Chapter II: Seep

With an odd rush of nausea the elemental spirit - Ariel! I have a name! - found herself existing physically again. She was foam, floating on a cold, calm sea. The people who summoned her here had called her a goddess, but she didn't feel particularly divine in this form.

The sacrifice they had made pulled at her, from over that way and up a bit, on the land. Ariel worried about what it might be. Hopefully not something alive, like an animal or person. Something like she used to be. Hearing her name reminded her that she had once been mortal, able to see and hear and move and talk.

Ariel could move water and dust and air, make it do stuff, break things. Now she was mostly water, plus some goopy stuff making her a bit thicker and bubblier. She tried and... yes! She moved, swirling on the water's surface without being pushed by a current. She felt herself rippling in a way that could have been grinning if she'd had a face.

A face! I should have one of those! Ariel pulled herself together into a more unified blob, coalesced balls of water for eyes, and moved the bubbliest outer layer of her foam out of the way. She willed herself to see and hear... and suddenly she could see and hear! She was floating on an inky dark sea, gazing up at the three-quarter moon. It was a clear night, and the stars shone brightly. A familiar and comfortable sea salt smell, or maybe taste, filled her watery nose. Taste and smell exist! She hadn't even remembered those. Her transparent form seemed to be pulling itself together and doing stuff without her consciously guiding it.

Ariel turned her water ball eyes toward the sacrifice. A tall pale cliff towered out of the sea between her and it, jagged and ghostly in the moonlight. The cracks and weak spots in the cliff, the places where erosion was happening... Ariel became aware of them, but it wasn't as intense and clear as when she was formless. She didn't feel like she could influence it from this far away. Being physical limited her reach.

Ariel flowed toward the cliff and the sacrifice beyond it. White foam formed a trail behind her head like long hair, which felt familiar so she kept it that way. She formed a mouth of water and grinned impulsively, before setting her expression to a more determined one. She had to go investigate. The sacrifice was calling to her, pulling at her.

As she approached the cliff, Ariel lifted herself out of the sea. Turned out flying was surprisingly easy. Her backup plan had been to flow up the cliff's surface, through the cracks and crevices, but that wouldn't be necessary. She flew, a liquid face trailing a long mane of bubbles and froth and an amorphous cloud of water blobs and droplets almost approximating a body. Up, up, through the chilly air. She rippled and distorted as she gained speed, glinting in the moonlight.

She crested the cliff and a vast meadow of grass and other small plants came in to view. The sacrifice was near a small house made of stacked stones, its peaked roof curving almost like an upside-down boat. It was illuminated by light from a fire in a shallow pit nearby. How exciting. A human dwelling. Small, only enough room for one family.

Ariel flew toward the house and saw a man and a woman standing together outside. They were looking down at something small on the ground outside to the doorway. The sacrifice. Its pull became stronger as Ariel approached. It was nagging, insistent.

It was a folded sleeveless shirt, with a loaf of hard bread placed atop it.

The woman grunted and took the man's hand in hers tightly. He gasped when he saw Ariel. Ariel was annoyed that they were making noise, distracting her from the sacrifice. It consumed her attention, hungered for more. It was the only thing that mattered.

Ariel slowed to hover before the sacrifice and found herself extending a stream of droplets to touch it. The improvised arm shimmered in the golden fire light. As soon as Ariel touched the folded shirt, the seductive pull of the sacrifice vanished.

That was creepy.

She was still aware of the sacrifice, like she was aware of her own form, but it wasn't overpowering any more.

Ariel turned to look at the humans. They looked very interesting, wearing human clothes and standing on the land. The woman's skirt was a pretty colour, a sort of green that hinted toward blue in a way that felt familiar. The man had a beard and held a staff. Ariel felt guilty about being annoyed at them just now. She shouldn't have let the sacrifice dominate her mind like that.

The humans' things around the house were so interesting. Ariel darted back and forth, looking around. They had a little wooden flat thing with three legs on the bottom, and a wooden fence and... wait, she was being rude. Ariel looked back at the humans and tried to speak, to introduce herself. All she did was slosh around a bit.

The man cleared his throat and slightly bowed his head. "O great Ariel, we are honoured that you chose to acknowledge our sacrifice and appear to us."

