Ask not for help, I’m afraid you’re alone.
Ask for my company, and I’ll take you home.
Feel not the dread, I’ll wash it away.
Feel just my touch, and swear you will stay
Dust Cover gasped quickly, pulling every last bit of air she could into her lungs. Each tiny bit of air ready to be converted into an ear piercing scream. But it never left her lips. A cold hoof pressed against her muzzle, pushing her back until she slid into the bars behind her. Slitted eyes peered out from amidst deep blue scales. “Breath not a word, or I’ll steal it from you. Breath not one breath, you’re mine that’s true.” the words softly fell from the siren.
“S-Siren…” Dust’s resolve began to melt away.
“Serenade” breathed Prisoner, his eyes rapt on the creature behind the softly squirming mare. “I did so enjoy your song.”
With a sinister smile, and a melodious laugh, Serenade glanced at her captured changeling. “Oh Prizzy, you were so helpful distracting our little treat here. I owe you so much for your help, be a dear and finish the story. I do so love your stories.”
Prisoner visibly shuddered his horn glowing and his chitin starting to work it’s way back together. “I know you can still hear me darling Dust, the song controls you, but doesn’t blind you. You get to enjoy every precious moment that you’re joined with Serenade.” Prisoner almost cooed as he ran a hoof along Dust’s spine, her body not even able to flinch away.
“Sirens are almost emotivores, not too far from changelings to be accurate really. But where as we require love to sustain ourselves, a siren can go for years, decades, centuries without a meal. They age all the same, but let one feed properly and they snap back to their true youthful self. The shined scales, the trim fins, the hydrodynamic lithe figure, it could make a pony drool.” His hoof swept forward and wiped away the spit dribbling from the corner of her mouth.
“Yes, a good meal does wonders for the complexion, everything from laugh lines to a saggy plot just zaps away with a little hatred, or envy, or anger.” Serenade punctuated every emotion with a sharp snap of her jaws. “A simple melody, almost breathlessly hummed is all I need to harvest, but it is so rewarding to wait for things to ripen.”
“Serenade wasted no time with me, telling me of my failure, how every last of our swarm had been repulsed. Everypony along the Seapony’s Seaboard was talking about it, not knowing just below the pier she had been listening, waiting, and learning. ‘You are a failure, your only hope is to flee back to your home and try to seek forgiveness… is that what you want?’ she asked me, her loving eyes so full of hope I felt it deep inside me. ‘Yes, I need to go!’ I cried out making a break to move past her.” Serenade leaned against Dust, pushing her harder against the bars, pinning her.
“That’s when I grabbed him, told him I’d be lonely and that he couldn’t go. I wouldn’t let him. He got so confused, demanded to be let go, or at least know why. I lied to him, boldfaced and paper-thin. He knew I was lying, and it angered him, oh how it angered him when I told him he couldn’t leave me alone.” Her finned tail played lightly along Dust’s side as she began to rest her head on the captive mare’s chest.
“The next day I tried again, and the reason changed, she mentioned how there were guards hunting for us, everypony would see me and I was hurt still. I asked if there were guards here, in Reinshore and she smiled when she said no. So I asked again, and she answered no, I couldn’t leave. That was my clever darling hard at work, ripening up my frustrations.”
“It was so tempting to sing him a lullaby and take it all right then, but I knew if I wasn’t greedy now, I could be very, very greedy soon.” Her sentenced ended with her teeth gently nibbling at her captive’s shoulder.
“This went on for months, each time I tried she had a new reason, just as obviously a stalling tactic as the last. And my hatred grew to a righteous fury, every negative thought I could have was directed at her. It had been a full season, four months of no emotional sustenance, I was at my limit, I couldn’t last another day. And I spat at her, for being so cruel as to let me starve. Do you know what she did to me then miss Dust?”
The mare in question didn’t answer, he eyes vacant and staring ahead as hooves ran over her body.
“She sang me a lullaby, the sweetest song she could, one that welcomed me and thanked me for hating her. She stopped lying, and in that brief second, as my hate and anger fueled her, she smiled at me. I lay on the floor, un-moving, the shallowest of breaths all that was left within me. And then the song stopped, she slowly crept up to me over what felt like days. Her scales glistened like I had never seen, shining brighter than the sun and more regal than even my queen.”
“I leaned down towards him little dear, I bent over his form, feeling his emotions run wild with my magic. He hated me more purely than anypony else ever had. Centuries of drownings, of luring sailors, of hiding what I was so no archmage would banish me like our strongest long ago. He was the best. So I kissed him, something I had never done while they were still alive.”
“It was glorious, like an oxygen starved mind taking its first breath as a pony reaches the surface, I gorged on that small affection. But it broke me from my stupor, and I felt revulsion, she was feeding from me, and I hated it. Finally I asked if she was just teasing me with life so I could hate her more. And then it grew, that idea I had unknowingly planted gave her a rush of inspiration, and as the scenario played out in her head, I felt it for the first time since I had crashed.”
“Prizzy had a lovely idea, in more ways than one. I had been taught long ago not to play with my food, but Prizzy here, he made it so rewarding. I grew stronger, and younger, and more beautiful with each passing bar that left my lips. And not to be shown up he hated me more and more, giving his all into wishing me dead and more. I knew I shouldn’t play with my food, mother always told me I would get attached, but mother never knew a changeling.” her grin was back in full sway as Dust began to gain more control of herself.
“W-w-w, why?” she choked out
“Don’t you see now dear, she appreciated my work, she more than basked in it, she came to love it, and love me. She fed me, and I grew stronger, and I demanded revenge, letting myself keep feeding her in turn. Oh, we thought it could go forever, us endlessly supplied the other with all we could ever dream of.” Prisoner sneered as he felt the last of his chitin stitch itself back together.
“You doing alright now dear?” Serenade called back to him a the changeling caught his breath.
“Yes, yes, my reserves will just be empty for a small while, but you’re oh so helpful my darling Seafoam.” Prisoner couldn’t help but reach through the bars and stroke at his lovely siren’s face.
“S-s-sick” Dust Cover managed, her hind legs squirming but finding no purchase on the now slick stone.
“No, no, no, dear Dust Cover. Sick isn’t even close to what we have. But sick is close to the reason Prizzy asked you that important question. Do you remember what it is?” Serenade held her up by her hoover, the fight starting to return to the mare before her. “Why can you hear three ponies breathing in a room with just two ponies?”
Dust Cover felt her stomach fall out, dread spilling from every pore in her body as the next new voice of the evening reached her ears, a voice she never thought she’d hear again. “It’s ‘cause they got you a present squirt!” A deep voice happily sounded from behind her.