After the Halloween events, Mellora and Steph have a chat. A lot of info is shared. Somewhere in the past, I guess. Sad times after this.
Maybe it was a coward move, but after Halloween, Steph had intentionally avoided Mellora as much as she could. That night, that realization was too much, too big and she didn’t know how to deal with it herself. This was not how she wanted to get confirmation about mermaids being real.
But she was also curious and after spending so much time with Mellora, she just missed her. If anyone could make sense of it all, it would be her. At least she hoped. If she was still willing to talk to her.
If Steph was being honest with herself, she felt terrified when she went to Mel’s place - she didn’t know what she was going to say, how all of it would go, but she needed to talk to her.
Except Mellora wasn’t home, and Steph figured having this conversation anywhere else would be too open, not a good idea at all. She went for a walk instead, hoped she could catch Mellora in a little bit back at home, but it wasn’t necessary. She wasn’t sure how she ended up by the breakwater, she wasn’t intentionally heading there, but she realized where she was when she noticed a figure - such a delicate yet strong, familiar figure - at the end of the breakwater. Where all of this started.
She wasn’t thinking about that, though, no, and Steph found herself picking up her pace and rushing out to the breakwater, stopping what felt like too far away from Mellora. “Are you– are you leaving?” she asked, no greetings, no small talk, her voice maybe sounding a bit desperate which was rich, considering she was the one who was avoiding her since Halloween and she was the one who told Mellora that she couldn’t do this right now.
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Mellora didn't have the luxury to only think of Steph, of her betrayed little face, of don't call me baby. Her traitorous pendant was only one of several ongoing crises. After unsuccessfully attempting to track Steph down, and her texts unanswered, she had settled for dealing with other things. Between the persisting childishness of the siren leaders, the inaction of the hippocampi, the emergence of Soibhan and this new species and the role of Atla in their creation, cross with her regular duties as––well, the list went on, all of them gnawing at her.
Sitting at the end of the breakwater, her legs dangling off the edge, where nothing but the lapping of the waves against the rock and the occasional cawing of a late-to-bed gull disturbed her, Mel unravelled the many issues at hand; taking a problem apart before and setting it aside in her mind to consider the next one.
Sound of footsteps were eaten up by the sounds of water, but Steph's painfully familiar voice hooked her attention. Mel twisted, staring at her over her shoulder with wide eyes, her spine stiff and straight. "What?" So eloquent, she thought. She half-expected to turn to sea foam now, so close to the ocean and pinned by Steph's eyes. "No, of course not. I came here for a reason. What are you doing here?"
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Maybe it was a stupid thought, Mellora actually leaving, and if Steph would have thought it through, she would have realized Mel wasn't the kind, but in that moment she didn't give herself a chance to think, she just jumped to the conclusion because the thought of Mellora leaving, even with how things were between them... it didn't sit well with Steph, and huge relief washed over her when Mellora reassured her that she wouldn't.
And for a moment Steph couldn't speak, just took in Mellora - her curls, the stuff and tense expression on her face, the way her body was stuff all over. Steph both felt like she knew her and like she was looking at somebody completely new for a moment.
"I-- I couldn't find you at your place so I went for a walk and then-- I just kind of ended up here." The place where they first kissed, not that she was thinking about that, or the night and the lanterns. Her wish. Her stupid wish... "And you are here too," she pointed out the obvious, feeling more and more awkward and sheepish. She nooded towards the end of the breakwater, "Can I-- can I join you?" she asked, careful and unsure if Mellora would even be open to it now.
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Mel pressed her mouth into a thin, sympathetic line. Absurdly she felt a bit bad for not being home, but she wasn't often to begin with anyway.
"I just-I come to the water to think." It was likely obvious as to why now; homesickness, comfort, familiarity. Mel blinked before shuffling over slightly to make room beside her. Too much room still, enough that when Steph sat there could still be space between them and they wouldn't have to touch if she didn't want to. "Of course."
The conversation lurked ahead of them, she knew that, and it still ached. It shouldn't make her stomach flip over, yet it did. It made it clench and twist. Staring at the ocean, the descent of light blue, to dark, to black further out, she asked, "Are you... are you okay?" She opened her mouth to say something else, anything else, or ask after Renzie or the cafe or any number of normal conversation topics that they indulged in. The happy, simple topics.
