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Chapter 13
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Anytime dinner was served at the Island, multiple sets had to be made.
13 for the omnivores who ate a normal human diet, 5 for the vegetarians who no longer eat meat, and 3 for the solely carnivorous Sadaka, Vi and Cobrir.
At first being purely carnivorous confused the others, but when it was realized that the three of them had been merged with carnivores there was no fuss about preparing entirely different dishes.
Sadaka the Bull shark hybrid, Cobrir the Anaconda Mer and Vi the half Piranha. She apparently had eaten the sharp toothed fish for lunch the day she had turned. All three of them had also gone to Lewis to have their teeth fixed.
"How on earth can you stand eating those poor creatures," Cleo asked her face scrunched in disgust. It seemed that every time the group ate together like this, the conversation would turn to Carnivore vs Herbivore.
"Easy watch," Cobrir smiled showing his currently visible curved python fangs. Lifting one of the raw seasoned fish filets to his mouth he unhinged his jaw in a rather snake like fashion and swallowed the filet whole.
"I didn't need the mechanics, I just wanted to know how you live with yourselves," Cleo pouted.
"It's what our body wants, just like you crave whatever the hell that crap is that you're eating," Vi wrinkled her face in disgust as she popped a chunk of raw fish in her mouth.
"It's not crap, its smoked kelp wrapped around a fried plantain with rice," ZenchÅ retorted biting into his with gusto.
Rikki pretended to gag off to the side, much to the amusement of the rest. She was holding a well done hamburger with bacon, lettuce and tomato.
Ever since each of the vegetarians had discovered their ability to speak in some way with the semi to fully sentient organisms in the sea their bodies seemed to have stopped wanting to eat meat, and started wanting to consume only overly healthy organic plant matter, much to disgust of everyone else.
Kelp, seaweed, and algae for some reason was a regular craving for them as well as the natural fruit growing in the orchards and gardens that Bella had planted and grown practically overnight with her powers. It fed the whole clan very well and made the entire island smell of constantly blooming fruit blossoms.
"I prefer being an omnivore thank you very much," Mikkela commented around her first ever hamburger that she seemed to be enjoying very much. Malina rolled her eyes at her best friend as she bit into the plantain.
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One of the latest additions to their ever growing group, was named Mikkela of the Svalbardian clan. Or at least this was how she introduced herself.
According to her she was the last surviving member of the clan that had inhabited the coast of Svalbard for the last 1000 years.
They had never interacted with humans or even bothered them in the least. However this changed when 700 hundred years ago a greedy Viking king who had settled on the archipelago, spotted a white haired beauty singing as she combed her silky locks atop a cliff overlooking the frothy grey sea. What had peaked his interest the most was the gleaming silver and white tail where her legs should have been.
Igeborg, as he was known, lusted to possess the mythical beauty as a wife.
Nearly five years passed as he sent her gifts of proposal daily, each one spurned by the ethereal woman.
She did not speak his language but she did understand what he wanted from her.
Even if she hadn't already found her Mer life Mate she would not have even considered the tyrant because of his selfish tendencies.
Finally, after waiting much to long for satisfaction the Viking rode out with his army to the coast to give the she-fish one last chance. Upon reaching the shore where the Mer lived, the king was enraged to find his 'betrothed' lying in the surf kissing another man who also had a silver tail.
Anger filled him as he ran into the waves and sliced the man's head off his shoulders. Screaming with loss the Mermaid had used the few words she knew in the Vikings language.
"I will never marry you, you vile cretin. I and My kind will forever hate you and your descendants," She had shouted angrily as a dense blizzard began covering the land.
Outraged the King mandated that any and all Mer seen anywhere were to be killed on sight and their bodies brought to him. The reward was 100 gold pieces per body.
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In this region the Mer population was at nearly 100 the largest since Atlantis had been destroyed.
The same night the infamous 10 year blizzard started, was the same night that Astrid the princess and leader of the clan killed herself out of grief for her lost Mate. Her daughter Agnes filled with fury at the death of her parents took the throne and commanded that any Viking seen anywhere near the coast was to be drowned on sight.
For every twenty men killed 1 Mer was brought to the king. And so it continued until the animosity between the two faction rose to a climax and they killed each other out of hate, completely forgetting the money and simply killing the Mer out of the superstitious fear that had consumed them.
Evolving over time most the clan lost their silver easily spotted tails in favor of a granite colored one that blended with the rocky coastline.
After so much fighting only two remained.
Sadly, the local fishers were still on the lookout for the 'evil' fish people that haunted their legends.
The surviving Mers were sisters, name Hilda and Mikkela, both had heard the sanctuary call over the last few months, but Hilda who was only 12 and had fallen sick, was unable to make the arduous journey.
One morning the sisters were swimming along when the younger mermaid spotted a beautiful shell lying 50 feet below on the sea floor. Glad her sister was feeling well enough to be enjoying herself Mikkela had happily swum to the bottom to retrieve the shell.
Upon turning around Mikkela was horrified to see blood filling the water as her sister was dragged to the surface, a metal harpoon thrust through her stomach.
