Milena and Sari

The journey became a ride full of encounters, memories and small fleeting victories.

There was no hurry in their wanderings, as if time itself had surrendered to them, allowing them to move forward with the cadence of long days and deep nights. Even if they both still had nightmares, they were together, that was more than enough.

Many times the stops were an opportunity to relive the past, to shake hands with old comrades from the front and share anecdotes with those who, at the time, had been only shadows rescued during the missions. They were surprised to see how well the feys had come to blend in with human society, although at other times they lived in hiding.

The communes of feys and humans, hidden among valleys and remote villages, were testimony of a world that had learned to live together in secret, far from the voracity of war and that wanted to continue that way. Although they had undoubtedly been subjected to the same problems as the whole country during the war.

In those silent lands, where the stories of the war were told together with the company of a drink in a bar at night, Lizbeth and Shin were received like ghosts of yesteryear by their acquaintances. Most were glad that they had ended up together, but others doubted the future.

In one of those places, their stay was longer than expected. A strange phenomenon disturbed the tranquility of the area: wandering lights in the night, whispers in the hills, disappearances that no one could explain. It was the first time, after the last mission in the war, that they were confronted with the paranormal, but this time it was not only about eradicating an anomaly. The line between the mundane and the spectral was more blurred.

They arrived at dusk, when the mist had already begun to crawl over the fields like a living thing. The villagers—and the few feys who lived among them—spoke of the Pale Ones, silhouettes seen near the abandoned quarry on moonless nights. Livestock vanished without a trace, and those who ventured into the hills alone returned days later, changed—silent, unfocused, as if something inside them had stayed behind.

Lizbeth traced the anomaly to a collapsed underground chamber hidden beneath the quarry. There, they found remnants of an ancient ritual site, sealed long ago with blood-bound wards that had begun to decay. A fragment of old fey magic, left untended, had unraveled into a leak between realms, allowing echoes to slip through—memories of the dead, raw emotion without form. Not quite ghosts. But close enough to unsettle the living.

With the help of the villagers, they combed through old books and local legends until they unearthed the tale of a forbidden love between a fey and a human—one that had ended in betrayal. The site had been cursed by ancient feys, and it was said that the land only found peace after a sorcerer used fey blood to bind the sorrow. The signs matched exactly. According to the locals, a small earthquake a few weeks earlier might have disrupted the fragile seal.

They performed a quiet rite—not to banish, but to stabilize. Lizbeth offered her blood. Shin, though no expert in magical wards, called in a few favors from old contacts who assured him that even without powers, he could still help anchor the ritual. He did. The chamber exhaled once, long and low, then fell silent. The lights vanished. The whispers ceased. The missing did not return… but those left behind began to dream of them—peacefully, this time.

It wasn't victory. But it was enough.

In another case they discovered that not everything that manifested itself had to be destroyed. Some specters were nothing more than memories trapped in an artifact, echoes of a close past that still sought to be heard within a weapon—all of whose wielders were possessed by the ghosts of those who had used it during the war. When calm finally returned to the city, Shin and Lizbeth set out again.

Following the west coast, the sea and lakes became their most constant confidant. More so in Lizbeth's case.

Ever since she was in Runen, she used to go swimming in the sea, even in winter. Lizbeth, now with her love for the water, sought it out whenever she could.

She was a siren after all.

No matter how icy the ocean was, she would dive with the grace of a being returning to her element. Her body over the years had stabilized when she was on water, and she no longer felt cold when diving even on nights when the temperature was low.

On nights when the wind blew tangling her hair and the world seemed to stand still, they both went into the sea, stripped of everything but themselves. It was not just a lovers' game, but a gift that during the war would have been impossible to realize. There, the intimate moments were few and far between, but now it was no longer so.

In the foam of the waves or under the moon, passion would find them rolling in the sand, and in the salty breeze their bodies would discover each other again and again, as if desire were a sacred rite.

But... well, at the end of the games they had to go back to bathing in the waters.

They had already learned the lesson the first time, that having sex in the sand was annoying too, when the next day they had to sweep the entire RV and shake the mattress off the bed. Not to mention cleaning the shower and toilet of sand particles. It was also true that sometimes even after washing, they continued inside the RV, for that reason they had to make sure that the least amount of sea smell, remained inside the RV. The odor could stick to the mattress very easily due to the humidity of the region and for that reason it was necessary to put the mattress in the sun during the day.