"I'm sorry," she said instead, resolutely watching the water.
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It was conceited and self-absorbed probably to think, to hope, that Mellora was here because of what happened here. She was by the water because it was her element, it was her home, it was what she knew. So many things has became so clear about Mellora with this single information. It was all new and yet to Steph.
She slowly walked up and sat down next to Mellora without the two of them touching, unsure if Mellora would be comfortable with it or not, and stared out at the ocean, trying ti figure out what to say. She was the one trying to find Mellora, but just like she expected, now that she was here, she didn't really know what to say, where to start.
Mellora, like so many other things before, has made it easy for her and asked if she was okay. "Yes," came the automatic, immediate response. Something she was used to giving whether it was true. And then she took a breath, giving it a moment. "No. Maybe. I don't know. I didn't--I feel stupid joking in the past about getting seduced by siren because this--you-- not that you seduced me, I was a happy and willing participant and it was nothing like that--" unlike normal, Steph was stumbling over her own words, unsure of everything right now. Except one thing - Mellora was a mermaid.
She shook her head. "Don't apologize, this isn't--" She took a deep breath, shifting in her position, crossing her legs under herself as she fully turned in her seat towards Mellora."You're a mermaid. I thought long and hard about it, tried to figure out any kind of stupidity and incorrect conclusions in my logic, but I can't-- that pendant-- you must be. There isn't any other explanation for it." She needed to say it, for herself. Because even until now it didn't feel real.
"And you didn't tell me." It was a statement she tried to keep as neutral as possible, but she couldn't help the hurt in her voice. Mellora knew how she felt, what she wanted, and she kept the truth from her. "Did you ever want to-- would you have ever told me?"
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She could pretend that, this far apart, she could feel the gentle warmth emanating from Steph. The winter chill drifting off the water made the hair on her arms stand up, but she didn’t reach out or draw her close. She couldn’t, not now.
Mel, had it been a peppier occasion, would have gently called Steph out on her blatant lie, but luckily she didn’t have to as she edited her own assertion. Mellora didn’t know if she was okay either. Half bitter and half amused, Mel smiled to herself, her faced tucked low into her scarf. “I joked about it too. That a mermaid would steal you away,” she murmured.
Maybe she still would, that idealized, dream mermaid.
Nodding vacantly as Steph trundled on through her own thought process, her denial, the evidence, Mel sighed. “No, I guess there isn’t.” There probably were plenty of other explanations had she cared for Steph less or if she were a much, much better liar. In a split second decision, so uncharacteristic of herself, she gently undid the clasp of her pendant and tugged it free from beneath her clothes. She held her palm out towards Steph, the large, depthless emerald resting against her skin. In a way, she had wanted to offer her heart to her for weeks, months now, though she hadn’t anticipated such a literal opportunity.
“Of course I wanted to and of course I didn’t,” she said, finally meeting Steph’s gaze, soft but unyielding. “For a hundred reasons. I’ve seen your movies where things get locked up, I’ve seen the way people treat you for even believing in us, the way this town commodifies the very idea of mermaids and sirens. We’re not people, not here we aren’t.” She twisted her mouth, willing the well-buried, unrealized hatred for the way Port Vale apprehended her people for their amusement down. “Besides, I thought–we’re taught by our ancestors that if humans found out we’d be reclaimed by the tides, turned to seafoam. I didn’t particularly want to die.”
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It happened, Steph wanted to point it out, just maybe not in the context either of them used it at the time. A mermaid "stole" her away, except that same mermaids was now sitting in front of her, trying to have a very hard conversation with her and Steph wasn't even sure if by the end of it, that statement would still be true. If she would still be "stolen" away.
At least they were talking for now.
Steph didn't understand the significance of Mellora offering the pendant up for her to take it, to look at it. She knew mermaids had them, probably most of them at least, but she didn't realize the importance - the reason her heart started beating fast was because Mellora was offering her to see hers. A mermaid's pendant, Mellora's pendant.
