~ Part 4 ~

by Elante of Alinor,

Wandering scholar

I could not say for how long I remained with my mentor in Dawnstar but not a second was wasted with her teaching me what this constructs I inhabited involved. Her courses were nothing if not complete, showing an understanding of alteration magic that matched or surpassed my College teachers'. My new bodies, both of a mermaid and of a siren, were, unlike hers, homunculi of sorts, limited by my ability to keep them alive through magicka.

Unlike these, her two aspects were natural and eternal. Not simply in the sense of stability but in a very literal meaning, for she was truly ageless and a master of alteration whose spellwork and natural abilities would keep safe from harm. I barely dared bring about the question of her origins, to which I learned about her millennia of memories and heard her first-hand tales of the First and Second Eras.

Her toning down the aura of her Siren body did barely made me stop worshipping her, rather the contrary, as my mage training and education had me stunned that such an elder would honour a young mage like me with her presence, let alone her patient teaching. Arch-Mages and Emperors would have killed and paid fortunes to hear one sentence from a mage that old, and she shared her wisdom willingly in this small room of the Dawnstar's tavern.

It was a fantasy come true on so many levels I was consciously entranced by her. The dreams I remembered since my novice years that none knew about, the beauty of both her bodies given for me to understand better in every aspect, the wisdom and knowledge literally at my fingertips. With every day I learned more of the theory of her bodies. With every night I learned more of the practice of her bodies.

I came to love both of her bodies on all levels, not the least intellectual, as they represented the perfection of purpose in each environment, land and water. She told me that such refinement of her bodies came after centuries of life, that I should not feel the smallest bit of shame for not being her match as a siren or a mermaid, that it would come to me after I became as knowledgeable as she was.

As I asked her how long she would expect me to take under her tutelage to come even close to understanding my bodies the way she did, her answer should not have surprised me, yet I still froze at the implications.

"A few centuries, like all mermaids."

Even under the assumption I did not age when transformed, it would not make sense, but I knew better by then than to question someone older than the Septim Dynasty. She read my face like an open book and had another of her irresistible smiles at my thoughts, though before I could ask another question, she told me to turn in my siren form again and to gather everything I owned on the floor. Without a hesitation, I obeyed my mentor and went through the now-familiar pains of the transformations then neatly gathered clothes, books, theses and gold.

With a whisper, she summoned a pale blue flame that consumed all of my life's belongings in an instant. When I looked at her in shock and confusion, I saw her gentle smile had not left her face and she explained the obvious.

"It would be bad form to leave a mess for the innkeeper when we are leaving forever."

True to her word, she left the room and I followed, looking at her as she summoned a diamond large enough to pay a king's ransom and offered it to my lodger for 'services rendered', her aura flaring once again and making all mortals instinctively bow towards the two goddesses who had no need for threads, leather or metal to cover their bodies.

We reached the shore's sands and I stole a look at Dawnstar, the town that welcomed me and that I knew would not see again for a long time, if ever. My mentor gave me the time she felt was right, then slightly nudged me and we walked together, hands held, into the waves, quickly turning both into our mermaid forms.

I took a deep breath of seawater and turned to her in a questioning face, our hairs floating between us with the tides. She told me it was time for us to go to her place, where my education could resume without the distractions of mortals, on the island of Solstheim. I knew of that island, as the East Empire Company had established a settlement there during my time in the College, and I knew the island was dozens if not hundreds of miles away from Dawnstar and no matter how well I swam as a mermaid, I would exhaust my magicka reserves well before reaching it.

Nevertheless, I trusted her and followed her tail as she headed East.

Travelling the ocean with her was as educational as ever, especially as we went far further from the shores than I dared try before this day, but eventually, I started feeling close to the point where my magic would fail me. Without a word, she turned towards me, floating deep enough that I could barely see beyond her beautiful face.

She kissed me. Not as she did before when teaching me the practicality of her bodies, but in a deeper way, and I felt her essence moving in me, like drinking from an infinitely-deep well until I felt as refreshed as if I slept the entire day. I barely had the time to recover from my surprise that she winked at me then started swimming again towards our destination, that I knew for a fact now rather than faith I would easily reach.

