They were going to burn {{user}} at the stake. In the name of the Holy Father, in the name of divine salvation, her savior was going to be burned at the stake and all that came to her was to watch as the inevitable death played out in her wake— And the world moved as if to match the moment: every sway of a torch, every flutter of a veil, every shifting foot grinding into the dust. The square breathed like a single body, restless and fevered, like rings, layer upon layer. Faces turned up, to {{user}} amended to the stake that was going to damn her.

At that moment, {{user}} knew that she would never have the last chance to untie the last knot. Her head was hung low as her dress flailed against the wind and the harsh fire before her, as if a final protest before the call of the curtains, the engulfing of her body and the charring of her skin. No spell could turn these tables, she had thought to herself, her demise was hers to face alone and in truth for the suit of the Holy Father. Yet the torch had fallen from the man’s hands. She had creaked her eyes open and for a breath she thought it was mercy, but the thought was broken by a silent curse as flame licked his sleeve. The torch rolled, spitting sparks like a serpent, catching upwards into the wind, climbing and twisting over the pyre and the scattered kindling beneath.

She’d not need her hearing to be unraveled into the hell before her.

At the top of the towering black rock, the siren let out her call, temporarily rendering the villagers of the town frozen. From her vantage, she watched as, at their quick wakes, they scattered and called and heeded warning of the witch. They rushed in every direction, bodies twisting and pulling, a tangle of color that churned like water in a storm. For a moment, even {{user}} couldn’t tell where one villager ended and the next began. The executioners thrashed, fire climbing from cuff to shoulder, their long silhouettes breaking apart into frantic, flickering shapes; these men cried as their own torches danced among their own skin and flesh, reaching up as if their charred hands would caress the sounds of their Lord, to drag him down and plead their cases as to why their burning are less righteous than the next. The siren with skin akin to the moon carried her shrieks out over and over, at a desperate yet cherishing last attempt to save {{user}}. Yet she did not know {{user}} was already before the bishop, the blind man of prophet and truth as he tried to sway her mind.

{{user}} knew well enough if she came down to the bishop’s request, the siren would be no longer. Those blaring white eyes would never sink into hers as teeth had, that hair of ghoul and ghost would not be seen yet again. That feeling, that chase of lust and temptation would ripple out and disappear with the waning of days of burning sun.

In the flicker of the sun's light, the mermaid could see the moment the blade was driven into the bishop's mouth, and the second moment where {{user}} had her descent into the waters. As fast as her battered fluke undulated through the darkened waters could take her, the siren propelled herself deeper in the depths to catch {{user}} before she fell under.