Carefully, as if she was taking her most prized possession into her hands, she took the pendant and looked, taking in the fine cut of the gem, the color of it deep and endless and even though different color, looking at it almost felt like looking to Mellora's eyes, right into her soul. The craftmanship was exquisite on this one, too, just like the other one that was in the museum before (and for a moment she wondered if it really did get stolen, or if Mellora said that and got it back to its rightful owner).
"This is gorgeous," she breathed, glancing up at Mel. "Do you-- do all of you have one of these? Are all of them unique to the pers--mermaid?"
She was still inspecting the pendant when Mellora continued to talk and maybe she kept her eyes on emerald because she felt a sudden pang of shame - she took part in the way this town handled mermaids, too, and even though locking up the mermaids was the last thing she wanted, she could understand how that might come off differently. She was trying to word an apology for that, so really, the "I thought I might die" thing completely caught her off guard, and Steph suddenly snapped her head up, looking at Mel with big, wide eyes.
"I'm sorry, you-- what? Did you just say... You thought if I knew, if anyone knew, that you'd die." She dropped her hands into her lap (careful with the pendant) and just stared at a newfound bafflement at Mellora. "You-- you talked to me. All this time. You knew what I was like when it came to mermaids, you knew what I wanted more than anything and that it could-- you thought it would kill you. And you still talked to me. You told me you believed me, told me all about-- all about the pendant." She just could not understand why.
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Mel couldn’t help but be transfixed by her pendant in a human’s hands. In Steph’s hands. She held it so gently, so lovingly, Mel couldn’t even remember that she should be terrified. It was everything, so much of her power, so much of her soul and her home. With each brush of her fingertips against the cool gem or the twining metal, she felt her heart lurch in answer.
“Yes,” she breathed, not allowing herself to question whether or not Steph should know. She had waited her whole life for these revelations, her whole, committed, impenetrably dogged and dedicated life full of belief that only got her ridicule and distrust. In the weeks of knowing her, Mel had offered up brief moments of validation and commiseration, but now she might as well give her the biggest boon of them all: truth. “Sort of. Mermaids are born from either gemstones or pearls, sirens from metals. It’s cyclical; I’m not the first to have that one. I won’t be the last, either.”
For a hysterical moment, she nearly gave in to the urge to snatch it back and hold it near, yet it still felt safe in Steph’s lap. “My mum made the metal fixing.” Mum-given armor, sort of.
Once again she was left blinking, bewildered and a bit chastised at Steph. She opened her mouth. Closed it. She didn’t have a great justification for all of that. “At first it was to be close to… well, a potential issue. To gather intel about what humans might know.” Mellora sighed, deep and rattling in her chest. “You’re impossible not to like, though, and it stopped being about that after about four minutes.”
Mel glared into her lap, her fingers worrying the end of her jacket zipper. “It was stupid, honestly. Reckless. No way around that, but do you remember what I told you? About my friend and all the responsibility? You were respite. Selfish, stupid, albeit dangerous, respite.” Huffing in frustration, Mel ground her teeth before continuing. "I told you about her pendant because I didn't want to lose you."
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Mermaids are born from either gemstones or pearls, sirens from metals. Steph's eyes shot up at Mellora, staring at her for one, two, three seconds, and then looked back down at the gem in her hand. It was beautiful, yes, but suddenly she saw it in a whole different light. She was holding... she wasn't even sure what she was holding, what to associate it with in the human body that would be enough of a comparison, but whatever it was, she should not be able to hold it. It was too precious, too important. What if she dropped it somehow?
"This is what you were born from..." she echoed the words, looking back up at Mellora. "You guys have a whole different-- birthing cycle. Or system. or whatever-- I didn't even think." She didn't really spend time thinking about how mermaids were born and how they were made, but this was... she had no words. "This is amazing! Just-- Wow. This is what you-- I should not be holding this, even with the metal casing," she declared and carefully held the gem back towards Mellora. It felt too big, eternally too big for her to be handed all of this.
"You mom... how does that work? With being born from a gem and all? Are parents chosen? Or assigned? Or is it getting passed down generation by generation as well? And how does the birth works? Is it like phoenixes? Do you get reborn over and over again? Do you remember anything from previous iterations or lives?" She couldn't help the questions, couldn't help wanting to know.
