Isle of Man

There was something exhilarating about racing down an empty seaside road as the warm sun crept up into the sky. Dawn summoned a low mist with it that hovered over the sea grass and heather, creating an alien landscape that lazily spilled across the roads and down the cliff sides into the sea. 

The days of practice sessions were nearly over, and on Monday the races on the Isle of Man would begin. Mother never did like her racing, but she also never liked it when Jenna went to the sea, and when she’d  turned seventeen her father somehow thought a motorcycle would be a better option when it came to appeasing their daughter’s restless, adventurous spirit.

Painted in greys, and muted orange, and pinks, Jenna had fallen half a mile or so behind her friends as they indulged in a spur-of-the-moment morning ride. Her helmet wedged between her thighs, she coasted down the road, arms spread wide and sea air rushing through her red hair as the mist billowed in her wake. Nowhere in the Isles felt quite like home to her as this place did, not even the warm little house across the sound where her parents were undoubtedly sharing tea on their porch.

A breathless laugh spilled past her lips as Jenna took in the view before her. It was as if in that moment she could embrace the entirety of the sea, and clouds, and velvet carpeted hills, and from the elation surging in her chest feel the sweet, untarnished energy of it all coursing through her veins. Several seconds passed before her helmet was fit back onto her head, and she leaned forward once more, revving her bike engine before accelerating down the straight-a-way. At this pace she would easily catch up to her friends. 

Gliding out in preparation to take the sharp corner she approached with ease, she tried to switch gears, but her transmission ground and groaned harshly in protest. Jenna tried to switch again, but this time nothing happened at all. Heart leaping up into her throat, it was all she could do to keep from panicking as she switched the power off and attempted to coast around the sharp bend. She was going too fast. A curse on her lips, her bike slammed hard into the rail separating Jenna from the jagged cliff that dropped into the sea. Pain tore up her leg, and then she felt nothing but her body plummeting down as she stared up at the morning sky. 

______________________________________________

“Quick! Pull it off of her!”

“What does it look like I’m trying to do?! Hold her steady….”

“The helm, it’s choking her–”

“Gwae, I only have two hands!”

“Gods, she’s still breathing. Hurry!”

Fins straining in the effort, Yuron grunted as he lifted the shattered bike off of the broken human. “I have it — go!”

As quick as she could, the Merrow-maid with him scooped up the human clinging the the last few seconds of life and clutched her to her chest as she dove beneath the waves. “Come! Yuron, before they see the smoke and start looking for her.” 

“Gwaedwyn, this is madness. We should leave her.”

Hissing sharply, Gwaedwyn’s green eyes flashed, and Yuron clenched his maw as he ducked his head in submission. “There, in the kelp,” she instructed, one hand maintaining the bubble over the young woman’s nose and mouth that gave her oxygen. “We can lie her down on that rock.”

“What are you going to do to her?” Yuron wondered as he followed his companion’s instructions to hold the human down.

Gwaedwyn shot him an irritated glance as she motioned for him to steady the air pocket. “I’m going to mend her. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“You do this — You always do this, you know that?” the Merrow-man growled, his gnarled, monstrous features scrunching in a scowl. “One day someone is going to see you. Or me. Do you know what could happen if we were ever seen?”

“Will you shut it? I’m losing her,” she muttered, concentrating on the girl. Hands hovering over broken bones and lacerations, Gwaedwyn stripped away the ruined suit piece by piece and an undercurrent slowly pulled to the Merrow-maid as she drew from the energy of the tide to slowly begin healing her from the inside out.

So focused on her work, Gwaedwyn did not realize anything was amiss till Yuron’s tail suddenly bumped against her shoulder. “What?!”

“Will you open your ears?!” he snapped. “Look at her?!”

Gwaedwyn jerked away from the human, her jaw dropping. Wounds she hadn’t touched yet were mending on their own, and as a dull, slow-growing light ignited beneath her skin, shimmering new scales grew over the human’s cheekbones and hips.

