of sand and sirens (prologue):
(prologue of the obligatory rhack siren rhys au i’ve been writing)
Rhys remembers a time before the Purple. Before the eridium burning through his veins. He still has faint memories of his childhood outside in the Dust. Granted, it wasn’t a good childhood—few on Pandora are—but it was his. They had lived next to a calmer raider camp, whatever that really meant. Rhys’ father would head there every day to trade with them. He was a hunter, and would drag the best pieces of his hunts over to trade for water and protection.
See, the bandits had built their camp on an oasis. The only water source in a seven mile radius. And one day, Rhys’ father had gone out and just…hadn’t come back. One hour turned to two, and three, and five, until two days had passed. A six year old Rhys had licked his chapped lips and had told his mother he was thirsty, not understanding why the day’s water hadn’t showed up yet. His mother had stared back at him, sorrow evident in her gaze.
As she stood up, she had shakily smiled at him. She had gotten dressed in her best dress—the one she wore on her wedding. A lovely sky blue, even if it was coarse and rough. “Don’t worry, I’ll go and fetch the water. You just stay right here, okay? I love you.” She ruffled his hair, pressing a kiss to his forehead as the door shut behind her.
A young Rhys had silently nodded, too distracted with the sandpaper feel of his tongue against the inside of his cheek to say it back, tucking himself in and going to sleep. That night, he dreamt of an endless sea, waves sweeping over and pulling him under the tide.
That was the last time he saw his mother.
The next morning, he had woken up to five canteens full of precious, precious water placed in the kitchen. In his thirst, he downed two immediately. And once a day passed and one more canteen had been emptied, Rhys left. It was as if something had told him that neither Mother nor Father would be coming back, so he had to leave too.
There, he wandered the Dust, aimless and creeping towards death. There, he collapsed onto the scorching sand, the sun beating down on his head. There, an old lady approached him, cloaked in a black cape despite how hot it must have felt with it on.
She had stared at him, unflinching even as Rhys had mustered up his last dregs of strength to grab at her ankle. In the silence, she had swept back Rhys’s long hair to reveal his eyes, adjusting her hood and revealing her face to him. Both her eyes seemed to glow with an otherworldly, malevolent purple, making Rhys shudder with the impression that he was looking at a predator who could eat him alive.
The old crone had a blue tattoo under her right eye, flowing from her eyes like long lashes. They were sharp and jagged and reached down to her cheekbones like a parasite grasping for more purchase.
And as they stared each other down, she smiled. It was a wicked thing, broken and battered but alive.
“You’ll do, girl. You’ll do fine.” She murmured, patting his cheek lightly as she stood back up, towering over Rhys.
And then everything was Purple.
