Under The Sea

“Thigh? Kinda tough, I know, but you look like you have the teeth for it.” She held the bloody hunk of leg towards me.

I didn’t want to offend my host by turning her down. My stomach answered loudly where my tact remained silent. She laughed. “I know that sound. If you try to eat, you’ll be hurling it back up. I think you’d better sit this out. Don’t want to be rude though. Not many humans come down here, and not many of those just want to talk! My manners might be off.”

The mermaid (I think) peeled the tattooed flesh off the remains of the spelunking treasure hunter. One last pause to offer me again. I just smiled and waved her on. She sloppily licked the dripping blood then settled into chewing her favorite part of human anatomy.

Eating chicken thighs is going to be interesting when I’m awake after this. I was sorely tempted to offer honey-mustard sauce.

“So.” She hides a belch behind an extended fin. “Why didn’t you take him away? You’re both human, after all. Don’t your species look out for each other?”

My laughter surprised her. “Nope. Not as a whole. We look after small groups that are personally relevant. But I’ve been abused from being the protector of my species. Besides, I did my duty. I whispered in his ear that he would die here and to leave. Not my fault he blew me off as paranoia!”

She put the thigh down and nibbled on some fingers. “Well, hiding in your cloak and remaining invisible to him didn’t help.” We both laughed. “I don’t think if you danced naked in front of him, he would have turned around. Humans like him come down here for pirate gold. The clothes change over the years but the greedy drive is still the same.” She bit down on something hard and grimaced. Spitting the offending portion into her hand, she held up a titanium screw released from a mending bone. “Not gold. Bah.” She threw it across the cavern to a small pile of other medical detritus. “Humans don’t taste the same, either. A bitter taste. What happened to you guys? All fatty and bitter.”

I had to laugh at the mermaid’s complaint. She had a point. Those humans most likely to be treasure hunting now are no longer the fitter specimens. I didn’t know how to explain the bitterness was from pharmaceutical residues.

Another splash from the underground pool. Another mermaid emerges. “I thought I smelled blood! And you saved one for me this time!” She smacked her toothy mouth in anticipation but was put off by my utter lack of reaction. “Wait. What’s wrong with this one? She’s still intact.”

My dining companion stopped in mid chew to take a good look at me. “Uh. Yea. Why are you here and why aren’t you terrified?”

I just smiled at the “mermaids”. They looked like a cross between a drowned corpse and a hagfish. The “face” was one huge mouth rimmed with and layered within with teeth. Their eyes were where a human’s temples would be, and even then they appeared shark-like.

Two fins were elongated to serve as arms. But in such a way they did not impede underwater swimming. Appearing smooth on the exterior, I saw numerous barbs and hooks on the interior. To be embraced was to be severely lacerated, if you could escape at all.

Slimy skin in hues of grey, dead flesh green, and river bottom brown. An outcropping of long hair on their head, very much a tangled mess, falls forward to hide the mouth. But the underside of the jaw is the visual snare. When covered by the hair, it looks like the face of a crying woman. At a glance. At first. Just enough to make the unwary pause.

“I have an assignment here. I’m here to collect some things. I’m not on the menu, and your lures don’t affect me. So, why not chit chat a while? You make good conversation, and your manners are just fine.” I nodded at the first mermaid and smiled at the second.

“Well, just who are you? And what are you supposed to be collecting?” When I turned to face the first, the second launched herself at me and started to close her mouth around my hand. She started to. Then felt my defense.

I leaned over and said calmly, “If you close your mouth, you will be devoured from the inside out. The only reason you are still intact, is because you paused. I am not your prey. I’m supposed to be behaving right now, and that’s the only reason you continue to be.”. I smiled again. “Back off. Need help?”

She couldn’t nod without losing her jaw, so she just grunted. I took one of nearby bones and helped pry her mouth off the sudden spines that bristled from my hand. I handed her the bone I used so she could have something to suck on as a consolation prize.

“I am Weaver Far-Traveled. And I have been sent to collect the stockpile of human bones you and your pod have collected over the centuries.”

The first mermaid was chuckling at her sister’s sulking. The second was stealing the scraps left by the first but paused when I said my name. “Weaver?” She sucked on a removed toe in thought. “Weaver Bone-Burner? No… Wrong Weaver. I know you! You’re the one that the hippogryphs speak of! Weaver Stormrider!”

I merely bowed. My smile said much to those that knew I was all three. To these two, however, it only reflected their supposition back to them. I was very curious what they knew of Bone-Burner, and why she was so sure I wasn’t “that” Weaver. But I’m supposed to be behaving.

The first mermaid had pity on her sister, and gave up the torso, head, and remaining arm of the dismembered spelunker, As the second fell onto the feast (also complaining about a bitter aftertaste), the first and I resumed our conversation.

