Arden had hardly dared to breathe when the lights had gone up after the mermaid had raised the alarm.

She hadn’t mentioned having seen him, so he prayed again to the goddess he had no claim to that she hadn’t. The goddess, Marna, was the only one he’d ever met. She was kind. Maybe someday he’d be brave enough to ask if he could be one of her children, as Lear and Winna were. But it seemed awfully presumptive to ask a goddess such a thing.

To belong to a family, a proper family, was the most wonderful thing he could imagine. But his family would be Lear’s, his commanding officer’s, and that was a little awkward. Not that he didn’t like Lear and Winna very, very much, but he didn’t want to intrude on their happiness.

Marna might not grant the request, anyways, nice though she was.

The disguised fey soldier tore his thoughts away from his desire to have a family, and turned them back to the situation at hand. He’d try to sneak out in the morning, but getting some rest was paramount, at the moment. His injury was slowly starting to clot, and not moving would help it to heal even more.

As to why there was an enormous tent full of fey randomly in his path was a little beyond him at the moment, well, that was something he could figure out later.

Despite the chatter and excitement surrounding him, Arden shut it all out pretty easily. He felt sleep and exhaustion overtaking him, and his eyes drifted shut.

Though his eyes were shut for what felt like a few brief moments, when he opened them again, he could see, through the hay, that the grey light of dawn was already creeping into the tent.

Time for some recon, now, and to figure out why so many fey folk were sleeping in a huge tent.

Arden shifted slowly, pulling himself from the pile of hay, and slowly looked around. Almost immediately, he noticed a sign he’d missed the night before. It read Circus Exhibits.

So, this was a circus. Yes, that made sense! He could kick himself for not having realized that sooner. To be fair, he’d never been to or even gone near a circus before, but he had heard of them. Did they all have exhibits like this? And was it common to have those exhibits be fey?

Curious, he let himself have a good look around the room, rotating slowly to take everything in.

A frown hovered on his face as a sense of dread began to fill him. The centaur who’s corral he’d snuck into had a golden band around one of his hind legs that had some nasty runes carved into it. From what he could see of it, the runes were of binding nature, and would force the wearer to obey the commands given to them.

As Arden looked around the tent, he noticed the same kind of metal bands on all of the fey folk that he could see. Fury surged through him, and he hissed, “Slaves.” He’d spoken unintentionally, and froze, terrified that someone would wake and raise the alarm as had happened the night before.

Just as he started to relax, he heard a voice gasp, “So someone did hide in the hay!”

Whirling around, Arden looked up to where the voice had spoken from.

The mermaid that had woken everyone up the night before was peering down at him from the fake rock platform attached to the water tank.

He hadn’t noticed it last night, but now he saw bandages wrapped around her tail and fins.

“What?!” It slipped out in alarm.

“The hay in your hair gave you away.” she told him, watching with an expression full of caution.

Arden raised his hand to his head and brushed away the hay, muttering, “Right.”

“I thought I saw the hay moving last night before those other strangers came in.” The mermaid told him. Despite her look of wariness, he noticed that she was keeping her voice down, which he appreciated.

He left the centaur’s corral enclosure through the open gate, and went closer to her tank. “Why didn’t you tell them I was there?”

“I wasn’t sure anyone was there.” she muttered, shaking her head a little.

Arden let himself study her for a few moments. She was very pretty, with a heart-shaped face, a pair of wide-set, deep blue eyes, a perfect cupid’s bow mouth in a dusky raspberry color, and a sweet button nose. Her skin was a light, warm brown, and she had slightly unruly, thick, curly blue hair shot through with light green highlights and violet lowlights. But that hair color was very normal for one of the merfolk. Despite bearing a lot of bandages, he could see that her tail was kelp-green, which was also a pretty standard coloring for a merperson. There was a metal band with runes on her tail as well, hanging just above her fins.

She raised a blue eyebrow at him, clearly not amused that he was staring. “I guess you’ve never seen one of the merfolk before?”

“No, I’ve seen merfolk before.” he shook his head. Given that it seemed all the fey folk in the tent were likely there against their will, it seemed unwise to divulge his own identity as a fey. Or half-fey, really. While he suspected the enslaved fey folk wouldn't blow his cover on purpose, the fewer people who knew, the less likely someone would accidentally blow his cover.

Vague ideas of traveling with the circus as long as it was going in the same direction as he was, in order to mask his scent, filled the fey soldier’s head. But he’d also be faced with the great task of not blowing his cover by not doing what he wanted to do, which was to jail-break each and every fey person in that tent.

He suspected that, alongside the runes that bound the wearer to the orders of whoever created those bands, that there were also runes that kept the bands from being removed, and rendered them very difficult to break.

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The cerulean blue eyes blinked, and she tilted her head to the side, now a bit more curious than wary. “Oh? Well, you’re the first human I’ve met that’s seen a merperson before setting eyes on me.”

Arden shrugged, “I’ve been around a little.”

“Indeed.”

It was quiet for a few moments.

Suddenly, it struck him that, though they were keeping their voices down, the conversation still should have likely woken at least one other person.

He frowned and looked around. “Surely we’ve woken someone with this conversation. I should go.”

“I used a lullaby to put them to sleep last night, after you were in the hay, I think.” the mermaid shook her head. “They won’t wake until I sing again.”

Arden blinked. “What?”

She waved an impatient hand. “It’s an aspect of siren-song. Don’t worry about it. But feel free to leave. I won’t tell anyone you were here. I ain’t no snitch.”

The fey soldier frowned. He’d never heard siren-song being used as a lullaby before. To enchant sailors into crashing their ships? Yes. That was the only purpose, enchanting sailors, really. How could it be that this mermaid used it to put her fellow enslaved fey folk to sleep? That made no sense.

