[Written the morning of the Run.]
Someone, or something, yesterday smelled so familiar. Floral and delicate. But I couldn’t place the smell, not until I fell asleep.
My father, Astreus, was a perfumer. His hands were almost always stained, most often blue but sometimes pink or purple too, and he always smelled of the flowers he worked with. I remember that the scent was so strong, he could have taken five baths in a row and still have come out smelling of a summer meadow.
And his voice was smooth, like honey; but he never sang. I can’t remember why. I’m sure I must have asked him at some point but if I ever got an answer then, it is escaping me now. It didn’t matter that my father didn’t sing though, just his speaking voice was musical enough and it was part of what made him disarmingly charming.
Outwardly, he was polite and gracious to a fault. But he had a quill-sharp wit, which was more often than not used to attack rather than entertain. Most of the time though, his victims wouldn’t be aware that he had just insulted them to their face; or, if they were, they were convinced it was a light-hearted joke, all in good humour.
I’m making him sound awful… manipulative or calculating. And he wasn’t! At least, not maliciously. But, in a culture where most wear their hearts on their feathers, he was certainly more guarded with his true feelings than most. He was just… full of strong convictions and emotions that he was adept at masking when needed. And in a world where your survival is based on the whims of Titan’s and their favoured people, it was needed a lot.
Though not too much within the flock of course. Most Siren don’t, or at least didn’t, really care to worship the Twins. After all, we are taught from a young age that our ‘condition’ is their doing: so why would we have any love for them?
Our relationship towards them has always been more akin to that of the settler races: a culture of fear and appeasement. I dare you to find a Siren that doesn’t know the song of our city’s fall... a grim warning of what happens to those who oppose them. Even if the story itself has changed over the years, the lesson behind it endures.
Though, my father thought it more than a story I think. At least, he was certainly serious about it the night before my Name Day.
Huh, Name Day... another Siren tradition I’d all but forgotten. Most Siren celebrations are communal affairs. We celebrate all the birthdays in a single lunar cycle together and we mourn all our lost together on a single day at the end of the year.
But Name Days are different. They are one of the few events dedicated to one flock member. Traditionally, it happens on the first new moon after a Siren’s sixteenth year and it is the event that signals their transition from fledgling to adult. On that day they pick a name, from generation upon generation of songs, to reflect the kind or person they are, or the kind of person they want to become.
I still hadn’t decided what my name would be before my father spoke to me that night. Nothing felt right. But after he spoke to me, something clicked.
My father wanted Thylea to change. And he thought we could really change it. That we could ignore the fearful lessons, generations old, and reject the Titans. And I believed that, I believed him, with all my heart.
So I decided that I wouldn’t take a name from a hopeful ballad, or upbeat shanty; I would take it from a sad song, with a tragic story, so that I might change its legacy into something better.
But of course now my father is gone. Dead because of a war that was fighting for the change he so wanted. A war that I couldn’t stop from destroying everything I loved.
A war that I was part of.
...
I am so sorry Papa.