We talked of greed and contentment. They asked if anyone knew the old stories about them. I told them what’s being passed around as “mermaid tales” now. They both laughed themselves silly at the pablum. They noted treasure seekers are not prepared anymore. No charms, trinkets, or spell wards against them. “Picking off full grown men is easier than picking off babes! If that is what they are taught, I understand why.”

Their feast almost done, they promise me safe passage to the underwater trench where they hide the bone remains of humans. They were at a quandary about the medical devices. “Leave them here as bait. They are not gold to you, but to the modern human world, titanium is treasured. You have enough here to set off metal detectors, and the cave leading down is inviting to determined spelunkers. Greed will overrule caution. And to be truthful, I’m pretty misanthropic of late. The wary will be wary. The careless will be careless. It’s not my job to bubble-wrap the worlds.”

“Bubble… wrap? Like wrap things in bubbles? Ha! I would believe if you said there were men that would demand the world be made soft! I like you, Weaver Stormrider!”

“Like me enough to allow me to hug you?” The second mermaid looked at me wary. The first stared at me and asked why. “It would be better if I changed shape into your kind to get to the stockpile. But I need to touch one of you to learn the form. I know you use hugs as an offensive weapon, I see the barbs in your arms. I’d rather ask first, than reach over and trigger a defensive response.”

The first mermaid hauled herself fully on the shore and pulled herself to me. “A risk for a risk. I come to you without attacking and with my barbs held in. I ask you ‘hug’ me like humans hug each other. I want to know what men expect when they reach for me.”

I stepped behind her, knowing full well her fin-arms can wrap behind us both. I embrace her like embracing a friend. The slime on her skin irritated me. To be complete with my action, I laid my head against hers. I learned her kind’s form on the first solid touch, but I wanted to fulfill her request.

“Ugh! Enough! Enough!” I released her and she crawled back into the water. “That’s horrible! Made me feel like prey! And your kind does that for comfort? Horrid creatures!” Her sister was laughing hard at the complaints.

“And to think, it gets worse.” At my observation, the first only spoke worse against humans’ need of touching. I closed my eyes and felt my body shudder. I opened them to find my sight greatly limited, but my sense of smell sharpened.

As I dragged myself into the now pleasant and reassuring water, the second looked over my transformation. “Not bad, Weaver. But can you use what you have?” The first attempts to swim were clumsy and jerky. I surrendered to the form and was soon swimming freely around the two mermaids.

Together we gathered the remains of the unfortunate spelunker and dove underwater. They led me through twisting passages that led to the open ocean. Other mermaids saw me and followed in curiosity.

“They think you are from a rival pod. We don’t tolerate outsiders. But you’re different, and we promised you safe passage.” I only nodded and kept close to my escort.

At the deepest trench I saw the underwater graveyard. To my eyes were human bones scattered everywhere. To my other senses were the cries of trapped spirits. This is where the ravens of the Boneyard had sent me.

We added the newest remains to the collection. “These bones do not decay?” As fast as we have thrown them down, other mermaids came and scavenged those pieces still with meat and/or marrow.

“Sometimes. Those at the very bottom do. But unless something eats the bones, no, they don’t.”

Once made a meal of the mermaids, their victims are removed from the normal world. The shattered bones trap their spirits. Davy Jones’ Locker, indeed.

“How often does something come to eat the bones?” I pick up a piece of a pelvis. Tooth marks are everywhere on it. I can feel the woman’s spirit still connected to the bone, wailing for herself and her never-born child.

“It’s been a while. A long while.”

“This is what I’ve come for. May I take these bones? Those devoid of flesh and marrow?”

Above us, two dozen mermaids circled in the water column. I was watched by all.

The second mermaid gripped my shapechanged head. “How will you carry them? Have you a leviathan that is waiting for your signal?”

“All I need is permission to take them. They, and I, will leave.”

“Permission given, Weaver Stormrider.”

I began burrowing to the bottom of the trench. I stopped marking the depth when I passed 30 feet. Further and further down I burrowed. The bone pieces becoming smaller and smaller as they are broken further by the weight of what lie above.

Now at the bottom of the trench, I am surrounded in silt made of crushed bones. I transform back into my human form but hold back the crushing pressure. I call to the Boneyard, and in the blink of an eye, the bones and I are removed.

I remain in the Boneyard enough to see the bones are arraigned in piles and prepared for burning. To my surprise, I am sent back to the mermaids.

I emerge from the nearly empty trench in human form. I know I don’t need to breathe. I swim up to my escorts and wave thanks and farewell. The entire pod is there now, listening to the two tell of Weaver Stormrider. When they see me, the entire pod surrounds me. Touching my human skin and feeling my textured hair. They are surprised to find Weaver is human, but not surprised that I have visited them.

The Boneyard beckons. I wave a final farewell. I feel myself pulled away and standing on dry ground. Before me are the piles of bones from the mermaids’ trench.

“Well, better get busy.” I cracked my knuckles and proceeded to take my own advice.

I can’t complain. I did stay out of trouble after all.

Make of that, what you may.