Thus, between salty waters and winding roads, they arrived in Liverpool. The city rose before them with its bustle and a brutal contrast with the stillness of the landscapes they had left behind, much greener. Here there were no hidden communes or villages whispering legends in the night, but a hive of humanity in constant motion rebuilding itself from the bombings of the previous year. And yet, beneath that layer of modernity, there were still the vestiges of a history they knew only too well. There were feys there too, some more mischievous than others.

Each city, each village, each stretch of coastline was a new story, an ephemeral routine that always came to an end. Lizbeth and Shin could stay days or months in one place, but the journey continued. Sometimes it was by choice, by the simple need to move, to keep seeing the world, without time slipping through their fingers.

But at other times the cause was Shin.

No matter how peaceful a place seemed at first, sometimes it was enough to spend enough nights there for something strange to happen. There was no way to prove it, but Lizbeth knew: Shin attracted the supernatural like a beacon in the storm.

The first time, it was almost a coincidence. A rumor of voices from nowhere in the morning fog, strange lights that seemed to move along the cliffs for no reason, the strange behavior of the birds. Then, the second time, the coincidences became impossible to ignore.

Something awoke in the city they were staying.

A winged creature, bony and dark as coal—emerged from a cliff by the sea on a moonless night. There was no screaming until it was too late. No one was killed, but some were injured, as panic broke out among the few who saw the phenomenon. Lizbeth and Shin acted quickly. For Shin, in particular, it seemed almost natural. As if, deep down, he had been expecting it. There was a short battle, but it was loud enough to wake up almost the entire city.

The two had to reveal their real identities to some humans and someone from the intelligence office that Shin knew came over to calm the waters later. There was no one dead, and in the eyes of the others Shin had solved a case of a threat.

The strange creature was placed in a truck and quietly taken to a morgue, where Shin and a doctor hoped to study it in detail, but it quickly decomposed and within two days had almost disappeared—leaving behind an unbearable sulfur smell.

They didn't take long to leave after that. Not out of fear, but because they didn't want to tempt fate any further.

The road took them west, along the coast of Galloway.

They traveled slowly, avoiding the main roads, following the shoreline from Kippford to Glenluce.

By the time they reached the port town of Hamilton Penny, it was early spring, and the sea was beginning to lose its bitter winter taste.

They settled there, living in the RV near the docks, where the wind tapped at the windows like a creature begging to be let in.

Life became quieter, at least during the first few days. Lizbeth began to notice the silence in a new way—not as an absence, but as a space where one could finally breathe. To feel. To remember.

And perhaps, to create new memories where none yet existed.

And for both of them to find a part of themselves they hadn't known was missing.

That's where they met Milena and Sari.

They weren't introduced—they were discovered.

It was like stumbling upon a secret beach, or a treasure once believed imaginary. That night, they had driven a little past the docks, looking for a place closer to the shore where they could be more alone. They parked near a stretch of empty beach, where the sand was coarse and, beyond, the rocks sank deep into the water.

They were already playing when they heard it. Shin was the first to notice: a low, liquid song, almost like the murmur of a current whispering to itself. Curious, they put their clothes back and stepped out of the vehicle. Lizbeth, always alert to such sounds, began walking ahead of Shin.

There was something familiar in it.

They walked to the edge of the breakwater, where the sea licked the stones in a slow, feline rhythm.

And there they were.

Two nude figures, half-submerged in the water's twilight. The moon drew their feminine sillouetes in silver lines. One had long dark hair, slicked down her back with seawater. The other seemed to have shorter hair and moved with nervous energy, as if ready to slip beneath the surface at any moment. Shin noticed bottles and clothing near the rocks.

He took a step forward, and the sound alerted the two women. Their eyes glowed red when they spotted the pair. But when they looked at Lizbeth, something shifted—their gaze became curious.

They watched Shin with caution, but something in Lizbeth intrigued them.

Shin distinguished small, pointed teeth that he knew all too well.

"We don't want trouble," said the one with short hair who moved faster, her voice tense but clear. Despite the wet hair, she had wavy hair and her ears resembled a pair of fish fins. The other woman on the other hand had pointed ears.

