mermaid: the squeakquel

[fearlessly]

[ things have not gone well for alisaie, since the day she saved the boy.

truthfully, things had not been going well for her before then, either, or for as long as she could remember. she did not fit in amongst her peoples, who hid deep beneath the waves. the surface was expressly, strictly forbidden, and for very good reason - the hyur who lived on the lands, the dominant species, are powerful, violent, and untrustworthy, vicious monsters that kill on sight.. or so the stories said. many thousands of years ago, long before the memories of even their most ancient elders, sahagin once thrived, spread across the seas, and the hyur were not unknown to them then. tales say that they once worked together, or at least tolerated one another, until the great hunt began, and while the two-leggeds were powerless in the water, they had great strength in their enormous wooden whales and weapons and vast, endless numbers.

no one can remember how it began, but nevertheless it was not a war, it was a massacre, and what was left of her people fled deep, deep beneath the waves where the weapons could not reach and the hyur could not swim, and it is here that they have remained ever since, rebuilding, surviving, yet still their numbers are so very few in comparison with the vast kingdoms they once kept. the hyur, it seems, have long forgotten them, and as far as her lord father is concerned, that is for the best. keeping away from the surface, away from the two-legged, was the only way to keep themselves safe. alisaie had disagreed.

she knows now that she had been foolish, and naive.

it is not so uncommon for rebellious youths to swim up to the sun, but even the most brazen of sahagin do not venture near to the shorelines. the hyur still swim, still sail in their great whales now built of unforgiving iron and steel, and the few sahagin who have swam higher have always been met with severe punishment. alisaie was a brazen youth, too, and far too stubborn and foolish for her own good. no threat or punishment could keep her away, and when her father found out that she had saved a young hyur boy from drowning, tangled in kelp, his wrath had been a terror to behold.

still she had not learned. she wishes now that she had. but the more they tried to to tighten their hold on her, the more they lost control, and alisaie's rebellious spirit had become her undoing. she had believed, truly believed that the stories could not be entirely true. so much drifts beneath the waves, little tokens of the civilization that they once knew, and so few of them are weapons, or danger. alisaie had found strange metal items, she had found adornments and pictures, bright toys, innumerable things she cannot know the use of, she has studied them, found fascination in them - surely like her own people, the hyur cannot all be so vicious. the drowning boy had looked so.. small, so soft, and afraid, and even these many years later she still remembers his eyes. they had not seemed so dangerous.

she was naive, her father said, before he trapped her in her chambers. she was a danger to all of them, revealing herself even to a child hyur, she puts them all in peril by drawing so near to she shores. she had hated him then, for his closed mind, for how he tried to control her.

now she wishes she had listened. the iron whales had coasted directly over their home that day, and brought with them a cacophany of great noise and flashing lights - the booming of cannons shook the firmament, and the fires rained bitter ash into the waters below. the hyur were fighting one another in a spectacular, horrifying display, and she had not been able to keep away. what a fool she had been. they caught her in their unforgiving nets, and since that day she has known only terror, and fury, and deep, full, unrelenting regret. her father had been right.

she cannot know how long they have kept her. many years, now. she is held somewhere dark, somewhere cold, and they are always watching her, studying her, scraping her scales and plucking her hairs and fins, stealing her blood. they speak to her, and for many years she does not understand, but in time their language becomes a puzzle for her to unravel, even if she does not understand the purpose of all of their words. what else does she have to do to keep herself occupied but to listen to them? there is nothing else to keep her mind from dissolving. when they discover that she can speak their words they are quick to teach her more, to share their language; they are cruel, but they are curious, and though she had been quite certain that they would take her life, they have not killed her.

sometimes she wishes they would. she has long ago lost all sense of the passage of time, and any hope that she would ever swim freely again. at first she would fight them with her teeth and claws and powerful tail, but soon they learned, tainting her waters with something that tasted sweet and sharp, that kept her drowsy. after a time, the hyur stop coming, only one or two remain to observe her, to keep her fed, and alive. she will die here, in this hole in the earth, in this cramped tank, in this water that tastes like rust. she should have listened to her family.

so it comes as a great surprise when more hyur come, one day, when they drag her from her pool and into a small, cramped tank that barely fits her, and haul her away from the hole in the ground and up to the bright, searing sun. alisaie hisses and spits, slamming her body against the glass walls, but the sweet, sharp taste comes again, she is sedated, and a dark cloth is draped over her tank.

she is groggy still when, many hours later, after a long rumbling and swaying, the cloth is swept away and the bright sunlight streams in again. alisaie cannot see clearly, but there is.. a man before her, a man she has never seen before, adorned in dark cloth, his eyes hard but not unkind, not critical like the eyes of the hyur who had kept her before, and when they sweep over her she feels.. seen in a strange way she cannot entirely parse. behind the man are four others, younger, and behind them a vast staircase leading to a great, shining building.

she's so tired..

through the thick glass their voices seem dull and distant, but she hears words - gift, and lucis, mermaid and peace and keep. she will look better soon, they say, she is dull from the stress of travel, and soon her pale scales will shine pearly white and lush pink again, her torn fins will mend, she will be beautiful, a sparkling, priceless gem worthy of a king. there is no other like her. her head pounds, and her eyes are bleary. in time, the man in dark cloth draws near to the glass, and his piercing eyes find her, see her again, and when he speaks she knows that he is speaking to her, and no one else.

You will be safe here. I will give you all that is in my power to give. I'm sorry.