Growing up mermaid

Birth of a Mother

For her mother’s one hundred and fiftieth birthday, Nymia was going to give her the gift of one hundred and fifty human hearts. The pirates that attacked the Venus were to be the first of her victims. Lurking in the waters beneath their ship, the mermaid stalked them like prey. She was waiting for them to near shallower waters, preferably in a place where rocks stuck out high above the sea. There, she would draw them to her and the rocks with the irresistible lure of her siren call.

The men, under the spell of the siren’s song, would be blinded to all but their inflamed passions and the beautiful singing mermaid before them. They would not see the rocks that they would eventually steer their ship into. When they abandoned their damaged vessel, Nymia would be in the water waiting to claim their lives and remove their hearts. But these events never came to pass. Instead something much more unexpected happened.

When Nymia saw the pirates attack the people aboard the Venus, she became a most interested spectator. The young mermaid had never seen humans fighting humans before, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the exciting spectacle. When she swam in closer for a better view, someone leapt from the ship. The human hit the water with a hard splash and the next thing Nymia saw was a baby floating into her arms. 

To Nymia’s disappointment, the woman who had jumped into the water drowned before she had a chance to finish her off herself. Afterwards she turned her attention to the baby in her arms. She expected that the baby human had already succumbed to the same fate of the matured one, but surprisingly the soft drum of its tiny beating heart reached her ears.

Just like a human battle, Nymia had never seen a human infant before. Inspired by curiosity the mermaid pressed her lips to those of the child and blew breath into him. The little thing was cute enough, she decided, that it would be fun to play around with for a day or two. She could always kill it later. Nymia breathed into the child’s lungs once more.

Three weeks later the human child still lived, and Nymia was finding it the more difficult with each passing day to end his life. Tonight was different though she promised herself. Tonight she would bring an end to this unnatural and unhealthy relationship. Tonight she would do what she must and kill the baby.

The tide crashed gently against the rock that the rainbow scale tailed mermaid sat on. The baby was cradled in her arms, wrapped up warmly in her long golden hair. He watched with wonder the sea of stars that shone bright above them. Nymia looked down at the child with tears in her eyes. Then she cleared her throat and began her song.

Gentle sailor, hither to me

I harken to you, from the sea

Answer mine call, and bringeth thine heart

So that I may keep it, after you part.

The child turned from the stars to the crying mermaid singing to him. The spell of the mermaid’s harmony hypnotized him. His blue eyes went wide and his lips parted into a three toothed smile. It was a look Nymia recognized well. Humans often wore it right before she butchered them. Then she stopped singing.

Slowly Nymia’s green eyes went the color of black coals, and the whites around them burned blood red.  Her teeth lengthened into pointed razor sharp fangs. The locks of her hair writhed to life and transformed into golden hooded headed snakes. The snakes hissed and flicked their forked tongues as they slithered over and around the naked infant’s flesh. Suddenly all at once the golden snakes sprung up in the air around the baby. They bared their venomous fangs, and then struck for the child in unison.

Just at the moment when the baby’s skin was to be pierced by their bites, the entire lot of snakes reverted back to harmless strands of hair. The boy giggled delightfully. Nymia, whose features had reverted back to normal, smiled back and shook her head, finally admitting the truth. She was in love with a human.

Back in the beginning it was just curiosity that drove her interest in the little human. When Nymia fed the child for the first time she assured herself she was only doing so to keep him from crying from hunger while she played with him. While watching the series of scrunched up faces the baby performed when swallowing down the algae she gave him, Nymia laughed so hard she nearly cried out a river.

Nymia also learned just how helpless a human baby was when she tried setting him on his feet. She expected a walking display, but instead, the child tumbled over immediately.  Nymia had wrongly assumed that since mermaid children came out of the womb swimming, human babies had to be born sprinters. Rather than being disappointed in the lack of a show, Nymia found it all the more endearing that the human was so pathetically dependent. When she picked the crying infant back up into her arms after his fall, she also found that calming him proved not to be difficult in the least. Like any human, he was easily placated by her singing voice.

Throughout the three weeks that Nymia had spent with the infant, she had enjoyed every second of it. She liked the feeling of holding him close when they skimmed above the water. It was fun to smother him with kisses and blow on his belly. She felt pleasure when she rocked him to sleep and entranced while she watched him do it.

That seed of sentiment which had started ever so subtly the first night the baby came plunging into her arms, had now grown into full blown motherly love.

“Well little human,” Nymia sighed, “I’ve decided I’m not going to kill you.” The baby let loose a high pitched squeal. “I guess that means I should probably give you a name of some sort. Thing is, I only know mermaid names. I haven’t the faintest idea what kind of names humans go by.”

Nymia pursed her lips, looked off into the distance, and tried to think of something. Then it came to her like a bolt of lightning. She actually did know one human name. It came from an old mermaid myth about a powerful human king who had fallen in love with the great mermaid queen, Syrenka.

“Ouann!” she said excitedly to the baby. “I’ll call you Ouann, What do you think about that? Do you like Ouann?”

The baby squirmed and clapped his hands happily. Nymia took that as a yes.

“Alright then, Ouann it is.” Nymia held the child up in both hands as she spoke. “They say the original Ouann figured out a way to breathe underwater so he could visit his love under the sea. An ancient human magic I guess,” Nymia shrugged. She then lowered the baby and cradled him close to her shoulder before jumping from the rock back into the water.

“Well, I don’t know about you,” the mermaid continued as the child rested his head against her chest as they swam across the water’s surface, “but I only know of one person who knows of human histories and human magic; the wise nymph that lives in the lake of Avalon. Oh wait!” Nymia came to an abrupt stop and slapped her forehead. “Mom’s birthday party, I completely forgot all about it.”

Nymia blew a long dejected sigh out of the corner of her mouth, “Oh well, it’s not like it makes a difference if I’m there or not.” As far as Nymia was concerned it seemed her mother had always gone out of her way to ignore her. When it came to her and her two older sisters, Nymia felt like the invisible daughter. Dejectedly she realized that her mother most likely wouldn’t even notice her absence. Nymia shook away the hurt the best she could, and began the long journey towards the island of Avalon with her human son.