For days and nights, we swam, eating from the vast wealth provided by the ocean and taking detours now and then for her to share with me some sights no mortal would ever witness. But as she gave me her kiss of life with regularity, I saw her swim ever more slowly and for the first time since I met her, look almost tired. Before I could find the courage to question her, she told me to come with her to the surface and we emerged in the middle of the night, the ocean illuminated by the Full Moon.

Looking at her, I saw she was observing something at a distance. A ship. My eyes almost bulged out of my skull and I cursed the divines for the presence of mortals at the time my mistress wanted to rest. I made a move to dive out of view only for her to hold my arm and sign me to stay silent.

I fell in love even moreso than ever before as she started singing that night in the middle of the ocean, her beautiful face and wet hair shining under the selenite light. My trance was only broken by the sound of a splash coming from the direction of the mortal ship, and I barely gathered my wits as I saw her dive under the waves once again.

I followed her until we met what she was looking for: one of the mortal sailors, a pirate judging by his garb, swimming weakly towards her. For the first time in ages, I was jealous as she smiled at him, but something seemed wrong with her face, as she looked less gentle, less benevolent and had more of look of anticipation. She embraced the mortal her tail twisting around his legs as she kissed her, radiating the same aura as when she was kissing me during this travel.

Only this time, the mortal started aging under my very eyes. After a few seconds, his face betrayed the panic that came with the realisation of what was happening to him, only for him to return her kiss even harder for the seconds that he had left. By the time her willing victim was done with his last kiss, his decrepit body turned into a skeleton that dispersed with the currents while my mentor turned back to face me with her usual smile.

"This I will teach you once you have understood our bodies well enough."

I smiled back at her, gleeing with anticipation and barely wasting a look at the bones disappearing from view. Mortals die regularly at sea, and this one's life served a great cause, my mistress' energy. Without a further comment, we went back to our travels and eventually reached the island.

She led me to the cavern where she told me was a quiet and dry enough place to read and write, the two main activities a mage did as part of their constant quest for knowledge. I settled down as a mortal and once again resumed my work towards understanding my mentor's bodies from all angles of study.

Months, maybe years, passed and my familiarity with the life of a mermaid was growing, to the point I could barely remember when I last talked to a mortal, living from the nearby ocean's bounty and learning everything that had to be learned. Until, that is, the Red Mountain exploded.

As the ash started settling down, I saw my mentor becoming increasingly worried, commenting that the fish were making themselves scarce while the mortal population of the nearby settlements was becoming more agitated, scouring the island for refuges and food. She finally told me we would have to leave this place behind and move back to Skyrim. More precisely, to a large shipwreck outside Volkihar Castle, where she once met a wise mage whose knowledge she would eventually share with me.

Although I knew by now that we could make the trip back to Skyrim, living together in a shipwreck seemed more of an issue as she would have to restore my energies regularly. To my surprise, she agreed to this remark and told me that it was time for me to choose, whether to follow or to leave her.

I understood what she meant, and my passionate kiss was answer enough. I would not leave her, not after these years. She nodded and went to the small table where I wrote my notes, which I expected her to burn to a cinder like she did in Dawnstar. Instead, she added something to my drawing, a rune of Flesh attuned with the Water's.

I looked at the construct carefully and Concentrated, knowing that few would ever be bold enough to merge schools of magic without decades of experimentation for the risks of catastrophic resonance cascade would be almost certain. But with such a rune imprinted in the spellwork, combined with my knowledge on both my Mortal’s body and the Creature I wanted to become, it would be possible to imprint this new body into the world’s very foundation, to properly rewrite reality to make my mermaid form just as natural as my human's.

I knew what I had to do, and I did not hesitate an instant. Although I asked her if she would teach me to sing on our way to Skyrim.

~ Part 3 ~

by Elante of Alinor,

Wandering scholar

I unsuccessfully tried to gather my wits as even her voice was perfect, charming beyond measure and promising me eternal happiness if I did what she asked me. As a mage who faced for her training the temptations of Dremoras summoned by our Conjuration teacher and who knows in her heart that a mage's will is the only thing keeping her alive, I held for an entire second before gratefully taking her hand.

Even this gesture further broke my resistance as her skin was and her handling gave me further glimpses of the apotheosis mortals would damn themselves over multiple times. Yet she called me 'sister' and no malice could be heard in her voice, although I would have thought the same if she asked me to jump in a colony of giant spiders for her amusement. And I know I would have done it if she asked.

