The Descent of íde (ee-da)
The Siren of StarSea

The Ghost Ship
Our tale begins with a restless young woman and the ghost ship she espied caught in a cerulean aether current in the Azure open sea. íde, she was called, and the ship was an unknown vessel passing near her home, the island of Salus. The people of Salus watched for such ships - those which crashed about, pitched by errant streams, no direction or control evident in their motion. Ghost Ships. For there were many which found their way into the island's domain.When íde called to her people, they paid no heed. For though they knew her report likely to be true, íde was known to use words as weapons to aid her pursuit of dominance. But soon, the starship was spotted by others, and the people moved as one to the shore. Tow boats were sent, the Starship Tural retrieved, and the salvaging begun. Supplies, starship parts, abandoned personal items. All were taken, bartered, recycled, not out of greed or apathy, but because the people of Salus knew the truth without checking. No one survived the Cerulean Current. Or so they thought. íde was ambling beside others hard at work on the Starship Tural when a scream pierced the air, drawing eyes to the ship, and spurring the pound of running steps. First to site the of the scream was íde, and the salvage crew found her standing over a man cowering in a closet in the captain's quarters. Whispers began, and swelled through the salvagers, down the gang plank, and across the island. Someone remained on the ghost ship. Someone alive.
Sound like Crimson
His name was Ronen Brek, and he was an anomaly. Never before had the people of Salus seen a survivor of the Cerulean. Questions fired at Ronen. Answers were slow to come. Only when silence reigned, did truth find its voice. The sound, Ronen said. The sound like crimson called to his crew, and they heeded. Ronen's heart, too, had been pulled by the sound. Unlike any music before it, there was a soul to the notes that directed the life-force of a mortal. He might have heeded, but to Ronen, sound appeared as color, shape, and motion, and the dancing crimson fought at the pull of the sound. The people of Salus knew now the cause of the ghost ships – sound with life in it which pulled at the soul of a mortal. Something had been enhanced by a mystic, for mystica dealt with the life in all things, and the connections between them. In Ronen's story, most heard hope. There was a way to survive the Cerulean Current, even if it meant searching the Azure sea for the right mystic. íde heard power. Power to call to the life within a mortal and be obeyed. And íde wanted to be obeyed.The Ghost Island
Ronen's anomalous survival brought him renown, and a yearning for deeper understanding. The later led him to brave the Cerulean Current again, lone swain on an undersized starship. Ronen watched while he sailed his sloop, and did not cower when the call came. So it was, all of StarSea learned that where the sound rang, the aether pooled and swirled, and led to that space below: the deep sea.
Where Monsters Roam
Power had consumed íde, heart, body, and soul. Aboard her starship, the thirst had become desperate, and her features began to change - nails grew sharper and longer, eyes narrowed to half an almond, fingers and toes webbed. But íde was sure it was she who held power and not the other way around. The song, now entwined with her, pulsed in her heart, and a call echoed in her head for only her to hear. Drawn by the song, she charted a course for the vortex, unafraid of the sound she believed she owned. But crimson runs deeper than scarlet, and thus íde was overpowered by the source of her song, and so, as the sound rang from the swirling pool, íde followed her gathered souls over the edge of the ship, and descended into the deep sea. The starship drifted until, from a roof on Salus, Ronen spied it. Knowing what he would find before he checked, Ronan sailed along the aether to the ghost ship. He passed the ship, empty and silent as it was, and journeyed one last time along the Cerulean Current. Above the pool where sound like crimson rang, íde met the sloop, hands clawing at the steel-wood amalgam of Ronen's starship. But her song, now crimson as its source, could not command Ronen. So they talked, and Ronen learned, and he recorded all words, but no sounds. As he left the sound like crimson behind him, and sailed for other islands, he thought of íde, the siren who'd descended into the deep sea never to return. Wherever he went, he told the tale.
Pronunciation
íde (ee-da)
Name Meanings
íde means "thirst"
see Behind the Name
Ronen means "song and joy"
see Behind the Name
Tural means "to be alive"
see Behind the Name
Salus means "safety" in latin
Fun Fact
Ronen has Synesthesia, which means he associates input from one sense with input from another. Specifically, Ronen has Chromesthesia. For him, sound is associated with color.
Under the Sea Flash Challenge Entry
This article is an entry to the unofficial Under the Sea Flash Challenge.
This is gorgeous. The voice you wrote this in feels like someone telling me this tale from across a campfire in the dead of night. I love that the ending has some good and some bad -- the call of the crimson heart has ceased, but íde will still call to you if you get too close. The name meanings in the sidebar is also a very nice touch, and amplifies the intent of the story.
Speculative-Fiction Writing
Thank you!