Mel was trying to make sure she wasn't becoming a mistake, yes, that made sense. Four month was a bit of a long time for that, but she could understand, Mellora was only trying to... wait, no. Mel didn't say months, she said minutes. Did she really say four minutes? Four minutes despite the fact that she was spending as much time as she could digging up facts about mermaids. And she was a respite. Four minutes and respite. Steph could hear the other things Mellora was saying, but those two things kept echoing in her mind. Four minutes and respite.
She moved without really considering it, leaning closer and gently cupping Mellora's cheek in her palm before she pressed her lips against Mel's. Just a short, gentle kiss and she pulled back after a couple of moments, but Mellora literally risked her life to be with her. She told Steph more than she should have, she was giving her so much already and everything she was mad about, that betrayal she felt because Mellora didn't tell her and just let her on has disappeared in its entirely and she wanted to kiss her, reassure her that she wasn't losing her. It would take her time to process all of this, but she wanted to do it with Mel. No more avoiding her anymore.
"Sorry, sorry, maybe I shouldn't have-- we're talking about pretty important things and I don't want to derail it but I just-- you are not losing me. If you still-- if you still don't want that. I'm sorry that I acted so-- harsh and hurt. I didn't know, I didn't realize."
It slowly started seeping in for her what else Mellora told her and she tilted her head at the other. "The other pendant is your friend's. That is why you've been so protective of it, you were protecting her. I'm-- so wait, does that mean she got reborn too? Is that why the pendant disappeared?" That made the only sense to Steph now. "And Val... she tried to steal it-- does she know about all of this? Is she also a mermaid? Or is she a human and she just wanted to get her hands on the pendant because she knew how valuable it would be?"
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"We're not exactly your basic mammal," Mellora admitted with a wry shrug. Honestly, their system seemed a lot more painless and sensible than humans. She took the pendant back, but didn't put it around her neck again. Instead she held it and brushed her thumb over the octopus' tentacles and strong loop of metal the chain looped through. "I won't be hurt if it's dropped–it's been hit before. People aim for these in fights. And I won't die if it breaks, either, I'll just... I'll be stuck in whatever form I happen to be in at the time." It probably didn't comfort her any, but it was indeed sturdier than it first appeared.
"I don't know what a phoenix is," she said with a laugh, looking sidelong at Steph. Maybe it'd been in a movie they had watched together, but she couldn't recall. "Regions handle children differently. Some raise children as a cooperative, others, like my territory, generally have pairs or trios, or small groups, of adults who decide to raise babies together. Like your version of parents. There's a technical minutiae to it, but it's just women wanting to be mothers and children needing mothers." Mel rolled her eyes in amusement. She should have assumed Steph would want every aspect of this laid out to her, but kept forgetting that the mundane parts of her life would be exceptional to her. "No, no. Everyone is just a new person. I have nothing from before, and whoever comes next won't have any part of my mind, either."
Mel squeaked in surprise at the hand on her cheek, and melted willingly into the kiss. She had missed this, had missed Steph, this easy exchange of comfort and reassurance. Staring into her eyes this close, she just wordlessly shook her head as Steph apologized, overcome with her own urge to say sorry again for lying to her. "Of course I still want you." She smiled, it sewn through with fatigued sadness. "I still want you enough to be very, very stupid about it. I lied to you a lot. You're entitled to that hurt."
The tender bubble of their kiss melted away and Mellora was shaking her head again. "Steph," she breathed, inching closer to her on the breakwater, earnest and desperate to be understood. "I'll tell you. If you want, I'll tell you everything, but this isn't a story. This is... Look, I–I hate what this town does to my kind. We aren't convenient knicknacks, or toys, or cutesie baked goods titles. We aren't the sweet little factoids I let the town see in the museum. There is no way to reduce us all into something simple and commodified." Searching Steph's face for acknowledgement, for an understanding of what she was saying, Mel forged ahead. "It's a civilization in the water. Of thousands and thousands. Humans have their culture, and their war, their prejudice and their strife, and we have our own. Do you understand that?" Already this was dangerous, and selfish of Mellora not to have pushed her away to calmer tides, but it was too late. "Can you understand that I'm the furthest thing from just a small town museum curator?"
