Chapter 7: Chapter VI
The world was different after the summoning of the siren. Adrielle was praised by her people as the Queen who brought the Sea Mothers back. Even those who were ready to depose her were now singing her praise.
However, some tidelanders still kept their distance. Adrielle saw this as a threat and blamed Violca, who was still in the wind.
Violca wasn't far, merely across the swampland. Once she fled the beach, Violca went to her home for a few things and disappeared into the swampland where she now waited for the right time to flee L'Attente.
And as the sun was setting, Calliope worked hard to drag Colton's body to a boat. She wanted to leave L'Attente, but if she left Colton's body, it would not get the respect that she thought it deserved.
Stained with Colton's blood, Calliope had finally managed to get the corpse into the boat. At the same time, Violca was walking the beach, preparing herself to take her chance at sea than in L'Attente. Though when she saw Calliope in the boat, she also saw her ticket to freedom.
Walking to Calliope's boat, Volca took a moment to look at her dead lover.
"Violca," said Calliope when she noticed her, "I'm taking him home."
Violca silently caressed Colton's face and mentally said her goodbyes.
"Where will you go?" Calliope asked.
"I don't know. But I can't stay here. Not while Adrielle is queen." she replied.
When Violca looked up to speak further with Calliope, she noticed Dylan approaching and decided to run instead of trying to push the boat into the sea. Before she left, Violca said, "But she won't be queen forever."
"Cal!" Dylan shouted.
Calliope looked over and realized the reason Violca ran. She then stood up and decided to follow Violca's lead by pulling the boat to the water.
"You here for him or for me?" Calliope asked.
"You have to come back," Said Dylan
Calliope frowned and stopped pulling. "Or what?" She asked. "Adrielle is gonna do to me what she did to Colton?"
"She's our queen." he reasoned.
"She's not mine."
"The sea mothers, they came to her."
"Yes, but she cut a man's throat to bring them!" Calliope snapped. Calliope thought Dylan was a blind boy that couldn't see the fault in Adrielle's actions.
"She showed me, my mother."
Calliope then understood that Dylan purposefully wrote of Adrielle's action because he wanted was a glimpse of his birth mother. Sadly, Dylan still hadn't seen his mother as Calliope assumed she had no siblings in L'Attente.
"Tell me. What did you feel when you saw her? Did it feel like your body was on fire and the sea itself was calling for you to dive in?" Calliope asked as she recalled the feelings and urges that swelled within her during the siren's summoning.
"N-no," Dylan stammered.
"That's what I thought. You're mommy issues have you twisted. I have them too, but they aren't driving to perform blood sacrifices. Oh, and that Siren wasn't your mother." Calliope finished speaking and pushed the boat into the water. She had no intention to conversate any further.
"And what of Aiden!" Dylan shouted. " The sacrifice didn't seem to bother him, either! It looked like it gave him power!"
Calliope's insides squirmed when she heard Dylan's words. She felt disgusted by the thought, but more so by the truth. Then muttered to herself, "It gave me power, too," as she climbed into the boat and started its engine.
That little truth made her feel as bad as she perceived Adrielle to be.
"I will have to bring you back! You belong with us!" Dylan shouted once more.
"You can try!" Calliope shouted back as she sped off.
---
Under the waves, Aiden is held in the arms of Calliope's mother as she takes him to the NAIAD. Along the way, Aiden reserved flashes of fragmented memories from his time in the sea. He saw himself dive into the sea, and then he saw flashes of sirens gathering and a mysterious cave. However, Once Calliope's mother put him on the dock, then disappeared into the sea. The memories stopped.
On the dock, Augie's men who are looking for him were waiting for Aiden to return. They had witnessed the siren place Aiden on the docks and finally discovered that Aiden is a Tidelander. It was the only way to explain a siren carrying a man from the sea and not pulling him into the depths.