Screaming with fear Mikkela had shot towards her and attempted to free her dying sister as she was raised over the edge of the boat towards the celebrating voices on deck.
Shaking with righteous fury, Ela as she was called, pulled herself up the anchor chain and onto the deck.
Her beloved little sister lay dead in a pool of blood as the men congratulated themselves on grabbing a she-fish. Before they could even turn and see her, she froze them solid, grief filling her heart as she grabbed Hilda's body and returned to the sea.
Clutching the still bleeding body of her 12 year old baby sister, Ela turned to the boat and froze it. Solid, clear ice enveloped the ship until it was an iceberg bobbing in the sea. A memorial and a sign of justice for her sister as it were.
Following the traditions her mother had taught her, Ela laid poor little Hilly to rest and started the journey towards the sanctuary call.
The last of Princess Astrid's descendants left the coast, her distinct long ice white hair flowing behind her as she hid away the pain and loss, as she promised herself never again to allow such horrid fighting to occur again.
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Malina and Ela had met during the long journey towards the sanctuary. Malina had been swimming along leisurely en route to the beautiful island the music promised her.
Having just passed the horn of Africa, the fourteen year old mermaid was hit with a bout of curiosity.
Right in front of her was a speed boat bobbing in the water. Naturally it wasn't the boat itself that caught her attention. No, it was the fact that the boat was encased in a half an iceberg.
A boat trapped in ice was something she had seen more than once or twice having grown up in Nunavut. However the thing that had grabbed her attention was that this 'iceberg' was floating in shallow tropical water. Looking closer at the icy mass Malina noticed an odd figure in the ice. Suddenly she shot away from the iceberg in shock. The figure hadn't been in the ice it had been on the other side of it. The glass like clarity had given her a clear view of a woman with a rather distinct lower half. Just like Malina had a white as ice tail, the figure that was grinning at her, had a grey granite colored tail. Malina blinked as the other Mer motioned in the direction of a number of rocks that were jutting above the boulders.
Swimming after the white haired beauty Malina's heart grew hopeful. Perhaps her loneliness was about to come to an end.
Ela explained that the boat had belonged to pirates and they had tried to kill her.
For hours the two had sat on the rocks while Ela told her story of heartbreak. Finally Ela finished and urged Lina to tell her story.
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Malina was the youngest in her family, the youngest of 6 in fact. Being the seventh child and a girl had garnered her quite a bit of attention over the years; however, the thing that really got a response was her ice blue eyes.
Ela was confused as to why blue eyes were special, she herself had them.
Lina then explained that she was an Inuit from the Canadian Province of Nunavut. She had grown up in a village of less than 50 people all of whom were of Asiatic descent and therefore had brown-black eyes.
Upon her birth, the Midwife had thought that because of the cloudy white film over her eyes that she was blind.
Her parents had been very upset by this and ended up treating her like a porcelain doll. Unbeknownst to them however, Malina could in fact see very well, in truth, she had better eye sight than the people surrounding her.
The fact that she could see wasn't discovered until her third birthday.
During the party celebrating her age, her oldest brother Anyu had bought her a bright purple teddy bear.
Her family surrounded her as her parents unwrapped and handed her each of the new presents. With each one she was handed she giggled and thank in toddler English to the person who gave it to her but wouldn't pay much attention to the actual gifts.
That is until she was handed a large purple bear.
"It's a teddy bear from Anyu, Malina," her mother said as she pressed the small bear into her daughters hands.
"Dank you for da purpa bear Anyu," Malina said squeezing the bear. Her entire family had frozen as they stared at the cloudy white eyes of the child.
"How does she know what color it is," her third oldest brother asked.
"I-I don't know, I didn't tell her," her Mother answered incredulously.
"It's purpa dat's how," Malina smiled.
The family started handing her things, asking her to identify their color and what they were.
Each and every time she got it right.
"How is this possible," her father asked.
Standing in front of Lina's high chair he acted as if he was about to flick her in the eye. Pulling back just in time he succeeded in surprising the child enough for her to blink.
However it was not the blink that you or I would or any human would for that matter, would react with.
Instead of blinking her tan fleshy eyelids the white film over her eyes receded and recovered her eyes in a lightning fast fashion.
"S-She has those eye lids, you know that-that reptiles have," another brother blurted.
The family debated with each other while Malina sat contentedly playing with her bear.
"I want to try something," her mother said. Anana, her mother, leaned over Malina and looked her over.
"Malina, sweet heart can you open your eyes," she asked. Before she could finish, the reptile like lids flashed open and stayed that way, to reveal a pair of perfect clear ice blue eyes.
From that day on Malina was heralded as a miracle by her remote little village that refused any doctors for the child saying that the gods would be angry for questioning them.
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Ten years later she could be found gathering food for her family's dinner. It was a week into the season of night and the sky of above her had remained dark for the same amount of time.
On the menu tonight was Urchin Stew, which as indicated needed Urchins to make. So at 11 A.M on this fateful night Malina carried a seal skin to hold her quarry, a chain saw and a wooden ladder.
