A Mermaid's Heart

Chapter Twenty-One.

I was constantly fading in and out of consciousness, my eyes opening ever so slightly in the chilling embrace of the water only to fall shut moments after. Each time I would see faces, faces I had never seen before yet there was something so familiar about them. The face of a middle aged man with greyish hair and furious, power hungry sea green eyes. His face was covered in scars and he looked to be in constant pain. The strands of his hair danced in the water before me and a bow along with its arrows swam between us. Then there was the face of a woman with ivory hair and grey eyes. Her hair hung down to bellow her rear although in that moment it framed her body like a halo extending outward with black shells decorating the thick strands matching the black crystals that embroidered her cheekbones. Her skin was pale, her features similar to mine yet they were simultaneously worlds apart. I faded again, my mind going black until some hours later my eyes would blink open again, two more faces watching me in the deep blue. Both of the women had long raven hair and the same exact features almost as if they were twins with the only difference being their color in eyes. One had grey eyes while the others were blue, their features even closer to my own than the woman who came before them. They were younger than her but resembled her so blatantly that I had made the connection before my eyes could close again. The fourth time was the last that I would awake within the currents of the sea, my eyes opening even more at the sight of my own reflection. A woman studied me, one with ivory hair that was much longer than mine but her eyes and facial features were an exact copy. Her skin was the same pale ivory color, the shape of her body matching mine perfectly which was concealed in the short white dress that clad my frame. She blinked her mismatched blue and grey eyes, hands reaching for something behind me. Bubbles escaped my lips from the shock of someone moving straight through me, a man with golden blond hair and green eyes that were as vibrant as the leaves on the trees in my dreams. She took him into her arms, pressing her naked form into his clothed one, a sly smile touching her pale pink lips when she studied him with adoration. He grinned, his own arms, wrapped in a familiar red and white coat that had the English crest sown into its chest snaked around her waist. He was an English soldier from a time long before the seventeen hundred’s and she was the mermaid who had fallen in love with him. I extended my hand out to them, fingertips flexing in an attempt to touch the vivid picture of the pair, madly in love, hopeful of the future, happy yet there was something inside me that grieved at the sight of them, something that made my chest ache and eyes fill with unshed tears. My hand stilled, slowly dropping through the water when my eyes began to grow heavy again. I blinked to find them kissing, blinked again only to see them nude, his hands in her hair, hers clawing at his back. The last time my eyes blinked I was met by the sight of them covered in blood, their eyes lifeless, their bodies numb but their arms still wrapped around each other. After that, I could hear the sound of seagulls crying out overhead, the shallow waves lapping at a rocky shore, the wind and rustling leaves from nearby trees. My eyes opened, adjusting to the gloomy grey light until I noticed black and grey rocks lying beside my limp form moments before water washed past my face and forced me onto my hands and knees. The salt water dripped down my face and chin, my hair clinging to my back, neck and face. My flesh was covered in goosebumps and silver scales that had yet to fade. It was cold, cold enough to force a human into hyperthermia which could ultimately lead to their heart failing but I was just agitated and in need of dry clothes or a hot bath. I stood onto my feet, my head turning both ways to take in the deserted beach around me. My legs trembled when I turned to face the sea, a large lake meeting my gaze, a lake that branched out into the ocean on the horizon. The place felt so familiar, like I had been there before, like a part of me was still there waiting for me but I couldn’t ever remember visiting such a place. I searched the rocks and twigs by my feet, my eyes scanning the patches of white sand where rocks couldn’t reach. Even the air and temperature were like old friends to me, the air cold enough to cause my breath to condense with a shallow layer of snow coating the world beyond the beach. My eyes landed on a small cottage just beyond the tree line as my arms wound themselves around my waist as an attempt to keep me warm. I began to make my way toward it, needing some warmth and perhaps food if they had any. My hands gripped the trees whenever I would stumble, their forms appearing green despite the cold and the snow clinging to the tops of their branches. I desperately grappled for the cottage walls which were built of stone but felt my resolve thinning when there was no warmth trapped within its forgotten walls. There was no one inside, no food, no form of life other than a rat or two that scurried about the floor. The door wasn’t a door at all, it was covered by a layer of thin, brown fabric which I pulled from the nails that it hung on and wrapped tightly around myself. There was a handmade fireplace off to one side with some dry wood still stacked up beside it as if someone had been waiting