Mermaids - Truths and myths

~ 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.