Where Malina lived in the Arctic Circle was directly off the coast. Thus they collected most of their food from the sea.
This was made difficult by the layer of ice over the ocean as well as the below freezing water beneath it. Such conditions made it so one could only collect sea urchins at 11 A.M. when the tide went out leaving a roof of frozen foot thick ice over a pocket of air.
So Malina used the chainsaw to cut through the ice and then the ladder to climb the twenty feet down to the still wet ocean floor.
She used her hour of time to quickly find and gather the twenty urchins needed to feed her family. As soon as she obtained her prey she headed back towards the ladder which wasn't a hundred feet away. Swinging the sack of urchins over her shoulder she quickly climbed to the top of the ladder and stuck her head out the hole.
To her horror she couldn't see a thing; in every direction was a wall of white. A blizzard had come out of nowhere and was blowing fiercely.
Before she could move, a sudden gust of icy wind blasted her off the ladder. She fell twenty feet to the hard stone below her left femur snapping as she landed. She couldn't move, she was paralyzed.
The Tide flowed in and claimed her prone body as it rose, its freezing current carrying her out to sea.
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At 11:30 A.M. a fourteen year old girl died of hypothermia and asphyxiation by water.
At midnight on the seventh day of the Season of Night a seventh child of the Inuit, from a human branch of Mer, was revived.
Malina awoke naked with every inch of her body encrusted in a thin layer of ice. Yet she didn't feel cold, she felt free. An all-encompassing sense of Freedom swelled within her.
Shakily standing up she investigated her body. The leg she had broken was perfectly mended. Her once tan native skin had a blue frost bitten hue to it. It wasn't painful, it was actually rather beautiful. Instead of ugly blotched red acne that she had before, she admired her reflection in the pool of frozen water she had woken up on. Her skin was an even white blue like ice and was perfectly clear and smooth. No acne, no imperfections.
Her black hair had blue white streaks through it. Rubbing the snowflakes away from her skin she noticed that she no longer had even the slightest bit of hair anywhere on her body.
She had died, she knew that much, she remembered hitting her head. She remembered being frozen and unable to wove and the tide rose, its waves lapping at her. She remembered the tears that froze on her face as the salty water covered her head and filled her lungs. Icy black water had taken her life and the eerie light of the full Blue moon floating above her had given it back.
Finally able to concentrate she sat for at least an hour admiring the ice sculpture of a mermaid set at the edge of the frozen pool.
From what she could tell she was on a floating iceberg miles away from land in the middle of the open sea. Said iceberg was like a bowl made of thick white ice with a pool of frozen blue at the bottom of the mermaid statue.
Curiosity got the better of her as she climbed up the ice mermaid and inspected the glowing white stone set in a blue snail shell on its necklace. The necklace flew off the statues neck and wrapped around Malina's, however instead of strangling her it tied itself in place and used the last of its momentum to push her off the statue into the now liquid blue water of the pool.
An electric tingle filled her body for a moment before clearing, leaving her gasping at a pure ice white tail. It was smooth without scales and felt like wet rubber. Unsure of where she had felt such a thing before she gasped again as she remembered the feel of a beluga's tail.
Unlike the whales, hers was thin and streamlined more like a dolphins shape than the fat tail of her favorite arctic whale.
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Using her new ability she swam back to the mainland and was surprised to find that her village was not where she had left it. Nothing was there just a field of white pack snow for miles in every direction.
Walking along sobbing her grief she realized that the same blizzard that had taken her life had also buried her village in 30 feet of snow.
Digging down ten feet into the snow she got into one of the houses and ignoring the huddled frozen bodies of her cousins, she gathered some seal skins to wear and a set of hunting equipment.
It would have been impossible to escape such a sudden storm. She knew in her heart that her family was dead, and so with frozen tears she marked and built 47 grave markers each with a name of a villager.
Leaving the mass grave that was her childhood home, she set out for the open ocean prepared to make her way through life.
Six months into her now human free existence she heard the sanctuary call and left the beluga whales that had become her family for what she knew was her destiny.
The youngest of the beluga's, the three year old Sura followed her best friend Malina on her journey to the paradise, keeping her company and talking to her to keep her from going insane. That's right Malina found out two days into her new existence that she could communicate with animals of intelligence.
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"Wow that's amazing, have you told anyone else a story since you changed," Ela asked in awe.
"No, why," Lina asked confused.
"I don't know how to explain it but when you told your story it was- it was almost as if I was there watching you. I could feel the cold, see the ice and your- oh you poor child I could feel your grief from when you found your village. It was an amazing experience," Ela exclaimed.
And so Lina's ability to telepathically show her audience a story came to light.
Followed closely by Sura, Ela and Lina continued to follow the Sanctuary call.
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Present
"Hey, Lina how about you shut these people up about food with one of your magic stories," Emma laughed as Cleo continued ranting about fish rights.
"I don't know I kind of have to agree, eating animals is barbaric," Lina grinned in response before launching into the mesmerizing tale of the polar bear that fell in love with a Wolf.
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