How I Leave You

Liquid Gold

Once, many years ago now, my mother told me a story about a young naiad who fell for a man.

She had been many things before she became a fool in love. A princess, for one. The last-born daughter of the ruling king and queen of Rhûn, both of whom had been beaming with pride, for she had just passed her trial. Four of her teeth were now sharp enough to draw blood if she wished them to. To tear flesh from bone if needed.

As a gift for her accomplishment, as a rite of passage from what she had achieved, they let her swim out on her own.

The thing was, I was told, that she did not mean to fall in love. She did not venture out with the goal of it in mind. Did not approach the ship out of anything but curiosity.

He was nothing more than a common sailor. Yet to her, who could count no more than four handfuls of summers, he might as well have been Ulmo, lord of the sea himself.

Captivated by the beauty of the creature beneath his ship's railings, the sailor asked her to stay, and to be back the next day, too, for she would make him the happiest man on Middle Earth if only he might see her again. Being the youngest of four daughters, the princess had never captured an admirer's glance in more than passing, and so, flattered, accepted his invitation without a second thought.

In the time the ship was anchored in place, the princess thought herself to be the luckiest naiad to ever have swam the seas. Every night, she would meet her sailor, and they would talk beneath the moonlight, and he would tell her of the world beyond the shores of Rhûn. At home, she would dream of flowers and trees, and what it might feel like to have dirt underneath her fingernails, for always had hers been so clean in the currents of the water.

But a ship's destiny had always been to sail. To cause the waves in the water, and not merely be the object against which they hit.

The day he told her that they would be sailing on, she was certain the world was about to break apart. Surely he would stay? He said he wished that he could, but that his duty forbade it.

Duty. Never had she encountered the shackles of such a thing before. She begged and begged, and cried until she lost count of her sobs, but still, he would not budge. Could not, perhaps. But maybe, where it matters, there is no difference between the two.

Yet all was not lost. As if by a blessing from the Valar and the goodness of their beings, he offered her that she could come with them. He said that he could not tell her where they might end up, but that regardless of where it was, he would be there. That much he could promise.

She was, of course, beyond salvation then. When she opened her eyes, she was not happy unless he was in their view, and when she closed them again, the image of him was the only thing she saw. Without looking where she was going, she had fallen right into his arms.

It did not take much to convince her. The mention of bonfires and seasons was enough. Of trees and the earth beneath them. In the quiet of night, he pulled her onboard, his eyes wide at the sight of the scales on her tale. At long last, they could be together. No longer might the ocean keep them apart.

When the transformation started, it caught her by surprise as much as it did him. Never had she felt the pain of her own making before. After having spent her entire life in the water, she never considered that being out of it might turn her into a different being entirely.

At first, he was taken aback by the horror of the process itself. He had not considered that a creature of such beauty might produce something as dreadful as this: skin pulled from skin; flesh torn from flesh. And the blood.

Frightened, he called her a monster before seeing that what she had turned into was a creature of two legs, just like himself. A woman. She had become human.