She could do whatever she desired of me, and all she did after helping me stand back on my so imperfect legs was going to the rock where my clothes were and hand them back to me. I felt my knees shaking again at the honour of being gifted something, anything, by the goddess standing in front of me, and the fact that she was giving me my own clothes did not come a single moment to my mind.

With another whisper, her hold on me weakened and rather than needing to kill and die to satisfy her smallest whim, I barely felt as comfortable as I would be next to a lover who understood and accepted me down to my very soul and whose life I shared for centuries. Embarrassed to be naked in front of her, I quickly put my robes back and followed her as she started walking with a regal stance towards Dawnstar.

For a moment, I thought to tell her that the mortals there would probably rather like her to wear something, anything, but quickly bit my lip as it was clear that no thread of mortal make could do anything except sully her forms and movements. No guard, no townpeople disagreed, each who was not stunned by this appearance slightly bowed towards her like they would towards their High Queen and looked at me, who walked besides her, with a mixture of respect and envy, as we went to the tavern.

Without even a word being said, the most expensive foodstuff, from a reserve I knew was kept in the remote case of a royal or imperial party, was laid down on my table. The mermaid thanked the innkeeper with another of her whispers and I felt he would faint on the spot. When we finally were alone, I saw her looking at my schematics, theses and notes on her, on how I arrogantly attempted to steal her appearance in my hubris. I froze, knowing that her vengeance for this insult would be swift and that I would welcome it.

She smiled at me and praised my work.

It took me a moment to blabber some thanks as if I was a novice whose work got genuinely praised by the Arch-Mage, and her understanding smile did not help. As my heart stopped pounding, she started going into details of alteration magic that showed her profound understanding of what I did, going over the fundamental weaknesses of my spell and hinting that I could – should – do better over time.

That she would watch my progress from the sea and would make sure my experimentations with this new body I crafted would be safe. Before returning to her dwelling in a Glacial Cave on the island of Solstheim. Then, before I could find the words to thank her, she stood up, giving me another close view of her legs, where only a handful of scales remained. I finally got to open my mouth and begged her to tell me what I should do next, how I could solve the riddle that her existence meant.

With another of her unforgettable smiles, she held her hands as if to show her whole body once again, asking me to work on it, something another part of my mind desired beyond measure. My desire either showing or being predictable as a mortal's, she winked at me, saying that all things come in due time, then took the glass of crystalline water from the table.

She told me to watch carefully, as if I or anyone else in her presence could do otherwise, and splattered the water over her right leg. In a matter of seconds, the water was absorbed by her skin as I heard her softly moan in pleasure, and scales covered all the affected parts of her leg, with her foot shifting slightly to look like a fintip. Before long, she dried her leg with my towel and the skin had replaced her beautiful scales once again. Bidding me goodbye, she left me alone in my room, stunned by the experience.

When I finally got myself together, I tried understanding what all of this meant. This mermaid could turn herself at will in something human but more than human. Her every trait was beyond what mortals imagined as perfection, yet beneath her skin the mermaid remained, ready to surface with some water. Understanding this body of hers was what she encouraged me to do, and I knew I could manage it using my observations as a base.

Though at the time, I was slightly worried at what more she hinted was awaiting me. I, like any living mortal, had been aroused by every instant I spent close to her, but my analytical mind told me that I should be even more worried that no record existed of such women who could make entire cities worship the ground they walked on, god-queens if even one of them wished so.

As I left my room, I quickly realised none of the other people from the inn or the city at large had clear memories of who visited them, beyond some vague hints of a beautiful stranger who left soon after arriving. Her charm was fleeting, unnatural, yet somehow it stayed in my mind with a clarity that I knew would last as long as I lived. As if something of her was already resonating within me.

Over the weeks, my life became a new routine, similar but noticeably different from before. I started going once again on expeditions towards shipwrecks, except this time, I took care to walk further away from Dawnstar than before meeting her. Then, I did go to the ocean, although my gills were the smallest of the changes my body had undergone. My tail was just as much a part of me as my legs, with longer and longer parts of each day spent underwater, embracing this new body.

Now and then, when carrying back some chests from sunken ships, I was seeing glimpses of another tail, the one from my protector and mentor whose teaching method was as tantalising as it was distant. Seeing her reminded me of the promises she hinted back in the inn, her unspoken answer to an unspoken desire, and that I would have to not disappoint her to learn whether this answer was the one I hoped for, or something greater entirely.

