As a kid I always got frustrated when people talked about the original ending of the little Mermaid. It is a heartbreaking one, but it always bothered me that everyone ignored the strong message of hope in the Daughters of the air taking the little Mermaid with them. There is comfort in an otherwise unfair situation, and to leave it out of retellings feels somewhat cruel to me.
Als ich klein war, war es für mich immer frustrierend, wenn Leute vom Ende der kleinen Meerjungfrau sprachen. Es ist nämlich herzzerreißend, aber viele ignorieren den letzten Teil, wo die Töchter der Luft sie retten und der Geschichte Hoffnung geben. Einer so ungerechten Situation auch diesen Trost zu nehmen fand ich immer gemein.
Quando ero piccolo ero spesso frustrato dalla gente che parlava del finale della Sirenetta. È straziante, sì, ma c'è speranza nelle figlie dell'aria salvano la sirena, cosa che molti ignorano o omettono dall'adattamento. Togliere quella piccola consolazione, da una situazione così tremenda mi è sempre sembrato ingiusto
Neon wanted to find out more about the aeternum sprites and reasons they’re called to the world, so enjoy this short story about them!
Word count: 2380
Warnings: References to current events, blood, cutting.
Commissions are open!
Maria coughed, the smoky air burning at her eyes and lungs, making every breath drawn these days a painful trial.
Her family had escaped the wall of flames before it reached their modest home in the woods, but it left them broke and homeless. They had fled to the next town over, seeking refuge and safety. They lacked the finances to go further, and had to search out jobs to be able to afford gas and fuel for the car, and food for themselves. What little they had crammed into their tiny Subaru didn’t last the first week.
The second week, it all got worse. The world was going to literal hell.
The wildfires that had chased her family from her home had leapt over the highway separating them. Wind swept up from the edges of the firestorm, twisting into burning fire devils that spread the burning embers and flames in every direction. The wildlife, exhausted and rundown, surged in front of the leading edge seeking shelter like their human counterparts. Many watched the strangely mixed herds go through their backyards. Deer, wolves, even the occasional bear or cougar, marched peaceably together. They knew their best chances were to get distance from the burning flames together, and showed that better than the humans who spent their time quibbling about what to do about the wild animals that invaded their property.
Most let the animals go through peacefully. Some raised a gun and took potshots at the innocent creatures.
The town Maria was in now was surrounded on nearly all sides. One road lead out, blocked up by traffic as the state police and enforcement officers tried to keep people moving out in an orderly fashion. They would be among the last, receiving gas at the last second from the government as the evacuation kicked into high gear.
But it might not be enough, and the flames were moving in.
Maria sobbed as she cut her palm, letting the blood flow into the spell she was working. It was a longshot, just like evacuation, but she couldn’t let any chance go to waste. They needed to escape this hell, one way or the other.
The blood pooled over the scribbles she’d drawn in the dirt.
For a long, drawn out moment, nothing happened.
Maria sucked in a breath of air, despairing inside. Her family might never escape the fire. Her baby brother already had a thin wet cloth over his mouth the majority of the time. It kept him from breathing in the harsher fumes, and Maria would soon follow suit, using precious water to cool the air she breathed. It was the best filter they could find after everything.
A gust of wind scattered the dirt on the ground, and the blood took on a glowing tint as the ancient symbols, etched on the ground with her finger, began to glow.
Sparks shot up from the symbols and formed a whirling twister in the air. Though a bolt of fear struck her heart, none of them gave off heat or harmed her, and the nearby grass was fine.
As the sparks formed a circle with a shimmer of air between their boundaries, a red bolt shot through. Maria squeaked in surprise and tumbled backwards, her hands shooting out to catch her balance. One slammed into a rock and the other hit the ground, the dirt caking her self-inflicted wound.
The pain was all but forgotten as she scooted back, staring with wide eyes at the creature that had appeared in front of her.
Elegant and fair, a small woman with reddish skin that caught the light of the distant fires and reflected it back, she floated on the wind currents with two small batlike wings beating calmly against the wind. Long hair that reached her waist, it started black at the tips and grew in fiery intensity to her roots, to the point where it was difficult to look at. Small patches on her skin were cracked and scaly, and each scale burned like a gem of fire.
