Meet your doom around the gorge, be saved through it.

Rests there several lyrics, do not pay them heed.

Be wary of the enchantment, capture the talk and find the rock.

 

---

 

melos | song

 

 

The Lux Pirates changed the direction of their path so that they were heading due North. After having dug through an atlas or two, Baekhyun believed he had pinpointed the location of the “gorge” described in the first clue.

 

“What makes you so sure?” Cirrus asked. A day had passed since the raid, and Baekhyun and Cirrus were currently taking their daily stroll.

 

Baekhyun explained the legend behind the specific gorge he had in mind. The space between the rocky walls were much narrower than a typical gorge, and the waves around the vicinity behaved in unpredictable patterns. It was a location that most pirates avoided because of the high risk of being sunk. Every story he had heard about regarding that gorge involved the ship going around it, which was the most logical decision. Never had he heard of anyone going through it.

 

“And you’re going to go through that gorge?” Cirrus asked with wide eyes. “What if you haven’t heard anything because anyone who went through it sunk?”

 

“That is a variable to be considered,” he started. “But I’m willing to take the risk. If your translations are accurate like you claim them to be, then there shouldn’t be any problems, correct?”

 

He looked at her with such confidence that she couldn’t help but feel slightly braver herself. Baekhyun exuded confidence and it was evident in each step he took. He was elegant in his movements, as if he had calculated the exact path he would take.

 

“I’m sure this is the correct gorge, but I’m not entirely sure about what the riddle means by ‘lyrics’ and ‘talk’ and ‘rock’,” he mumbled to himself with a concentrated expression.

 

“Gorge ahead!” the pirate sitting in the crow’s nest yelled from above.

 

Baekhyun walked to the ledge of the ship and squinted his eyes. He made out the silhouette of a series of rocky landforms that stuck out of the water. They were closing in on the gorges at high speed, and Cirrus could feel the waves getting more violent. She held onto the ledge of the ship to keep her balance throughout the turbulence.

 

Baekhyun ordered his crew to reduce their speed, which lessened the effects of the violent waves. As they neared the gorge, Cirrus spotted the remains of fallen ships near the rocks and prayed that a similar fate wasn’t awaiting them.

 

“Time for you to head back,” Baekhyun said. He began walking towards the cabins, with Cirrus trailing closely behind. She had secretly wished that Baekhyun would have allowed her to stay on deck during the ride through the gorge, and had to convince herself that the view from her room’s windows would have to suffice.

 

When they got to her room, he unlocked the door and motioned for her to enter. Once she stepped inside, he fished her room’s key from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole. Just before he locked it, someone from the deck shouted, “Captain! We need you out here now!”

 

Baekhyun cursed under his breath, wondering what could have happened outside. He sloppily locked her door and removed the key. Cirrus heard him running through the halls, and listened until the sound of the waves overpowered the sound of his footsteps. She made her way to the windows at the far end of her room, but the waves suddenly turned violent and caused her to stumble.

 

Not long after she regained her balance, the ship seemed to have hit something and caused the entire ship to jerk momentarily. She lost her balance and fell on her behind. When Cirrus stood up, she wondered what was happening outside. She looked through the small window and saw nothing but rock.

 

Once again, the ship rocked and caused her to stumble. She was starting to get used to the sudden jerking motions. She had expected a turbulent ride, but when she felt the ship hit something yet again, she knew something was wrong. Baekhyun had told her that the spaces between the rocks in this particular gorge were closer than normal, but judging from the view from her bedroom, it looked as if the ship was pretty far from hitting the walls.

 

If they weren’t hitting the walls, then that must mean something else was blocking their way. She deduced that perhaps a series of smaller rocks laid in their path, but with his crew’s expertise in maneuvering the ship, would they really be hitting as many as they were right now?

 

Cirrus felt the ship hit another rock, which caused her body to slam into the wall. It didn’t seem like the ship was fighting the waves. In fact, Cirrus was starting to think that they were currently sailing in whatever direction the waves brought them in. But if that were the case, why would Baekhyun allow his crew to do that if it meant damaging the ship?

 

A sudden rocking of the ship confirmed the unsettling feeling in Cirrus’s stomach. No pirate would risk getting their ship damaged, so the fact that they were hitting so many rocks meant one thing: no one was controlling the direction of the ship. In other words, no one was at the steering wheel.

