#a gift for mari-onberry

[perditaalottachocolate-blog]

Happy holiday season @mari-onberry !!! I’m your Secret Santa this year! Please accept this very special Lukanette fic! All the best in 2023!

An enormous thank you to all of the @mlsecretsanta team for organizing this wonderful event!!! 

Many thanks to @goblin-alchemist​ for betareading this!

The Siren Song

Summary: The siren song is a beautiful and treacherous thing, they say. But Prince Luka never listened to old tales; he always listened to his heart instead. So when his heart fell for the divine melodies sung by the full moon over the boundless ocean, he knew the myths were wrong. For whoever sang that song, must have had a beautiful soul and a pure heart. The raven hair and ocean-blue eyes were a nice bonus. Too bad he was a bit too preoccupied with drowning to properly appreciate them.

Also on AO3

Chapter 1. If you sing to the mermaids 

If you sing to the mermaids, they come when you're drowning — Tori Amos

The evening was particularly calm at the sea. The Liberty was being gently lulled to sleep over the sluggish waves. There was a storm brewing far on the horizon, its tall clouds made even darker courtesy of the full moon. But if Prince Luka averted his eyes from the boiling bulks of lightning, he could pretend it was a tranquil evening, just like the one a month ago. 

He found it hard to believe that four whole weeks had passed since the Liberty had set sails to take him to faraway lands in search for a suitable match. Despite his mother’s objections, his father, King Jagged, had been unusually insistent on finding Luka a bride worthy of the crown prince. And Luka, ever the obedient and good-natured son, met princess after princess, heiress after heiress, some daughters of noblemen in the mix as well. Some had been stunningly beautiful, others - as he’d been told - unimaginably rich. Some had talent for embroidery, flower-arranging, cricket or other skills considered useful in high society. Some had shown interest in music, either in singing or playing instruments, yet Luka found each performance lacking the essence and passion he so desired in a soulmate. 

Juleka, his sister, mocked him for being picky. The truth was much simpler. His heart had already been taken, only he couldn’t say so out loud.

How could he, when he hadn’t even laid eyes on the one he’d fallen for? When he wasn’t even sure she existed, that he hadn’t dreamed of her that night of the full moon a month ago?

Such thoughts ran through his head, as Luka stood on the prow gazing on the dark, oily waves, straining his ears, searching for the notes of the song that had captured his heart. The melody had seemed out of this world, sung in a bizarre language, in a scale he’d never encountered despite his thorough musical education. Yet in some unfathomable way it had reached right into his soul and imprinted itself in his memory forever. 

Wind picked up, ruffling Luka’s hair and filling his lungs with salty air. The prince pulled out his guitar, he strummed the strings, listening to the wind whispering in the instrument’s belly. He felt the world holding its breath and he found himself waiting, wound tightly just below the breaking point.

Then came the song. 

Vibrant notes carried over the ocean, pulling at his heartstrings like no melody had ever done before. Luring him in, making him want more, making him wish it’d never end. Luka gasped, realizing this was his moment of truth, that he hadn’t been imagining things or slowly going crazy. He had been right the whole time. 

For a few moments he let himself be submerged in the music. When it filled him to the brim he took a deep breath. He raised his guitar and joined the song in an impossible duet, just like that first time one month ago. 

The voice, searching and wistful at first, turned joyful, excited even, as if the guitar was a long missing friend. It greeted the new addition with enthusiasm, relishing the new harmonies, new possibilities that came from combining the vocal and the instrument. Unified the voice and the guitar transformed the song into something greater than its parts.

It flew over the water. It echoed in the ship’s hull. It filled the sails.

Enchanting. 

Mesmerizing. 

Spellbinding. 

Luka was lost in the music, in the feeling of finally being complete. He reached deeper to the underlying rhythm and discovered it synchronized with his own pulse, a perfect harmony of two heartbeats. The heartsong he’d been looking for, the one he’d been drawn to, the one he’d been destined to join. His soulmate, he realized, opening his eyes.

And then the storm hit.

***

It wasn’t unusual for Marinette to sing in the evenings nor was it uncommon for her to dream of the adventures in faraway lands, above the sea, among the two-legged people she frequently spotted on the beaches and on those wooden sea beasts called ships. Yet, she never dared to sing above the surface, allowing her voice to be heard by ears other than those belonging to the merfolk. At least not until that last full moon, when she had succumbed to the strange desire that had awakened in her, urging the little mermaid to swim up to the surface and let her song flow freely over the waves. 