Each time, back on the beach, my shape shifted again to the ever more disappointing mortal body I was born with so long ago. Each time, I got more used to the pain that came with the transition and focused on the magic itself and how it reshaped my beautiful tail in such imperfect feet and legs. Each time, I went back to my room and wrote more notes and runes on the mechanisms that I felt reforming my limbs.

Taking more notes and drawing more sketches of her shape, I started the heresy of replacing her ideally-proportioned face with the mortal one I was wearing. Ashamed of ruining her beauty like this even in a drawing, I started shifting my face to borrow some of her traits. Each time, I made my face look closer to the obsession that kept invading my dreams and my waking moments until it started invading the moment my beautiful tail shifted to imperfect feet and legs.

I did not notice it at first, nor did I notice I went back to shore earlier than usual. I had applied my magicka to kickstart the transformation again, which was such a regular event I instinctively blocked the pain while thinking about this her/me in my drawings.

This is when it finally happened.

I felt my face burn and rearrange itself, my torso shift and collapsed again, surprised from the unexpected suffering. When I woke up, however, she was there by my side. I felt like with a close relative I had not seen in years and when she embraced me, I felt complete. She whispered some congratulations in my ear, telling me that I made the first step towards becoming akin to her, that even now, mortals would bask in my beauty.

But that beauty was still, like my tail, fleeting and due to disappear as I would once again become the mortal I used to be. My face must have betrayed my distress at this reminder and she wiped my tears with her soft hand before reassuring me that I would soon get rid of this mortal body of mine and become a true mermaid. Then she said that before such time would come, I would have the answer to the question I asked and that it was 'yes'.

The time we spent together was like her and now me.

Perfect.

~ Part 2 ~

by Elante of Alinor,

Wandering scholar

Having made my home in Dawnstar, where sailors and traders abound, mermaid tales have been part of life, whether in song, drunken ramblings and bawdy jokes. Being the one witnessing such a creature was not, however, something I had come to expect from my stay in this town. No matter how welcome I had been made to feel, Dawnstar was to be a stop slightly longer than the others, a place where I could build up my resources both material and intellectual before moving elsewhere and make a name for myself.

Spying this creature with my own eyes changed everything, though. Even if I was not privy to the secrets held by Arch-Mages, living long enough to graduate my alma mater with my limbs and my sanity also meant I had read much more about magic and creatures than most. Mermaids were a thing of legend, of fairy tales, but even if all in Anvil know and love their statue, noone reputable could ever attest of their actual existence, past or present.

Yet one was seemingly resting, her back and tail on the rocks, as if sunbathing. Having learned caution from the fate of too many overenthusiastic students, I kept my distance and ensured as little as possible of my head emerged from the waves, trusting my magically-grown gills to do their job as I followed her every move. After a few minutes, I was convinced to be looking at a sentient being, from a kind that somehow escaped notice and reporting for possibly centuries.

Two conclusions came from my observations, one or both having to be right to explain what I saw. Either mermaids appeared and disappeared over the eras and were not present in our world for long enough to leave records, or all reputable witnesses were silenced before they could put their observations to parchment.

Or both.

A spell used by students to better concentrate and study in common dormitories was to be my first friend, considering what the tales said about mermaids. Becoming temporary deaf could be risky at sea where sound is as important as sight to avoid predators, but if mermaids can truly ensnare mortals with their song, it would be well worth it, assuming such a hypothetical song acted through ears.

The truth was that I knew nothing, and any mage will tell you there is no scarier situation for us to face: a mage is only as good as their knowledge of dangers to come. So I left, dived underwater and moved away from the shipwreck then to the shore. For my long walk home, I renewed both my gills and my deafness, for if a mermaid is around, being close to the sea could be dangerous to the extreme until I knew more.

I had two hypotheses, and only one could be experimented on, so my path was obvious: it isn't possible to demonstrate that mermaids silenced all those who witnessed them over millennia, but it is possible to prove that mermaids can come and go with the ages.

To do so, I would simply have to become a mermaid myself.

The conclusion was logical, sensible and absurd at the same time. I would prove that it is possible such creatures do not truly exist as a separate species like men and mer by using magic to turn a human in a mermaid. And hopefully back.