 

“What are they doing?” Cirrus asked herself in a frustrated voice. “Why isn’t anyone at the steering wheel?”

 

Then it dawned on her. “What if they can’t be at the steering wheel?”

 

Their ship faced no risk of being raided in this environment, so Cirrus wondered what was keeping the pirates so occupied outside to leave the steering wheel unattended. Cirrus rested her back against the wall. Just faintly, she was able to make out a singing voice. Her eyes widened in shock when she heard the unfamiliar voice.

 

She needed to get out of her room, and fast. She ran to the door and began slamming her fists on the wooden surface. She hoped someone would hear and let her out. No one came, but as she continued hitting the door, she noticed that it was starting to budge. When Baekhyun had been called onto the deck, he quickly locked her door. In his haste, he hadn’t turned the key fully, which meant that her door wasn’t fully locked. Cirrus hit the door one final time, and it opened. She ran out of the room and onto the deck, where she was faced with the strangest sight.

 

All 15 crew members were on deck, and they were all staring out at space. They all stood at the edges of the ship, with their elbows propped up like they were enjoying a calm ride. When the ship jerked and caused some of them to fall, they rose and resumed their position.

 

Suddenly, the singing voice she heard from her room became much louder. The singer’s voice was serene and gentle, and sang along to a song with no lyrics.

 

Sirens!

 

Cirrus had read about the mythical beings in books before, but she never knew they actually existed. With the tail of a fish instead of legs, sirens lived in the ocean and used their melodic voices to seduce sailors to their doom. The image of all the sunken ships she had seen just before they had entered the gorge flashed back in her mind, and with it came a rising fear. If she didn’t do something, they would all face certain death.

 

The singing got louder and seemed to pierce through her soul. She covered her ears and eyes in an attempt to block the sound out. When she opened her eyes, she realized she wasn’t on the ship anymore.

 

She was standing in the middle of a ballroom, wearing a beautiful dress. Her hair was styled neatly, and decorated with small flowers. She turned around to examine the scene, and she was reminded of the palace. Her eyes began to well with tears when she saw the familiar setting.

 

Someone tapped her on the shoulder and when she turned around her eyes met a pair that she had been longing to see. Suho spread his arms to invite her in for a hug. Unable to control her desires any longer, she jumped into his embrace and hugged him tightly. She cried into his chest, and didn’t care about her appearance nor the scene she was making.

 

He chuckled softly and combed through her hair. She loved it when he did that. Cirrus looked up at him, tears still b in her eyes and she whispered, “I missed you so much.”

 

He smiled at her and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I missed you so much more.”

 

The orchestra began playing ballroom music, and Suho stepped away from Cirrus. She clenched onto him, afraid that if she were to let go of him, he would disappear. He took a few steps back, and bowed in front of her. “May I have this dance?” he asked sweetly.

 

Cirrus nodded her head enthusiastically, and took his hand so he could guide her to the dancefloor. Suho had always been an excellent dancer; it was one of the things she loved so much about him. He twirled her around once and brought his arms to her waist. She placed her hands on his shoulders and the two swayed from side to side.

 

“I’m so glad to be back,” she said with a sigh of relief. She placed her head against his chest and indulged in his familiar scent.

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

Cirrus whipped her head up and stared at him. She chuckled and said, “What do you mean? I’ve been gone for so long.”

 

“I don’t get it,” he said with furrowed eyebrows.

 

“Stop kidding around, Suho,” she said playfully. “It’s been a traumatic experience for all of us, but I don’t think it’s good to forget about what happened with the pirates.”

 

“But you never left,” he said.

 

“What are you talking about?” she asked, starting to become frustrated with her fiancé. “I was kidnapped by the Ignis Pirates, then the Lux Pirates! Baekhyun’s been keeping me captive this entire time!”

 

Baekhyun.

 

She immediately removed herself from Suho’s arms and backed away slowly. Just moments ago, she had been on Baekhyun’s ship, right? What had she doing on his ship again? What was she doing back home?

 

“Come back to me. It’s all a bad dream,” Suho said tenderly. He flashed her an angelic smile that she almost couldn’t resist. She was about to return to his arms when Baekhyun’s face flashed through her mind.

 

“No,” she mumbled as she held her head. “This isn’t right. I’m on his ship right now.”

 

“No, you’re right here with me,” he assured her.