to add them onto the fire but never got the chance to do so. I fell to my knees and hurriedly stacked the wood, reaching for a pair of rocks that I clashed against each other to try and ignite a spark that would lead to a fire. When the spark caught on the wood and dried hay I began to frantically blow on it until there was a bright, flickering flame. I held my hands out to it, palms facing the orange light then rubbed them together to try and give them some warmth, even blowing on them with hot air from my lungs. I blinked, something catching my attention out of the corner of my eye on the other side of the room. I turned to glance toward a makeshift bed stacked on top of stones with a layer of hay stuffed beneath the old, warn bear and wolf furs. A man was sat on the edge of it, his head in his hands, his sapphire eyes tired as if he hadn’t slept in days. I slowly rose to stand upright, my eyes never leaving his half nude form with his midnight black hair much longer than I previously remembered it. His hands were covered in scars and looked warn as if they had been worked to the bone over the years while his skin seemed a few shades darker in the orange light of the fire against the darkened skies outside “Neptune-.” I breathed the name, my eyes taking in every last detail of his features, the same muscular build, the tattoo-less flesh and arched lips. He was the same yet so different with his beard un kept and his flesh tainted by soot, dirt and sweat not perfectly trimmed and clean like they were in my dreams. He didn’t hear me, running his hand across his face, shaking his head as he stared at the ground by his booted feet. I could hear yelling but it was faint, seeming to fall on deaf ears until the angry male voice came into focus along with the sound of something being thrown across the cottage and glass shattering. I swiftly turned to find the man I had seen in the sea, the same old, angry and bitter man but he appeared to be a few years younger than he had been. He had thrown his bottle of wine and was yelling at a small boy cowering away in the corner of the cottage, a boy with teary, fearful blue eyes “Don’t you dare look at me! Not with those damn eyes boy!” my feet began to carry me across the floor until I was stood between the angry man and the little boy but it was like his scared gaze was boring right through me and at the man beyond. I slowly got down on my knees, my eyes scanning his youthful features, the features of a man I knew all too well, one I could recognize even without the help of his ebony hair and eye color. I reached out to touch him, to brush away the tears and whisper that everything would be alright but he faded away like a ghost, growing increasingly see through until I was staring at the corner of the cottage, my mind blank, my heart aching with emotion. I didn’t realize that I was trembling until I noticed my hand, still raised, shaking from the cold. I stood, searching the abandoned building for any sign of something else to wear, something dry but there was nothing. I stripped out of my dress and hung it on the fireplace to dry, creeping onto the bed in the corner, a single bed despite there, having been two who occupied the home. I wrapped the bear and wolf furs that had been messily sown together with handmade thread around my naked form and leaned back against the wall, my body still trembling and my eyes burning from the visions. The memories of what I had done came rushing back, the sight of Neptune’s face when the sword had impaled him, the pain and betrayal in his eyes moments before his form went lifeless and his soul drained from his features. I raised one of my shaking hands to cup my mouth, tears trailing down my cheeks at the images of what I had done flickering past my gaze. I had killed someone. I hadn’t stopped it from happening. My sobs were silent, my shoulders heaving with the motion of my body struggling to receive oxygen. I had called Caleb a monster once, had yelled it at his face when in reality I was the true monster hidden beneath the mask of a beautiful, innocent woman. My muscles stiffened when a man crawled his way onto the bed, one strong holding him up while the other placed its palm flat against the wall beside my head, the sun fading around us, the night taking over with only the fire left as a single source of light. My arms fell limp at my sides, the furs dropping along with them when he leaned down closer, his blue eyes locked onto mine yet flickering down to my lips every now and then. My hands reached to grip his arms, to pull him closer but they slipped right through him, his body dissolving into black smoke that eventually disappeared all-together. My lips parted to cry out to him, to call out his name but it fell short on the tip of my tongue when I remembered his demise. I continued to weep, the tears endless among those furs, my stomach burning from the hunger yet I couldn’t bring myself to move let alone prepare something to eat. I wrapped myself within the furs and stared at the wall, my back to the flickering flames until sleep overtook me, the last tear escaping the moment my breathing evened out and my heartrate began to slow. A part of me hoped, wished that when I would close my eyes he would be there in my dreams still waiting for me but there was nothing, only darkness and beyond that there was the room we had met in countless times before but I was the only one there, Neptune being nowhere to be found, his presence lost.

Aurella.