I knew such ambitious project, a body-wide alteration matrix to a hitherto unknown species, was the very type of hubris at the core of the cautionary tales that were told at the College, yet I could not convince myself to renounce it.

As I write these lines, I know more, so much more, and I like to believe the two hypotheses were right, that proper witnesses were silenced, not by vulgar murder but by the compulsion I felt. As if a geas was set upon me the instant I saw her on the rocks, forcing me to follow the path that I walked to its inevitable outcome. But I also know this theory is just as likely to be an excuse, a denial of my inner desires dating back from before the encounter.

Just as I know now that even this could have been the result of the compulsion itself, and this way lies madness. Looking back at things, I have no regret, this path is mine, now and forever, and whether you, reader, follow it, will be answer enough to this riddle I leave behind as I close to the final step.

Back in my room at the tavern, I laid down my books, my notes and more paper than most town halls usually have in their archives. And I started working over days and weeks to solve the magical enigma this creature was: half-woman, half-fish, yet in control of her limbs, sentient and most likely at home under the waves. Living underwater meant different body heat requirements and being able to live through a regimen of raw food. I was careful in my studies, defining clearly each of the concepts and functions her body, no matter how mythical, should possess.

With each blackened roll of paper, my understanding of the mermaid became clearer, as a problem I would solve through the analytical mind of the College-trained mage rather than any bard song and verse about the lady of the ocean. My anatomical drawings became more and more detailed and simple at the same time, each sketch implying less and less magic to keep the body alive, until I reached an acceptable "design" of sorts, needing little magic after the alteration to remain alive.

Exhilarated by the achievement of this theoretical proof of an intellectual challenge that could easily have been given by my teachers, I could have stopped there and taken a cart to Winterhold where the region's College stood. The Arch-Mages are famous for detecting lies and my telling the encounter with my work here would have a good chance of getting through, possibly to start proper studies on this mystery with the help of more experienced mages than I.

But as I looked at my sketches of a mermaid, on which, for simplicity's sake, I had put my own face, I convinced myself there would be something even more dramatic as a proof I could do.

Not, to be honest, that I needed much convincing to do it.

More weeks were spent, dipping in my savings from salvage expeditions, to craft the spell itself, the one I instinctively knew would work and turn my body in the one I drew, until, by the light of the candle, I knew I was ready.

Without a sound, I left the tavern and went to an isolated spot near the shore that I found earlier, where I could hide my clothes and belongings with little risk of theft. Disrobing to allow the spell to work without interference on my Self, I looked at the full moon wondering if I would next see it as a dying mass of torn Flesh or as the magnificent Creature at home in the Water.

Saying it was pleasant would be a half-lie, for being a mermaid was one of the most pleasurable and fulfilling sensations I ever experienced until then, but the transformation that made my legs become a single beautiful tail was beyond painful.

Everything was worth it when I caught my breath and looked at my new body, even more beautiful than in my drawings and my dreams of the past weeks. I confess I giggled like a little girl when this fantasy had become truth, and I confidently crawled on the beach towards the ocean, answering each wave's call to join its misty embrace.

Being submerged eclipsed the previous, already overwhelming sensations. I had designed this body well, so well that every sense was yelling a feeling of contentment to my brain and for minutes, I swam as naturally as I once walked, fast enough to reach the Pilgrim's Trench and see the sunken wrecks in a way that I never could with my limited diving spell.

But in the middle of my exploration, I felt my reserves of magicka dwindle, reminding me that this body, as perfect as it was, still needed magic to work, and I did not want for it to fail while so deep. Thus, with regret, I swam back to the shore and beached myself, just in time as my reserves exhausted themselves, bring with them another wave of pain.

Screeching and twisting on the sand as my tail was burning from the inside, slowly splitting again in legs, I saw between two thrashings a familiar silhouette emerging from the ocean.

The mermaid had come back, this time for me.

By the time the pain subsided, she had crawled next to me and was looking at me with some curiosity and amusement on her face. My legs still twitching and not yet recovered, I was both aroused and terrified at my vulnerability when she closed her eyes and moved her lips silently. Instants later, her body started shifting like mine did, although with barely a hint of pain showing on her face, and a perfect woman soon stood up, smiled at me and gave me her hand.

