The seas were not what they used to be. They used to be sparkling and crystal clear, the cool waves and mighty ebb and flow pulling at the core of your being. Nowadays, they were filled with the trash of the land-dwelling humans. They spilled sticky black goop that covered your body, filled your gills, turned you blind and helpless and drifting. They threw all manner of refuse into the ocean, from the cups that fell apart into tiny white specks to the tangling, near indestructible nets. Nets, it was always nets.
The humans had once hunted mermaids with nets. They would chase them down in their massive wooden ships and toss the rope net, then came the harpoons and the knives and the screaming. They would carve up the mermaid for their bones and their scales and their hair. Nobody knew what the humans wanted the mermaids’ bones and scales and hair for, only that they did, and they would do anything to get it. But after a while, the humans stopped hunting mermaids. There was an old tale that if a human found and mermaid’s scale and found the mermaid it belonged to, the mermaid could grant them three wishes. But carving is not finding, and a mermaid cannot grant wishes with her tail pulled apart and her torso drifting in the wake of a ship.
But the nets still came. They still wrapped around the tails of mermaids, restricting their movement and tightening with every motion until you could not move, could not swim. And you sank. Or you were caught by a predator. It was almost worse than the hunting. At least when you were hunted you died quick. Shionasha had once had an aunt that had escaped being hunted. Missing an eye, three fingers, and half of a tail fluke, she wasn’t the image of beauty the other mermaids were. But she was strong. And she was respected. And when she died, she was given a warrior’s funeral: eyes covered in kelp, she was drifted out past the great reefs and under the stars, where her soul could join their ancestors and her body could feed the sea.
In any case, humans had changed the seas. They had always had an impact, but it had been especially bad for the last century or so. These thoughts plagued Shionasha’s mind as she swam along the ocean floor chasing fish. Snagging one with her nimble green fingers, she stuffed it into her fanged mouth and chewed. The bioluminescent scales on her humanoid half flashed and her entire body shimmered. With a powerful beat of her tail, she leapt out of the water. At once, she was a dolphin, leaping from the waves. Once under the water, the glamour shimmered once more and disappeared. She always spent the mornings like this, catching fish and leaping. But today she had a different plan. She had found an old kelp-scroll in the bibliotheca about forms. Most she already knew, but there were three that were new to her: a monstrous squid-like creature called the Kraken, a serpentine beast with horns and claws named a Lung, and a spell that could make a mermaid look nearly human.
Finding a hidden inlet, she flopped upon the beach for a moment before her gills closed and her seldom-used lungs filled with air. Dragging herself to a rock to sit upright, she performed the third incantation. Instantly the change was obvious. Her sea-green skin was now pale pinkish-white, like the meat of an abalone. Her fins had disappeared from her arms, leaving them strangely bare. Her teeth her straight and white, her eyes were somewhat smaller than before, and her hair had changed from black to a clownfish orange. There were strange darker dots all over her body. Her tail too, had changed. Gone were the dullish green and brown stripes. Now it was longer and thinner, less muscular, with marvelous golden scales that overlapped more. Her flukes were more like a fish’s than a shark’s, somewhat transparent and less powerful. She set to studying this new body.
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