So that's how speech works. Of course. Flowing air, up through vibrating throat, out through mouth. Ariel formed a throat and tried again. Nothing. She was sure she was doing it right this time, but somehow she couldn't make a sound.

The woman took half a step forward, looking at the ground beside Ariel. "We... we brought our sheep out here. The pasture is good, but sometimes the storms scare us." She finally made eye contact with Ariel. "Please, would you spare us from erosion, Lady Ariel? Would you not let our pasture fall into the sea?"

Did they think all erosion that happened was her doing? It wasn't. Ariel could influence the natural process, but she couldn't be everywhere. No, wait, she could. Being able to jump around time, she could go everywhere and influence everything, eventually, given enough, well, time. Wow.

Regardless, she could definitely help them with the cliff. Ariel nodded vigorously to signify that she would. Her face sloshed around strangely so she stopped.

They seemed to understand. The man smiled, a warm, friendly smile. "Thank you. I was wondering, will you... will you be taking the sacrifice or leaving it? It varied in the old tales, and my grandfather didn't know why."

The woman glanced at him in shock. "Ine. Don't be rude. She is a goddess."

Ariel looked back at the bread and sleeveless shirt. She wasn't hungry, and she didn't have a defined enough body to wear clothes. She briefly shook her head to signify "no".

The man nodded and smiled. "I guessed so. You never did in the tales where you appeared as a whisper on the wind or as... bubbly water. Only sometimes when you were a mermaid."

The woman poked him in the ribs. "Ine!"

I was a mermaid! Ariel grinned and swirled around. That was what she had been before becoming an elemental spirit! She'd had long red hair and a green tail, green like the woman's skirt only paler! Who had she been when she was a mermaid? What had she done, who had she known?

Anything else at all?

Nothing?

No, nothing further came back to her. This was almost worse than not remembering at all. It was frustrating knowing that she'd had a life as a mermaid but knowing nothing about it.

Ariel wondered how she would become formless again in order to protect these wonderful people from the cliff being eroded.

Ariel found herself suddenly formless again.

Whoops.

She was tempted to try to manifest again, but she had promised to help them.

Okay. She felt the erosion throughout the stone, the cracks where water trickled through, the pounding of the waves against it. This was so much sharper, more intense, than when she was physical. She could feel all the places where if she didn't intervene, parts of the cliff would collapse, dropping chunks of the pasture into the sea. There was even a fault that endangered the house.

Ariel made the waves lose almost all of their energy before hitting the cliff, and moved falling raindrops so they would splash harmlessly into the sea. Enough rainfall on the pasture to keep the plants healthy, but not enough to wash away the soil or damage the stone.

Wait, where were the humans and sheep? They must have gone or died. The house and pasture were abandoned, empty. Ariel hadn't been paying close enough attention to what they were doing to notice when or how they had left. Maybe they would come back?

Years passed. Nobody returned to the shepherds' house.

Ariel wondered if they had lived out a long and happy life. How many years had it been since she had visited them? How long did humans live?

Oh well. Ariel hoped they had been happy. She had fulfilled her promise to them.

Stopping erosion from happening here felt kind of unnatural, uncomfortable. Erosion was Ariel's function, her nature. She hadn't noticed until now, but her power had become duller, like it was withering. She ached.

Maybe exercise would help. Ariel unleashed her power on the cliff as destructively as she could. She amplified the erosion, blasting the cliff with wind and rain and changes in temperature, even with pieces of itself as it fell. The landscape cracked and crumbled all the way back to the empty house. That collapsed into the sea during a hellish storm where the fault in the stone beneath it gave way all at once, drowning out the thunder. Ariel's power felt stronger and more vibrant than ever.

Maybe there were other people she could help. That would be fun. The man, Ine, had mentioned that she had visited and helped other people who had made sacrifices to her, earlier in time.

Ariel grabbed the flow of time through the universe and shoved herself away from it a bit, rather than forward or backward, to try to get an overview perspective of any other sacrifices. Bad idea. She found herself flailing and falling away from the flow of time entirely.

Something unfathomably huge and powerful noticed her and shifted slightly.

Ariel heaved herself back toward the stream of time with all her might. As she did so, she realised the force she had grabbed as a lifeline was actually the distant pull of the sacrifices to her throughout the past and future, all over the world. They seemed nearly as countless as the stars in the night sky.