I was frozen in shock, my eyes trying and failing to find a single defect to her face or her skin while her legs, covered in the same scales that were her tail moments before, betrayed a posture and elegance more at home with an goddess than a mere mortal.

"Come with me, sister."

~ Part 1 ~

by Elante of Alinor,

Wandering scholar

For many scholars, few paths are opened in life after the end of their formal education in magic and conventional fields. Some of them take the trade of teaching in their College or another that needs a position filled, but a teacher's position tends to be either a very long-lived one or a dangerous one in places where magic abounds and inexperienced students can as easily kill themselves as the people around them. When such a position opens itself, it is common to be opened again mere weeks later, and again until the new professor is lucky or experienced enough to avoid the fate of the others. Then the position is usually occupied for decades to centuries depending on their skills.

Scholarly mages can find employment at courts, where they are in high demand for their wisdom and problem-solving skills. But once again, the obvious opportunities are quickly replaced with closed doors for a newly-graduated College mage when the local nobles demand someone with more experience in politics than I could ever have at my age or to be a battlemage skilled enough to hold entire rebellions at bay without warning. Some younger “advisors” can be seen at court, but ask questions and you will soon realise they are related to the noble or to their people, sent from a young age to a College with the only goal of serving their suzerain later on as a mage where others train with blades.

Adventurers and mercenaries are always welcoming of a mage to round up their skills, but not only my destruction and restoration skills were limited compared to my passion for alteration, the danger inherent to such a profession always kept me away from gambling my life in such a way. A good decision, might I add, considering that I eventually found a way to live longer than the most experienced mages could hope, and to do so in overwhelming abundance.

I presume that I have attracted your attention now, dear reader, but it would be bad form for either me or you to skip my story to go straight to the end.

As a young mage with a good enough skill in alteration, I had little issue eating or living, the world being my canvas as my mentor used to say. Miners were more than willing to pay me to transmute their iron into silver or gold and I was more than willing to leave before imperial authorities arrived to make examples of those who created gold from iron without an official writ. With the power it wields, I still wonder whether accounting should be acknowledged alongside the other schools of magic, but I was wise enough to not stay long enough in one place to become its target.

My travels led me to the region of Skyrim, wild and untamed as its weather. My boat was victim to it, strong currents breaking its navigator's hold on the hull and breaking it against rocks. Of the entire crew, only two survived, an elderly pilgrim returning home and, obviously, myself. For an alteration mage worth her name, drowning is very much the last way to possibly die, waterbreathing being a spell we learn by our teenage years at the latest. I saved him more or less by accident and were rescued by the locals from Dawnstar, our destination.

As I recovered from hypothermia and enjoyed being praised for my heroic actions with one of the most revered elders of the town, I gathered that this sinking was by far not the first or the last and caused no small amount of trouble for the traders. This, at last, was an opportunity to settle down for a while, as my waterbreathing spell, among others, could allow me to easily dive to the wrecks and recover important things for the town merchants, priests and grieving families.

It did not take long until these services became regular, my shipwreck expeditions bringing back goods, gold or, in some cases, bodies of loved ones to bury with their families. This was a good use of my skills, allowing me to take time to study my spells and better my understanding of magic like mages are supposed to do, all the while giving me food, a roof and recognition. Many mages do not understand how much they are missing out by acting aloof like the nearby Winterhold College or the court advisors. Having one's ear on the ground and being appreciated by the locals can give a mage a much more favourable work environment for improving their spellwork than some dusty tower.

Hence the first spell I created myself, a very welcome improvement on the waterbreathing spell from my College days: instead of constantly turning water into air in the lungs, I studied the interaction of Flesh and Water and turned it to myself to be better suited to this environment. After experimenting and studying fishes and amphibians – and some help from a local Argonian I will not name here – I crafted a spell that simply made me breathe naturally underwater, creating actual gills in my neck while webbing my fingers and toes to make me swim faster than I could with my hands and feet.

An elegant solution to help me in my work for the town, although the experimentation was quite painful at the beginning, but support from the townspeople kept me working until I had it right. I could go faster and further away from the shore, bring back riches that families though lost for generations.

Everything changed, though, when I came close to the wreck of Hela's Folly, a beached wreck far from civilisation, too distant and too dangerous for any salvager or sailor to try and visit. When I arrived, swimming through cold but entirely breathable seawater, I saw her.

A mermaid.