"We're not bringing any," Lizbeth replied, before Shin could say a word. She stepped forward, hands at her sides, visible. "We just heard the voices."

The long-haired woman narrowed her hazel eyes.

"Are you the one who sings?" Lizbeth asked.

She nodded. "Yes… You too?"

Lizbeth nodded, and her eyes glowed too—somewhere between violet and red.

The one with long hair spook again. "I felt it before I saw you. It's rare to find another one of us around here."

"We're just passing through… My name's Lizbeth. He is my… boyfriend Shin. Or should I present you as my husband?" Lizbeth asked, turning around, and Shin stared at her. From boyfriend to husband? She was jumping places fast.

"Better. We are lovers. Is that right?"

Lizbeth nodded.

The two women looked at each other a bit worried.

"Milena," said the long-haired one, still a little serious.

"I'm Sari," said the other.

The tension eased, broken only by the sound of waves. As if Milena had been holding her breath too long, she turned again to look at Shin.

"What is he? He feels strange..." Sari asked, still wary, her body half-covered behind a rock.

"He's not. Well… not exactly," Lizbeth said, glancing at Shin. "He's like me. Just… less musical."

"What are you then? Half giant?" Sari asked.

"No," he replied.

"You're so tall. I thought you were a ghost lighthouse that just popped out of nowhere," Milena pointed out.

Shin huffed under his breath, half amused, but said nothing. Sari stared at him a moment longer, then gave a nod as if that were enough.

Milena stepped forward with slow steps, as if still unsure the ground would hold.

"Nice to meet you," she said greeting Lizbeth. Then, after a pause, "It's been a long time since I saw one of our kind."

"Truly," Sari added, now calmer, stepping a little more out of the water.

Lizbeth shook their hands, and both women still looked at Shin with curiosity, but greeted him as well.

No more words were needed for a while. Sirens and Mermaids didn't introduce themselves with long speeches. They recognized each other by how the air vibrated around them.

Milena was the first to warm up—still naked, her long wet hair shining under the moonlight, and eyes that seemed to recognize Lizbeth before she said a word. There was a kinship there, immediate and strange.

They didn't need to explain what they were.

Sirens recognized each other the way wolves know their own.

Milena sat on a smooth rock, still naked, hugging her knees and staring off into the horizon. The wind played with her wet hair, and for a moment she didn't seem in a hurry to speak. Milena was a bit taller than Lizbeth, with a more muscular build and a bit more tomboyish —in contrast to Sari, who was smaller and more delicate-looking.

Sari stayed by her side, though she preferred the sand. Shin and Lizbeth sat down a few meters away.

"Have you been here long?" Milena asked Lizbeth, not looking at her directly.

"No," Lizbeth replied, sitting next to her, then nodded toward Shin with her chin. "Just a few years. He rescued me."

Milena looked at them gently.

"I was born in the sea, but I'm also from fresh water."

Sari, crouched down, was digging through some bottles half-buried in the sand. She turned around with a crooked smile.

"Milena doesn't sing much… but when she does, even the ships stop to listen."

"Oh, please," Milena protested, tossing a small pebble at her.

"It's true," Sari insisted. "I heard her sing once and never left. Literally. I moved into her cave and never came out," she added with a mischievous grin, blushing a little.

Shin watched them with curiosity. Sari shifted slightly, a bit uncomfortable under his gaze. He tried to look away, but the image of both women, still wet under the moonlight, was hard to ignore.

Lizbeth was watching them too, her eyes fixed on Sari.

"Are you a siren too?"

"Mermaid," she clarified, wiggling her fin-shaped ears, which instantly changed—becoming pointed, then rounded like a human's. "I shift a little with the tide. My skin adapts. Sometimes I have scales, sometimes I don't. Depends on how I'm feeling… or how long I've been out of the water."

"Can you live away from the sea?"

Sari nodded.

"A few days. Any longer and I start drying up inside. But I don't mind. The sea is always close. We've found a balance here."

Milena glanced sideways at Lizbeth, as if she could read something in her.

"And you? Your voice…?"

Lizbeth gave a faint smile.

"I haven't trained it much yet."

"You're very serious," Sari said, turning to Shin.

Shin let out a short sigh, pulled a cigarette from his shirt, and lit it.

