Old Ally

Alexander was never planning on leaving his newly acquired friend out to die; Orion would never do so to Alexander thought. There was a catch in what he said, he actually never exactly said he would give over his party member to the siren. He said he would leave but he never said he would not take Orion with him.

Furthermore, he did say that his party member would run into the sirens grasp, but that was never part of the deal. Instead, it was the consequence of the deal, if it did not happen then he had not necessarily lied. All he had to do was leave.

The siren started laughing.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the siren started laughing. The laughter was the kind you give when you see someone make a ridiculous mistake. Alexander was confused as making a joke was never part of his plan.

"You think you can trick me insect?"

The colour left his face. "How would she know?" he thought. The fact that she could speak so fluently made surprised Alexander, but this level of intelligence was not expected at all. Alexander decided to try his second strategy.

"Who are you calling insect, you are the one looking like a witch"

"Disgusting rat"

"Ugly pig"

"Filth"

"My eyes hurt from seeing you"

After this she was silent. Then she turned back into her mermaid form. Maybe this one got to her, Alender decided to go further. Last time she got upset she had retaliated, this time she was silent. Maybe she had figured out what was happening, however, something felt off for Alexander.

Whilst Alexander was chatting away with the "mermaid", Orion had awoken. "Tricky little bastard trying to get her all for himself," he thought as he saw Alexander chat away with the mermaid. Orion swore that he would not give up without a fight, however, if simply ran at Alexander, the same thing that happened before would happen again. Instead, he decided to sneak forward.

"Ugly old hag"

"How dare he insult her," Orion thought, her skin was after all the best he had seen. She could be the literal definition of beauty and instead of admiring her, he is insulting her! What is his problem anyway, takes her for himself only to do this.

"A mirror would break if it saw you"

With each insult, Orion got more and more infuriated. "This little piece of shit" Orion thought, he had gotten close enough for the mermaid to notice him he thought, little did he know she had noticed him from the beginning. They made eye contact for a sliver of a second but she made no noise. "strange, maybe she does not want to notify Alexander".

As he got closer thoughts of self-justice appeared. "maybe I should choke him out once, or knock him unconscious, he did it to me after all" he thought. As he got closer the thought became more attractive by the second.

Orion really wanted to reach her, if he simply ran past Alexander he would catch him out and keep her for himself. Knocking him out was justified, no rather, necessary. Extremely necessary.

Seconds before Orion would land his attack on Alexander, Alexander's old ally came to rescue him. Out of seemingly nowhere, a bluebird flew down and started pecking Orion whilst making twittering noise.

This immediately caught Alexander's attention as he turned around. He got slightly shocked at the fact that Orion had stood there, he quickly positioned himself that his eye could see both the siren and Orion.

Orion had realised that his cover was blown, instead of trying to attack Alexander he simply ran towards the siren. Alexanders mind was going in overdrive, he was not ready to give up his new friend. Logic simply disappeared from Alexander as he decided to rush after Orion into the river.

The siren was practically licking her lips, things were going a whole lot better than she had thought they would. She had every right to be happy, she would be allowed to eat two fully grown males which were better than any gift in her eyes. She bided her time though if she acted too early one could escape.

Alexander was practically shouting at Orion to stop but Orion would not listen. At this point, Orion was swimming through the water, whilst the water was reaching Alexander's waist.

Suddenly, Alexander's eyes started trailing something completely else. The small blue bird flew straight at the Siren whilst doing an immature shriek.

What happened next completely surprised Alexander. Another bluebird came into the picture. It came as quick as lighting and it was huge. Its wingspan was more than 12 meters long, and the shriek this one gave was more equivalent to a lions roar. The bluebird grabbed the siren and flew away with. The siren turned back into its real form as it flew away, allowing Orion to witness.

The siren gave off an inhuman shriek of terror but soon it could not be heard. Alexander was quite shocked, never before had he seen a bird of that size. It took him a few moments to get back his bearings. The threat was gone and Alexander waded back to the beach and fell over of pure exhaustion. He was drenched in sweat, water, hunger, exhaustion, thirst and soon he passed out.

He woke up the next day, the sky was bright blue. He could hear a fire crackling and he felt its warmth, saliva started building up in his mouth as he smelled the cooked fish. He quickly got up and saw Orion sitting there.

"Woah, took you a while huh… Listen, umm. I don't know how to say this, I am sorry for what I did. I made you fish as an apology"

"Don't worry we all make mistakes"

This took Orion off guard if he were Alexander he would not have accepted his own apology. He had risked his own life and Alexander's whilst Alexander was doing his all to save him. "What a generous man," he thought.

Alexander ate the two fish quite quickly. After he had finished his fish he went over to the river and drunk until he couldn't, then he filled up his pouch before standing up.

"You ready to keep walking?"

"Sure"

They put out the fire before following the trail.