“I didn’t — Yuron, I didn’t do this!”

The Merrow-man had already repelled away from the human as she began to writhe in the first throes of transformation. “By the gods, Gwaedwyn, what do you mean? You turned her!”

“I did not!” she cried back, voice strained with distress. “I swear I didn’t! I was only healing her and she just — This isn’t me!”

Yuron bristled and his long tail thrashed in a low boiling anger. “We’re going to get in so much trouble for this.”

“Will you stop? By Aegir — Yuron! Yuron, look!” Gwaedwyn gasped, staring at the human who floated up from the rock. Her injuries all but gone, instead of a human was a Merrow in her likeness, gasping for breath and looking around wildly as the light of magic that wasn’t Gwaedwyn’s faded from the girl’s skin and eyes.

“You really didn’t, did you –”

“No,” Gwaedwyn breathed as she clung to the other Merrow.

Her fins frilled out defensively, and spots along her tail illuminated as her confused twisting about ceased. The young woman whirled to face her saviors who gaped at her, and pointed a shaking, accusatory finger at them. “Wha — What did you do to me?!” 

Gwaedwyn stammered as she hovered close to Yuron, shocked at the sight of what had been a dying human only seconds before.

Yuron, on the other hand, floated tall, fins spiked to their fullest to make the large, grisly Merrow-man appear just as big as his counterpart. “Calm yourself, young one,” he snarled. “You’re only alive because –”

Wisps of magic pulled the water around the young woman in odd ways, and her eyes widened as she flailed frantically to make it stop. “What am I — What is this?! Make it stop! Get these off of me!” she cried, starting to claw at the glowing opalescent scales and fins on her arms.

“Wait! Wait, stop!” Gwaedwyn insisted as she suddenly let go of her companion and raced to grab the young woman’s hands. “My dear! My dear, stop, please, stop,” she begged, her soothing voice filling the water around them and pushing back against the emotions seeping out of the younger maid.

Panting, the young woman stared up at her in confusion, but not pulling away as the bioluminescent spots decorating her tail continued to flash in her distress. “I was falling… Who are you? How are we — And why am I a bloody fish?!”

Gwaedwyn blinked at her… then sputtered a gentle laugh. “A fish! Oh! You’re not –! Oh, by the gods, young one, you are not a fish! You are a mermaid!”

The young woman stared at her in disbelief. “… Bullshit.”

The two Merrow looked to each other, and Yuron shook his head. “We are not playing games with you,” came his gravely response.

“But how is that possible? This isn’t possible. This has to be one of those captures and experiment things that are happening… or a screwed up dream. I have a tail! Why do I have a tail? I want my legs back!”

“Calm down, girl, you –” Yuron began to snap impatiently before Gwaedwyn cut him off.

“Take a deep breath, young one….” She drew a deep breath along with the young Merrow who’s hands she still held, then took a second breath for good measure. “Now, what is your name?”

Yuron growled, and swam around the rock.

The young woman slowly exhaled, though the flashing of her scales continued in panicked intervals. “I’m… Jenna.”

Gwaedwyn smiled kindly. “Hello, Jenna. I am Gwaedwyn, and this is my friend Yuron.”

Jenna gave the beastly Merrow-man a wary glance but nodded all the same. She slowly sank for a moment when she forgot to move her tail. “…Hello.”

“Now, tell us the last thing you remember before waking here.”

Jenna licked her lips, a look of disquiet on her features as she still struggled to grasp that she was indeed breathing under water. Her blue gaze flitted up to the surface of the sea that roiled and shimmered in the morning light dozens of yards above them. “I was… I was riding my bike. Something went wrong and… fuck, it all happened so fast.” She pulled her hands away to wipe them over her face, pausing as she felt the scales over her cheekbones and the differences in her skin. “…Did I die?”

Gwaedwyn hesitated as she frowned at Jenna. “Almost. We found you on the rocks and were in the process of healing you when, well….” Trailing off, she motioned to all of Jenna. “My magic did not do this. You were already one of our kind. You really did not know?”