"I can't show too much emotion. I have a bit of facial paralysis."

"Oh… I see. Sorry."

"It's fine," Shin said, nodding. "I don't mind people asking."

The two women studied them with the same curiosity Lizbeth and Shin had shown. To an outsider, it would've looked too picturesque not to seem magical.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"And you live here together?" Lizbeth asked.

"For years now," Milena replied, sitting back on her heels. "We trade with the fishermen, help ships during storms… And in winter, we lock ourselves inside with hot tea and lots of sex."

Sari laughed and leaned in to hug Milena by the neck, ruffling her hair affectionately.

Milena laughed too, denying nothing.

"Life is simple. Or at least, we make it that way."Sari sniffed the air like a curious cat, tilting her head slightly as she looked at Shin and Lizbeth.

"Don't you think people smell... nice after being in the sea?"

Milena raised an eyebrow.

"You always smell nice, even when you're dragging yourself across the sand like a freshly caught croaker."

"It's part of my charm!" Sari replied, puffing out her small chest with dramatic flair.

Lizbeth and Shin had memories of the war that not everything in the sea was good or smelled good but they said nothing and just exchanged a glance.

Suddenly, Sari turned toward Shin and crawled over to him, sniffing him boldly.

"Hmm... you smell good too. But different. More like... metal, cigarettes, and something odd. Old blood?"

Shin frowned slightly and took a step back.

"Could you maybe cover yourself a little before sniffing me like I'm a bottle of wine?"

Lizbeth burst out laughing, and even Milena, who usually barely smiled, laughed out loud.

"That's what you get for smoking," Lizbeth said, amused.

"Can you please stop sniffing me? And maybe, just maybe, cover yourself a bit?" Shin insisted, glancing sideways at Sari, who was dangerously close.

"I make no promises," Sari replied with a mischievous grin, making no effort whatsoever to cover up.

Milena sighed, amused.

"She didn't come with a manual. But she's worth the trouble."

"It's kind of fun," Sari said, glancing at her companion.

Milena raised an eyebrow, puzzled.

"Fun?"

"They smell a bit like us too…"

Shin looked at Lizbeth, but she just shrugged.

"Must be the sea."

Maybe the coast gave the two woman just enough, and the two had built a life of small rituals and salt-sweet affection, living as a couple.

After the two of them got dressed, Lizbeth and Shin invited them into the RV, and they talked until dawn.

Milena shared her story. She had first appeared in 1912, along the coast of the Baltic Sea, when the First World War had not yet cloaked everything in smoke and shrapnel. She grew up and adapted to the cold estuaries of Latvia and the uninhabited islands. From the moment she arrived, she knew she wouldn't age like the others. She found a few tritons who taught her how to swim far from ships, how to hunt, and how to stay silent when men approached with nets or guns. But after the war, many of those waters filled with steel and oil. That's when she began to move westward, always following the cold currents, looking for places where she could still sing without being hunted or disturbed.

Sari was younger. She had appeared on an island south of Norway. Her shapeshifting body made her more adaptable, but also more unstable. When she met Milena in 1923, both were living and hiding in different fishing villages, pretending to be sisters or distant cousins. They recognized each other instantly, the way only their kind could. Since then, they had moved from coast to coast every few years to avoid suspicion.

Time left no marks on their bodies, and that always attracted questions sooner or later—as did the nature of their relationship. But they never minded having to flee or move. As long as they had the sea nearby, and each other, no place had ever truly felt foreign.

Lizbeth and Shin, in turn, shared their adventures and misadventures, and how they had met. Milena and Sari listened quietly, then told them that someone had also tried to recruit them once for the war, but they had refused. They didn't want anything to do with human wars, not even when they involved feys. They had their own stories about why it was dangerous to trust organizations.

Morning found them around a small breakfast, while Milena and Sari looked around the RV. The place was tidy, but their eyes wandered across the photos on the walls, the clothes, Lizbeth's stuffed potato soldier on bed, the books. They looked at each other, and Sari simply shrugged and smiled.

"You could stay with us for a while, if you're looking for a place to stay, of course," she said, like tossing a stone into the water just to see if it would float.

Milena nodded gently.

"Our house is nearby, next to the village by the cliff. It's too big for just the two of us, and we don't always like being alone."

