A Fishy Situation (if I were you)

AN ENCYCLOPEDIA ON THE STRANGEST THINGS IN THE SEA,

a guide by the Siren Queen herself.

1. The Mermaid, the Siren, and the Songs

The mermaid is a special female that possesses the magics of the tide in her tail, allowing her to propel her half-human and half-fish body about the wondrous sea. Only a few merfolk are given the gift of human singing.

To be gifted human singing (which is required to enchant and kidnap them), one must first:

A. Obtain a sun-kissed conch shell from the sand.

B. Allure the human with either the shell’s natural charm or the beauty of their merfolk features.

C. Coax the human into singing. It must be a song pure of heart, which requires no enchantments and comes from the human’s own desire.

D. Collect the song into the conch shell. Once the shell is in your posession, it may be used to transform into a human or a siren. This is determined by the purity in said merfolk’s heart.

Bailoch balanced the book precariously on his tail as he grabbed the quill floating in his small dwelling. He whistled, and a foot-long squid with an iridescent sheen popped out from a small patch of kelp that covered the entryway.

“A bit of ink, please?” Bailoch asked gently, wiggling the quill a bit between his fingers. The squid clapped a few of its tentacles before squirting a bit of ink on the quill. Bailoch grinned at the friendly little creatures before writing notes on the blank pages at the back of his encyclopedia.

“Places to find a conch shell,” he muttered, reading the note aloud. “Do you know where we might find such a thing, Clyde?”

Clyde and Bailoch both knew that conch snails live in mighty numbers around their village, but the creatures were slow, helpless- and the humans already enjoyed eating them. Bailoch couldn’t bring himself to hunt one and takes its shell.

“Perhaps we can find one that’s already without an owner?” he suggested. “That is, if it hasn’t already been made into jewelry.”

Clyde made some sort of clacking with his beak, which Bailoch assumed was meant to be speech.

“You’re right. It says here that the conch shell must be ‘sun-kissed.’” He grumbled and rolled onto his back, letting the book float up to the top of his cave. “Neither of us have been out in the sun.”

Bailoch had never been out to many places. Mermaids were gorgeous creatures who could charm any fisherman with their gazes, but it didn’t work out so well as a male. Most of the male merfolk were hideous and scaley, only the anatomy of their bodies pointing to something humanesque. They spent most of their time helping sink ships or terrorize the humans on beaches in the evenings, and they would split the treasures they found with the mermaids, who had lured the humans over in the first place.

Terrorizing didn’t work out so well for Bailoch. He looked far too human. His skin was a warm shade of peach instead of gray, his eyes were brown instead of blue, green, or violet, and instead of the sharp fangs most sea creatures needed, he had human teeth, with a shamefully soft set of canines. A few of the mermaids in the village suggest he try and lure in a female who was covered in jewelry, but he had no use for such a thing. Besides, when he stepped out of the village and ventured closer to the shore, the other mermen would use their sharp teeth and powerful tails to whip his sorry self back home. It was humiliating, and he didn’t have any sort of magic the Fair Folk of The Land or the Sirens might have.

So, that settled it. He would become a human. The only problem in his plan was that it required meeting one of the lowly creatures.

Bailoch let his quill float up as well and rose from his soft bed of sand, swishing his kelp door aside and heading out to the village. A child hit a ball with his tail towards a dolphin, waving Bailoch a halfhearted hello before getting hit on his head with the ball. Most of the main village reef was fish or businesses, such as the jeweler, the general store, and of course, the blacksmith. The art of metalwork was especially hard to accomplish, but merfolk loved their tridents and forks. It had worked out anyway, since the blacksmit built his little cavern around a hydrothermal vent.

He continued onward. Bailoch was not here for any sort of business or shopping, but to beg for advice. Most of the mermen avoided him, and he was a bit shy when in came to the mermaids, but there was one creature he could trust.

Talia was the village apothecary, librarian, and any other sort of job that Bailoch found mildly interesting. The old hag was at least two centuries old, and her beauty had faded ling before she was born. Mermaids did not age easily, so Bailoch decided that Talia’s rotten personality had sped up the process.

He hated speaking to Talia. She was rude, selfish, and seemed to think herself to be among the next great levels of thinkers. She hid her recipes, denied herbs and remedies if she didn’t like someone, and made sure to call him ugly in at least five different ways whenever he entered her home. Her redeeming quality was that she was like that to everyone, not just him- and it gave him just a shred of comfort.