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"Please, please-- do not call yourself a mammal. I know technically humans count as mammals as well, but that just sounds weird. You're-- you're you and you're a mermaid apparently which is still hard to wrap my mind around, but also just-- mammal is weird." Given everything she's heard and witnessed recently, being weirded out by Mel calling herself a mammal was not what most people would have picked, probably, but Steph didn't care. There was a relief, that the pendant getting hurt wouldn't hurt Mellora - she was very worried about that -, but still, she felt saver it not being in her hands. "I'm glad, that you're not in so much danger, but it's still worth protecting. Like I said, it's gorgeous, and-- you came from it. Wow, that feels so weird to say. But it's true, that's reason enough to keep it safe."
Steph smiled at Mellora proclaiming she didn't know what a phoenix was. "It's this cool bird. When it dies, it burns up in flames and gets reborn from its own ashes. A bit similar to the pendant, I guess." Was't sure if phoenixes remembered anything but the similarities were still the same. "You know, in a way it sounds nice. Only those who really wanna be moms and really want to raise kids decide to have them and that way the little kids grow up surrounded in love." She glanced down at the pendant momentarily. "Sounds like your moms really loved you and wished to protect you."
Mellora didn't resist, didn't pull back, didn't push Steph away when she kissed her, and Steph could feel the butterflies in her stomach fluttering. Mel didn't change her mind, she still wanted her. She didn't understand why, especially considering her new knowledge about Mel, but she didn't mind, didn't care. She did press her forehead against the other's, though. "You shouldn't be telling me any of this, right?" It sounded like Mellora was crossing huge lines for her and she wasn't sure how she earned all of it.
When Mellora started talking again, the more Steph listened, the more guilt started settling into her stomach. The way the town treated them, the way their turned it into nothing but a drive for tourism... and she helped that. "You've never been just a small town museum curator," she couldn't help saying in a soft, quiet voice. "I didn't know what was it about you yet, didn't know the truth, but I could always tell you were special.
"And of course you have your own world, your own culture, your own everything. I know that, I understand that, and I am sorry for my involvement in everything that the town is doing. They don't believe in any of it, they think mermaids only exist in fairytales and the minds of children, but I knew and I still leaned into it, I still did all of it. I--" She even had conversations about this with Mellora, who gently tried to pull Steph's focus on it, but after a momentary change in things, she went right back.
"I think for me it was to feel closer to you guys, to the mermaids. I knew nobody believed me and no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find anyone in the ocean, so I desperately clung to what I knew and what I had, and that was this town and the mermaids and I embraced all of it as much as possible. While the town does all of this for tourism. It's kind of ironic how well they embrace all of it just to draw in the tourists and then turn around and seperate themselves from the same people, the same mermaids who bring in the money for them, and I can't-- I don't think that's going to change, Mel. I really don't. If the town drops the mermaid theme, it will collapse and the people won't have anything to support themselves from. And I am so sorry for that. For all of it."
She remembered the letter she received not too long ago, the conversation she had. "Well, not all of Port Vale insists mermaids aren't real. Victoria believes. Apparently she believed her whole life, just kept it quiet, and now she believes mermaids are in town and I think she wants to run you out of here."
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"Ah, well, we don't catch on fire. That would be the real miracle at the bottom of the ocean," Mellora laughed. Really, she didn't want to discuss how they died, even if it resulted in a new life. It was too close, too sad, to consider, to imagine Atla's wounds and then her simply being gone. "True. Nothing accidental about choosing it. And of course my moms love me. They aren't, uh, keen on me being up here. In the way all good moms are worried about their daughter's jobs." Mel smiled to herself, recalling the lectures and bubbling concerns she'd received from each respective mother. She could be empress of every drop of water in the world and they would still scold her.
Mellora shook her head. "Of course I shouldn't, our own goddess told us not to, but she isn't here. Besides, I make the rules now." She knew Steph wouldn't understand the sentiment, that Mel had the highest authority in her realm to decide these things. The rest of mermaid kind could endure one trusted human carrying their secrets. "It's just also dangerous for you to know. Are you sure you want that burden? You could go back to being Stephanie Anand, comfortably silly instead of weighed down with the truth of it all."