Shin looked up, surprised, and glanced at Lizbeth. A little break from the RV wouldn't hurt. They could use that time to fix a few things.

"Are you sure? We don't want to be a bother," Lizbeth asked softly, looking at them both.

"Of course," Milena replied. "You've been running too long, from what you've told us. It's time to rest a bit. Even if it's only for a few days."

"Or however long you need," Sari added, wiping her hands with a crumpled paper napkin. "No one counts days by the sea."

So Shin took the wheel and the four of them headed for Milena and Sari's house.

It was really cozy and two-story with a garden in the front.

They had been renting it for quite some time. That caught Lizbeth's attention. How did they make the money? Milena scratched the back of her neck nervously, like a child caught in a trick, but Sari answered. Being both feys of the sea it was not uncommon that on their travels they sometimes found some things left behind in the depths by humans. Milena smiled and scratched her cheek.

Pretty smart, Shin thought. Selling some gold or jewelry from the deep would serve them for life as long as they didn't attract too much attention.

Officially, as far as the human world was concerned, the two women were fishermen—or at least that's what the village said. They had a boat, some nets, and stories ready for curious folks at the pier. And a cozy enough house.

But behind that façade, their home was a quiet sanctuary.

For the first time, Lizbeth was among her own kind.

A few days became two weeks. The four of them settled into a fragile but steady rhythm. Lizbeth and Shin slept on the sofas, since the house had only one bedroom, but it was enough. They would laugh softly at night at the sounds coming from Milena and Sari's room.

During the day, they worked, and both women would take them out to sea, where Lizbeth practiced her voice underwater, learning how to shape sound into a weapon for defense. Shin often swam with them, and Sari teased him, spinning around him like a fish.

One training day, Lizbeth was singing alone, submerged, letting the notes rise slowly like bubbles. There were no words, no language—just sound, liquid melody. From the bottom of that small cove, she watched how the filtered light above trembled like a promise that couldn't quite be kept. When she surfaced for air, she saw her.

Milena was floating nearby, as if she had been there for a long time. She made no sound, not even the water dared give her away. She was watching Lizbeth with a strange expression—half surprise, half recognition. As if she'd just heard a song she thought long forgotten. Lizbeth met her gaze, barely breathing, water dripping down her chin. Milena said nothing, but in her eyes there was something soft.

Later, as they swam back to shore together, they joked and laughed, plotting some little prank to play on the other two. But something still floated between them, lighter than salt, more persistent than cold. Lizbeth thought, without knowing why, that something was shifting inside her. Inside Shin too. This place was doing something to them.

Another night, Lizbeth woke silently to get a glass of water—and Shin wasn't beside her. As she passed the window, she noticed the RV's sliding door was slightly open. Shin and Sari were inside.

He was sitting on the floor with his back to her, shirtless, speaking softly. The yellow light from the small lamp painted his scars in long strokes, like ancient script carved into skin. Sari sat a meter away on the bed, listening. She didn't move. She simply watched him in silence.

Then, as Shin shifted slightly, Lizbeth saw what he held. A photo album. Memories from Runen.

Lizbeth held her breath. She recognized that look in Sari's eyes. It reminded her of Milena's—quiet, almost reverent. And she had seen that gaze before, in someone else.

She stepped away and smiled to herself, silently, like a shadow not wishing to interrupt. That night, as she curled up again on the sofa-bed, she thought that something was changing. Not just between the four of them. Inside her, too.

The nights were full of warmth, laughter, music, drinks, some dance and stories.

And eventually, something more.

It happened slowly. First, a touch here—a brush of fingers tracing a shoulder. Then furtive glances, stolen and charged, like currents beneath the surface.

One night after a drive to the beach, the salt air heavy on their skin, they dove into the cold waves. The ocean wrapped around them, their bodies slick and weightless, adrenaline mingling with the sharp burn of whisky warmed in their veins. Breathless, hearts still racing, they lay tangled on the coarse sand under the moon's quiet watch.

Sari was the first to close the distance. Lizbeth felt her soft body press close, the warmth of her skin a stark contrast to the chilly night. The faint taste of salt mingled with the softness of her lips as Sari's kiss brushed against hers—tentative at first, then claiming, like a tide pulling her under. Lizbeth's fingers twined in damp hair, her breath hitching with the sudden intimacy, the sharp edges of the world blurring.

