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damned_lounge2011-11-01 12:23 am
princeofthemoon.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_lounge2011-11-01 12:23 am
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Oktoberfest 11 - Till Human Voices Wake Us and We Drown
Title: Till Human Voices Wake Us and We Drown
Author: bluemoon
Beta: NONE BECAUSE I AM ALSO HARDCORE i am going to regret this in the morning aren't i
Word Count: 2337
Rating: pg-13...?
Character(s): MERMAID, UNDINE, SEVERAL KELPIES, SEVERAL NAMELESS HUMANS look this is an odd story
Pairing(s): MERMAID/MAN?
Summary: Monster fic. About mermaids.
Notes: I hate you too livejournal
The night was cold on the lake, with the moon high and wild in the sky, and the mermaids were singing. Their song was high and clear and beautiful, as wild as the night, and the silver-coin moon flashing in the sky. The melody sounded like water, and silver and glass bells, and the wind on the snow-covered peaks. They would sometimes sing all night - but only at night. Such things were not for the day, and before the sun rose and turned the landscape into a study in butterscotch and amber they would drift once again beneath the black water. Their limbs and tails and hair would tangle together as they wove through the water, and then they would sleep as one at the bottom of the lake through all the day, sleep in the dark places where the sunlight could not reach and the water was always so cold that, had any of them been more like humans, it would have stolen their breath and frozen their blood and turned their lips and skin dark blue, like the night sky. Every night they would rise once more to continue their wild song, and every day they would rest in the darkness, until (for most), night was all they knew. Mermaids do not live long, though their lives are longer than many, and not many see the day - it is the stuff of legends and nightmares.
They were not all that way, just most of them - but the touch of daylight robs such a creature of much of its power; fae are not meant to exist under the sun. So even the boldest of them, the most restless, tended to swim through the murky depths rather than swim to the surface, where the sun could rob them of what they were. Those that could not sleep would skim across the bottom of the lake and catch the fish who lived with them, eating daintily or wildly depending on their nature.
Except for one.
She was a pretty thing, this mermaid, with hair like autumn and skin like snow and a voice that sounded like the stars on a frosty night, or how the stars might sound if stars could sing. Her long tail was silvery-white and maple red, as with the rest of her, and her fins were long and delicate. She was not the youngest of the mermaids, no more the eldest, but was younger than most, and wanted so to see everything.
She was maybe sixteen, or would have been judged to be such by a human - mermaids, of course, do not age quite as we do - when she met her first human - having seen them before, but only at a great distance.
She had slid out of the lake (where, it seemed, they had always lived) and into the river, down the rocks and among the trees. It was quite a foreign experience for her. The mermaids rarely left the lake and its deeper water, which was unquestionably their domain, despite the fact that they at times dain to allow kelpies and other such creatures the use of some of the shallower portions, but the mermaid was young and she was curious, and the river had seemed an adventure. She spent part of the journey underwater, rubbing her skin and her scales along the water-worn rocks that lined the bottom, and sometimes surfacing to sing with her voice like the stars, and quite lost track of how far she had gone - and were it not for the river being the only path back, would have been quite lost.
She had met a kelpie along the way, who had offered her death in a sweet voice. Kelpies were dangerous, of course, but they were not the only dangerous in the waters, and the mermaid had informed the demonic horse in no uncertain terms what its fate would be if it tried to find even a mouthful. It had snickered under its breath at her hissed words and slid away from her once more, the tangled bulrushes and water weed in its mane and tail dragging across her skin, leaving trails of scum on it and on the water, which spun on the current like ribbons. And not long after that, she had met the girl.
She was young, with a voice that was dull and plain next to the music of mermaid song, but her hair was as bright as the morning, and that fascinated the mermaid, at the same time as made her mildly uneasy. But she wanted to know this new creature, the odd humans with their crow voices and two legs, instead of beautiful tails, who had to live in the air all of the time and did not know the mysteries of the water, and had pulled herself onto a rock next to the shore and sung for her.
"Your voice is lovely," the girl had told her. "I wish you wouldn't stop."
"But I want to talk to you," the mermaid had said. "Come sit with me."
