place : the lake , the woods . time : nine days ago , nighttime . for : @ofdeliverance !
it began as a possibility. even less so, the possibility of a possibility. one day, she’d remembered the beauty of grass, or touch, or warm smells, and after what seemed a long slumber, she’d awakened again with the ache of uncomfortable clothes and thick-toothed combs to brush her hair. she didn’t know how long it had been, human time always slipped right through her fingers, she’d never bothered to learn how it ticked and ticked in seconds and minutes and hours and days, weeks, months, years. the shoreline of Creation Peaks remained the same. the salmon-like roads to reach were still the same, though harder now without the mutual-aiding of her sisters to swim up.
she’d lurked, found her cave once again and noted that all her little trinkets remained there -a surprise, though she figured either the locals had enough urban legends about touching shiny things in the wild to scare even the biggest of non-believers, or the access to the cave was just... too much haste. too deep, too dark, too far until reaching that one pocket of air. for her, it was no issue. there was no moonlight in there, only able to see by the grace of her still-unchanged eyes. the cave was beautiful, and hers alone. amongst her things, she found a stone that could be confused for a charcoal still intact, and smiled. upon closer inspection, it glistened as though something within it was shining, no outer light source to reflect off on. that, her one necklace, silver and long, with a heavy moonstone pendant that hung at her solar plexus. the mermaid ventured off again into the water, and when she emerged once again, she did so to reach the shoreline.
the process to dry was always long, tedious, but at least for the first while, merida enjoyed it. at some point, she saw her scales shed, glistening under the moonlight, and her body take the form of the human she’d practically forgotten she could be. forms in the dark became less detailed, though not lost just yet, the webs and claws that made her hands now reabsorbing and retracting to reveal the dewy skin of a maiden forgotten. a sigh, clear hues looked up at the moon, then she stood. and fell. of course, legs. the cliché existed for something. the mermaid shook her head, puffing out her cheeks, then tried again, her bare body barely even noticed to her as her body remembered how to do the walking once again.
once she’d gotten the gist of it, the mermaid turned her back to the lake and walked, as she’d arrived to the shoreline, a sight for -hopefully- no human lurker to behold and be beautifully haunted by. just a few steps in, of course, lest she wanted to really venture off into town like some maker had brought her into the world - kind of. the sharp stone was layered, porous, and the water hadn’t done any favours to it, nor had time. putting it inbetween her hands, she pressed until the shards of glass-like stone drew blood as they dug into her skin, then let it all drizzle down onto the sand, a mixture of blood and ancient stone. the shadows from the pier were just a couple of steps away. “ ze-el, “ her voice came out in a sing-song-esque tone.
