his brows draw together, confusion twitching at his lips, causing them to tremble.
“Your father...”
“A pirate,” I add quietly.
It feels as if I have dropped a stone into still water. My words will only ripple out until I cannot rein them back in, until they’re out of my control.
“A pirate,” he repeats, and a corner of his mouth lifts, a light chuckle escapes. “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting that.”
I shrug one shoulder, drawing my knees closer to my chest.
“I suppose it explains a few things,” he says and leans back on his hands, the movement casual. “Like your stealing. The bone charm. The boots you are wearing.”
I turn my head towards him now, staring him down as heat prickles the back of my neck. I have to fight back an embarrassed laugh.
“You noticed that?”
Sable chuckles. “Little fish, I command a ship full of thieves. I notice everything.”
My lips press together, but I cannot stop the small smile from forming.
“You can’t steal what has already been stolen,” I say, lifting my chin slightly.
“That,” Sable replies dryly, “is exactly what every pirate says.”
The moment softens between us, the quiet laughter fading away into something easier, less tense. And we sit like this, a little while, we sit here listening to the water as it laps on the shore. It’s Sable that breaks our wordless silence first.
“What happened to your father?” he asks carefully.
I sigh, not wanting to think much more about it, but I knew he would ask eventually, that my admission would spark even more questions in him.
I have buried that truth deep inside of me, even deeper than where I contain my siren.
It still hurts, even after all these years.
I don’t think it will ever stop hurting.
“He was hanged.”
The words leave my mouth easier than expected. Perhaps time has worn the sharp edges from them, softening their escape. Perhaps I have slowly learned to live with the truth of it.
“I was seven,” I add after a moment. “When my mother left me and told me to wait for him. I waited, but he didn’t come. Fishermen took me to Aurelith, where the royal navy made a spectacle of it.”
Sable stills beside me, but I watch the water instead of him.
“You witnessed it?” he asks, his voice nothing more than a whisper.
“I did,” I answer and swallow down the knot that has formed in my throat. “But I went to the Sea of Renewal after. I begged the sea to take the memory from me, and it did.”
When I turn to look at him, his hands tighten in the sand beside him. His gaze is fixed somewhere out over the water, his jaw set as though he is holding something back.
“I’m sorry you had to carry that alone,” he finally says and exhales slowly through his nose.
“Sometimes I regret it,” I whisper, hugging my knees tighter. “Because it was the last time I saw him. And I let the sea take that memory.”
Sable rubs his thumb across the side of his jaw, a gesture I’ve begun to recognize as one he makes when something unsettles him.
“My father was hanged too,” he says eventually. “You don‘t want to remember it, trust me.”
His head turns towards me reluctantly, as if it costs him a lot to confess this to me. I give him a reassuring smile, one that tells him that what he said is safe with me. That he is safe with me.
He swallows, then watches the sea again.
“What about your mother? Where is she now?”
I sigh. My mother’s story is more complicated, and somehow it cuts deeper than my father’s.
“My swarm abandoned me,” I say, and realize how strange the explanation might sound to an outsider.
“I think she loved me,” I add. “But I was never meant to live in the water with the others. I couldn’t. Without a tail, I would have been vulnerable. And that impacts the safety of the whole swarm. She was forced to leave me in my father’s hands. She had no choice.”
Sable says nothing, but his attention rests fully on me now. A memory of my father and my mother flashes through my mind, him kissing her from a rock near the shore.
“They loved each other,” I say with a smile on my face. “They loved each other dearly. And they loved me.”
“A pirate and a siren...” he says with amusement heavy in his voice, “How scandalous.”
Silence stretches between us again, both of us staring at the water like it might hold the answers to questions neither of us is brave enough to ask out loud.
“You said you understand what it's like to…try not to become a monster.” I start carefully, knowing how fragile the trust we have built between us is.
Sable’s shoulders stiffen beside me.
“Is that…related to the curse?” I whisper, not wanting to upset him. I regret the question the moment it leaves my mouth.
“That’s not something you need to worry about,” he says, and gets up, brushing away the sand from his breaches.
“But you’re—”
“That conversation,” he interrupts me harshly, “is not for tonight.”
He leans down to grab the lantern, its light casting shadows across his tensed face.
Within the blink of an eye, Sable turns back into the notorious captain of the Noctis.
We were both beginning to open up, and I have ruined it.
I should’ve expected him to react like this, but I was blinded by the vulnerability of the moment.
“We should get back to the ship,” he says and turns to walk back towards the Noctis looming in the distance. He doesn’t wait for me to follow him, so I remain seated, watching him leave, until his shadow disappears behind the rocks.
The space beside me feels empty now that he is gone. I always knew that there was something about him, something dark and conflicting. But now I am certain that whatever it is, it is tied to the curse.
And to the monster he tries not to become.