“Talia?” he called. The little cave made up of rocky, purple coral was lit by enchanting Moonwater opals that were buried halfway into the sand. An air pocket in the end of the room allowed herbs to dry, if necessary, and a large bowl filled with a putrid smelling substance sat underneath a tiny welcome sign.

The mermaid was nowhere to be seen.

“Talia?” he called again, doing a little spin to see if she was hidden in the highest shelf, perhaps organizing. He bumped into her as she sped in, a pile of golden trinkets, rings, and rubies in her hands. She shoved past him, snarling something along the lines of ‘dimwitted child’.

“I apologize for my entrance while you were gone-”

“Why would you apologize when you’ll come again tomorrow?” she yelled. She added the trinkets to her bowl and began pounding them with a rock until they were a golden dust. “You come when you’re happy. You come when you’re sad. You come when you’re sick, which is just about every full moon-”

His jaw ticked. “Must we point out my weakness-”

“Child, don’t you have any friends? The young mermen these days are quite aggravating, you know. I think you’d be quite happy with those sorts of folk.”

Bailoch would have pulled the old mermaid’s last three strands of hair out, if it made her mouth stop talking for just one moment. Instead, he took a deep breath- choking on the water, somehow- and recollected himself.

“I need your help,” he stated quietly.

“You need what?”

“Help.”

“Ah.” She began mixing the golden dust in with the putrid paste, making some sort of medicine. She globbed it onto her peeling gray skin, watching as it began to shimmer, her skin becoming a tad more youthful. “I don’t think I offer help in this business of mine.”

“I’ll give you all my coin! My books, my jewels. Even my home.” He looked up to find she had raised her eyebrow in a condescending sort of way. He gulped.

“If you help, I won’t need to return here.”

He was afraid Talia would cackle in his face, or maybe throw some of that carcass-smelling paste at him. Instead, she turned away. Her face looked a teensy bit confused. She was contemplating.

“What sort of thing will I help you with?” she said after it had been a moment too long, and the silence had become awkward.

“I wish…” he swallowed. “I“I wish to become human.”

Talia let out a disbelieving chuckle and swam up, pulling out a book and flipping the pages as she set it next to her paste.

“I’m not a sea witch, child. Nor would I ever want to be.”

“The encyclopedia’s instruction require no magic!” he burst out. “Just a bit of merfolk charm.”

She nodded, humming to herself until she found the right page. “That explains why you’re here, then. You have no charm.”

“Well-”

“That’s alright. I’ll teach you the ways of alluring.” She raised an eyebrow at him and scrunched her nose. “But my help comes with a fee.”

“Well, actually, I didn’t need any charm. I simply needed advice.”

“Get on with it, then.”

Bailoch sucked in a breath, surprised and pleased that she was interested.

“I need a sun-kissed conch shell… directions to a human-infested shore…” He tapped a finger to his chin. “Well. I think that was it.”

Talia sighed and stopped messing with her book. She had ripped out a page so faded it was nearly blank, and she had scribbled something on it in violet ink.

“You don’t need to become human, child.” She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “If only your parents told you so.”

“Must you be so cryptic?” he said, stifling an eye roll.

“On that paper,” she began, handing him the one she had ripped out, “Is a place, on the land. I have a Folk-friend there, Hermit, who will help make you…” she looked him up and down. “A little less hideous.”

He frowned, deeply. “What about the conch shell I needed?”

“Hermit will provide everything,” she stated. She placed her hands on his shoulder and turned him around to the exit, shooing him out.

Just like that, Bailoch was left with confusion, rather than hope. He looked up and found a pair of mermaids snickering at him from atop a disintegrating piece of driftwood.

“Pretty boy,” one called. “Would you like to sing for me?” She could barely hold back a cackle. “That’s right. You can’t.”

With a grumble, Bailoch swam past them, hoping to make it back home without any disturbances. He unfolded the paper Talia had given him and tried to pronounce the name of such a place.

“Spoon-tiny-o…?” he guessed. It sounded all wrong. He let his eyes skim the paper instead.

Dear Fish-Folk,

Please arrive at the Spuntino di Mezzanotte at Midnight. You will find it sitting atop a litter-infested beach. Please, do not be afraid of touching the dirty sand. I can promise, the sea is much, much diritier.

Without any sort of love or luck,

Hermit.