A/N: Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition - Round 4 - Word Count: ~2,250
Kenmare Kestrels Keeper
Prompt: Write from the point of view of a [mermaid].
"We cannot allow the humans to categorize us as they do the land-dwellers. The centaurs have embraced their beasthood, and I say we do the same!"
The Adaro who had spoken was a fearsome-looking creature with a high, commanding voice that sent ripples through the water in front of her. A shark's fin grew from the bridge of her broad nose and twin swordfish blades extended from where her hairline would be if she weren't covered head-to-toe in bronze, iridescent scales. Her name was Klinka, and since the clans had gathered, she had been the fiercest proponent for remaining beasts under the strictures of wizarding law. The new Minister of Magic had altered what defined magical creatures as "beings" or "beasts," and Merfolk were finally being considered one of the former.
"They spat at us last time they defined the terms! We weren't even considered to be more than mindless beasts then!" Klinka cried. Her shout was echoed by the Adaro clansmen who stood behind her.
"That was more than two hundred years ago, Klinka," reminded another clan leader whose dark skin and thick, kinky hair so resembled that of the South African tribes who still paid her people tribute. She was Jengu, the Mami Wata leader, and her kind had more reason to trust humans than did Klinka's.
Klinka inhaled sharply to reply, but was interrupted by a calm, croaky voice with a heavy, Slavic accent.
"Two... hundred years... is not... so long ago," came the slow, punctuated voice of the Vodyanoy leader. The Vodyanoy bore the head of a massive frog, while his body was that of an ancient, gnarled man with webbed hands and feet. "Some of us... still remember."
"Two 'undred years is per'aps not so long for water dwellers, Yana" argued a picturesque Melusine in a musical, French tone, "but many generations of 'umans 'ave come and gone since zen. Zey are wiser now." Her normally-blond hair was turning greenish, and her twin tails twitched in agitation. Melusines were fresh water Mer, and she was not faring well in the salt of the Pacific.
"Wiser, hah!"
Klinka slashed through the water in front of her at the mere suggestion, and the Melusine bristled like an angry cat, leathery bat wings lifting from her back in attack stance.
"ENOUGH!"
The moderator of the gathering spoke with the authority of the Naiads, the progenitors of the Mer races. He was every inch the typical Greek specimen that any human would picture when thinking of Mermen. From the waist up, he was olive-skinned and lean like an athlete. His hair was a whirlwind of gold around his head, and his eyes were as gray and bottomless as the Styx. From his waist down, the brilliant blue scales of his tale glinted even in the faint sunlight that had managed to penetrate the surface of ocean.
Hovering over his heart on a leather string lined with shells and pearls was a large, red gemstone shaped like a teardrop. This Naiad was Vistrian, and bearing the Heart of Poseidon placed him in a position of high—if reluctant—respect among the clans.
"We are not here to revisit old wounds," Vistrian lectured amid the ringing silence of the deep waters. "We are not here to squabble about who has been most wronged by humans, nor are we here—" his eyes flashed at Klinka in warning— "to tear each other apart."
Vistrian rotated slowly, powerful tail twisting beneath him. He locked eyes in turn with several of the clan leaders: Lorelei, the queen of the German Nøkks; the Amazonian Yacuruna warchief with the powerful lower body of a crocodile; the half-sea lion Pincoys from Chile who recognized no true leader among themselves; the Indian Naga that looked so like the Hindu statues of serpent-goddesses that represented them to humans.
His eyes rested on the gentle, sloping features of the Ningyo empress, Mizujo-o, who surveyed him sadly.
The Ningyo looked more like humans than did any other Mer race, and had once lived among them. They were impossibly beautiful to behold in water, seemingly wrapped in sheer, silk robes that drifted about them. Truthfully, however, the "robes" were extensions of the Ningyos' bodies, as integral as Vistrian's tail or the Melusine's wings. They were more like the bell of a jellyfish than clothing.
Most of the Mer races had been vilified or shunned by humans in some way, but the Ningyo alone had been hunted to near extinction for the longevity-granting properties their flesh granted to humans who consumed it.
Mizujo-o had not spoken since the gathering had begun. Such was the quiet, observant nature of the Ningyo. Even now, she did not say what Vistrian knew she was thinking; she didn't have to. As he watched, a single pearl formed in the corner of one of her eyes before sinking out of sight to the ocean floor below.
"Nothing can make up for the atrocities that humans have committed against us in the past," Vistrian continued, his tone softer, but no less powerful. "The question—and what we have come together to determine—is whether we want to establish a voice in the shaping and influence of the outside world. Whether we want to form an ambassadorship with the humans and take part in their politics."
"It's true that the centaurs have rejected the humans' offer, however," came the melodic voice of a Selkie to Vistrian's right. "Our lake lies near a herd which lives in a forest the humans call Forbidden. The centaurs have chosen to remain as beasts and to take no part in human society."
"The centaurs are flighty and prefer their isolation," replied Lorelei, the Nøkk matriarch. "Merkind is being offered an olive branch, and accepting it comes with far greater benefit than risk. Human laws affect us whether we partake or not; we should have a say in how they are made."
"As if the humans would listen!" cried Klinka. "As if they would take our counsel!"
"De Adaro are... var-minded... but Klinka is... not wrong," croaked Yana, taking long, deep breaths between words. "Humans... are not his...torically acceptink of... new ideals."
"All forms of change take time and patience, Yana," Lorelei said firmly. "I should think the Vodyanoy would know that better than any."
"No."
The word was hardly spoken, but it somehow drifted over the gathering, traveling through the water and sticking itself to every Mer present. Despite his cold-blooded nature, Vistrian felt a shiver run from his scalp to his tailfins. He rotated slowly until he found the speaker.
