LC Satusi Prologue

 

Legacy of Satusi

Prologue

So, Satusi is my name… My surname, that is. And this is my story. My family’s story – starting from me.

That’s me. Or that’s how I am at this time – how I used to be, how I only used to be, was a siren. Legs? Oh I have legs – I have them now. I made myself into half-human, half-siren, to have tail in the water
and legs on land, something that had only been stories in both our worlds.

I suppose I should start by telling you that story. See, my secret was, had been for many moons, that I liked to go to land. I used to swim for hours upon hours to reach the closest coast, to catch any sight of anything that lived on land.
   Most of our kind hated and feared humans, but I couldn’t help but be curious of their kind – so similar, and still so different from ours. Maybe the stories we were told as little, stories of pirates and sirens sharing seas together, had made an imprint in my mind, but I wanted to believe it wouldn’t only have to be one or the other.
   I never thought it to go this far.

I was always careful – of course I was, coming to the surface alone was dangerous, not to mention coming close to humans, close to shores. I had been through enough nets and hooks to know how getting caught could end for one of us, and I was determined not to be a casualty of my curiosity.

So, I made my visits under careful consideration, when the weather was bad and when it was dark, to minimize any risks on getting seen myself, leaving at first lights. I was successful for many times – and seeing more than only occasional ships, I was captivated by the glances I could catch of humans, of the creatures that roamed lands, of the shocking similarities on some occasions.

Humans however were coming closer to waters, still spreading their territories, and while we all knew the threats they posed, there was also hopes that we could be more similar than we thought. That we could share the seas like stories said we once had.
   So I shared my studies. I shared all I had learned, so that we could all understand more, so that these secrets wouldn’t all die with me when it’d be my time.
   My people were caught off guard having heard someone would – and had - willingly go and gone close to humankind, on purpose and more than once. I shared how there was more to them than hooks and nets and pollution – there was so much more.
   My studies on them were, surprisingly, accepted quite graciously. The fear for the safety and freedom of our sirenkind demanded action, and what we all agreed upon, was that we should know our enemy, which was the worst case scenario, while hoping our own fears were wrong.
   And what better way to learn more than to live with them?
I took the mission no other siren agreed to consider. I accepted to be changed into half-siren, half-human through one of the oldest rituals most had always believed to be nothing more than a myth.
   It wasn’t.
My family-line would be affected by the mission, by the change – only once my siren blood had gone through ten generations, would the last of that generation be able to return here, in the water, for good. To hopefully have lifetimes of information and proof how both our kinds could get along. As a mark from that blood, my heirs would have to have the same blue skin I as a siren had, with the same siren-half through our genes.
   Maybe I accepted it too soon. Maybe I should’ve thought more of all that I’d lose, not only concentrate on all that I’d gain from my mission. Alas, I agreed. I’d be turned into half-human, I’d dedicate my own time and time of my future heirs to sharing human-life with siren-life, to see that it could be done.
   I’d mate with a human, and pass my mission on throughout the time.
The ritual was done under the half-moon, to split myself into two sides – human, and siren.
   I only had a moment to hesitate, to think maybe I had made a mistake, when I felt like the pressure of the water was going to crush me. My vision darkened – my hearing deafened. The only thing I could hear was my heartbeat. My mind felt splitting.
   For one moment it felt like I was more part of the water than ever...