She had hesitated, the little mortal thing, but at last came to sit on the bank, not too near. And they had talked together, and the girl spoke of things the mermaid could not imagine.
"I'm trying to get away," she confided, "but so many things wish to kill me, and I don't know where to go."
"Come with me," the mermaid said, "and I will show you what I know." And she'd sung to her and coaxed her near, and led her into the water next to her.
Her hair was a ribbon of gold spinning off into the darkness, and her lips were the color of blood, and her death looked so very like ecstasy as her lungs filled with water (so silly, that they needed to surface to breathe air when there was air all around them) that the mermaid had kissed her, tail wrapping around her body, hands running across her as they pushed her into the depths. She had been beautiful against the mud, with those blood-red lips and moon-pale skin and the tangle of golden hair, but death took away a part of her charm, and left her little but a doll. A part of her mourned the loss; humans were such silly things.
But she was still hungry, if not for long.
Mermaids are unusual among creatures of the water (or indeed earth, fire, or air) in that they were not necessarily inimical to the mortals that they chanced upon, and bore grudges against them only on occasion. Their culture was older than most, and stronger, and they lived by their own pleasure. But that did not mean they were dangerous, and that they would not hurt. The fish could be a poor diet, at times. But that girl, with her sad, hopeful, despairing words and ribbon of bright gold hair, entered the mermaid's mind and imagination and would not let her rest.
-
The mermaids are themselves, but their cousins, the undines, live in the river, and are one of the reasons that the mermaids generally keep to the lake. The undines are spiteful creatures, vain and shallow. They wear pearly strands of teeth in ropes, woven through their hair and layered around their neck, and hide their razor teeth behind soft smiles - and, to pass the long nights between meals, sit on pale outcroppings of rock and use fish bone combs to brush and brush their sleek silver hair. Their hair is their true beauty, their hair and their eyes, but to be close enough that one is able to look an undine in the eyes is a risky business, even for another undine. They keep their own company, carefully arranging themselves to best advantage, and brush their hair, and when the water is calm enough admire themselves in the moonlight. They are, (they will hiss with pleasure) the only true daughters of the night and the water, with small blue faces and stomachs and arms and breasts surrounded by a sleek fall of hair as pale as the moon. Generally, the mermaids find them slightly vulgar. They know nothing of life but song and prey, and cannot be bothered to learn any of the subtle nuances. Even their songs, proud of them as they are, do not exist for the sake of music, as the mermaid songs do, but as elaborate traps for their prey, and all the night not spent eating is spent in admiring their own perfection.
As a result the mermaids avoid them, and undines - understanding that a fight against all their cousins would profit them little, and that less humans came to the lake - generally returned the favor. It was a fortunate arrangement for both, as the undines hated the mermaids as much as the mermaids despised the undines, for daring to be beautiful.
-
The mermaid found her way back to the lake eventually, shivering when the sunlight brushed her skin and robbed her voice of its music and her skin of its luster and her hair of its beauty, but could not be content to stay there.
She did try to be satisfied, to sing with her sisters under the moonlight and sink to the lake bed in their arms come morning, but the memory of the girl was in her head, and now it would not leave.
And once again she slid down the river.
She met nothing but several monsters for night after night, and began swimming further and further down the river and, the further down she traveled, the more undines she met. They hissed at her like serpents, tails curling and uncurling restlessly.
You are not welcome, mermaid, one had told her.
I am welcome anywhere, the mermaid sang back. I am ten times more beautiful than you.
Don't be ridiculous, the Undine said in a voice like knives, sharp and deadly with a snicking of razor-thin teeth. It was an oddly musical voice, like blades being sharpened, but still full of cutting edges and the promise of blood. The eerie, lovely song of an undine's song was spilling across the snow like a wave. Spitefully the mermaid raised her own voice, her hair shining like blood in the water, and sang across the undine's song, for long enough to prove her point before stopping. Her next trip down the river the undine had tried to kill her, and had died instead; stabbed by a sharp river stone. After this she sank to the mud at the bottom of the river and did not move for a long time, until silt had half-covered her autumn colored hair and winter colored skin, and a kelpie came to investigate. It helped her devour the body, which she supposed was sensible - there was too much for her and the river washed away the blood and entrails, and the scum from its black coat. In return it did not try to attack her, and told her stories. Kelpies could move over land as well as through the water and as a result it had seen much that she had not, and would never be able to. It told her of humans, and of forests, of birds and beasts and strange plants. Two weeks after she had seen the girl she killed it, so it would not kill her. She did not return to the lake. It was the next night that she met the man.
