"My father was the keeper of the Eddystone light,
And he slept with a mermaid one fine night.
From this union there came three:
A porpoise and a porgy, and the other was me!"
- Folk Song
My family was a fairly respectable one, in oceanfolk terms, until my mother fell in love with a land-dweller. Every merchild knows that land-dwellers are lesser beings to be lured astray and drowned, not equals to be truly loved. My mother tried to stress this to us children, lest we become as disgraced as she was by actions made in our youthful folly. I never had a taste for running ships aground, singing sweetly to sailors and then sending them to their doom. The most I ever did was befriend fish and then eat them. I expect this is what happens when feline and aquatic nature clashes. A few fish I kept, as pets. I will probably eat them too, eventually, but I'm in no rush. I was a good daughter. I went to merschool, learned my lessons, graduated with modest honors, but never felt like I really fit in. When I turned eighteen I swam away from home, taking my mother's second-best set of jewelry and five coral hairpins. I don't know what I'm looking for. I guess in the back of my mind I still dream, as I did when I was a mer-kitten, of some faraway, uncharted beach where creatures like myself can live in peace, untroubled and unscorned by our old communities that looked ever so faintly down at us...
adanarama Community Member 
|
|
