literature

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'Do all merpeople feel deprived?'

He was almost totally submerged in the shallow water, leaning against the rock with his hands behind his head, gazing up at the sky.  I sat on the rock, dangling my feet and making ripples with my toes, while the evening breeze made similar ripples in my hair and my thin cotton dress.  I imagined that we looked young, happy and in love.

'What do you mean?' he asked.

'I read a story about a mermaid who wanted to leave the sea.  She quite wanted to see the world anyway, but it was falling in love with a human that made her go to a magician and exchange her voice for legs.'

He tore his eyes from the sky in order to look at me.  'I'm not in love with you.'

'I never said you were.'

'Legs?' he said, extracting a scaly webbed hand from behind his head and holding it up before his own eyes.  'What good would that do her?'

'I suppose she looked entirely human from the waist up.'

'How extraordinary.'  He settled his arm back behind him.  'How did she breathe?'

'She must have had lungs.'

'If only the bottom half of her body changed, she must have had lungs all along.  How did she breathe underwater?'

'It was just a story, Sky.'

This was not his real name.  He had insisted that I could never pronounce his name with my tongue, and so told me to call him Sky.  This made me feel special, as he had chosen a name only for me to use, and named himself for his greatest wish.

'Why don't the birds fly at this time?' he asked.

'Some do,' I said.  'But I suppose most of them are either asleep or they haven't woken up yet.'

'If there was really a magician under the sea,' said Sky, 'I wouldn't ask for legs even if I thought it would make me look like a human.  I'd ask for wings.'

'And lungs.'

'It must be wonderful to fill your lungs with air.  I've heard humans standing on the beach, sucking it in and sighing as they do when they bring lovers here.'

'You haven't answered my question,' I said.  'Do a lot of mermaids feel this way, or is it just you and the one in the story?'

'There's one.'  Sky dislodged his hand again, and pointed upwards.  'It's some sort of hawk, isn't it?'

'Yes, it looks like a falcon.'

'Imagine it,' said Sky, his eyes following the falcon until it disappeared from view.  'I've never heard of another merperson feeling this way, but I don't know why they wouldn't.  I see no reason not to wish that you could fly.'  He looked at me again.  'Don't you?'

'It must be pretty amazing down there,' I said, nodding at the stretch of ocean before us.

'Not really.'

'Not to you, because you've grown up with it.  But don't you think that hawk might be just as curious to see the ocean floor as you are to see the world from up there?'

'No,' said Sky, 'it's too stupid to think about it.'

'I'd like to see what it's like deep beneath the ocean,' I said.  'And I'd like to know what it's like to fly too, come to that.  At least you have one of those things.'

'But I don't see the earth.  Not really.  I can only see what's in sight of the ocean.'

'You're not missing much.'

Sky smiled.  'Says you.  Well, the coral is always brighter, I suppose.  Hadn't you better be going now?  It's getting dark.'

'I don't have to go yet,' I said.

'Aren't you cold?'

'It's summer.  It'll be a hot night.'

He was used to me getting cold, but being cold-blooded himself, he was a very poor judge of how comfortable the temperature was for me.

'But I can't see too well.'  I had to admit it, as much as I didn't want to leave.  'I can stay, though.  I'll light a fire.'

'Light a what?'

'You've never heard a human talk about fire?'

'I might have,' said Sky.  'I've heard a lot of human words I've thought nothing of.  You mean you can create light?'

'And heat,' I said, 'if I did happen to need it.  Wait there.'

It would be a long wait.  I'd have to make my way across the beach, up the cliff path and into the small copse, and then I would have to gather sticks.  This I did, and when I carried them down to the beach, Sky was still waiting by the rock.  This surprised me.  I had asked him to wait before, but he never stayed.

'The tide is rising,' I said.  'I'll light the fire up on the cliff path.  Will you join me when the water's high enough?'

I could tell from Sky's expression that he was much too curious about fire to let me go without a demonstration.  I knew that was the reason he wanted to stay with me, rather than for my company, but it was better than parting ways.  To him, our friendship was but a casual acquaintance.  I often did not see him for weeks at a time, in spite of my efforts.

Sometimes I felt ashamed of my devotion, unrequited as it was, but at least I had learnt the patterns of the tides as well as any fisherman.  I could walk safely by the coast at any time of the day or night.  I now walked up the cliff path with my sticks, and stopped to light my fire when my instinct told me to.

The tide was slow to come in, and half of the sticks had been reduced to ashes by the time Sky reached me.  He did not speak, but I sensed his presence, and turned to smile at him.  I saw his face illuminated in the firelight, and on it was an expression of sheer awe.

'Do you like it?' I asked.

'It's incredible!  It glows… and it moves…'

'Yes.'

'That sound it makes!  And…'  He looked up at me, and his eyes widened.  'Your face in its glow…'

'What about it?' I asked, my stomach clenching as I imagined a fireside confession of love.

'You look different.'

'In a good way?'

'Everything looks amazing with this fire of yours shining on it,' said Sky, and his hand began to move towards the flames.

'Don't touch it,' I said.  I reached out, grabbed his wrist and then withdrew my hand, wincing as the fire nicked my arm.  'It'll hurt you.  And if you're unlucky enough to get trapped by it, it'll kill you.  Look at what it's done to that wood.'

'What?'  Sky stared at the charred sticks, and beneath them the pile of ash.  'That all used to be wood?'