“You have summoned?” intoned the creature, her blank red eyes staring directly at Maria.
Maria gasped as she was addressed, her bloodied hand frantically grabbing behind her at the book she’d used for the spell. “I– I can’t believe you’re real! ” she blurted as she dragged it onto her lap. “You’re… you’re a fire sprite, right?!”
The woman stared back at her. “You have summoned, and I have come to hear your plea,” she said sternly. “Now, child, speak.”
Maria swallowed. “Please. The firestorm is going to destroy the town. My family… we’ve lost everything. Can you stop the fire, so we can return home someday? Rebuild?”
The fire sprite turned her head to the sky, her wings continuing their slow, monotonous beat. Maria waited, holding her breath in anticipation of this magical woman doing her request, and bringing peace to the forest.
“No.”
The blunt answer left Maria momentarily speechless, staring at her in shock. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, forcing her words out.
“No?! But you… I summoned you! You have to!”
The sprite merely shook her head. “I am here to listen to your request, and have deemed it unworthy,” she said in that infuriatingly placid voice. “Fire must cleanse, and after the cleansing will come new life. It is a natural part of the way the world works. If your home is in its path, it will burn. That is all there is to it.”
With a massive beat of her wings, the sprite darted into motion again, brushing past Maria faster than she could blink.
“Wait–”
Before she could lunge at the otherworldly creature, the sprite darted through the sparking portal, and it closed with a snap, only a bit of smoke left in its place that wafted away.
Maria let out a breath of frustration. Fine.
Now that she knew the book wasn’t lying, she knew she could work it again. The young girl shifted in place, shaking the dirt off her bloodied palm and scribbling the same symbols in the dirt to the side and filling the center in with a different symbol.
The rest of the ingredients went into the center. She’d found most of the herbs in the abandoned store where her family had stopped for last minute rations, and slipped away from them with her precious book she’d lifted from the library. If this worked, they would understand.
Another incantation, another drop of blood. She didn’t have to cut herself again, she was still bleeding.
Maria sucked on her finger as she waited. This one was a long shot, but just maybe–
The symbols again glowed, and this time the entire portal was created out of nothing more than air. Tiny twisters moved around each other and out until the center bulged into the portal, and this time, the sprite entered with regal dignity.
Beautiful wings arched over her shoulders. Unlike the first sprite’s shimmering red bat wings, these were feathered and gave off a soft look. Almost angelic, if the wings were not black and iridescent. The sun turned the ripples in them purple and blue, and the distant fire made other feathers turn red, giving this sprite the look of a dark rainbow.
Maria plunged on. There was no going back. This golden-skinned sprite, less than four inches tall at her longest, might be her only hope.
“Please… I summoned you to help us.” Maria’s large eyes watered, and she blinked. It helped soothe them in the hot air as she pleaded her case. “The fire close by is spreading because the wind scatters the embers. Can you calm the wind and give the firefighters a chance to push it back.”
The air sprite, for that’s what she was, cocked her head. Idly, she waved her fingers, making a tiny dust devil spring into life close by.
As it churned the dirt, fallen leaves and grass into a hypnotizing funnel, the sprite looked back at Maria with golden eyes, no warmer than the fire sprite’s.
“The wind must not cease,” she said in a faint scold. “You cannot harness power like that, and are lucky the summoning binds you from harm. Do not call again.”
And with that, she was gone.
Maria let out a shuddering sob. Two had turned her down, and only two elements remained.
Earth was useless to her. Unless she wanted the entire firestorm to fall into an earthquake, she didn’t even see a need to call on them. Which left water.
Though water seemed like the best answer at times, the book had stated that the sprites used what was available, and one thing in short supply in town was water.
She had no choice. Before her family could come looking, she scratched out a third, and final, summoning circle, speaking the words hastily and squeezing her cut over the symbol for water.
The blood dripped down.
This time, after the breathless pause, the symbols activated once more. The blood itself coiled into the air, joined by the tears on her face to make the barrier of the portal as it opened. Red and glistening, her own blood and tears hastened in the arrival of the third sprite.