Being called special should have made Mel feel warm, but she just shook her head again. That wasn't what she meant. She wasn't special at all, she just happened to care about her home, and the homes of others.
"I'm not telling you that because I want you to be guilty. Or because I want recompense from town. I don't need apologies, I don't care if this town changes, I'm telling you this so you understand that I'm not here because I want to be." Mel winced and held up her hands as if in surrender. She hadn't meant it the way it came out. Like she disliked town or disliked Steph. "Fuck," she hissed, glowering at the ocean. "This is really hard and... and weird to try to explain to someone."
She imagined it would be like trying to explain to a human in Port Vale that, yes, Italy did really exist. Yes, even the bits about conquering and pillaging the world, but also their spaghetti, and art, and culture. It was a society. Oh, and there's also all those other countries too. "I don't know how to explain to you that there's a world full of good and bad things in the water. Knowing me is knowing all of that. Not just the nice parts. But you'll have to know the dark parts, and monsters, and politics, and the wars. Everything awful humans have, we have too, just soggier." Mel looked back to her, her brow furrowed and tense. "We're in danger right now. All of us. That's why I came here. That's why my friend is dead and I have to–" she cut herself off in frustration. She could be so eloquent, but now her words kept tripping her up and failing her.
News of Victoria made her frown deepen even further. If she knew her whole life, then she had let Steph be alone in her belief and the resulting ridicule. How convenient of her to reveal her belief. "The not-mayor? Why does she want us gone? I've seen evidence of Port Vale seeing us and others before in the museum records, of course, I just thought everyone save you dismissed them."
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"Oh, I didn't mean... of course you don't catch on fire. Just the whole concept of it, the getting reborn over and over again," Steph chuckled. The idea of anything catching on fire underwater was really funny, actually. And then Mel was talking about her moms, and she couldn't help imagining a young baby Mel with two proud, fierce, protective mamas with her.
"Wait, your-- your job?" she asked, frowning at the way Mellora put it. "I am assuming they wouldn't know too much about being a museum curator, but it also isn't really a dangerous job. Are you-- are you here on another job?" Being on a job, almost as if Mel was some kind of spy. Which technically she could have been and Steph wouldn't have known. She barely knew anything, really.
Mellora said she wasn't supposed to be telling her anything and Steph knew it was coming, but it still melted her heart to hear that she was telling her everything. Sure, it was partly because Steph figured it out first, but Mel could have easily shut her own, refused to talk to her. Instead she was willing to tell her anything she asked. "Mel, if it's dangerous to know, it's dangerous to not know as well. I--" she shook her head, glanced down at her lap momentarily. "I've never been just comfortably silly, even if it seems like I am. And I've been waiting for this, wanting to know all my life. I can deal with it. Whatever dangers come with knowing, I can handle it, I promise. I just want to know."
It didn't really feel nice, to hear that Mel wasn't here because she wanted it, but she wasn't talking about her, if she was, they wouldn't be having this discussions at all, so instead she just tried listening, tried to really understand what Mellora was trying to tell her. She sounded so much like Renzie, Steph wasn't sure if Mellora would have really realized it. "I know it's not all good, honey, I don't think you come from Atlantis or some kind of fairytale land, but I can't-- all of this is so new to me. I know that most of the things I know about your world, they come from myths and legens and stories, and I am just trying to learn, trying to understand. I want to know you and I want to know all of it. The good and the bad."
She went quiet, though, when Mel mentioned them being in danger now. "What do you mean in danger? What kind of danger? How did--" but she quickly stopped herself and shook her head. "You don't-- you don't have to talk about it, about your friend," she reached over and squeezed Mellora's hand gently, "if it's too hard. About any of it."