Shin, slightly bewildered but caught in the spell, tried to play it cool—until Milena's hand, strong and sure, found his. The touch was different: rooted and fierce. He could feel her taut muscles a little tense under his skin, the silent strength of her grip as she leaned into him. When Milena kissed him, it was not just a gesture—it was a storm, both gentle and wild, leaving him breathless and exposed.

Their voices—low, melodic, weaving through the salty night air—rose together in harmony, hypnotic and impossible to resist. In that moment, Lizbeth understood there was no defense against the tide when it came to them. They were a current pulling her deeper than she ever expected.

And that was their first night together. From strangers meeting, to friends and then something more.

For a time, the four of them shared everything. Not just a bed, a roof, work, meals, and outings—but dreams, fears, and half-healed wounds.

Lizbeth didn't mind seeing Shin with someone else. In fact, it felt strangely familiar, though she couldn't say why. Something in the way Sari touched him, or how Milena laughed when Lizbeth sang, stirred strange nostalgic fragments.

Shin, for his part, had never been in anything like this. He'd had lovers before—brief flashes of intimacy scattered through his strange life, always on the move before the war—but with Lizbeth, it was the first time he'd stayed with someone for so long. The first time he truly opened up. And now, with the three of them, it was strange, but also too warm to resist.

Fey culture had always embraced the fluidity of love. Lizbeth remembered what Mari and Nitocris had once told her—that in their world, where there were far more fey women than fey men and danger was constant for both, love often came in constellations, not only in twin stars. It was a way to seek safety as a group. Therefore, multiple relationships were not strange at all.

With all three sirens using their voices together, even intimacy became a game—a choreography of sound and sensation. Shin had worried, at first, that something might go wrong because of his curse, but nothing ever did. Not in that place. For once, the world was still, as if they were inside a bubble too unreal to exist.

In the mornings, the house filled with the smell of eggs, jam, toast, tea, and lemon. Sari always woke up too early, even when the sky was gray and the sea roared louder than it should. She would hum softly to the radio while cooking, wearing nothing but an oversized shirt that didn't quite fit her. Milena would crawl out of bed after playfully biting Lizbeth's butt. And Lizbeth would wake from restless dreams that faded at the first touch of Shin's hand on her back. Sometimes he was already up, a lit cigarette between his fingers, listening to the news drifting in from the kitchen.

The bed creaked with relief when they all got up. Its front legs no longer had the polished gleam of the headboard. One night of passion had ended with all four of them on the floor when the legs gave out from the weight and movement. Shin had to play carpenter and fix it the best he could. It didn't turn out bad at all, but it was clear that four people in one bed was too much.

Sometimes they had breakfast almost naked. Other times, they barely exchanged a word and still understood one another. There was a deep peace in that routine: the way Sari rested her hand on Shin's knee without thinking, or how Lizbeth let Milena correct her with a simple gesture when they practiced singing. All of that was intimacy, more than sex ever could be.

After breakfast, before the sun fully rose, they would go down to the dock and head out to sea for several hours. They came back before ten for the morning market and had the rest of the day free. The fishermen always envied them, unaware that being mermaid and sirens made fishing as easy as breathing.

After lunch, they'd often return to the sea for fun. Sometimes in swimsuits, sometimes without. Milena was always the first to dive in, as if every plunge was a return home. Lizbeth would follow, and together they would drag Shin in, pretending to resist while Sari was already underwater, laughing. There, beneath the surface, their bodies became lines and echoes. Lizbeth learned to sing with her closed throat, with her chest, with her bones. And when they emerged at sunset, panting and laughing, they would lie on the warm rocks, fingers intertwined, feet still dripping.

The three jokingly gave Shin the nickname of Mermaid Lifeguard. Shin just thought that there had never been a more useless job than that. What could a mermaid lifeguard do if they were already water creatures and could not drown?

Lizbeth couldn't remember ever having something like this—not even with her comrades, not even during moments of rare peace. She didn't know if the word was family, but there was something tribal in that way of existing. Four people sharing body, food, silence, and voice. Sometimes she thought that if she stopped thinking altogether, she might remember another life like this. But every time she got close to that memory, something slipped—like wet sand between her fingers.

