All Mythical Things

The Fish Leg

Ulmo can feel that presence in his territory and near the lamp of Anar. Like it was drawn into the light but still held by the water of Vaiya, it can't get out or can't go any further. As if being pulled by the certain presence, Ulmo appeared in front of a single, faintly glowing fëa with a taint of shadow.

The darkness itself was like a sickness clinging into the purity of the soul. Feeding in its life. What is this particular fëa doing in Vaiya? If this is a First-born's fëa, it would have been in Valinor. If this is a soul of edain, it should have been in the Halls of Mandos to be judged.

He stretched his hands and held the fëa on his palms. At that moment, Ulmo saw the face of the person who was this fëa before it passed away. Little by little, he saw the similarities between him and this fëa that was yearning for inner peace. Why could he understand the remnants of this fëa's memories? Why is it in this world?

Ulmo, even as a Valar, a renowned god of the Water, King of all Seas, knows so little about the plan of Eru Ilúvattar. The knowing Creator of all is the only one with the power to do this. And by this very truth, Ulmo will be asking Him the reasons.

that it made me dizzy whenever I look directly at something. My eye's adjustment gave me waves of nausea.

I tried to lift myself once more and rolled around to lie down on my back, that small achievement left me panting and wheezing. I lifted my right hand to sweep away the hair on my face but that's where I noticed - "What the heck is wrong with my skin?!" I exclaimed as soon as I saw the shiny, scaly spots on my elbow and forearms' skin. From there, my eyes travelled down into my hands where I found more scales AND WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MY FINGERS?! They suddenly become longer! My fingers were plump and small! I was even told that they look like the hands of a child (a very ugly child)! Now my hands looked like the hands of a woman who never worked for a day of her life. Have you ever heard of the phrase 'Know something like the back of your hand'-thing or something like it? I know my hands completely, I have had them my whole life! Now my hands don't even look like my own hands!

I can feel myself start to hyperventilate as I freak out internally. I tried to move my legs so I could sit up (I can't even identify one leg to another due to numbness) but all I got was a loud flap and a splash in the water. That surprised me. And as I felt my head and my sight becoming more settled in the light I struggled to sit up again.

My jaws nearly fell down in the sand when I saw my supposed legs placed by a fish leg.

My mouth remained open but no sound came out.

Should I even call it a leg?! And it's blue! A certain body part of mine is blue!

It's ridiculous to call it a tail. I refuse to call it a tail. This isn't a tail. Fish tail on a human is a myth!

"Okay… Calm down, Erika. Calm… it… down." I told myself loudly as I stopped myself from screaming the living shit out of me. Is this one of the effects of lacking oxygen on the brain? Do scientists ever record deliriousness when the body suddenly forgets how to take air in? Maybe I am just hallucinating. Not over five minutes ago I had my face in the water and sand with sight swirling and spinning. My brain might still be soggy.

because they are all fictional characters and makes it easier for the author to state a fact that they had just accepted something we consider as mythical?

There was so many questions in my mind. With all the proof my senses can give me, waking up with these 'new body parts' is something I can only consider as a dream. But a dream, in my experience, is a hazy place where even when I am having lucid dreams, all my surroundings are cloudy. Blurred. Unclear. But now my eyes can see things so clearly that I can't miss a single detail, every color is more striking than ever.

Because of that, I finally gathered the courage to look at my reflection into the crystal clear water. I took a deep breath and peaked.

That is where I finally let go of the reins and freaked out.

-o-o-o-o-

Uinen shook her head as she watched her spouse chortle in amusement when Ulumiel screamed after she saw her reflection in the water. Apparently, Ossë found her quite interesting after what Lord Ulmo had done. He took the liberty of looking after her after their master decides they will observe who the lady is by sending her to Arda. After all, living on a dry surface is what she is used to doing.

The poor girl's horrified scream could wake up all living and nonliving things in all realms. Though it is their duty to watch over the young lady, the husband and wife Maia can't reveal themselves to the young lady. Uinen could only wish she could help and guide her but until they find a way to break the curse that is clinging into her fëa, they will not take her back into the realm of Ulmo.

Unless she wished for it.

For now, they will try to unravel who she is.

-.-.-.-.-

My eyes nearly popped out of it's socket. I strongly refuse to believe that what I saw was my reflection. NO. It was the water! Maybe it stinks with the red tide?! Or a group of jellyfish just contaminated it with their deadly venoms? Or a whale just had orgasms and you know what it released to make the water become crazy?!

Both sides of my goddamn face are filled with scales. And my ears aren't just normal HUMAN ears anymore. They have this scaly pointy-fin look that you can compare to the hard part of a fish's fins with almost 3 inches width. I tried to touch them and they are as slimy as they looked!

My eyes… my painfully chinky, Asian eyes has become abnormally big and round, almost twice the size of my normal ones. My iris, though the color is still the same brown, the black of my pupil expanded and the side of the iris is unusually black. It almost occupied 80% of my eyeballs and that is what made everything weird, aside from the random scales that scatter around. My cheeks looked so hollow because of the cheek bone that suddenly showed itself after two decades of being covered in baby fats. The pores on my skin are gone. Literally. Like they just vanished. Skin color remained the same but I suddenly lost all signs of stress. The lines that build up on my brows whenever I scrunch them, the growing sizes of my pores from pollution, sleeplessness and aging, and even the smallest blemish. My lips and this stubborn small nose are the only thing that stayed the same.

As if all of me has changed. The body that I have for my whole life has drastically changed like I just replaced my old cell phone casing into a new one. It feels like all that made me human was gone.

How could I not consider this as hallucination? Everything is beyond normal and nothing makes sense.

Maybe… Maybe I really am having a strange, realistic dream. I need to know what is happening. I need to know how I can wake myself up. But to do that...

Where am I going to start?