Steph gave a small shrug at the question about Victoria. "As far as I knew, nobody else believed, but apparently she just kept it all to herself. And I think she thinks that whatever the reason you're here could hurt the town and so the solution is to get the mermaids out - partly why she told me now. I'm pretty sure she's desperate and out of moves to do on her own. Even talking to Siobhan didn't help, she couldn't get too much out of her, just that she wasn't a mermaid. Which is true. Actually!" she perked up, unsure if Mellora knew this information, but it was really huge for her. "Actually, did you know she is a selkie? Renzie saw her turn into a seal with a fur coat on Halloween." That was a really big night for the Anands for sure. "He's been kind of losing his mind over all of it since, but he finally believes me and is a lot more open to the entire world of the sea."
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Mel watched Steph out of the corner of her eye. "Why do you think mermaids don't also have museums?" They were a great deal damper than human museums, but no less valid. She wasn't feeling particularly charitable, however, not when it came to her species being underestimated.
Besides, it was easier to focus on than what her real position was.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean you were ever silly. I know you aren't. I meant in the eyes of other people. Of the mermaids and sirens here, of everything here. For now you're protected by your reputation." As the town crazy, as the annoying librarian who believes too much. "Arming you with knowing is just putting a target on your back, too." Mellora was already considering how to present Steph's knowing to her own advisors, and to a lesser degree the other leaders in town. It wasn't that she had been seduced or tricked into revealing herself, though her pendant had certainly hurried the process on. She wasn't a foolish, love-sick child as much as Steph sometimes made her stomach turn over with bubbles of giddy adoration. Part of her had always intended to tell a human, to get a humans perspective or to draw them into a scheme that would benefit and protect the both of them. Steph, as much as it might hurt her to know, had not been the intended human. Selfishly, Mel hadn't wanted her to be placed in the certain danger of that position. "I just don't want you to be hurt, but you already have. By Val, by me. I want you to know what you're getting into, but perhaps that's just me underestimating you."
Victoria didn't bother Mel. Considering the worst possible scenario, Victoria could try to oust them all tomorrow and the sirens and mermaids who had established them here could all look at her with a blank face and wait for her peers to laugh her into an early resignation. Humans' own disbelief and mockery of mermaids could just as easily be turned back against them. "She is welcome to try," Mel said darkly, a hard angle to her jaw. "We leave and the town will still be in danger, it just won't have anyone informed in it. I know Siobhan isn't a mermaid she's... something new. A selkie, apparently, I've read about human's interpretations of them, but they were never real until now. Odd, that humans stories predate them."
Poor Renzie, was her first thought. Poor easily convinced, eager to circumnavigate supernatural ideas Renzie. "That's good to know, but Steph, you know you can't go telling anyone this, right? I need you to know that." This was an entire other issue she hadn't considered much. Chatty, chatty Steph holding secrets in her hands. Mel turned towards her, grabbing those soft hands and fixing her with an unyielding stare. "I can't make you not tell Renzie, I'm well aware of that, but you can't spread this. It can't be a gotcha moment. It's a matter of safety, of security, of us in town being able to work to save ourselves unimpeded by humans going hysterical. And it's a matter of people still trusting in me knowing that I'm the one that let a human know all of this."
Mel opened and closed her mouth, a bridge between her just being Mel the nice, albeit mysterious, girlfriend and Mellora the leader growing uncomfortably together. "I'm sorry this isn't a happy revelation or something that can be something vindicating, but I'm not asking you as your friend. I'm telling you as a leader: you cannot tell anyone." Lifting her chin a bit, she continued. "That's what my job is. The North Atlantic is mine."
Had she claimed in such certain terms before? Likely not. She had belonged to the ocean wholly her entire life, technically and in duty, and in devotion, but she had never claimed it back. The truth of it sank in.
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Steph paused for one, two, three beats before she shut her eyes. "Because I'm a dummy, that is why. Why wouldn't you have museums. You probably have a lot better stuff down there anyway than what we have in this local museum. --Not against your work, but I am assuming you kept the real stuff mostly away from being displayed. And you have a whole world down there, you have similar jobs and roles down there probably. Except maybe like firefighter and the such, for already discussed reasons, but everything else..." Mellora even told her it was a whole world and she reassured her that she knew and then she said stupid things like this...
