Mermaids - Truths and myths

~ 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.