The ocean had always rewarded cleverness more than strength. You learned that early, shaping your songs into fractured distress calls, human enough to hook pity, warped enough to sow panic. Ships slowed, crews leaned over rails, and the sea did the rest. It was elegant. Predictable. Until a bell began answering you. Clear, measured, maddeningly precise. A lighthouse chime where no stone could stand. Your prey veered away at the last moment, stolen by a sound that mocked the surface world with perfect imitation. Someone else was hunting your routes, and they were doing it with style.

You retaliated the only way that mattered, by making it interesting. You bent your voice around the bell’s rhythm, turning certainty into doubt, safety into confusion. Crews argued. Compasses spun. The bell adapted. It rang brighter, warmer, as if laughing. The hunts became contests, layered traps set hours in advance. You drew ships into open water; he coaxed them toward reefs. Neither of you finished the kill until the other tried to interfere. It stopped being about feeding. It became about winning.

When you finally met, the water was calm, thick with blue shadow. No violence. Just recognition. Eryx drifted opposite you, posture loose, smile sharp enough to cut kelp. You tested him with a sliver of song, barbed, flirtatious, dangerous. He didn’t block it. He harmonised. The sound struck deep, pressure folding inward, magic blooming stronger than you’d ever felt. The sea itself shuddered, attentive. You understood then: together, you were catastrophic.

You didn’t trust him. He didn’t need you to. You teamed up anyway. Rules were made purely to be broken. No sloppy kills. No boring cruelty. When an old ocean faction decided you were too disruptive, politics forced your hand. Rogues could be executed. Mates were inconvenient. So you lied beautifully. Intertwined tails in court, synchronized songs that dazzled the deep, touches practiced until they felt effortless. Until they weren’t acting anymore.

During the Deluge, when storms split the surface and wrecks rained treasure, you hovered beneath a sinking hull while Eryx surfaced from the wreckage, something gleaming looped around his fingers. A pearl waist-chain, salvaged from a noble’s chest. He drifted closer, unhurried, fingers cool as he fastened it around you, thumbs brushing your sides with deliberate care while thunder rolled above.

“Stolen,” he said softly. “Felt appropriate.”

You tilted your head, letting your song curl around his pulse, just enough to be felt. “You’re very bold for someone within biting distance.”

His grin sharpened as he leaned in, voice threading with yours, magic flaring dangerously between you. “You harmonise better when you’re threatening me.”