At night, they would light candles even though the electricity worked just fine. They liked how the flames made the shadows tremble on the walls. They would sprawl across the sofa or the floor, laughing and talking in low voices.

Sometimes they made love in the living room. Other times, they simply embraced in silence—four bodies tangled like the branches of a single tree.

And that was enough.

Sometimes, when Lizbeth woke wrapped in warm limbs, her skin still damp from the night before and the scent of salt clinging to the sheets, she thought of the trenches. It wasn't a voluntary comparison—her mind did it on its own: the mud, the screaming, the silent death that slid between soaked boots.

Now, instead, she heard only Sari's calm breathing, Shin's sleeping face, the press of Milena's breasts against her stomach, and her breath resting gently against Lizbeth's own.

The contrast was so violent it hurt. As if her body didn't yet know how to exist in peace without fear. As if it were still waiting for someone to shout an evacuation order, to cry ambush, for the sky to break open in fire again.

But it didn't happen.

Not there.

Being fey meant many things. Being a secret to civilization was the first. A silence inherited like a surname that no one dared pronounce aloud. For years she had walked among humans and feys, among soldiers, doctors, and the dead. And even though Shin accepted her, and lived the same truth, there was still a part of herself she kept hidden—even from herself. Milena and Sari were different.

They didn't ask questions. They didn't try to read her like a broken code. They simply were. And that simplicity was a kind of contradiction, one that clashed against the world of secrets and dangers she had come from.

Sometimes, when they swam far from shore, Lizbeth would let go of the group and allow herself to sink. She would close her eyes and listen to the echo of her own song in the deep, warped by pressure and water. In those moments, she felt ageless. Bodiless. Pastless. Only voice. Voice and salt. A creature as old as the world who, for some reason, had forgotten her name.

She wondered about the future. Could it be like this forever? She didn't think so, but at least that moment of peace she wanted it to last.

Sharing a bed with three others wasn't what the world would call normal, but she didn't care. The world had burned witches, denied her species' existence, called monsters what it couldn't understand, and locked people away in concentration camps.

They lived outside that judgment. In the margins. Like islands that had learned to float together so they wouldn't drown.

Sometimes she thought the most scandalous thing wasn't their relationship with Milena and Sari, not even what they did underwater, but the simple fact of loving without fear—without possessiveness or jealousy. That was the real taboo for humans.

On the quietest nights, when the others were asleep, Lizbeth would stay awake staring at the ceiling, happy but a little nervous at the same time. She thought about Shin, about how he had changed too.

How he had learned to accept this new way of loving—without excuses, without envy. She watched him sleep, one hand resting on Sari's thigh, his forehead against her shoulder, and she felt something like tenderness, but older. Deeper. As if she had been taking care of him long before she ever met him.

In those moments, when she believed she wasn't being watched, Shin would surprise her—kissing her shoulder or touching her gently, silently, so as not to wake the other two.

She didn't know how long that peace would last. Experience had taught her not to get her hopes up. But she thought that, if everything ever crumbled again, she'd keep this fragment intact. This time. This impossible home. Like a pearl hidden under the tongue so no one could take it from you.

"Do you think this is real?" Shin asked one afternoon while they were at the beach. That day they wore swimsuits—there were a few people around, and the beach was a bit more crowded than usual. Lizbeth had been half-distracted, watching Milena and Sari playing in the water, but the question pulled her back.

"What do you mean?" she murmured, turning to look at him.

"This. Them. Us. Four people in one bed that rocks like a boat every time someone sneezes."

She laugh. Not mockingly, but with tenderness.

"I don't know if it's real," she said. "But it feels good."

Shin closed his eyes. Milena was murmuring something in the distance, and they were waving at them from the water. Everything felt... too perfect.

"I was afraid I couldn't do it," he said. "Seeing someone else with you. Afraid you'd leave. Or that I would. But now…"

"Now you don't have to choose," Lizbeth said softly. "Not all love has to hurt."

"But this is going to hurt…"

Lizbeth turned and looked at him.

Shin's expression held a touch of sorrow despite the firm line of his mouth. She knew. Those months of absolute peace had stretched longer than they should have. It was already the middle of 1946. Even though everything seemed calm, staying any longer felt like tempting the luck they'd had so far.

"You can alway-" started Shin.

"We are going together..."