The men then thought of all the times that Aiden survived the sea at night when many of man would have perished. When they finally snapped out of their shock, the men grabbed Aiden and tried to take him to Grayson Raxter.
Fortunately, Violca appeared on a tinny. With nowhere else to go, Violca remembered the time that Aiden said he needed her. Like many Tidelanders, Violca needed to feel needed. Especially with her lover dead and people against her.
"Hey, boys. Where do you think you're taking him?" She asked as she climbed onto the dock.
The men looked at each other. They then pulled out their pistols and told Violca to fuck off.
"Fuck off?" She asked with amusement. "Boys, can you please let Aiden go and stop being so mean to me." Violca pouted with her Siren's voice.
The men froze, then dropped Aiden and apologized for their rudeness.
"I knew you boys could be sweet. Now take your guns, and put a round in the chamber."
The sound of loading pistols echoed, and the men all had horrified expressions. They knew what was happening but couldn't stop their bodies.
"Now put them in your mouths. And pull the trigger."
Pah! Pah Pah!
Three bodies dropped, and Violca rushed to Aiden's side. She pulled him into her arms and looked him over. She had no idea what had happened to him. Like the time she had seen him in at L'Attente, Aiden was still naked, but his body was far weaker than the power that he exuded during the summoning.
"What happened to you, Aiden?" Violca whispers.
She then set him down and pushes the dead men into the water. With enough focus, Violca manipulated the water to push the bodies out to sea, where the sirens would handle the rest.
It was now the wee hours of the morning, and Aiden woke up covered with a blanket. He groggily looked around, saw Violca fast asleep next to him. He tried to remember how he got there, but the memories were nonexistent.
All he could remember was the great voice of a man saying, "Go forth, my son." and the fragments he received of the mysterious cave and the gathering of Sirens.
The mere sound of a man calling him son shook him to the core. The voice sounded nothing like his adoptive father. And his birth father was a dead man, so who was speaking to him, Aiden thought.
"Violca! wake up!" he shook her from her slumber. "What the fuck are you doing--"
Aiden suddenly stopped when something from Violca seeped into his skin.
Violca stretched her arms out and yawned. "I saved your life, Dick. Even after you tried to drag Colton to the Abyss."
"First, that pretty butterfly of yours isn't only for him. Don't make it seem like you're burning buildings for Colton. Secondly, why are you here?"
"You're an asshole. I liked Colton a lot. I could have loved him too if Adrielle hadn't sacrificed him to call a... oh my god." she gasped as she finally looked at Aiden. His eyes were glowing again.
Aiden was confused by her response, but he did remember something when Violca said, "sacrifice."
" Adrielle did it, didn't she? She sacrificed someone to call the Goddesses of the water."
"Yes, you were there," Violca replied as she continued to marvel at his eyes.
"I don't remember. I think I blackout. But I do remember Cr-- the man that works for me telling me that Adrielle was spending a shit ton of money to buy pieces of a weapon. Clay like shards from or history. One of them has instructions to summon a siren." Aiden explained.
"Yeah. Well, it paid off. She did it."
"She's not done. There are more pieces. But tell me everything that happened."
Violca, swayed by his gaze, tells Aiden how Adrielle gathered everyone at the beach to make a show of her punishment, as was Adrielle's style. Then, she went on to tell him how Calliope and Colton showed and were restrained. Violca tells of her escape, but she watched as Colton was sacrificed and the Siren came.
However, the real greatness came when Aiden appeared all juiced up with crazy power.
"Wait, Crazy power?" he asked as the only thing crazy about his power was the control and fluidity with which he manipulated water.
"Yes. Your hair was glimmering like the sirens, and those beautiful blue eyes of yours are getting me so wet just looking at them. They're shinning like they were then, like stars in the night. Your body... my god, Aiden, you are beautiful even for a Tidelander, but you were never this beautiful to me until you appeared at that moment. " Violca took a deep breath.