A blue streak darted in, sweeping past Maria. Just like the fire sprite, this one took several laps around the patch of dirt she’d chosen before coming to a halt in front of the portal.
Maria gulped. The slender sprite, with her clear dragonfly wings buzzing and her light, sky-blue hair glistening down to its midnight tips, represented her last hope. She had to listen!
“M-my family,” Maria’s voice trembled, “we’re trying to escape the fire, but getting out of town… we might not make it! Can you… can you please bring rain back to us.”
The thoughtful pause the sprite took on was expected, but her head shaking at the end dashed Maria’s heart to pieces. “No-no!” she begged. “You… you don’t understand, the fire, it–!”
“Some things cannot be changed,” the water sprite scolded. “I can only heal your ails. I will not change the path of destiny for anyone but my masters.”
The sprite held up her hand, and the water of Maria’s tears separated from her cheek and from the blood into the air, wrapping around her hand. She looked down, nearly jolting as the water glimmered and the skin resealed, all the dirt and debris falling harmlessly to the ground as the skin became whole.
When she looked up, all that was left was a portal sparkling in the air, the water sprite having abandoned her to her fate.
Nixie watched Aretha return, sitting calmly on a lilypad in the center of the lush jungles of aeternum.
The world was at peace, their duty of guarding the amulet certain. She smiled gently at the other sprite.
“What was the summons for?” she asked out of idle curiosity as her feet slipped into the cool water.
Aretha shook her head. “Some silly child wants us to change the fate of her home,” she said disapprovingly.
Nixie cocked her head. “So… you did nothing,” she surmised, familiar with the other water sprites that shared their home.
“Naturally,” Aretha emphasized. “Our duty is to guard the amulet and protect the balance. Why should I stop every fire that goes out of control for them?”
Nixie narrowed her eyes. “I seem to remember humans who went out of their way to help us,” she reminded her sister as she let her wings open, then darted into the sky, closing in on the portal before it cut them off from the world beyond.
Her passage was swift, and she didn’t even pause at the girl that was crumpled on the ground next to it, an older woman trying to shake her arms and pull her away.
“Maria! We have to leave!”
Nixie didn’t even notice the shouts that accompanied her appearance, people radioing in the shocking sight of the blue streak as they ushered the last family out of there.
Once she was high enough, she opened her arms and let the magic begin to flow through her. Her magic came from a balance of her own, and the power of water itself. She tapped into that power, reaching out as far as her mind could go.
In the distance, clouds and small storms existed. She gave them a nudge, calling them to this place.
Yet in her heart, she knew it was not enough. The firestorm that stretched out over the land was huge. No small amount of water would quell it. Firefighters had helicopters bringing in huge loads of water to try and slow it down long enough to empty out the nearby towns.
Not enough.
Please…
The echoes of Maria’s wish filled Nixie as she hung in the air, drawing in power like it was breath. Further away, across a distance that would take her weeks to cover, a hurricane raged in the distant ocean. Nixie took this, helping its power along and drawing it to her.
At the same time, she pulled at one of the nearby lakes. Even the fish had died from the overheating, and the water nearly boiled as she touched it.
It was the work of a minute to draw that water up and form a barrier around the town. Her will and touch cooled it and turned it into a barrier. The humans, mouths wide as they watched her distant form work, stood motionless down below.
Nixie breathed in, and breathed out, and set the strings of power in motion.
This fire was unnatural, and her duty was to guard the balance of life. Summoning the hurricane to them would pour water on it, enough to quench its drive. It was not a neat solution, but she could calm its more damaging effects over the lands it traveled.
Your family is safe, she promised the girl who had give up hope, and got to work.
This was going to take some time, but the gods would help her if her sisters wouldn’t.
The air sprites of Aeternum, they look so wonderfully angelic, but don’t be taken in by it. They are tempestuous and ill-tempered if you push the wrong buttons.
Looks deceive.
Air sprite commission by @gtridel
Right now, gt-ridel is running a pay-what-you-want commission drive to raise money for rent, so pop on by her page and give her wonderful art a go!
