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http://thepreciousthing.tumblr.com/post/121702150607/finding-flight-okay-but-imagine-a-medieval
Most sailors feared to go near the Siren Pass. Beyond, they whispered, were shores of gold where the waves broke with pearls and gems as sea foam. Where untold riches and wealth awaited for anyone who could actually survive the pass. Here, there be mermaids. They decorate the rocks with foolhardy sailors who chance too close and fall victim to their song. Their bones, anyway. All of them picked clean and bleached white with sun and salt.
It’s said that they make jewelry out of sailor’s teeth. Only one sailor has been able to confirm that as fact.
They call him Anton l’Fey. Whispers about him say that a faerie cursed him with an inability to love. Some say he has never been interested in the pleasures of the flesh. Most captains trust him to haul their crew home from the bawdy-towns.
But Captain Kale had other plans for Anton. Plans that were about to come to fruition.
They anchored well out of range of the Siren Pass. Every man on the ship had to report to the shackles underneath. Anton was trusted with the keys and, not unkindly, gagged each man and wadded his ears with cotton.
The sails were set. The small ship only needed someone to steer and, of course, weigh anchor.
The latter of which took a significant amount of time, and required lashing the wheel into place.
By then, the sirens were swarming. Singing their seductive songs and wantonly displaying themselves for all who cared to look. Anton sailed on, his eyes on the distant breakers of the Golden Shore.
Their singing was very nice, but it wasn’t worth wrecking the ship for. And the lyrics offered no temptations for him. He sung a bass counterpoint, containing his lack of understanding for the world of so-called normal men. About their need to grasp and lust for people and things alike.
The mermaids changed their song. They used to be kind, and save drowning sailors. But when their kindness was too often repaid with assorted manly cruelties, they changed their tactics.
The mermaids did, indeed, bedeck themselves with jewelry of teeth. And they also displayed the scars where randy, ravening sailors had bit them. They took what had hurt them and made it something beautiful. Or at least, more beautiful than the things the sailors had done.
He’d have to tell the Captain that mermaids were nice people if you could keep your hands to yourself and your pants buttoned.
The Golden Shore was, indeed, golden. But it was not made out of gold. Pearls and gems were suspiciously absent from the shining sands.
It would have been an entirely disappointing trip if it wasn’t for the spices.
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