Jane Peixes used to live by the sea.
Now, she usually lived under it. Kinda funny how that had turned out, really.
Maybe six years ago, although it was probably more, she had lived in an island village with her brother, John, and their two cousins, Jade and Jake. Looking back on it, she definitely had a great, carefree life back then, but that was before she discovered her gift. Most people didn't have gifts, and although such abilities should be blessings, many ended up more like a curse. Common people feared and shunned those with gifts, but at the same time they were all too happy to use them for personal gain. Even if someone was lucky enough to be born with a gift, they usually lived their lives in hiding and oppression. It wasn't exactly Jane's idea of the perfect life, that's for sure.
Usually, a person's gifts manifested once they turned thirteen (leaving them still fairly vulnerable to those trying to exploit their abilities), but every once in a while, special circumstances would trigger an early development- usually near death experiences, but the occasional death/revival wasn't completely unheard of either. As it just so happens, Jane was one of those special circumstances. (Why else would it be brought up in this exposition flashback?)
She couldn't have been older than seven or eight years old when it happened. Aradia, the daughter of a travelling merchant, had agreed to take her and Jake on a quick 'adventure' into some small caves, promising that she would keep the two younger kids safe. She didn't, but it wasn't her fault. Nobody could have predicted the earthquake that came almost out of nowhere, and nobody could have possibly evacuated the two kids out in time. If anything, she had kept them away from most of the damage that followed. Right before the tunnel caved in, she had shoved the two out of the way, bearing the brunt of the crushing rockslide.
It wasn't enough.
When the rubble cleared, Jake was hardly breathing, and Aradia was nowhere to be seen, buried under the massive pile of rocks. Jane was dead, if only for a short time. That was one of the few good things of having gifts that fell into the Life aspect, she supposed, although it would probably be dumb to test her luck.
Although she was able to heal Jake, Aradia was long gone.
The Traders came the next day.
How they managed to sniff out a gifted kid so fast was a mystery, but Jane was snapped up right before the entire village's eyes. Nobody could do anything about it. She was tossed on a ship and would probably have been sold to some rich doctor as a 'secret cure' for his patients if it wasn't for the storm. It struck right when she had given up any hope for escape. Being inside of the ship, she didn't see much, but the sound of rain and the tremendous lurches of the boat gave her a clear picture of what was happening.
It could have been hours or simply seconds, but her head slammed against something hard, and she blacked out.
The events that came next frequently made her question whether or not she had suffered brain damage.
Jane woke up in a cave lit by jars filled with water that glowed an eerie blue, but there was no sun or moon in sight. All along the oddly smooth cave walls, ridges held even more bottles and jars. It with a pang of homesickness, she remembered the village Healer's hut. A soft lapping noise drew her attention to the other end of the cavern, where turquoise water filled what was probably a small indent in the smooth floor. Oddly enough, there was no exit in sight.
Shakily-apparently the storm had left her in less than perfect condition- she pulled herself up and went to get a closer look at the pool. It was deeper than she expected, and the water smelled vaguely salty, not unlike the beach back at home. Peering down, she still couldn't see the bottom.
The next thing she knew, there was a person looking back up at her. Jane lurched backwards, falling onto her back. When she had picked herself up, a young girl was surfacing sheepishly. She didn't look much older than Jane, honestly, her early teens at the very most. A huge mass of soaking wet black locks half-obscured her face, and a gold circlet seemed to be the only thing attempting to hold them back. It may have been the lighting, but her skin looked almost grayish aside from a faint pink-purple tint. Two fuchsia horns poked out from the top of her he- wait, what.
Magical beings were hardly unheard of, but this was definitely not what Jane expected. The strange girl pulled her hair back from her face, revealing two fin-like structures near her cheeks, and grinned warmly. To Jane's relief, her teeth were definitely not fanged. "Sorry if I scared you," she said in an unbelievably friendly tone, her words carrying an odd trill.
Jane spluttered incomprehensibly. Children were taught to fear creatures like these, just like they were taught to fear anyone who was gifted.
"I'm Feferi. Can you talk?" It was a weird question but a valid one. Up until that point, Jane had done little besides uselessly framing words.
She nodded. "I'm Jane" she managed to say, then gasped as a movement under the water caught her eye. Feferi had a fish tail, meaning that she must be a mermaid.
That would explain the gills and the horns.
"Where am I?" she was kind of scared to know the answer.
"Underwater. You were drowning, and I had to do the life-y thing to keep you from being krilled"
"You can do...?" she trailed off and looked down at her hands, watching the green aura that symbolized Life surface a bit before forcing it to fade away again.
Feferi nodded perkily "And I know you can, too. That's why I was able to heal you"
That was years ago. By now, Feferi had become somewhat of an older sister to Jane. The two had tried as hard as they could to find her old home, but it was no use. John and their dad had probably relocated by now in fear of John being kidnapped because of her.
Jane had originally stayed in the cave most of the time, but that grew boring fast. Between Feferi, a self-proclaimed witch, and her older sister, who had a real gift for potions, a potion for temporary gills was quickly developed. By now, Jane spent most of her days with Feferi, using the specialized trident with a paddle on the other end to hunt. Feferi's older sister would stop by occasionally, but usually she was off 'playing pirate', whatever that meant.
Today, however, she was supposed to be stopping by with a surprise of some sort. Honestly, that was a bit worrying, but Jane was pretty curious.
A shadow passed over the water, and Jane looked up to see a huge ship passing by. Feferi glubbed excitedly. "That must be her!"
Well, this probably won't end well... I'm not sure when I can next update, but hopefully it'll be soon. I'm also probably going to post this on AO3 once I finish the illustrations for it.