“Um…thanks, I guess.” he paused, glancing around the room again. “I’m Arden.”

“I’d introduce myself, but it doesn't really matter who I am.” She shrugged a little, then grimaced.

Arden blinked. “Of course it matters.”

-

I studied him for a moment. This Arden fellow was pretty cute, for a human. Dirty blonde hair, serious hazel eyes, but with a calm, honest sort of face. He was tall and fairly broad-shouldered. He was trim and clearly in good shape, given his strong build.

Altogether pretty easy on the eyes, again, for a human.

He’d also met my gaze easily, and talked to me like I was a person right off the bat, no hmm-ing and haw-ing over talking to a mermaid. His eyes had flickered to my tail only once or twice, which was only natural, but not once had they darted down to ogle my chest. This was impressive to me because, even in my opinion, my chest was one of my finer features, thus Irving’s obsession with convincing me to flash him.

“Alright, then. I’m Marrina. Or Marri for short.”

There was an awkward pause.

“I’ll have to wake them up soon, so you should head out.” I hesitated, “Will you…come around again? And if you do, will those men be chasing you again?”

“I think I need to stick around here for a little while. But hopefully those men won’t keep chasing me, if I do stick around.” One of his hands floated up to press against his side, where I noticed, for the first time, there was a gash in his dark shirt, and a slightly darker stain surrounding the gash.

Blood?

“Are you hurt?” I frowned, now concerned for him.

“Yeah.” he muttered.

I grimaced. “I’m sorry, and here I am keeping you on your feet! Pippa, one of the firebugs, knows a little healing magic. If you’re nice, she might be convinced to help you out.” I paused, feeling an unexpected urge to keep the admittedly kind of handsome man’s attention. Deciding it couldn't hurt anything, I continued, “Or…you could let me experiment a little, if you’re interested?”

“Experiment?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“I…I think I can maybe sing a song of healing.” I told him, resting my chin on my hand. “I’d try it on myself,” I waved my tail at him, “but my own singing doesn't affect me.” Some gut instinct in me told me I could trust him. Otherwise it made absolutely no sense for me to be telling him all this. Maybe it was his cute, honest face.

“Is there time for you to do that before you wake them?” he motioned at the rest of the occupants of the tent, who were still fast asleep.

“All I can do is try.” I shrugged, then grimaced as my back throbbed at the movement.

“Do I need to come closer, or…” he let his voice trail off.

“As long as you can hear me, I can direct my magic at you, so it should be fine with me up here.”

“Let’s try it.” he shrugged. “If it doesn't work, I’ll ask your friend Pippa for help later, if she’s willing.”

Pippa might very well be willing to help this polite young man. I say young because, given he was human, he was certainly younger than me, despite the fact that we looked probably about the same age. I actually probably looked a little younger, even. I suspected he was maybe thirty, at the oldest, whereas I was at least sixty. That wasn’t at all old for a fey person, though. Some fey folk didn’t even come of age until well after sixty, but merfolk grew up more quickly, like the elves did.

“You seem nice, I think she’d be okay to help. But don't let Meeks or Bellows find out, or there’ll be trouble for us.” I paused, “You said you planned on sticking around here, do you mean this area? Or the circus?”

“I…think it would benefit me to stick around the circus. It’ll help me travel without anyone taking notice.” Arden said haltingly.

“I see.” I studied him, then sighed and shook my head. “Well, you’ll have to talk to Meeks about it. Bellows is usually okay with Meeks hiring an extra pair of hands every now and again, and you look strong enough and smart enough to offer help in one way or another.”

“Who’s Meeks? And who’s Bellows?”

“Meeks is the manager. Bellows is the owner.” I grimaced. “Neither are very pleasant.”

That was the understatement of the century. But I was enjoying my conversation with this handsome human man, and found myself hesitant to admit to him that I was literally just a slave. Although he’d find out the truth of the matter once he talked to Meeks, and would not want to talk to us once he learned that interacting with us more than was necessary could get him kicked out.

“I see.” he frowned a little.

I took a deep breath, and pushed the sad thought from my mind. “Anyways, let’s try that song.”

“Alright.” Arden nodded.

Pulling for my magic, I pushed it into my voice, and sang directly to Arden. I sang of healing, the banishment of pain, and of his body returning to its proper state.

I let my song end. “How’s it feel?”

Arden pulled up his shirt a little, revealing an angry red scar. “I do think it worked.”

“Well! That’s a new skill, then!”

“I didn’t know that siren song could do anything like that.” he muttered.

“Magic is cool, isn’t it?” I grinned at him, pleased that my experiment had worked.

“Indeed.” he murmured.

It was quiet for a few moments.

Arden finally broke the silence, looking back up at me. “Thank you.”

My face heated inexplicably, and I looked away, stretching my throbbing tail a little. Hopefully Pippa would be willing to take the bandages off my fin so I could put it into the cool water.

I waved my hand absentmindedly, hoping he hadn’t noticed that I’d blushed. “No problem. I gotta wake these folks up now, or Meeks will have my hide.” I paused. Could he have my hide if it had already been whipped? I shook the thought away. “Meeks will be in the meal tent. You can ask the employees for directions, they usually know where he is.”

“Alright.” he turned, then paused and looked back, “Could I come back in here and talk to you, from time to time?”

I managed a smile, “If you get caught talking to us too much, you’ll get fired.”

Arden frowned. “That’s bullshit.”

“It is.”

“Well…I can be sneaky.” He smiled faintly, then left the tent, which I was kind of glad of, since something about that comment had made my face heat again.