He was as different from the girl as night from day - his hair and eyes were black, and he laughed at her, which would have offended her had she found herself able to be offended by it. There was something about his tone which prevented that, some note of merriment. He fascinated her. And he would not come to the water.
It went on for a week, him returning every night or so and asking her all she knew, and refusing to come close, tilting his head and watching her as though he could see through to her bones. The look made her shiver, his words made her shiver, and the slow caress of water began to make her feel that it would drive her mad.
After long, perhaps too long, he didn't come back for close to a month. It seemed forever before he came.
"Won't you come to the water?" she'd whispered, the old request, but he'd shaken his head. She bowed her head in acceptance, and after a moment of internal debate had said, "Then perhaps I shall come to you."
The snow felt odd under her palms and tail, soft and rough all at the same time; she flicked her tail in slight discomfort. But she was not like the humans, she could breathe both the air under and above the water, and so pulled herself to ground.
"Here," she said, and his look turned cautious and curious, as it did sometimes.
"Is this a trick?"
"Perhaps," she told him, "but I don't think so."
His lips tasted very sweet, and the blood on her tongue when her fangs cut them was unexpected and powerful, undiluted for the water.
That seemed to be a mistake, as he cut her in turn, a little knife flashing in defense. Her silvery red blood rolled down her skin. It was not a proper cut and did her no harm, and so she ignored it and reached up once more to touch him. The danger was that she had lost track of time, and did not notice it again until the sun rose from behind the mountains.
And that was the end.
To be out of the water and beneath the light of the sun was death to mermaids, and was why they hid from its illuminating rays; on the earth and under the light of day she melted into foam, leaving behind only a bloodstain on the snow.
Author: bluemoon
Beta: NONE BECAUSE I AM ALSO HARDCORE i am going to regret this in the morning aren't i
Word Count: 2337
Rating: pg-13...?
Character(s): MERMAID, UNDINE, SEVERAL KELPIES, SEVERAL NAMELESS HUMANS look this is an odd story
Pairing(s): MERMAID/MAN?
Summary: Monster fic. About mermaids.
Notes: I hate you too livejournal
The night was cold on the lake, with the moon high and wild in the sky, and the mermaids were singing. Their song was high and clear and beautiful, as wild as the night, and the silver-coin moon flashing in the sky. The melody sounded like water, and silver and glass bells, and the wind on the snow-covered peaks. They would sometimes sing all night - but only at night. Such things were not for the day, and before the sun rose and turned the landscape into a study in butterscotch and amber they would drift once again beneath the black water. Their limbs and tails and hair would tangle together as they wove through the water, and then they would sleep as one at the bottom of the lake through all the day, sleep in the dark places where the sunlight could not reach and the water was always so cold that, had any of them been more like humans, it would have stolen their breath and frozen their blood and turned their lips and skin dark blue, like the night sky. Every night they would rise once more to continue their wild song, and every day they would rest in the darkness, until (for most), night was all they knew. Mermaids do not live long, though their lives are longer than many, and not many see the day - it is the stuff of legends and nightmares.
They were not all that way, just most of them - but the touch of daylight robs such a creature of much of its power; fae are not meant to exist under the sun. So even the boldest of them, the most restless, tended to swim through the murky depths rather than swim to the surface, where the sun could rob them of what they were. Those that could not sleep would skim across the bottom of the lake and catch the fish who lived with them, eating daintily or wildly depending on their nature.
Except for one.