'Yes,' I said and, not sensing any danger, I took another stick and threw it onto the fire.  'Watch.'

'It's destroying it!'

'Yes.'

'The sea can destroy you.'  He sounded distracted, as though he wasn't talking to me at all, his eyes shining as he watched the flame.  'It can drown a human, or dash them to pieces if there are rocks to help it.  But this fire… it just makes things die!'

'It's dangerous stuff,' I said.

'It can really trap you?'

'If it gets out of control, it spreads really quickly.'

'That's amazing,' said Sky.  'What would it do to a human, then?  Besides killing it, I mean.  What would happen before the human died?  Would it damage your skin?'

'Horribly.'  Then something compelled me to say, 'And painfully.  I'm not going to show you.'

I said it flippantly, but he didn't laugh, and it was at this point that I started to feel uneasy.  I do not believe for a moment that he would have done anything to harm me, given the chance.  But still, the way he was looking at the fire unnerved me.

'What about this?' he asked, grabbing the hem of my skirt and holding it too close to the flames.  'Would this…?'

'Burn,' I said.

'Burn.'  Clearly, the word was nectar in his mouth.

'I expect so,' I said, tugging on the garment, and thankfully he loosened his grip.  'But it wouldn't be anything much to look at, I'm sure.  Much less spectacular than the wood.'

'There is nothing like this in the ocean,' said Sky.

'I know.  Watch.'  The end was in sight, and I pounced on it.  I crawled to the cliff edge, lowered my hand into the water and threw as much as I could over the flames.  The fire was small; it went out soon enough.

'Then it isn't invincible,' said Sky, his eyes following the coils of smoke as they rose.

'Nothing is invincible.  Fire isn't that impressive,' I said, looking into his eyes, wishing that the crazed intensity about them would disappear.  'Your element is the only one close to invincible.  Water can destroy fire.  What can destroy water?'

'Fire destroys earth.'  His gaze moved higher.  'What can destroy air?'

'Why would you want to destroy anything anyway?'

'How did you make it?' he asked.

'What?'

'The fire.  Tell me how you made it.'

'What good would it do you?' I said.  'You couldn't make fire yourself.  You have to be in water all the time.  Your skin is always damp.  Besides, why would you want to?'  It was the same question as before; why would he want to destroy anything?  I didn't expect an answer, in spite of the more delicate phrasing.

'Make it again,' he said.

I shook my head.  'The wood is soaked through, and the ground all around is damp.  I can't make another fire here tonight.  I have to go home.'

I moved to stand up, but he grabbed my wrist and said, 'You'll make another tomorrow, won't you?  I need to see how you do it.'

'Just tell me why.'

He paused for a few moments, looking at me and contemplating.  Then, 'You,' he said slowly.  'Your face… and your hair… they are beautiful in the light of the fire.  I could look at you like that for all eternity.'

The words sounded musical to me, but I still felt that sense of unease, and I knew I had to get past this blindness he could induce in me.  I looked away from him, and imagined what he might have been seeing: my own face in the firelight as it flickered and changed; my skin turning pink and then red, and then finally peeling away from my bones as I was engulfed in the flames.

Moments later, I put the image from my mind.  Even if he was imagining that, or anything like it, it was only because he was both curious and ignorant.  He still didn't understand fire.  He was like a child discovering something new, unheeding or unaware of any danger.

'I have to go,' I said.

'Promise me you'll show me.  Meet me here this time tomorrow.  It'll all be dry by then, won't it?  And you can show me how to make fire.'

A part of my mind took those words, swept away any sinister undertones and transformed them into a euphemism for the fantasy I'd had for months.  But another part of me was still cautious, and managed to get me to answer, 'It might rain.'

Now tomorrow has come, and it is not raining.  This is the first time I know that if I go to the beach, he will be waiting for me.  If I decide not to go, I believe I will have regained some power from him.  But I have many weaknesses, and he is my biggest.  He meant his words to entice me, and I fear that they will.  He knows perfectly well how to start a fire.
This I wrote for *simplyprose's April character prompt: the character is an avid bird-watcher and a pyromaniac. Great prompt!

When I first started thinking about this, I was put in mind of a phoenix. Then I thought about putting a mermaid or merman into the mix, and it ended up being a merman and there was no room in the story for a phoenix. That's fine, but I want people to know that I had the idea - it would be really cool if I'd been able to think of something to do with it. As it is, I ended up writing a story about this merman who feels that by living in the sea he is missing out on cool stuff, perhaps even to a greater extent than Disney's Ariel (I put in the Andersen reference as a way of saying yes, okay, I know I haven't been completely original). Looking back through this, I also see a very clear theme of how feeling a certain way about a certain male can turn a perfectly intelligent woman stupid. Hmm...

Anyway, writers are not really supposed to let on when they don't think they've done that well, but I'm going to say anyway that I don't think this is my best work. It is actually the first thing I've written in way too long (nearly two months, I believe!), so I like it for that reason - but the prompt took me out of my comfort zone, so even though I think I've done all right bearing in mind my experience and abilities in writing short fantasy stories... well, I am not showcasing my best work here. I am not asking for critique, because to be honest this isn't an area I desperately want to improve in, and I don't want anyone wasting their time giving me advice I won't use when working on future projects. But if you have ideas as to how I can improve this particular story, bring it on!
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TheChesherCat's avatar
This is really cool and original! :heart: