About a week in and Olba still couldn’t get their faces out of his mind. He’d taken this job on a whim, not letting the opportunity escape him again. It’s not as if he wanted to leave his family behind and travel halfway across the world but they all knew the little jobs back home just wouldn’t cut it anymore. When he returned they’d have enough for a long time and that’s the only reason he needed to be aboard, not to mention one less mouth to feed. He trusted the oldest ones to take care of everyone in his absence although they lacked his usual guidance, he had faith in them.
He sighed to himself, getting stuck with all the awful jobs such as fetching another water barrel for the cook; at night where most of the crew was already asleep none the less. They probably took advantage of him because he was new to the vessel and they all seemed to be familiar with each other. Olba halfheartedly sauntered over to the edge of the deck where they were stored. He frowned at their weight, dragging the first one he saw and pulling it towards him, noting in shock that something strange was behind it.
“What the hell… are you?!” He gawked at the creature which despite being humanoid had certain extra features… wings for one wasn’t part of their natural anatomy. Perhaps others would have been more skeptical but sailors always tended to be highly superstitious and Olba took a step back, eyes fixed on it and surprise was far from an exaggeration as it spoke casually to him as if it was supposed to be there.
A blink, followed by a slight rustling as Judal took the opportunity to stretch his wings a little; sitting in such a cramped position for a long period of time, even if he had spent most of it idly napping, made things terribly uncomfortable once he actually had to move again. “Ehh? That’s pretty rude.” Crossing his legs, the Siren allowed his wings to settle back down at his sides, propping up his chin with one hand. “Are all of you humans this rude? Now I know why it’s tradition for us to smash you guys into rocks for fun~” Despite his words, his tone was still light and incredibly amused- this was a new experience for him, after all. He had never gotten much of a chance to ever speak with a human before- most of his time on land had been spent avoiding them, for obvious reasons, and there was little he could do back home, as they were primarily observed from a distance.
Aah, geez, were they all this easily startled? It seemed almost like they weren’t accustomed to running into magical creatures before. That was ridiculous, though, wasn’t it? How much of the sea was still left unexplored? “I’m Judal, sailor~” He chirped, waving lazily and deciding to humor him despite his apparent rudeness- not that it really bothered him, but it was something worth teasing the human about, at least. “What do I look like, huh? Shouldn’t it be obvious?” He really didn’t know.
”I’m a Siren. You know, I’ll sing you a song of death and watch you shitty humans smash your boats to pieces because you’re so captivated by some pretty sounds, Siren?” A pause. A blink. Better do damage control, because that came out wrong. “Aha... Not that I plan on doing that here. Trust me, I really mean it! That kind of stuff gets really old after a while- can you imagine what it’s like laying around on some island, waiting for a bunch of humans to come sailing by? It’s really, really boring- I might have died if I stayed there much longer. From boredom, if you haven’t gotten the hint, yet. So I decided to leave, and along the way I ended up finding this crappy little boat, and thought that maybe it would take me somewhere interesting.” He extended one hand, enthusiasm flashing across his features. “Which is why I’m here. So show me the world, human. I want to see it.”