That night, they spoke with the girls. It was a little bittersweet, but they knew too. Shin had explained his condition long ago, and Lizbeth wanted to visit Londonderry again—and her old mentor, Emmeline. Still, there was no need to rush. They could stay a few more weeks.

And so they did. They stayed a few more days. They didn't do anything remarkable, and maybe that's what made it so valuable. An improvised lunch on the beach where the fish burned because they talked too much. An afternoon where Sari convinced Shin to try a kind of seaweed she claimed was a mild aphrodisiac. It wasn't. But the trick was worth it. Another night when Milena taught Lizbeth how to sing a low note underwater without breaking the surface, and Lizbeth choked halfway through—only to laugh, foam bubbling at her lips.

It wasn't paradise. They argued over silly things: who used up all the hot water, or why Shin left sand all over the floor. Sari snored like an old cat when she slept on her side, and Milena had a habit of singing in her sleep, which always made Shin nervous, unsure if she was summoning something dangerous.

One afternoon, while diving near some rocky formations, Sari emerged from the water with a small octopus clinging to her head.

"It chose me!" she shouted, delighted, as the creature stuck even tighter, looking like some kind of bizarre hat perched on her head.

Shin, confused, asked whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Milena shrugged.

"Depends if you see it as a marriage proposal or a tentacle-based abduction. Like that one Japanese painting."

"Don't give her weird ideas," Shin muttered under his breath.

They spent half an hour trying to convince the octopus that Sari wasn't a piece of coral, and another half watching Lizbeth laugh so hard she almost drowned herself when she put her human lungs in function.

One night, Shin walked into the bathroom and found three bottles of shampoo in the shower. One smelled like forest berries, another vaguely minty, and the last one... well, like whiskey and cinnamon.

"Do we really need three different shampoos?"

"We're three sirens and a grumpy-looking fey," Sari replied from the hallway. "You get to decide who's using what." Then she popped her head in again with a mischievous grin, pointing at her chest. "Or I can rinse you with the special shampoo."

After several rinses and philosophical arguments about scent identity, Milena declared that the whiskey one with the special shampoo suited Shin best "because it gave him a melancholy tavern vibe."

On more than one occasion, Shin ended up washing his hair with what they used to clean dishes due the mysterious vanishing of the bottles. Maybe there was some gnomes around or something, he though. Mysteriously, his hair looked annoyingly amazing.

And still, among the silliness there was beauty. In the way they hugged without reason. In how they searched for each other's gaze even in silence. In those perfect, absolute stillnesses when breathing together was enough.

One evening, the four of them fell asleep on the beach. The sun was sinking slowly, painting the sky in copper. Lizbeth woke up first and looked at them, one by one. Sari tangled around Shin, Milena's arm beneath her neck, all of them messy, salty, sandy. She thought: this could last. But she also knew, without sadness, that it wouldn't. Nearly four weeks had passed since that first conversation. She woke Shin up, they talked, and then they told the others.

That certainty settled in like a slow tide, without urgency. There was no threat, no looming tragedy. Only the call of the road—that quiet feeling that their time to stay had passed.

The next day, they started packing.

They didn't call it a goodbye. They just began to move differently. Lizbeth folded the clothes more carefully. They checked the RV's engine twice, as if making sure nothing was left behind. Milena cooked something special that night—sweet seaweed bread and smoked fish, with a northern recipe they hadn't tried since a while. Sari sat on the doorstep with the shell in her hand, polishing it with her fingers, saying nothing.

No one cried. But the air smelled different. That was the last night together.

The morning they left was silent. No drama. No tragedy. Just a long hug at the door, kisses that lasted too long, and the whisper of everything left unsaid. Milena gave Lizbeth a shell polished by the sea and whispered, "You're not alone. Never."

There was no goodbye.

Just a: see you later.

Shin started the engine, and watching them through the rearview mirror, they left behind the little paradise they had found.

Neither Shin nor Lizbeth wanted to put the girls at risk. They had already stayed in one place longer than they should have. It was time to go.

Across the water, Northern Ireland awaited—along with the last remnants of a past Lizbeth had not yet dared to face.

But for the moment she wanted to continue to treasure the experience they both had with Milena and Sari.

Maybe, years from now, when life got tangled again, she'd remember this—how love could be more than one shape, one path, one person.

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