Something told her that was where she was supposed to be, and that was what she was supposed to be doing. She never expected to be answered back. She never would have guessed her performance wouldn’t be a solo, but instead a duet out of this world. 

The boy had been standing in the moonlight, high over the water. His dark hair had been tinted blue at the tips, as if he’d dipped them in the ocean. His eyes reflected the moonlight, glowing unnaturally bright, while he stared out into the darkness with a faraway expression upon his handsome face. She’d wondered what he was dreaming about at that moment. At first she had thought he’d been singing, but then she noticed the instrument he’d been wielding, a brown box with strings. The melody had been divine, soft and tender, reaching out, searching. It found her song and entwined itself with it, creating a new harmony, filling the pauses, completing the rhythm, until the song became a perfect amalgam of water and land, of above and below, of human and mer. 

It had left Marinette wanting to follow the ship, to never separate from the boy. And she might have just gone for it if it wasn’t for Tikki. Her crab chaperon had caught up with her at the last moment. She pinched Marinette’s tail, quite painfully, snapping the girl out of her reverie. The ship had disappeared from sight long before Tikki finished scolding Marinette for her unauthorized evening swim. 

Since then the little mermaid anxiously awaited news of ships passing over their kingdom, but none of them sported the characteristic eyes and whale-like smile of the boy’s vessel. She almost lost hope she’d ever see him again. Her heart ached at the thought, as if that stranger, who hadn’t even seen her, took a part of her with him and she’d never be complete again without it. 

Tikki must have had a word with Alya, because her guppy childhood friend kept a close eye on Marinette for the whole month and asked a lot of pointed human-related questions. Finally Marinette was able to coax Nino, the googly-eyed turtle, to ask Alya out, freeing herself of her orange-tailed friend’s company.

As luck had it, this was the night of the full moon. Marinette feigned going to bed early to get King Tom and Queen Sabine off her scales. Then, she set out to find if she was indeed as lucky as she’d been dubbed by the royal court. 

Anxiously, Marinette swam to the surface and began her siren song. She sang of all the hopes and dreams, the feelings that came to her that fateful night, the heartache that followed. She felt the world falling silent around her, bewitched and enthralled by this new song. The wind carried it into the night, but only the moon listened.

She almost gave up, but then she heard the soft and sweet sounds of the instrument - guitar, as she’d learned - calling out to her. 

She saw him standing on the prow, eyes closed, fingers dancing over the strings. His whole being seemed to be consumed by music, her music. Marinette would be a liar if she said she didn’t like the thought. But just as he seemed to be spellbound by the melody, she felt similarly smitten. She hadn’t even locked eyes with him, yet she felt the connection between them, a bond stronger than anything she’d experienced in her life. 

At the next flash of lightning, he opened his eyes and looked straight at her. Marinette froze, hypnotized by his gaze, unable to look away. Her voice died in her throat, just like the guitar grew silent. 

A beat of silence. Two heartbeats. Three - and then came the hurricane drowning everything in rain and wind. 

Marinette found it difficult to stay above the water, the waves tossing her any way they liked. She tried her best to stay close to the ship, because each time she resurfaced she saw him standing right there, despite the gusts and the rain, looking for her. As if he cared for no one else in the entire world. As if the storm, the ocean’s wrath didn’t matter to him at all.

As if he had eyes only for her. 

Another lightning bolt struck dangerously close and she dove below the surface for cover. When she reemerged, several other humans had appeared up on the deck, scurrying about with a chaotic, frantic energy. Her eyes darted around, seeking out her musician, but she couldn’t spot him anywhere among the men. A round object bobbed on the water, tethered to the ship with a thick rope, while the crew kept shouting and pointing towards it. 

Marinette’s stomach clenched. Chills descended down her spine, shaking the fin of her tail. Something was wrong. She dove to where the crew were pointing. At the next flash of lightning she saw her musician frantically fighting the currents, kicking and waving his hands. Despite his efforts he kept sinking further and further down, pulled back by a maelstrom he’d gotten caught in. 

Never in her life had Marinette raced so fast. In a blink, she was at his side, wrestling with the vortex, pulling him away from its clutches. She wrapped him in a tight embrace, shielding him from the currents, but stopped her finning when he looked at her in astonishment.

‘Hi,’ she uttered shyly, suddenly extremely aware of their closeness.

He opened his mouth to reply but only a few bubbles of air came out. Then, he passed out in her arms.

Right, humans needed air from above the water to breathe. Marinette rushed back to the surface.