Jenna was only half listening at this point. It was so much — too much to grasp, and she couldn’t stop feeling her hands over the strange terrain of her body wherever silken skin met smooth scales.

“… Breathe.”

Jenna’s gaze flitted up to Gwaedwyn as she sucked in a deep breath. “Right… right, I…. This is…. Know? How could I possibly know this?! This isn’t something that happens! Just — Just stop! Stop.” 

Gwaedwyn frowned, but stilled as much as she could, keeping a comfortable space between her and the young woman. “… You’re forgetting to breathe, dear.”

Jenna drew in another breath, strumming her fingers over the gills along her neck and sides. “Fuck, I’m a fish. I’m a fish! This how I’m going to die.”

“You’re not going to die,” Gwaedwyn insisted calmly, holding up her hands as if it might have helped ease the tension. “And you’re not a fish –”

Jenna whirled on her again, eyes flashing with an untamed energy as she pointed to her sides. “I have GILLS! That makes me a FISH! And why is he looking at me like that? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Yuron frowned harshly, looking over the young Merrow-maid, then turned his gaze Gwaedwyn. “She has no token.”

Gwaedwyn paused, staring at Jenna for a long moment before floating closer to her. “…No… no.”

“What’s a token?”

Frowning, Gwaedwyn rubbed a hand over her jaw. “Do you have a trinket you usually keep with you? A item of jewelry or a token that you keep on your person, or hidden away?”

Now Jenna was frowning, and she rubbed her hands over her arms in a self-soothing gesture. “No. I don’t really wear more than earrings. Should I? Why would I need it?”

Yuron had turned a scowl out to sea. “If this was her first time turning, your magic was understandably enough to trigger the first transformation, but she’s going to need her trinket.”

Gwaedwyn nodded in agreement. “Perhaps someone took it from her? If it was stolen we might have made things worse for her.”

“I told you we should have kept going,” Yuron growled under his breath.

“Uh, could you not talk about me as if I’m not here?” Jenna demanded impatiently. “I just crashed a racing bike worth five hundred thousand pounds, almost died, and now I’m magically a fish woman. I am a part of this conversation! What is this token thing, and why do I need it?”

“Every Merrow-maid has a cap — a token given to them at birth that allows them to shed their tails and walk on land –” Gwaedwyn paused as Jenna’s whole body sagged in relief that she could have her legs back. “– but.”

“But?”

“But if you don’t have your token you can’t change into human form.”

Jenna’s fins stilled for a moment. “… Not ever? What… if I could find another way to be fixed? There has to be another way, right?”

Gwaedwyn and Yuron exchanged solemn glances. “It’s unlikely,” began the Merrow-man cautiously, “but even if you did, without your token you would not be able to change back to this form. Your body would need water and force a brief, very painful change. Without the water, and if you resisted, you would eventually suffocate.”

A silence fell over the trio, and Jenna stared at them in disbelief. “No. No, this….” Trailing off, she shook her head vehemently as she backed away. “This is a dream, or a nightmare, or a screwed up prank. Holy shit, I’m not doing this. I’m not going to do this.”

“Jenna? Jenna hold on, come back. Please. We’re not lying to you.”

“That I fell down a cliff onto the rocks and I’m suddenly alive, and you’re helping me out of good will? That I suddenly have a fish’s ass, and, oh! If I don’t get some stupid bobble I’m going to suffocate to death?”

“It’s no good running, girl. Get back here,” Yuron snapped before Gwaedwyn could stop him. It only made the young woman retreat away from them more quickly.

“No! No, fuck this. I have… THINGS. I have things I have to –.” The lights on her tail suddenly went out, and Jenna spun to disappear into the kelp with a flash.

“Great! Gwaedwyn!” Yuron snarled, turning on his companion. “Whatever she is, we are going to all be exiled or worse if she’s discovered!”

“Save it!” she replied shortly, dashing forward in pursuit. “Come! We have to follow her. We can’t let her be seen.”