Aiden frowned and got out of bed to look into the mirror. Violca's body jerked and exhaled heavily as whatever hold she was in was released.
"Holy shit... My eyes are glowing." He murmured. "Violca, you're over a hundred years. Have you ever seen this?"
Violca was still reeling sensation that violated her body and mind. "N-no. That is unnatural, even for us." she finally says.
"But now that I think about it. You've always been different, stronger, more alluring. And the control over water and the power that you displayed at the beach was baffling."
"Just finished the story," Aiden said as he turned around, "I need to know what happened next."
Aiden was now anxious. Something was happening to him.
"Alright... When you showed up, you came out of the water and landed on the surface. Walking on it like Jesus. You even pushed the Tidlanders out of the water and onto the shore with a single wave. The only thing you said was about Colton and me."
"What did I say?"
Violca shifted with discomfort. "He has defiled the granddaughter of Oceanus with his seed, Divine punishment is all. Then you reached out to take him. If Calliope wasn't there, Colton's body would be at the bottom of the sea."
Aiden then heard Colliope's scream in his mind. An image of him overlooking the repeating the very words that Violca had just said came to mind.
"Aiden, what's wrong?" Violca asked as she watched him stare into oblivion.
Aiden stopped and looked at Violca. "Nothing." he said, "I am purity on earth."
Aiden's voice cracked.
Violca lifted up and sat on her knees as she looked to Aiden with concern. The blanket fell from her body and revealed her smooth brown skin and toned belly with along burn scar. Tidelanders didn't feel much shame. But since Aiden seemed fine showing his nakedness, Violca didn't mind revealing her underwear.
But it was the burn scar on her belly that trigger Aiden further. With his eyes, he saw what Violca couldn't, the essence within the scar.
"Aiden.."
"Violca. If you chose to have that child, sea or ocean, he will find you and end you. Then he will end your child. " Aiden cringed in disgust. "You are impure, and it is making me sick. I can smell it growing, and it is only human."
The words came easy to Aiden as his sense of understanding in all aspects of life expanded, the more he resonated with the essence within Violca's scar.
Violca's mouth hung open. She then traced the burn on her stomach. "Oceanus..." she muttered.
It was the scar she received the day she tried to save Jeremiah from the sea. Later on, Thea had told her Aiden's theory. She had laughed it as she said, if Gods and Titans existed, then they are long dead. Now she only felt a sense of foreboding as the pieces started to come together.
"Violca... The blood of the siren. The blood of Oceanus. Titan's blood. It makes you special. Do not forsake it all for one child. You can have another, just not with a human." Aiden added.
Violca's tears of sadness and fear now drenched her face. "A-are you him?" he voice shook, "Are you Oceanus, Aiden? Did you try to kill me!?"
"Oceanus...No, I was born from a siren. I remember my mother." Aiden spoke absentmindedly as the room's emotions seemed small compared to the knowledge filling his mind.
"Then you must have met him." Violca was now energized as she saw a slight chance of hope. "Isn't that how the story goes. People got blessings from Gods all the time. So tell me what to do. I can't be away from the water. And what if I can never have another baby again? If the curse is real, then... then my daughter could be special."
Violca rambled, and she fell into a mental prayer to Oceanus, seeking forgiveness and begging to keep the child while also asking permission to swim in the world's blue waters again.
"Violca, you need to calm down. You wanted to be a queen. But everything that makes us Tidelanders, you are forsaking by having that child. We are not human, Violca." Aiden continued to speak frankly, void of emotion.
"We are half!" she cried.
"By way of a curse. Oceanus has reached out and burned you." Knowledge induced, Aiden understands why Oceanus's will lashed out that day.
" That was divine punishment that you activated. They may not be seen in this world, but some things are still ingrained into this world for eternity. Oceanus's divine punishment was activated by the seed in your belly. The only reason you are not dead is that Thea chose you that day." Aiden became woozy, and Violca jolts forth to catch him before he fell.
