A few days late, but here is my take on the prompt for Wednesday Words, February 22, 2023.
In a single pass through the waterfall of truth, everything fell away. The lies, the guilt and hesitations, the scales the siren hid behind. She tried to cover her face with her dark webbed fingers, but the sailor carefully pulled them away.
“I always told you I didn’t mind,” the sailor murmured. “I didn’t need to see.”
She sniffed. “I couldn’t live with myself if you didn’t. I needed you to see the real me.”
Her body was long, her lower half shaped more like a blue whale with blubber. Even the coloring was similar. The scales she’d carefully sewn onto her lower half and tail floated away on the white waves.
“Still beautiful,” the sailor whispered. He pulled her hand to his lips, brushing them against her knuckles.
The siren’s tail twisted with each kiss, and blush tinted her cheeks. “I can sew them back on…”
The sailor thrashed the nearest scales away with his free hand. “No, if I don’t need them to lose myself in you, then those other sailors you must sing to their deaths won’t mind. You don’t need to match our lore.”
Laughter escaped the siren, and it faded into the rush of water. The sailor watched her, mesmerized by her laugh as if she were singing to him through the early morning sea fog.
Then he claimed her lips, desperate for the woman he’d fallen for so many travels ago.
Now, with their secrets laid bare, they could finally be one.
For more enchanting Wednesday Words by other authors, check out the official Wednesday Words page!