 

She looked at Suho’s face and shook her head. “No, I’m not,” she said, though she painfully wanted to agree with him. She continued, “I remember now.”

 

He smiled at her one last time. “You never forgot.”

 

.::.        .::.        .::.

 

Cirrus snapped her eyes open and was greeted by the smell of sea salt in the air and the sound of crashing waves. She immediately brought her hands to her ears, though she wished she could use them to wipe away the tears that were welling up in her eyes. She wished she could have stayed in the dream forever.

 

But this was reality, and Cirrus had to confront it whether she liked it or not. She scanned the deck for Baekhyun and spotted him a few feet away. She ran towards him and stopped right in front of his face. He was smiling giddily and his eyes had lost all signs of light in them. He was chuckling about something, and whispering phrases she couldn’t quite make out.

 

“What are you doing? There’s no one at the steering wheel!” she yelled at him. He ignored her and started giggling. “Don’t listen to the singing!”

 

He couldn’t hear her voice.

 

Cirrus removed her hands from her ears and used them to shake his shoulders. When he didn’t snap out of the trance, she shook him harder.

 

“Baekhyun!” she screamed.

 

The ship hit another rock, causing Cirrus to let go of his arms and lose her balance. Baekhyun’s eyes shifted to look at her, and he grabbed her arm. Cirrus was relieved because she thought the captain had snapped out of the trance, but when she saw his lifeless eyes she knew she was wrong. Baekhyun’s mouth curved into a smirk before he suddenly pulled her close. It took Cirrus a second to realize that he had interlocked his lips with hers.

 

Baekhyun brought his arms around her and locked her in his embrace. He practically purred as he deepened the kiss between them. Cirrus could feel him smiling through the kiss, and she felt his hands exploring her backside. She tried pushing him away, but he was too strong. She screamed through the kiss, but he didn’t hear her.

 

Finally, she kicked his shin with her foot. He momentarily let go of her and reached for the spot where she had kicked him in. Cirrus raised her arm and slapped him across the face. He rubbed his cheek, which was now starting to turn red from the force she used. He looked at her with confused eyes, and muttered, “Where am I?”

 

“Wake up!” she said, her face as red as a tomato from their little scandal.

 

“, what have I been doing? Why’s everyone like this?” he demanded. Cirrus felt too embarrassed to respond to the first part of his question, but felt more than happy to answer the second half.

 

“There are sirens here, and everyone fell into a trance,” she told him.

 

“Everyone? Even me?” he yelled over the sound of the violent waves.

 

“Yes!”

 

“How did I get out of it?” he asked her.

 

“T-that’s not important right now! We need to stabilize the ship!” she shouted.

 

Baekhyun nodded his head in agreement and told the princess, “Try to snap the others out of the trance! I’ll steer the ship!” He ran towards the front of the ship and grabbed hold of the steering wheel, which was out of control. He applied force in the opposite direction it was turning in, and eventually got it to stop turning. He turned the wheel once to the left to avoid a rock in front of them, then turned it twice to the right to avoid colliding with the rocky walls.

 

Cirrus ran up to Ardent next and slapped him across the face just as she had done with Baekhyun. Ardent blinked a couple of times, and she could see the light returning in his eyes. He rubbed his cheek and asked her confusedly, “What was I doing?”

 

Cirrus explained the situation to him and told him to slap the other crew members across the face to break them out of the trance. Ardent didn’t quite fully understand everything, but listened to her and did as he was told. Within a few moments, Baekhyun had successfully stabilized the ship and everyone was brought out of the trance. When the waves calmed down, Baekhyun left the steering wheel and the entire crew gathered together.

 

“The singing’s stopped,” Cirrus pointed out.

 

“I didn’t even know sirens existed,” Ardent mumbled. “Thanks for saving us, princess.”

 

“She didn’t save you, I did,” Baekhyun said.

 

“The princess told me that to break someone out of the trance, you need to slap them across the face. If you were under the spell too, she would have slapped you as well. The princess saved us,” Ardent beamed at her.

 

“You slapped… me?” Baekhyun mumbled to himself as he rubbed the area on his cheek where her hand had slapped him. He winced at the pain, then stared at her. “Wait, how are you out of your room?”

 

“You didn’t lock it properly,” Cirrus replied without looking the captain in the eye. She didn’t dare look at him in fear of becoming flustered.