Aiden got his feet under him, then stood. He looked down at Violca's wet face and swollen reddened eyes. She is a petite thing compared to his tall and muscular stature. "Violca, the choice is yours... I can not make it for you, merely give you the facts. I'm going to rest now." said Aiden.
When Aiden laid down and closed his eyes, he plummeted into his memories, and everything after his blackout was revealed because the same essence that saturated the sea was in Violca's body. The essence aided Aiden in completing his metamorphoses.
Next to him, Violca laid down as well and wept to herself. She had learned many things that only spelled suffering for her unborn child and a life of anger, regret, and fear for herself. Not to mention she had been marked by divine punishment for even being pregnant. 'A human baby cannot survive this life.' she told herself.
In Aiden's Memory Palace --a place constructed in Aiden's mind to sort all of the memories that he never forgot, based on the Method of Loci, Aiden found a new environment that resembled the mysterious cave from his fragmented memory.
After entering the environment, Oceanus's essence guided him through the memories that he had lost.
----
-Flashback of Aiden's Lost Memories-
After blacking out, Aiden swam at high speed to the middle of the bay and then descended to the bottom of a gorge.
Along the way, he swam through dozens of sirens until he met his mother. His mother was hesitant, but she finally pulled him a loving hug. The sirens present began to sing, and it was apparent that they had all gathered for his homecoming.
His mother took his hand and led him to an underwater cave where the hilt of a broken sword hovered by it's lonesome. This beautifully crafted hilt emitted black and deep blue energy.
"Come forth, my son." It said. "Your mother has been summoned, and the curse doesn't apply for a while longer," it explained.
Aiden figured it was the curse that forbids Sirens from communing with their children.
"Father?" Aiden asked. "Are you a ghost? Why can't I see you?"
"That is a story for another time. But I am not a Ghost. Here lies the cave of Oceanus, my cave."
"Oceanus. Father." Aiden repeated.
"Ocearos, the summoning is waning. Bring him closer." Oceanus spoke.
Ocearos ushered her son closer to the hilt of the broken sword.
"Forgive me, son, I thought we had more time. You will not remember any of this. Fortunately, some of my essences lives on in the sea because of my daughters. In the presence of my essence, your identity will return to you along with the cosmic mind of our race." Oceanus then pushed forth his power, and the energy that coated the hilt of the broken sword swallowed Aiden.
"This will awaken the blood that we have put to rest within you." Said Ocearos, "It will first change your body, and your mind will come later. That is when you will take your sister to Black Mere Pool."
A burning sensation began to creep into Aiden's body, and Ocearos was forced to speak faster.
"Forbidden from having another Son and entering the mortal realm, My father came forth and gave me his seed, defying the will of the Gods, I gave birth to you. Cursed to abandon my child, I gave you to the mortal realm. To fates collided, and a prophecy was born, Purity on earth. Your queen will bring back the Sirens, and I will not be among them. You must not look for me until you are ready. Return for the broken sword find an take it to your uncle Coe--"
Ocearos's words were cut off when Aiden finally hollered in pain as the energy assaulted his body. The pain lasted forever until it didn't anymore. Ocearos had then taken an unconscious Aiden and left him alone in the dark waters.
And like Achillies after being dipped in the River Styx, Aiden's body was rippling with power, and he had become invisible in the water. He then felt the power of the second summoning that was performed by Adrielle.
Aiden then opened his eyes and found himself back on The NAIAD.
"Fuck...." he cursed.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
D_Blackwell
D_Blackwell All of this takes place between sunset and sunrise.
I plan to start building more of Violca's character and many others, as Season 1 of Tidelands is coming to an end, and canon Violca essentially stops appearing at this point.
With that said, future chapters will have more character developments as the plot thickens and the problems become more dynamic than just guys with guns.
Also, let me know what you guys think of the big reveal and Violca's ultimatum.
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