She was a pretty thing, this mermaid, with hair like autumn and skin like snow and a voice that sounded like the stars on a frosty night, or how the stars might sound if stars could sing. Her long tail was silvery-white and maple red, as with the rest of her, and her fins were long and delicate. She was not the youngest of the mermaids, no more the eldest, but was younger than most, and wanted so to see everything.
She was maybe sixteen, or would have been judged to be such by a human - mermaids, of course, do not age quite as we do - when she met her first human - having seen them before, but only at a great distance.
She had slid out of the lake (where, it seemed, they had always lived) and into the river, down the rocks and among the trees. It was quite a foreign experience for her. The mermaids rarely left the lake and its deeper water, which was unquestionably their domain, despite the fact that they at times dain to allow kelpies and other such creatures the use of some of the shallower portions, but the mermaid was young and she was curious, and the river had seemed an adventure. She spent part of the journey underwater, rubbing her skin and her scales along the water-worn rocks that lined the bottom, and sometimes surfacing to sing with her voice like the stars, and quite lost track of how far she had gone - and were it not for the river being the only path back, would have been quite lost.
She had met a kelpie along the way, who had offered her death in a sweet voice. Kelpies were dangerous, of course, but they were not the only dangerous in the waters, and the mermaid had informed the demonic horse in no uncertain terms what its fate would be if it tried to find even a mouthful. It had snickered under its breath at her hissed words and slid away from her once more, the tangled bulrushes and water weed in its mane and tail dragging across her skin, leaving trails of scum on it and on the water, which spun on the current like ribbons. And not long after that, she had met the girl.
She was young, with a voice that was dull and plain next to the music of mermaid song, but her hair was as bright as the morning, and that fascinated the mermaid, at the same time as made her mildly uneasy. But she wanted to know this new creature, the odd humans with their crow voices and two legs, instead of beautiful tails, who had to live in the air all of the time and did not know the mysteries of the water, and had pulled herself onto a rock next to the shore and sung for her.
"Your voice is lovely," the girl had told her. "I wish you wouldn't stop."
"But I want to talk to you," the mermaid had said. "Come sit with me."
She had hesitated, the little mortal thing, but at last came to sit on the bank, not too near. And they had talked together, and the girl spoke of things the mermaid could not imagine.
"I'm trying to get away," she confided, "but so many things wish to kill me, and I don't know where to go."
"Come with me," the mermaid said, "and I will show you what I know." And she'd sung to her and coaxed her near, and led her into the water next to her.
Her hair was a ribbon of gold spinning off into the darkness, and her lips were the color of blood, and her death looked so very like ecstasy as her lungs filled with water (so silly, that they needed to surface to breathe air when there was air all around them) that the mermaid had kissed her, tail wrapping around her body, hands running across her as they pushed her into the depths. She had been beautiful against the mud, with those blood-red lips and moon-pale skin and the tangle of golden hair, but death took away a part of her charm, and left her little but a doll. A part of her mourned the loss; humans were such silly things.
But she was still hungry, if not for long.
Mermaids are unusual among creatures of the water (or indeed earth, fire, or air) in that they were not necessarily inimical to the mortals that they chanced upon, and bore grudges against them only on occasion. Their culture was older than most, and stronger, and they lived by their own pleasure. But that did not mean they were dangerous, and that they would not hurt. The fish could be a poor diet, at times. But that girl, with her sad, hopeful, despairing words and ribbon of bright gold hair, entered the mermaid's mind and imagination and would not let her rest.
-
The mermaids are themselves, but their cousins, the undines, live in the river, and are one of the reasons that the mermaids generally keep to the lake. The undines are spiteful creatures, vain and shallow. They wear pearly strands of teeth in ropes, woven through their hair and layered around their neck, and hide their razor teeth behind soft smiles - and, to pass the long nights between meals, sit on pale outcroppings of rock and use fish bone combs to brush and brush their sleek silver hair. Their hair is their true beauty, their hair and their eyes, but to be close enough that one is able to look an undine in the eyes is a risky business, even for another undine. They keep their own company, carefully arranging themselves to best advantage, and brush their hair, and when the water is calm enough admire themselves in the moonlight. They are, (they will hiss with pleasure) the only true daughters of the night and the water, with small blue faces and stomachs and arms and breasts surrounded by a sleek fall of hair as pale as the moon. Generally, the mermaids find them slightly vulgar. They know nothing of life but song and prey, and cannot be bothered to learn any of the subtle nuances. Even their songs, proud of them as they are, do not exist for the sake of music, as the mermaid songs do, but as elaborate traps for their prey, and all the night not spent eating is spent in admiring their own perfection.
