Abed would have to wait, as much as it pained him. The world, the ever-changing world was still new to him. His “slumber” hadn’t been too kind to him, and he felt that his power hadn’t returned to full force just yet, which was while he took refuge here until it did. When it that, it was only a matter of time before he would seek out those that devoted themselves to him. Until then. Sol sat in the darkness, one that he grew familiar with in the cramping tomb his father sealed him in. Just to serve as a lesson he would be forced to endure. The ruins were close to Abed, and it wouldn’t take too much to go to the island, but Sol needed his mind and body to heal up until then. The cavern was still here, a place where he would come to off and on again to take in the silence.

Hardly anyone came here, and even if someone did, it wouldn’t end pretty. Over and over his mind played out the situation which caused him to be captured and trapped in the first place. He was called ambitious yet reckless at the same time, with his father giving him a shallow warning. He would have to be prepared for the next time, no longer having that old man correct him. On and off, he would hear some creature’s growls and snarls but ignored them for the most part. His senses were still on haywire but his pride was still the thing that would heal the slowest.

He had been there for a couple of hours now, knowing full well that his stay was limited. Sol lifted his hand and summoned forth a small, black fire in his palm. “Not enough. That man took my powers and now I have to rest. Curse him.” Xunatar was a powerful demon, but Sol was so close. He would have taken his rightful place had he not been tricked at the last moment. Now he was like a drowning rat, barely keeping his head above water, but marked his words, he will see his plans through if it was the last thing he did.

After the siren annoyed her siblings and got to know them a bit more she made her leave. It was time to go home to her grotto. Hopefully, in the time she had been away that people had not found her passage. The sunken ruins of Abed were her home away from her father. Now that she was awake she could make her permanent residence at her true home.

Now that she was home she began to sift through all of her treasures. They were glimmering in the glowing rocks that she had collected from mystic caves at the bottom of the ocean. She placed them about her grotto and the dark depths lit up.

It was the growls that caught her attention at first. She swam through the secret entrance to her grotto to check things out. Somehow a bizarre little demon had got in. A low hiss left her lips as her mouth revealed itself. The pursuit was on as she and the demon began to tango down under Sol. Slowly the waters around him turned red. That was when she noticed him. Her midnight blue eyes came up out of the water first as she peeked up at him.

The light of the flame caught her eye as she spat water at it and canceled the magic with her own. Her naked top flesh slid up his and she smirked. “Did you let the naughty demon in? I don’t think you did.” The smell was what caught her attention. “You smell so familiar.” Her hands slid up his arms. “I can get you to a dry spot… if you want.”

Her hands smoothed over her wet hair as she cooed towards Sol. “You have such pretty hair and skin.”

Sol was sure that no one had been here in the recent past or even now. Sadly, he turned out to be incorrect, and it started from the moment his eyes fell onto the water nearby him. It’s sea green color changing to a more crimson hue and the smell that hit his nose smell of copper mixed with the naturally salty water. Blood. There was blood in the water. Perhaps a predator certainly had made its way over here and brought some food with it. Sol wasn’t too worried about it as long as it didn’t mess with him.

He was still trying to come to terms with his lack of power when a stream of water came out and dashed his flames to cinders. Obviously, when he stared at the water, there was no amusement cross his face before he summoned another ball of flames and threw it at the water. It was likely to miss the perpetrator, he only used it as a warning shot. Eventually, it came out to be a woman of sorts. Clearly not human from her scent, and she took no time in wasting his. Her attitude and actions as she brushed herself up against him weren’t taken kindly. In fact, he was rather frustrated that his time of silence was gone and that she was disturbing him. Pulling away, he folded his arms and summoned a great measure of strength to not take her by the throat and wrangle it until it snapped. “Who are you, and what are you doing here? Hardly anyone comes here, and I do not need…distractions.” Sol was blunt as they came, and he wished that he could strike up more than just fireballs so that he would roast her.

Within moments, he calmed himself down and looked at her, “Something tells me that you a lot of this place. Granted, I have never seen you before, but you have met my kind?”

Giggles surrounded him before she even showed up. The fireball had missed her entirely but it had been amusing at the very least. “I live here. Why are you here?” She was avoiding her name at first before she mulled it over in her mind. “I’m called Undine, the siren of the depths.”

Tilting her head she slid back into the water. “I live here and I’ve learned here for centuries now. I’ve made my grotto here of all the best things. Jewelry, gold, skulls, bones,… pretty little men like you.” There was a seductive smile on her face as she grabbed him and dragged him into the water.

“I know your brothers.” It was her last words before she kissed him. A bubble of air given to him as she took him through the layers of ruin. Soon there was a graveyard of rotten corpses… half eaten or untouched… and then the bones. An opening was marked with glowing crystals and she took him through it. So much treasure just as she had said. It took a bit to get to the top but when they did there was a room on dry land with… surprisingly a bed. “Sometimes I like to sleep on kelp and sometimes I like to sleep on a bed.” She pushed him out of the water and onto the grotto floor.

It was illuminated with thousands of wall crystals. It had taken years to do. She watched him from the water before she slid herself up. Her midnight blue and gold scales began to wither away until she had legs just like him. She flexed her feet and giggled at the sensation before pushing herself up into a standing position. “You may rest here. I will not eat you. I will also answer your questions.”

