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In his family, feuds had broken out upon occasion. Someone had stolen a leg. A sister might have seduced the wrong sailor. That one man wasn’t as drowned as they thought who gets to eat his still beating heart? Squabbled among siblings over songs and artists, both human and classic siren, would carry on into the night, well past the moonset and into morning. Israfel had seen his sister’s one mistake. She’d fallen in love with a HUMAN. A cardinal sin. A real sin for any siren. Wings plucked, voicebox slashed, she was cast out in the mortal realm, forever abandoned by her siren sisters and the flock. Never to fly again, never to sing again. The choice had been made by the eldest and wisest of his flock, Israfel’s great-great-great-great-grandmother. A big white bird, no longer the human like beauty she had once been, now, a monster of truest shape, more Harpy then Siren in form, even if her voice hadn’t faded.
It still had the song of death and the notes of promised paradise, hidden in those old brittle bones. She was the law of the island, the one all of his flock depended for advice. He, being the one born of both genders, the one to lure both and neither, the one supposedly to be the best, was to be trained by the best. The eldest of them, whose song still lured even the hardiest men astray. Until they discovered what he so lacked.

He remembered how his mother and sisters loved him, they did, but he also remembered the whispers. How he was a freak, better to slit his voice box and tear his wings and leave him to the humans. He was pretty enough. He could survive. He could live, a pretty, mute young thing, humans now a day took pity on such weakness. He would be cared for, why did his flock waste time caring for him when he couldn’t even master the basics of song? So, it had told to the eldest, the wisest. And she had considered her training with him. The one she had personally seen fail to molt into the song bird he should have been. His fate had rested in her talons.

And so, Israfel saw politics on in his tiny flock. His ancestor could not choose. She was too involved with him, had grown too attached to him. So his flock had to vote. It was not unheard of, but it was rare. His mother’s bood pitted against her sister and her sister’s children. Israfel’s playmates of childhood told to wish him to humans, others, to wish mercy and send him to another flock. In the end, his fate had come from his mother, her soft white feathers rustling as she gave her vote. To send him to the Academy. Send him to where he might become a better monster. If not a classic Siren, then perhaps a new age siren. A siren that might change the way they gathered FEAR. It was a small vote, but it was the deciding vote.

He was sent to the Academy. He would become a siren. Good, or bad.




Looking at the note he felt those waves and anxious tension that voting brought on. The fear of one misplaced vote, of how voting could turn ugly, into a popularity contest. He frowned at the note and buttons. He had nothing against either student. Nothing at all. But still.
He was voting against the norm.


He was voting Count Chocula.