As a result the mermaids avoid them, and undines - understanding that a fight against all their cousins would profit them little, and that less humans came to the lake - generally returned the favor. It was a fortunate arrangement for both, as the undines hated the mermaids as much as the mermaids despised the undines, for daring to be beautiful.
-
The mermaid found her way back to the lake eventually, shivering when the sunlight brushed her skin and robbed her voice of its music and her skin of its luster and her hair of its beauty, but could not be content to stay there.
She did try to be satisfied, to sing with her sisters under the moonlight and sink to the lake bed in their arms come morning, but the memory of the girl was in her head, and now it would not leave.
And once again she slid down the river.
She met nothing but several monsters for night after night, and began swimming further and further down the river and, the further down she traveled, the more undines she met. They hissed at her like serpents, tails curling and uncurling restlessly.
You are not welcome, mermaid, one had told her.
I am welcome anywhere, the mermaid sang back. I am ten times more beautiful than you.
Don't be ridiculous, the Undine said in a voice like knives, sharp and deadly with a snicking of razor-thin teeth. It was an oddly musical voice, like blades being sharpened, but still full of cutting edges and the promise of blood. The eerie, lovely song of an undine's song was spilling across the snow like a wave. Spitefully the mermaid raised her own voice, her hair shining like blood in the water, and sang across the undine's song, for long enough to prove her point before stopping. Her next trip down the river the undine had tried to kill her, and had died instead; stabbed by a sharp river stone. After this she sank to the mud at the bottom of the river and did not move for a long time, until silt had half-covered her autumn colored hair and winter colored skin, and a kelpie came to investigate. It helped her devour the body, which she supposed was sensible - there was too much for her and the river washed away the blood and entrails, and the scum from its black coat. In return it did not try to attack her, and told her stories. Kelpies could move over land as well as through the water and as a result it had seen much that she had not, and would never be able to. It told her of humans, and of forests, of birds and beasts and strange plants. Two weeks after she had seen the girl she killed it, so it would not kill her. She did not return to the lake. It was the next night that she met the man.
He was as different from the girl as night from day - his hair and eyes were black, and he laughed at her, which would have offended her had she found herself able to be offended by it. There was something about his tone which prevented that, some note of merriment. He fascinated her. And he would not come to the water.
It went on for a week, him returning every night or so and asking her all she knew, and refusing to come close, tilting his head and watching her as though he could see through to her bones. The look made her shiver, his words made her shiver, and the slow caress of water began to make her feel that it would drive her mad.
After long, perhaps too long, he didn't come back for close to a month. It seemed forever before he came.
"Won't you come to the water?" she'd whispered, the old request, but he'd shaken his head. She bowed her head in acceptance, and after a moment of internal debate had said, "Then perhaps I shall come to you."
The snow felt odd under her palms and tail, soft and rough all at the same time; she flicked her tail in slight discomfort. But she was not like the humans, she could breathe both the air under and above the water, and so pulled herself to ground.
"Here," she said, and his look turned cautious and curious, as it did sometimes.
"Is this a trick?"
"Perhaps," she told him, "but I don't think so."
His lips tasted very sweet, and the blood on her tongue when her fangs cut them was unexpected and powerful, undiluted for the water.
That seemed to be a mistake, as he cut her in turn, a little knife flashing in defense. Her silvery red blood rolled down her skin. It was not a proper cut and did her no harm, and so she ignored it and reached up once more to touch him. The danger was that she had lost track of time, and did not notice it again until the sun rose from behind the mountains.
And that was the end.
To be out of the water and beneath the light of the sun was death to mermaids, and was why they hid from its illuminating rays; on the earth and under the light of day she melted into foam, leaving behind only a bloodstain on the snow.
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