(The sirens will sing his story for centuries to come.)

The scuffing of soft leather boots against the forest floor seemed all too loud, he thought, as the soil beneath his feet became softer and softer, the trees less and less familiar. It wasn’t fear, however, that clouded the prince’s mind that balmy summer evening. Unease, more like. Disquiet. That was it, he thought. That must be it. The air was heavy with it. Clenching a clammy palm around the hilt of his sword, he straightened his spine, swallowed the lump that was beginning to form in the back of his throat and tried to comfort himself. Who was he, a Prince of all people, and heir to the throne of his kingdom, to be afraid of a little silence? Who was he to show fear at something as insignificant as losing his way, when those who ruled before him faced dangers so frightening the stories still made his heart jolt whenever he heard them told? The admiration the people held for him compared favourably to the love of these heroes of old, the prince thought as he continued along the path, and this was especially true of the women. How admirable of them to be able to see his small stature and delicately beautiful features as the epitome of manhood. Bravery, he thought. That was exactly why they all swooned over him.

(This is his world. Gold and silver, marble and stone. Not water but wine, with only land beneath his two feet, two legs. Fair-faced women, in their colourful dresses, dance and laugh; soft and pretty and human. Only the innocent heart of a flower-faced boy could save the beast.)

A crack from a branch behind made him jump and let out a high-pitched squeak. He whipped around and drew his sword. There was nothing, just the wind, maybe. The prince blinked as he took in his surroundings; still unrecognisable. Before him, he noticed, the dirt path split in two, one taking a sharp turn to the right, the other veering to the left. He glanced upwards, hoping to gain some sense of direction from the sky, but the foliage above him was too thick, just a woven tapestry of branches. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, the prince considered his options. There really was no way of telling which path would lead him out of the forest, or even if either would. He wiped the back of his hand across his sweaty brow, his face bright red. They had to lead somewhere, he concluded.  This forest couldn’t continue on forever. His best bet was to pick a path at random and follow that until he could see the sky again, at least if it wasn’t too dark by that time.  He sighed. He was never too good at navigating, or anything, really.

A flower growing just to the left of the path caught his eye. Bending down, he pulled it from the bush and began, one by one, to pluck the petals off, muttering to himself. “Left. Right. Left. Right.” The petals fell, drops of blood on the forest floor. “Left,” the prince said quietly as he discarded the last petal. He looked up at the path to his left, then back to the bud in his palm, the heart of the flower. With another deep breath, and a tremble in his footstep, he began to walk, crushing the bud under the heel of his boot as he left.

(Love, the will sing, is as easy to him as breathing. Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses. He is beautiful and she is not but with his wide eyes and open arms they will fall in love, and he will give away everything he has and teach her how to breathe again.)

As time went on, the prince noticed the scenery around him beginning to change, the tall trees, turning into long grass, the ground becoming wetter. An unpleasant smell hung in the air.

Then, without warning, the path stopped. “A swamp,” he said aloud, bluntly. The water stretched out before his eyes, murky greenish-brown. He was about to turn around, retrace his steps until he found the fork in the path again when something in the corner of his eye made him stop. The water was rippling. The prince felt his bones freeze in place, suddenly too frightened to do anything but stand there and watch as ever-so-slowly a head emerged from the water – first a pair of slitted, pale white eyes set deep in greyish-green skin, then a jaw, jutting out like the muzzle of a dog.  She looked up at him and smiled, showing every one of her teeth, pointed and sticking haphazardly out of her mouth at terrifying angles. Yet, despite the raw horror that had settled in his bones, the prince could not take his eyes away from the gruesome scene before him. She was not beautiful, far from it. She was not delicate, or pretty, or fair, or human. She was enchanting. The creature looked directly at him and opened her mouth, and he was captivated.

“Hello.”

The prince swallowed, still shaking slightly. He didn’t quite trust himself to speak. “What are you? Can… can you understand me?”

Her laugh sounded like a flowing river, or the ocean, maybe. “You are very pretty.”

Against all his better judgment, the prince took a step closer, then another. He kept moving forward, edging closer and closer until he was by the water’s edge, close enough to the creature to touch. From here he could see the creature in full view, and saw with a sickening lurch of his stomach that from her lower half grew a tail, grey and scaly and unlike anything he had ever seen before. He bowed. She laughed again. The sound sent shivers down his spine. “I am Prince-“
“A prince?” She lifted a finger up to brush the matted hair out of her face, and swam closer to the shore. “You’re a prince?”
“I am,” he almost whispered. All courage seemed to have left him now, standing alone and awestruck on the bank.
“Well then, Prince,” she smiled again. “Would you like to hear me sing?”

(And so it was that the beast was set free, as the boy reached to touch her face and she his, he knew from the moment the notes left her mouth that he would give up everything, everything he had ever owned and known, to be with her, to stay here by the waterside. His mind was filled with happy endings as her scaly hands reached out to pull him closer, one resting behind his neck, the other over his chest.)

By the time the song had finished, the creature, a creature no longer, ran a red tongue over her teeth. With steady, graceful movements, she rose from the water and stepped out onto the shore.

(The sirens will sing his story for centuries to come, of how the innocent heart of a flower-faced boy saved the beast, while the rest of him sank slowly to the murky depths of the swamp bed.)