Long story short, they wanted me to become a house husband here and maintain the village.

They were sort of offering me an elite status within the village and even promised I could be a village elder at some point.

There were some oppositions but most sirens agreed.

What about my opinion? With Alustur sleeping, I couldn’t say much other than ‘I’ll think about it’ and leave.

The return journey was sort of wild as Alustur woke up confused and almost drowned in the sea, so we had to take a small detour and float in the seas above, near the surface. Alustur took a couple of breaths and came down again.

There was a reason we couldn’t just go to the very top and stay for long. The currents.

The waves were so strong they could throw us into the reef and skewer us if we weren’t careful. Even if we were we were still taking a huge risk. One of the many reasons we took the tunnel path rather than walking to the nearest shore and just swimming here.

Anyway, the return journey felt shorter than the first time. I produced the same light and got thanked about the same way.

“Woah!” I moaned, breathing in. Finally, oxygen!

Owo, ow! My head hurt. Too fast, you idiot!

Shia jumped in and hugged me. While a tired as fuck Alustur slowly bobbed his head up and down, kind of drowning, kind of alive.

Poor guy.

Once we were all settled down by the edge of the pond, the Siren let out an exaggerated sigh and stared at me. She didn’t say anything but that gaze was very telling.

“I didn’t threaten them, you know,” I said.

“Yes but I wasn’t expecting you to win them over like that either. We’re not very keen on having outsiders among us. And yet they were sold. How did you even do that? Were you being sincere back then?”

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“I was,” I said. “The gem probably had more to do with their acceptance,” I said.

The siren sighed.

Meanwhile Alustur stared. “What gem?”

“This. I hadn’t showed you but this,” I showed him the original chunk. A small bit of it was missing which now rested at the bottom of the ocean!

“You gave them that…. We could have sold it for-” he attempted but never finished.

Shia grabbed the gem and instantly pocketed it. “You can’t be trusted with this anymore.”

I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “But hey, I got us our ride.”

“With the condition of marrying into our tribe and becoming one of our own,” Armania said.

“You didn’t have to say it like that,” I chuckled and tried to laugh it off but Shia kept glaring.

Alustur shook his head in disapproval and sighed. “Alright, what was that alternate plan you were talking about?”

“We head over the island I’d initially washed up on and set sail from there. The currents are a bit messy but the reefs weren’t as treacherous there as around these parts.”

“Let’s do that then,” he said. “After retrieving the gemstone.”

“They can just have it,” I said. “It was a gift of good faith anyway,” I said.

He was about to open his mouth but he stopped.

Shia of course kept glaring but she said nothing either. After all, it was my stone and I could give it to anyone I pleased, they understood it as much.

“What else are you hiding from us?” Shia said.

“A lot of things but I sure won’t show em to you. Don’t want them to get snatched, you see.”

She rolled her eyes and threw my gem back at me, pouting.

“It was a joke, relax.”

She was not relaxing, no.

Done fucked up again. Trying my meekest face, I went up to her and offered the gem like I was proposing or something. “Please, o fair lady of the Barracks, take my gem and embrace me anew, as thy young brother, forgiving me so for all my fallacies!”

“The hell is wrong with this kid,” she mumbled, but took the gem with a sigh. “Get up. We have a lot of shit to do.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“And drop the act. I like you better when you’re not pretending.”

But the sad part was… I was always pretending.

***

We got back to the city around the afternoon and explained things to the crew. They’d already half-finished the ship and moving now meant all their hard work was going to be wasted.

“Can’t we just carry the ship?” Shia asked.

“More trouble than it’s worth,” I said. “Besides, we have to cross a bit of ocean in between. Those parts are crawling with reefs and sirens.” I paused. Even if we did make it to the island, than what? It wasn’t like we could just leave. Most of the crew were men, and I- without much hormones- had a hard time dealing with things here. So, they would have an exceptionally harder time.

So are the Sirens all we can bet on?