The Amabie—for only one of them ever seemed to exist at a given time—swam between the Ningyo and the Měirényú of the East China Sea. She was humanoid in shape, without even the benefit of webs between her fingers and toes, but covered from the neck down in scales of jade. From the pointed bill of a red-crowned crane, she spoke again, and her voice rang with the weight of prophecy.
"There will come a time when the ties can be mended.
When the crimes of the past will at last be amended.
When the land dwellers fears of the Mer are suspended.
When the waters have risen and man has descended.
But!"
Vistrian hadn't realized he been holding his breath until the Amabie's lilting rhyme ended in an abrupt stocatto. For a moment, a silence fell over the waters that not even Klinka dared to disrupt. When the Amabie spoke again, her eyes had cleared and her voice no longer carried a prophetic message.
"Man is still too young to know the difference between what makes a thing a beast and what makes a thing a being," she said. "The fact that they must label things as such is evidence of their ignorance. It is possible to be both. Or neither. They are children, still, trying to assign definitions to concepts that are too nebulous to be captured by such tedious and confining institutions. Their understanding has evolved in the correct direction, but it is still lacking. They have offered us the same consideration they have given to creatures such as vampires and hags."
A murmur made its way around the ring of Mer at this, and Vistrian felt impending dissent among the clans. Before the gathering could dissolve into chaos, Vistrian spoke, drawing all attention to himself.
"This is true," Vistrian told them. "The humans have widened their definition of "being" to include Mer, centaurs, goblins, giants, house-elves, and veela. However, consideration has also been extended to vampires and hags."
Despite Vistrian's attempt to focus the clans, there were still whispers between members.
"...blood-feeders..."
"...child-killers..."
"...monsters..."
It wouldn't be long before the whispers grew louder and began to dominate the conversation. Vistrian knew that the meeting needed to end before the warm-water and cold-water Mer were at one another's throats. The fresh-water Mer like himself were already irritated by how long they'd had to suffer in the sea.
"We'll come to a vote," Vistrian said clearly, and this statement at last brought peace back to the ocean. "Beast or being. Cast your lots."
Votes were cast for beast or being in the order of the oldest tribes first. The exception was Vistrian—the only Naiad present—who would remain neutral unless the clans could not come to a majority decision.
A Naga with the tail of a sea serpent and three arms on either side of her torso pressed all six palms together in front of her and bowed formally to Vistrian. "We are beings."
"Be...east" croaked Yana, slowly and simply.
The female Rusalki leader, a vision of Russian beauty next to the Vodyanoy, spoke next. "Ve vill not be associated vit the likes of the Baba Yaga. Beast."
"Being," stated Lorelei proudly.
"Beast!" shouted Klinka; her tribe gave a battle cry in support.
When the Adaro's shouting had dissipated, Mizujo-o spoke for the first time. She uttered a single word, and the Amabie spoke with her: "Beast."
"Beast," agreed the Měirényú empress.
"If not now, then when?" asked Jengu, who looked disappointed. "Being."
"Being," the Melusine said defiantly, glaring at Klinka as she did.
"Beings," the Pincoys intoned in unison.
"Beast!" cried the Yacuruna warchief, and his tribe obediently clapped their right fists against their left shoulders with a unified, "Ha!"
Vistrian turned to the last of the clans, the Encantado of Brazil. There were only four of them present, all of them with the appearance of pinkish dolphins with humanoid hands at the ends of their flippers. If they voted in favor of "being," the vote would be tied and the fate of the Mer left in Vistrian's hands.
The Encantado whinnied and clicked among themselves for a moment in their own incomprehensible language. Vistrian waiting patiently for their decision.
When the dolphin chatter finally subsided, the circle seemed to grow smaller as everyone leaned in to hear the final vote.
The four Encantado said nothing at first, and instead turned three circles each in the water. Slowly, their bodies straightened and elongated, morphing into near-perfect likenesses of humans clad in brightly-colored robes. The only indications of their otherness were small, hairless patches on the tops of their heads where their blowholes could still be seen.
In Mermish that was thickly accented in Portuguese, the leader indicated his companions and said, "De Encantado are creatures both beast and being, and so, wid much deliberation, we haff chosen to abstain."
The Adaro began to shout their victory—with Klinka's voice the loudest of them all—and mayhem soon befell the honored meeting of clans. Accusations were cast and demands that the Encantado choose a side were made. At the eye of the storm, Vistrian tried to reestablish calm and order, but no one was listening.
Infuriated, Vistrian gripped the Heart of Poseidon over his chest, and the gem began to glow and grow hot against his palm. Hardly anyone noticed this except for the Ningyo and the Amabie, who were the only Mer not participating in the in-fighting, but when a heavy shadow passed over everything, blocking out even the meager sunlight from the surface, the arguing quickly died out.
Alarm and confusion gripped all who had been absorbed in their outrage, but the light returned a moment later as the blue whale Vistrian had summoned swam over them and back down into the depths. Vistrian released the amulet; the distraction had given him an opportunity to take control over the gathering once more.
"The decision has been made!" Vistrian shouted, the strength of his very presence denying all arguments to the contrary. "The Encantado abstain, and the vote stands six-to-five. The Mer will remain as beasts under human law."
"The Naiads!" Lorelei cried. "The Naiads could choose otherwise. We have not heard what you would wish, Vistrian."
Vistrian looked at Lorelei and frowned. "A majority has been reached," he said firmly. The Naiads honor the wishes of the clans."
Lorelei pleaded, but with her eyes only; she knew better than to question his authority further.
"This meeting is ended," Vistrian announced. "May your waters ever rise!"
Every Mer, even those who would swim home in bitterness, returned his parting statement.
"May your waters ever rise!"