 

Baekhyun was about to say something in protest about how the lock probably had a fault in it, and that he had locked it properly, when something else caught his attention. He noticed that the winds had stopped blowing, and that the waters were completely calm. There were no waves.

 

“We’ve stopped moving,” the captain said under his breath. “, we’ve stopped moving!”

 

He looked around and saw that they were still trapped within the gorge. He ran to the front of the ship and squinted his eyes. They were still a long way from the end, that much he could tell. Up ahead, he could make out a split in the path. The straight path they had been following would soon end, and then they would be forced to make a choice.

 

But first, the ship had to start moving.

 

Baekhyun started to panic; he had never been in a situation where both the winds and waves stopped, and he didn’t have an answer to the problem. He paced around the deck, but stopped when someone shouted, “Something’s in the water!”

 

The crew ran to the edge of the ship, and a crewmember pointed at a moving figure in the water. The figure was rising, and finally revealed itself. Cirrus gasped at the sight before her. A handsome male with strawberry blonde hair and large brown eyes stared up at her. He wore no shirt, allowing her to admire his toned physique. She had been too distracted by his beauty to notice the teal fish tail that replaced his legs.

 

“The siren!” Ardent shouted and pointed at him. “I didn’t know sirens could be male. I thought they were all mermaids.”

 

The siren furrowed his eyebrows at the first mate’s comment, and slapped his tail against the water’s surface. Orbs of water levitated and flung themselves at Ardent.

 

“I’m a merman,” he said bitterly.

 

Ardent let out a yelp when the water drenched him, and he wiped his face. He wrung the hems of his shirt out, letting the water drip onto the deck. “I can’t believe I was enchanted by a merman,” he said in disgust. He rubbed his arm against his lips and then spat onto the deck as if to rid his mouth of an unpleasant taste.

 

“It’s not like I was trying to enchant the men,” he replied back with an equal level of disgust in his voice. Then, he fixated his eyes on the princess and flashed her a charming smile. “I was trying to seduce the beautiful lady.”

 

Cirrus’s cheeks reddened at the comment, and she instinctively brought her hands to her face to hide her embarrassment. There was something about his voice that made her heart race. It was smooth and incredibly melodic, and comforted her greatly.

 

“You almost cost me my ship,” Baekhyun growled at the merman and pointed his rapier at him.

 

“Almost,” the merman mused. “That’s the key word. Besides, if you guys didn’t have such strong romantic desires, you wouldn’t have been enchanted. Blame yourselves.”

 

“It’s because your voice sounds so feminine,” Ardent scoffed.

 

The crewmember standing next to Ardent chuckled and nudged Ardent’s arm. “He probably has a girly name to match his girly voice.”

 

“Probably something like Marina,” Ardent suggested with a chuckle.

 

“Or Shelly!” the crewmember laughed. The two pirates broke out into a laughing fit, causing the merman to slap his tail against the water’s surface once again. Orbs of water floated upwards, and when the merman slapped his tail against the water once more, the balls morphed into spears.

 

“I don’t have a girly name,” he said, his voice seething with anger. He was about to send the water spears at the crewmembers, when he caught a glimpse of Cirrus’s worried expression. The merman sighed and snapped his fingers. At his command, the water spears dropped into the body of water he was currently situated in. He glanced up at her and sent her a flirtatious wink, causing Cirrus’s cheeks to redden once again.

 

“Oh yeah?” Ardent smirked, clearly provoking the merman. “Try me.”

 

Without sparing Ardent a glance, the merman kept his gaze fixated on Cirrus. “My name is Luhan.”

 

---

 

A/N: I have so much to say in this author's note lmfao.

1.Ya'll are a bunch of smarty pants. A lot of you got the first clue, and many of you were able to decipher the second clue (though I bet you don't know what it's hinting at :P)

2. I know the "kiss scene" may seem out of the blue, but keep in mind that Baekhyun was under a hypnotic trance during that time (also I'm baekhyun trash and wanted to write it)

3. I know a lot of the recent subbies came from Emilieee's (wonderful) recommendation in her recent update of Darkest Hour, so I'd like to take this time to say hi :) Also, I'd like to thank Emilieee for recommending PYP <3

\\ xoxo

 

P.S. Because I love puns:

WE WONT STOP WE'LL SHOOT OUR CANONS AND CLAIM VICTORY OVER OUR ANEMONES
Fair whale