They say that when a siren knows it is about to die, it begins singing. Nopony knows why.
Except me. I know why.
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It was many years ago that I awoke from a dream to the sound of music, faint and distant, drifting through my bedroom window. Climbing from my bed and stepping gingerly over the sheets of staff paper that littered my floor, I approached the window, drawing apart the curtains and looking out into the moon-stained streets. Naught but shadows walked the road, yet the song still came, slow and melancholy.
Listening to the song, I could not help but feel that it was calling to me, somehow, beckoning me to find its source. And so I left my home that night, stepping out into the warm air of the midsummer's night without a second's thought.
The tapping of my hooves on the cobbles echoed through the street, adding a soft percussion to the song. I followed it to the edge of town, the cobbles turning to dirt and then finally to grass as I left my home behind me. The valley was oddly quiet that night; the crickets seemed to have fallen silent, the wind quiet and gentle. The only sounds were those of my own hoofsteps, and the song which grew louder with each step.
Now that I could hear it more clearly I could tell that it was not the work of an instrument, but instead that of a voice, a mare's. The song did not have words, only notes, low and haunting, that drifted through the air like phantoms.
The song guided me up the slope of a grassy hill, and as I crested it, I beheld a great lake. And upon the lake's shore lay a figure, sat just out of the water's edge. Scrabbling down the hill's steep side, being careful to not lose my footing, I approached the figure. From a distance all I could see was that she was laid on her stomach, but I knew that it was her who was singing.
Yet as I approached and her form became clearer, I realized that this was not a pony. Her body was vaguely equine, yes, but only from the torso up, and even then there were marked differences. She wore a coat of scales, for one; they shimmered and shone in the moonlight like the lake she had dragged herself out of. Her fins curled and unfurled lazily, and the sharp, needle-like teeth that lined her maw were visible as she sung. From the midsection down, where a pony would have legs, she possessed a fish's tail, long and curved and lying limp on the shore.
She must have heard my approach, for her song stopped abruptly as I drew nearer. She lifted her head up wearily, gazing at me with her sharp eyes. They were the eyes of a predator, piercing and cunning, and yet I sensed a tired warmth in them. She smiled, and in spite of her fearsome teeth I found myself smiling back.
"Hello," I said, but she shook her head. She uttered a trilling series of notes, low to high.
"I'm sorry," I said, "I don't understand."
She let out another note, then beckoned me closer with her head. I detected no ill will and so heeded her motion, getting just close enough to reach out and touch her and settling down in the dirt. Up close, she was far more frail than I had thought, her legs thin and bony and her face sunken and narrow. Her ribs showed at her sides.
She laid her head back onto the ground and closed her eyes, letting out a long breath through her nostrils. She opened her mouth.
And she began to sing.
But this was not the lonely and melancholy song that had brought me to her, no; the melody she sung now was deliciously bittersweet. Her voice rose and fell like silk in the breeze, soft and beautiful, weaving a song of long-past joys and heart-felt sorrows. Times long past wove in and out of the melody, lingering regrets and remembered prides intermingling in the chorus.
And yet, it was incomplete. The song she sang was only one half of a whole; it was a duet, and she was inviting me into it.
And so, I raised my own voice in song. Our voices danced together in the night air, rising and falling and complementing and completing each other. We sang as one whole, one shared story, one final embrace. We sang on, and on, and on, even as the dark sky faded to the morning's grey.
But, as the song went on, her voice began to fade, her melodies growing weaker. Slowly, gradually, our glorious duet became a solo. Her breaths became labored. I came closer and embraced her, stroking her side, comforting her with the song until at last, with a shudder, her chest stopped moving.
The last notes faded with her heartbeat as the sun crept over the hills. She died with a smile on her face.
I remained there for some time. I am not ashamed to admit that I wept, for there is no other response worthy of the loss of something so beautiful.
Eventually, I picked myself up and returned to my village, staying only long enough to retrieve a shovel, which I then carried back to the lakeside. When I returned, however, her body had disappeared. The impressions in the dirt made it look like she had been dragged back into the water.
I smiled, and turned my back on the lake. As I clambered back up the hill, I could have sworn I heard the faintest strains of song coming from the water behind me.
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They say that when a siren knows it is about to die, it begins singing. Nopony knows why.
Except me. I know why.
It sings in the hope that someone will share in its final chorus.