“Find her” I ordered the sea nymph, her body disintegrating into liquid that seeped in between the floorboards of the ship’s deck The storm had long since passed but the grey clouds still remained even days later, thunder roaring in the distance that would follow me wherever I was to go. The Captain, Caleb, hadn’t slept much in the past three days since Mary had been swept away by the sea. He constantly snapped at his crewmembers, was always pestering me about where she could be, whether she was alright. I would often ignore him, his actions often reminding me of a small lost boy, confused without his love to guide him. I wondered how he had managed to live without Mary for two years before I had lead him to Evangeline. I knew that sending the nymph to look for her would lead us to an equally as confused, frightened and mourning woman who was unsure of her new title, who was grieving over the loss of the sea god yet trying to learn how to deal with her newfound abilities. A time would come when she would have to choose between the former god and the pirate but which one she would choose was something not even I could predict. She’d fallen for Caleb first, he was her first love but her destiny had always been Neptune, her blood, her flesh, even her DNA had been derived from him through many generations. He was a part of her that she could never escape from “Where is she?” the familiar, irritated tone questioned from behind me. I kept my gaze locked onto the ocean, waiting expectantly for the nymph to return with the answer to that very question. Caleb stepped up to my side, his eyes circled in black bags were red from sleep deprivation and the stubble coating his jaw was growing increasingly longer “It be days since-!” I raised my hand to his outburst, silencing him when water formed a figure perched on the bow until it solidified and the nymph was positioned in front of us, sat on the railing with her hands gripping it to maintain her balance while her eyes scanned the sea on either side of her ‘She does not reside within the sea’ the words registered through our link but it was clear that she had opened it to Caleb from the way he looked to me, wanting to know exactly what she had meant. My fingertips drummed against the back of my hand as I contemplated how to handle the situation, after a long pause eventually deciding to respond to the pirate’s questioning gaze “She is somewhere on land-.” I turned as I spoke, the skirt of my dress flaring out around me, caught in the windy gusts that brushed across the sea. I motioned toward the helm with my left hand, palm extended and clawed fingers unfolding like a Japanese fan “Bring me a compass” I ordered, not caring to go into detail regarding the matter. Human’s, regardless of their blood, noble or commoner were all the same to me, they were all weak beings that would forever be considered our underlings and because of this I treated them as such. Mary was an exception, she was a born human turned mermaid who became a goddess, stepping above even my own ranking as the god whom I was created to serve. I reached the table in the navigation room, brushing my hand across the air before me to force a map of the world to unfold on the table’s surface. The nymph followed me, her eyes searching the shelves with interest, head c****d to one side in curiosity. I held my hand out when Caleb returned and he placed the compass he had retrieved from the helm onto it. I set it in the center of the map only to position a single claw at the center of my left palm “Blood of my blood-.” I chanted, my eyes swirling with white clouds as the winds started to pick up around us, the candles lighting as a reaction to the magic forces present. Blood trickled down from my clenched fist when I had cut myself, dripping onto the glass of the compass. The needle began to spin rapidly in circles while the blood seeped into it “Lead me to my desires” I finished, my hand falling back to my side as the blood searched the map, coming to a stand-still on Scotland, a specific coast that looked eerily familiar to my eyes. I could see her seated on a bed of furs, wrapped in them with tears in her eyes, I could feel the pain her heart was fighting, the grief and guilt that threatened to consume her when she fell onto her side and curled into a tight ball, her back to a flickering fire in an abandoned cottage that I knew all too well. I blinked and the magic faded, the winds calming as blood dripped down my fingertips, splattering onto the floorboards and delving in between the cracks to descend to the quarters below. When I took too long to recover from the sudden burst of energy, the pirate slammed his fist down onto the table, his teeth gritted as he glared daggers into my skull. The nymph watched us, not sure of how to react or what emotions were evident within the Captain, only that they were overbearing and violently desperate “Set sail for Scotland” I instructed, breathing in deep before dissolving before his eyes, not wanting to argue with a human. I found myself back in my tower in Crescent Coast, leaving behind a sea nymph and a pirate Captain to find their way to Scotland, unsure of what we may find there. Will his love be waiting for him with open arms or will she choose a different path? Will she be the goddess that is expected of her or will she seek to run from her destiny? These were all questions yet to be answered, answers that could change the course of history as we knew it. Our legacy rested upon the shoulders of a nineteen-year-old girl.