Tail of a Mermaid

The market stalls were scarcely busy to-day. Lent was soon to end, and Voy found himself running a tired hand through his rugged locks (was it just him, or was he starting to thin? It must be his imagination really). No Lent, no fish to be bought—not when meatier fare can be enjoyed. Truly, he should have anticipated such a day to come, yet he found himself holding onto some miraculous hope that there would be something of interest to happen to-day.

“Papa, how about a story?”

"My boy, I am no traveling minstrel. I don't know any stories." But the wavering of wide eyes and the barest hint of a pout raged forth a sigh. "Well I may know one story, and just the one. C'mere my boy, and I'll tell you a tale...about a tail."

To emphasize his point, he gestured to one of the discarded fish tails hanging above. (Salted, and good for a week if he could just sell it.) Seeing that his small jest was discarded, he cleared his throat and began...

Now what you must understand is, that there are many things that cannot be explained. Why is the sky as blue as the ocean? Or why do they both turn dark when storm clouds rage above? The sea is a fearsome thing indeed, and the people who live in the sea much, much worse.

Of course there were people living in the sea. You see people living on land, don’t you? The people in the sea, however, had tails. Tails much like a fish—well only because only fish can live under the surface of water. You and I would never be able to see such people, unless it were by some witchcraft. Going down, going up—in or out of the water, witchcraft is about if you want to see what you aren’t supposed to see.

But that’s skipping ahead of the story, you see. There’s a king of the sea—and no, he’s not the same as the king on land. He’s…He uh, he’s always been king. Raised the waters himself with his mighty water-powers. All creatures of the sea are his children, and they ought to listen to him—his daughters and sons especially. He didn’t really do much and—his name? Let’s call him…Bel. Bel of the oceans. His real name is too hard to pronounce, but Bel had lots of sons and daughters, and they all went to school together. Schools of fish-people and such.

What did they learn? They learned about other sea creatures, and uh, how to avoid our nets—they’re smart, you see. A fish that’s escaped is twice as smart for it, but a fish that teaches others about it, it leaves your poor father with little fish to catch.

But there was one fish-prince who wanted to know more about the nets. Curious little bugger, had to ask all the questions about the sea and beyond. Wanted to know a lot—let’s call him Robin how abouts. –No he does not turn into a robin (give your father some credit, will you?).

There’s only so many times Robin could pop his head above the waves and look around for ships. The ships that go out as far as where the fish-people live are enormous, bigger and giganticer than you can even imagine my boy. Can’t see a darn thing from the waters, and had to be extra-careful to not get run over by the great thing. So he went to see a sea-witch for directions to land.

Now if there’s witches on land then there’s witches under the sea. They’ve just as much magic as the ones we have up here, but uh, they were more powerful. It takes a sea-dweller to know what you need to live in the sea and a land-people to know what you need to live in the land. Simple right? … Well yes, the sea-witch could go back and forth between land and sea, because of their magic, you see.

So Robin the fish-prince goes to see Godwin the sea-witch, and there was some silly excuse about how another fish-person had gone up just before he did. His crystal ball for telling the future didn’t work none-too-well under the waters, and he made a grave mistake sending up some other poor fish girl up—her name’s Aphra—sent her up to find her mate. Why was her mate a land-dweller? Be…cause she didn’t like fish-people. Or—actually, the fish-people didn’t like her too much. Had a very short tail, and the like. Fish-people love longer tails, easier to swim with, and fast.

Now Robin was stuck under the waves, but he stubbornly made his way towards the coast. Got himself lying on the sand and nearly died flopping around—why did he nearly die? There’s not enough water on the coast for him to use. But he wanted to see what the people here looked like, you see.

No. He never did see a person. But someone did push him back into the waters after he’d closed his eyes. That coast he got on wasn’t near a dock or town. Who saved him? Dunno, maybe the waves carried him back at high tide. Or his dad the sea king took him back. It’s hard to say really.

The tail? Oh the tail. Right, he lost some scales of his tail that day. Hasn’t found them since, and hasn’t re-grown them either. Because the…sea-witch took them. Godwin didn’t want to help without getting something first. It’s how business works my boy, you give something you have for something you want.

“No he couldn’t give his whole tail, how would he swim if he gave his whole tail? That wouldn’t end well for him.” Hoping now that the questions would stop, Voy raised his eyes up at some shifting movement. He wanted a better look—and if he wasn’t wrong, a customer had come on by. “Hello. Is there anything you’d like?”

The young maiden seemed startled, and nearly drew back, “Uhm…is there a happy ending to that story? What happened to the other mermaid, Aphra?”

He coughed loudly. “Hard to say. She might be walking about town right now. Might…ah, buy some fish here. Fish-people eat fish too, you see. Kinda barbaric.”

His answer appeared to disappoint, but what was to be expected? Voy was no minstrel.