The Mermaid's Egg

11 -- The Outing

"Talk?" Kiandra asked, sitting up as he glanced at Meara.

'She looks worried about something!'

"Uhm, is it about me going home?" he wondered.

"Before I answer that question." She said, still troubled over Ashling's death "I hope that you can sympathize with our situation. Do you understand what you saw at the ceremony?"

"Not exactly." he answered.

"The wounds that Ashling suffered would have been healed instantaneously by the Pearl of Lir. It is the pearl that keeps us immortal! We could be harpooned, bashed against the rocks, or even dried out on land. Yet, with the pearl, we cheat death. But the race of Adam had discovered our immortality and had stolen it away from us, driving us away from their shores."

"So that is why you so desperately want the pearl?" Kiandra asked.

"No, well not exactly. Not anymore." she answered. "I am a producer; I create the Egg to house the Spirit inside. But it is the Breeder that passes on her genetic code that gives the Merrow her body. If we were to infuse the pearl into your own body, it would pass on to the Egg...future Merrows would be reborn with a pearl of their own."

"I see." he pondered "That would save your species."

"Indeed."

"May I ask a question of my own?" Kiandra then asked Meara who nodded "Why did Balor go only after the Breeders and the eggs? It did not even try to target the other Merrows! Not even Caelan, when she ran away. It seemed that they only went after Ashling, the Egg and I."

"Your observation is keen, Kiandra." Meara noted "The Balor is an ancient monster created by a foul race of rogue deities called the Formorian's. They created that demon to devour the Tuatha de Danann's light and to enslave the race of Adam."

"The reason why the Balor only went after you, Ashling, and the Egg was because it feeds on the Merrow eggs when it is hungry, and devours the pearls for its own continued lifeforce. Niamh believes that Balor was created by the Formorian's to maintain our numbers. Having a pearl that offers immortality, and our hyper-reproductive abilities...our species could easily over populate the world like your own species has done."

"Natural selection." Kiandra commented, seeing the cruelty in it all.

"Normally, the Balor had never killed Merrows before. Well, unless we possessed a pearl that wasn't already merged into our bodies. And even then, the Balor knew better then to attack our settlement as we could easily kill it with our Fae magic."

"But something in the last century has changed. And for some unknown reason, the Balor has begun eating our Eggs constantly, and killing Merrows who try to protect them. And now with no Breeders to carry on our legacy...we are the last generation. In this entire world, all the Merrows that you saw at the ceremony, are the last Merrows in this realm. Barely even a hundred when we once commanded millions! Once being the largest and most powerful Kingdom in all of Tír fo Thuinn...now, we are in ruin."

"My grandfather once told me that Merrows had over-populated the western ocean of Ireland..." Kiandra offering his side of the story "...and it wasn't uncommon to see and hear tales of Merrows. But that all seemed to have suddenly ceased in the 1800s, about 250 years ago."

"That was about the same time when Queen Muireann had begun seeking for other means of organizing breeding with the other species as surrogate parents and forbid travel to your world. But there has never been any success in turning the tide." she remarked "Well, until you appeared."

She knelt down before Kiandra as she pled with him; she knew that she was about to ask the impossible. But for the future of her people, she needed to at least try.