The water was cold in the deeper troughs of the lake. The autumn winds chilled the waves as they crested softly against the cold, compacted sand on the shore, only to be pushed back outwards again. The cold continued to deepen with every day as the weeks drew closer to deep winter. And that is when they hibernated. Some called them 'foam-nymphs' or 'sirens' and to their closest land-dwelling cousins, the wood elves, they were known as 'Oaris'. But in the common tongue, they were most usually known simply as mermaids. And in this lake, there were very few.

Nobody, not even the mermaids themselves, quite knew how they had come to be in the long lake below the mountain. The sea was leagues away and the rivers that had once been great and powerful were now smaller and tamer. The shoal of merfolk, male and female alike, no more than 200 of them, told legends among themselves as to how they came to be in this place. They told of one common ancestor, a siren of fantastic power and beauty only matched by her land-dwelling elven kin who swam, with her mate, up the great roaring rivers from beneath the ocean whilst with child, to birth her offspring in safety and away from those who would use her child against her to acquire her rare sorcery. Against current and tide they swam, dodging the spears of men and the arrows of elves who saw sea-dwellers moving up land as a bad omen until she finally reached the waters of the long lake, overlooked by the lonely mountain. Further legend claimed that the siren, named Nerthus, arrived at the lake with her lover as the dwarves of Erebor had begun to thrive, mining gems of rare beauty to trade with the many other civilisations that had begun to spring up across middle-earth.

Nerthus' mate quickly withered and died in the freshwater whilst Nerthus herself and her children thrived and grew to be immaculately beautiful beings. She and her offspring remained hidden beneath the surface, taking refuge in caves, the entrances to which were submerged leaving the caves themselves with pockets of air inside, perfect for the safety of her children. But Nerthus, after her mate's death, grew scared of the humans and dwarves around her and feared for her children's lives. So when a man or dwarrow would venture too close to her caves she would pull them beneath the surface and drown them, leaving their bodies on the land to be found.

One day however, many years after first settling, Nerthus, who had been desperate to protect her family and new grandchildren, had pulled an intruder into the water and once their body had gone limp she lifted the figure away only to realise she had drowned a tiny dwarven child that had been playing with his family on the bank. Nerthus heard the screams of his parents above her and so she swam upwards and broke the surface of the lake for the first time in decades. She placed the boy on the rocks and placed her hands over his stilled heart, summoning what magic was left in her. To the disbelief of the dwarf family watching, the small boy spluttered back to life and heaved for breath. The dwarven family did not care that Nerthus had drowned their child, only that she had brought him back. They rushed to her from the bank, leaning down to the water and praising her magic. They offered her all the jewels and gold they owned, so grateful were they that this siren had saved their only child.

But Nerthus would accept nothing. She only smiled, brushed her blue-black hair over her shoulders, placed a kiss on the boy's forehead and submerged herself beneath the surface. Whilst hiding her sadness in humility, she mused over the loss of her sorcery, reincarnation taking what was left of her magic and leaving her empty and weak, close to death.

But later that very day, as the sun began to set low over the lake on that evening in mid-summer her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, all 50 of them, swam to her and told her of a remarkable happening. The lake's surface had been covered with many thousands of millions of flower petals in beautiful reds oranges and yellows, making the surface of the lake seem to be formed of live fire. And so Nerthus gathered her strength and swam with her family to the surface, pushing through the many petals. When they broke the surface the bank erupted in cheers and the sirens found that thousands of dwarves and men had lined the lake in thanks of the boy whose life Nerthus had saved and had spread petals across the water as a sign of respect.

As Nerthus' family swam towards the old pier, two figures stepped forwards. These were the dwarven king and his new queen but sadness was etched upon their faces, despite the joy of those around them. The queen lent down to the water and Nerthus looked upwards and their eyes met in understanding. The dwarf queen had been with child but its life force had darkened and vanished, despite the child still being present inside her. The queen implored Nerthus to resurrect her still foetal child after having heard of her ability earlier that day. The thousands of onlookers on the banks watched in anticipation.

Nerthus shook her head sadly, unable to resurrect the child as she no longer had magic. The dwarf queen lay down on the pier in tears and sobbed and her king joined her. Their tears fell through the wooden slats and into the lake so that Nerthus and her family were so taken aback with their pain that they agreed they must help.

And so every siren in that lake gathered around the queen as they lay her face up in the water surrounded by petals and focused their magic on her. They chanted and sang, much to the amazement of the crowd until the water glowed and shone. When the queen opened her eyes she could once again feel her child living inside her. Nerthus and her family asked for nothing, only that Nerthus herself be forgiven for the drownings of many innocents who had stood to close to the homes of the foam nymphs. The crowds were horrified. They had no idea that these drownings had not been accidents as they had previously believed. Nerthus and her family had drowned many hundreds of people over the course of two centuries, which had been believed to be accidents occurring to those who fell into the lake.

In anger, men and dwarves who had come armed to the lake drew their weapons and some struck lights and began to torch the petals on the water's surface. The dwarf king and queen tried, in vain to calm their subjects and the men of Dale and to ask forgiveness for the sirens. Their pleas went unheard, however and the lake was cast alight as the night fell.

Nerthus and her kin tried to flee the wrath of men and dwarves but few of them were fast enough

Those that were too slow or were still exhausted from their magical exertion were captured and had their scales pulled or ripped away from their fins. Those that survived this were hung by their arms above the water to dry out and were eventually burned alive in the sunlight when morning came.

Nerthus herself managed to flee with 10 of her family until they reached the bottom of the lake whereupon Nerthus stopped swimming and sank to the deepest crevice of the deepest crack in the deepest trough of the long lake. There, she prophesised to her surviving family, burned and blackened for eternity that the merfolk of the lake would remain beneath the waves until flames summoned them to the surface again whereupon they could exact their monstrous, bloody revenge. The malice and hate in her body settled as she closed her eyes and died in the dark.

And that, the sirens said is where they remained. The merfolk continued to breed and thrive in the black places of the lake, never once breaking the surface. There they festered in the dark, their scales turning black and their skin turning to paper and becoming ugly and waifish in their stagnation. And there they would wait to exact their revenge until the day when the lake of Esgaroth once again burned in the night…

-X-

Ooooh… foreboding!

But seriously, thanks for reading. This story will be continued although I don't know whether to make it an 'AU!EverybodyLives' kinda thing where Thorin and Fili and Kili are alive and stuff and Bilbo hangs around.

But don't worry. None of them are gonna fall in love with mermaids or any shit like that. MermaidxDwarf. Can you imagine it?! *shudders and vomits in mouth a little bit*

Anyway…constructive criticism is always welcome and I'd love to know which characters you'd like to see interacting with the Merfolk, I haven't decided myself yet

Love always, Ellie x