Niliana: A Sireni Tale

By: Jerenii Posted on: December 30, 2005

There is, as any Siren worth her voice knows, a difference between the stories that are told by men and those told by women. Often enough, a single tale transforms when passed from the lips of a Satyr to a Siren. Sometimes they seem like two stories instead of one.

It is said in Tasur'ke that the Garden of Whispers was born of the love of Darius for the fair Niliana, as an appeal for divine help in receiving her love in return. It is said amongst the townspeople that the woman was driven to madness by the voices of the Gods and threw herself from a cliff to escape them.

This is not that story. This is a version of the tale told amongst the Sirens, passed from mother to daughter and from daughter to granddaughter along all the generations since the true events were forgotten. This story is not about Darius at all, but about Niliana, sweet Niliana, and her descent into insanity.

It is said that Niliana was a Siren, of a particularly quiet disposition. While her sisters flirted and fluttered and gossiped in typical Sireni fashion, Niliana spent her time amidst the flowers in her mother's garden. There, she felt safe with the butterflies and the bumble bees, for the truth is that Niliana, though as beautiful and charming as any Siren born in Sapience in those days, was naturally hard of hearing, and this flaw made her shy of crowds.

It came, then, that Darius stumbled across Niliana one chilly Aeguary evening as she was whispering in Sireni to a glitterlight butterfly that had landed on her sleeve. And so, as generations of men, Darius was enchanted by the sound of her voice, and he loved her as men love Sirens. Yet even then, when he approached her, she started like a young deer and hid within the house.

Thus it came to be that Darius prayed to the great Sarapis and built his Garden, but Niliana knew of none of this. Her only care was that spring and summer were passing, and the fall would see the flowers into their winter slumber, and fewer butterflies would come to keep her company. That winter was especially lonely for her, though she knew not the reason.

During the month of Mayan, Darius finished his gardens, and the town scheduled a celebration on 1 Sarapin. As usual, her mother begged Niliana to go (for she was worried that the young woman would spend her entire life in solitude), and as usual, Niliana declined. Yet, as she sat in the barren garden that evening, Niliana began to feel strangely. She felt drawn; her heart ached for a reason she could not identify. And so Niliana crept from her mother's house and quietly to the Gardens, though with so many voices, she always felt lost, unable to distinguish any single conversation.

And Darius saw her there and took her by the hand, and when he spoke, his voice rang as a clear bell. He took her through the gardens, showing her where flowers would grow, come springtime, and explaining the placement of statues and their meaning. Wherever they went, and whoever they passed, Niliana heard his voice and only his voice, and that was the beginning of their love--for Sarapis in His wisdom had not touched her heart and forced her affections, but touched her flawed ears and allowed her to hear someone clearly for the first time.

It seemed, then, to the townspeople that Niliana blossomed with the spring flowers. It was whispered that she and Darius were made for each other, and that could be the truth, indeed. For what had been simple attraction bloomed quickly into a pure form of love, deep and genuine. They were married in less than a year, and their marriage was truly happy.

Then came a time when Darius was called away to Shallam, to consult with others on plans for a great Church, and Niliana was left alone in Tasur'ke. She had never learned to like much company, for she could never hear anyone as she heard her Darius, and so she spent her time in the Gardens. There, she felt pride in her husband and his creations; she admired his work and thought it beautiful and appropriate. And, as is common with loving wives, and as the people of Tasur'ke also tell the story, she grew too proud of her husband's work, and her thoughts offended the Gods themselves.

Niliana's ears were opened fully, and the normal, quiet sounds of the town were overwhelming to a woman who had only heard them in part for an entire lifetime. She became reclusive, even by her own standards, locking the door against her own mother and sisters. Darius was sent for, and he raced home on a fast horse.

Niliana cried with delight when she saw her husband, and they embraced, but when he opened his mouth to ask a question, Niliana heard a bare hum of noise, words barely distinguishable within. It is said that she collapsed with the shock and slept for three days, and when she woke, she could only cry and rave about the voices--the townspeople's, which she could hear perfectly, and her husband's, which she could barely hear at all. Prickly ash was given to her, to no avail. The afflictions of the Gods were not to be cured by the medicines of mortals.

Time again passed, and it was another chill Aeguary eve when Darius, exhausted from the care of his confused wife, fell asleep and did not wake when Niliana crept from their house. She ran through the streets of Tasur'ke, hands pressed over her ears to drown out the sound of children playing, mothers nursing, horses neighing, all these sounds that came so clearly when her own husband's voice could not. She ran to the Gardens where she had been so blessed and so cursed.

Niliana moved through the garden like a ghost, her eyes haunted, and touched the feet of each statue reverently, finally prostrating herself before the likeness of Tarah. With her face buried in her hands, she cried out for peace, for compassion to be given her, for the joy that she had before her impious thoughts led her to madness.

And then, only then in her deepest despair, Niliana was struck completely deaf. She lifted her tear-stained face, and the statues of Tarah and Keresis seemed living Gods. Frightened, she fled deeper into the Gardens, to the head of the cliff, her tattered mind barely able to grasp the sudden and somehow comforting silence.

Trying to put her hazy thoughts into coherent order, Niliana paused, swaying on her feet. A glitterlight butterfly landed softly on her sleeve before fluttering away, over the cliff. With a smile on her face like a child's, the woman reached for the butterfly, stepped towards it…and found her peace below, in the embrace of Caspian and the hereafter.

It is said amongst the townsfolk and the Sirens alike that Darius followed Niliana even to her death, for he loved her as ever a man loved a Siren, and forever after the Gardens themselves will whisper to anyone who stands still and listens. Yet what is considered tragedy for those in Tasur'ke is a celebration for those of Sireni blood. For Niliana is considered the blessed, that she and a man loved each other so purely that their lives depended on being with the other, hearing the other, living or dying with the other.

And Sireni mothers whisper this tale to their daughters as a lesson in the purity of true love, the love that Sirens desire and often do not find, merely because their very mien and voice cause men to love them.