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His fingers are light and quick, claws plucking the strings of his instrument in precise skill. His voice is deep and dark like home, offering up things only hinted at, and he throws in just a touch of harmonics, the echoing reverb that only a sea dweller throat can make. You feel sick.
Your guts burn cold, and your teeth catch your tongue before it can run away in a harmony. These are things you put away in childhood, games that long ago died to the sports of hunting and killing; it does nothing to long for them now. You were never made to make something beautiful. That’s what you’ve always known, isn’t it? You were hatched to destroy. It’s even in your title.
Without a word, you turn and (flee) march away in disgust. It takes three steps before he’s realized he no longer has an audience and the next chord is aborted in a jangle that wracks your sensitive fins.
“Hey, Chief, where you running off to? Was my serenade not good enough for ya?”
You don’t have to turn around and look to know he’s waggling his eyebrows at you stupidly; the implication is in his voice, dripping with only half-mocking flirtation.
“Some of us,” you growl in reply, “don’t have time for the fancies a wigglers an’ fools.”
“Wha- hey c’mon, don’t be like that, babe.” The instrument twangs softly as he rustles in movement. You swear if he gets up to try and follow you, you’re going to end up breaking the damn thing over his head. But a moment later you catch him mutter dejectedly, “fine, be that way,” and the tune starts up anew, fading as you walk.
You keep going, hoping that distance will quell your belly’s churning or ease the sting in your eyes. When it doesn’t, even with your dancestor’s music no longer slipping through your pan, you stop to scrub the wetness clinging to your face with your scarf and finally allow yourself to mourn.