Sol wasn’t amused by this siren’s tactics. His father, in his infinite wisdom, seemed to have made the right call in saying that their brethren of the sea was…too volatile to manipulate and use or even make allies. He had far less patience than Xunatar could muster and it was showing as he wanted her to answer his questions. “I have known of this place for eons, though I have been away for a great time now”, he responded. He should have known that sooner or later that someone else would take advantage of his disappearance and make this place into their own. Buried treasures and secrets weren’t what he sought out here, so as far as Undine was concerned, she wouldn’t have to fret.

Before he could sense what she was about to do, she took him under the water and his surprise over her knowing his brothers was only outdone by that damn kiss. But it seemed as though he could breathe the water as if it was air, which was great considering how long they traveled before he reached the surface again. How did she know? Most of his kin were locked away because of their father…

Was she talking about them? The precious ones? The worthy ones? Those that Xunatar was really after?

The stench of death hit his nose when he took his first breath of actual air and it was nauseating, to say the least. “Charming place, he was able to speak. While death itself wasn’t bothersome, the aftermath with rotting corpses was disgusting. How she was able to live around here with this was remarkable. Sol’s impression of her shifting didn’t change his thoughts on the matter. He needed peace of mind, and that was disturbed. So naturally, he was pissed. “Eat me? I’m not worried about a trivial thing like that. If you know my brothers then you should know that I’m not one to be feasted upon. His glare only deepened, “While we are on the subject, tell me of whom you speak of. And why haven’t I seen you in these parts before?”

“I was given new life around this area completely. This is the place where I blossomed.” He must have been gone long before she was even born. Eligos had told her of this place and it was a safe place for a person like her.

She looked back at him once they got to the surface. “The corpses keep the unwanted out. They know not to trend in this place.” She waved her hand and it was like the air sucked down and a heavenly scent remained. “This is home. This is where I was safe for years and how I was taught to survive. My kind is hunted early lest we get too strong to manage.”

She walked about and thought about his question. “Relax Love, it’s just something I tell myself to say to everyone I don’t want to eat. I had your brother shaking in his boots after I threw my sister into a wall. Though the wolf was mighty upset with me.” She smirked a bit and shrugged. “I’m speaking of your scent. You smell like Dante, Steele, and Colden. I’ve only been alive just past two hundred years… Colden, the youngest of the three, just happens to be my little brother as well. I paid a visit home after I woke from my slumber.”

She tilted her head at him more and moved towards him with ease. “Your brothers Steele and Dante are with my sisters Eldora and Lotus… They know of each other through Colden of course. I haven’t met your father. I wasn’t too keen on testing the waters completely with that family of mine.”

The siren waved her hand over a bowl with fresh fruit appearing in it. “Hungry?” She pushed it towards him. “I was just surprised to find another who smelled just like those three… who gave the same auras as them… Well in a way. I thought I would be courteous like my father taught me to be with land dwellers we have connections to. Our connection might not be great but still a brother of my brother is a guest in my house.”

Her blue eyes glowed in the dim light of the cavern. “The bodies at first sickened me and made me vomit at just the scent… but my father taught me the ways to hide myself. I watched so many of my sea sisters end up hung from boats as they were speared and gutted. But I remain. I survived. I barely notice the scent anymore. I was mainly taught to avoid her. These defenses were to make sure my own mother couldn’t kill me after what I did. It is a shame that our brother was born to such a wretch. If only I hadn’t missed when I tried to kill her… I could have saved him from being born one of hers. So I suppose I took an interest in you to learn because of that.”

Hearing about a wolf in the midst forced out a small snarl from his lips. “Steele…so the little puppy grew up? Thought his rage would fizzle him out for good one day”, he spoke more to himself than her. “Dante and Colden, I am not familiar with them. Meaning Father hadn’t finished in his plan after… “ After he was imprisoned, though he shouldn’t have been too surprised- before that, only Steele and Carrie existed, and they were both so young in comparison to him and the others. He personally didn’t care about them or the other sin children, just as long as they didn’t get in his way. If so, then he would destroy them without a second thought.

Undine was also very young, Sol was her senior by nearly two millennia. Of course, he hadn’t seen her before now. “I may smell like them, but make no mistake- I am not like them. They may be my father’s favorites, but they are weak.” He looked at his hand again, “When I am back to full force, they will be able to see that. As long as they stay out of my way, then they can live as they wish.”

It was all making sense once she mentioned the connection they shared; between the fact that they share a brother, and their other siblings were courting each other. Being gone for this long, he had certainly missed a few things, that was for sure. Looking at the bowl, he refrained at first from touching it. Trust was something he wasn’t too keen on giving out early on. No, he wanted to know her game and what she was up to, first.

“Regrets, regrets. We all have them. I regret not defeating that blasted demon of a father of mine. I regret letting myself be defeated and then placed in a confined little tomb for centuries. If you wanted to keep your mother out of here, then I suppose chances are that you succeeded. Still, does it bother you that you didn’t finish the job too? Is it our fate as their children to surpass them and be grander?” Sol snatched up one of the pieces of fruit and took a deep bite out of it. It amazed him that it tasted so good. Then he remembered that he hadn’t eaten in gods knew how long. “My job isn’t finished, not until he concedes to me. It will never be finished. Perhaps out of hospitality of our…bloodlines, I will not harm you. But take heed, don’t stand in my way.”