Mellora just didn't want to hurt her, it was sweet, though part of Steph just got frutrated by it. It was the same kind of argument her parents told her while they spent most of her life being overprotective, or the same thing Renzie told her not so long ago when he told her to be careful. Maybe he was a bit more right than she was willing to admit it back during that conversation, but still, all of this just made her want to puff her chest out and reassure everyone around her that she could take care of herself.
She didn't do that, though, she just gave a small shrug. "You can't keep me from getting hurt forever, Mel. It's going to happen whether you tell me anything or not. And I'd rather get hurt because I know than because I am in the dark about things. About this specific thing."
She paused for a moment before adding. "So Val is also... a mermaid? Or is she something else?" That explained in a way how she knew about the pendant at least, if nothing else. "Is there anyone else here? Anyone who have been here longer than you or just relative newcomers like you?"
The way Mellora dismissed Victoria and all her plans only turned her even hotter, really. That confidence, the way she so easily knew that she was needed and that her being around was a good thing... Not that Steph didn't already think the woman wasn't hot, but still. And because of her staring, she almost missed what Mellora was telling her. "--Wait, selkies weren't a thing before? How is that even possible? And how could our myths and legels predate an actual creature's existence?" That made no sense in her head.
When Mellora started talking about how she couldn't tell anyone, Steph bit her lips and ducked her head, looking at her lap. She didn't even promise anything, and she already broke it. Even though they didn't talk about it before, somehow she managed to mostly keep this to herself, but in that moment she wasn't sure if that was because she was hurt and trying to process all the new information, or because she knew that she shouldn't be talking about this. Probably a mix of both, really.
She couldn't hide her face for too long, though, because Mel lifted her chin, looking straight into her eyes, and really, if she didn't feel so guilty, she would have surged forward and kissed Mellora senseless because the demand in her voice, the way there was no questions in her voice - she was just so fucking hot. Instead, she blurted out. "I kind of told Emilia about it." Two for two on doing stuff with Em that she really shouldn't have, nice job Steph.
She quickly rushed to add, "She was talking about double dates between us and her and Renzie - oh, by the way, they kind of talked it out and admitted their huge crushes on each other and now are a thing -, and it was a couple of days after Halloween and I was still feeling hurt and shit and confused and it just-- I just blurted it all out but I also don't think she really believed me and she just came from listening to Renzie talking about selkies and I think her thinking the Anand family is slowly losing their mind is more likely than she thinking you are a mermaid for real, but still I'm-- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." Mellora even already knew that she wouldn't be able to keep things from Renzie, she was unable to not talk to him about things and now this... She wasn't making such a good case for herself, really.
And then Mellora's last words finally sank in. "Wait, did you just say... Did you just say that you are the leader of The North Atlantic. As in the ocean? Are you-- are you like the Obama of an entire whole-ass ocean?" How did they ever happened? How did Mellora ever even looked at her when she was just little nobody librarian in one of the smallest towns in the US.
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Mellora listened as Steph dug her grave deeper, or maybe dug herself out, she couldn’t decide quite yet. “Nothing in the museum is real anymore. I started our ocean’s museum system, but yours… Well, sorry, but it’s a pretty shit museum as far as mermaids go now.” The history of the town, though, she’ll take credit for. That is meticulously displayed and accurately referenced because, at heart, she does enjoy the work. She knocked her shoulder against Steph’s. “I told you: we aren’t storybook characters. There are soldiers, and politicians, and chefs, there are guards, and rescuers, and sea flora arrangers. There are school teachers and criminals. We’re all people.”
Mel smiled at this, at Steph’s blunt, unyielding bravery. “Then call me selfish for not wanting you dead, Steph. I’m not talking about hurting your feelings, I’m talking about your life. If you want to know, however, then you’ll know.”
With a laugh she shook her head and looked back to the water. Deep, dark, and wished to sink back into it if only for a moment of reprieve. “Val is a siren. There are sirens and mermaids, among other people, but mermaids were created by our goddess before sirens. The sirens from human’s pollution. Our goddess, hundreds of years ago, warned the mermaids away from them, labelling them monsters. It was war for a long time between the two species, but we came to a treaty fifty years ago. I’ve never… I’m devout to our goddess, but I don’t abide calling an entire race evil. There are centuries of bad blood, however, and Val wanted to take the pendant for her own political gain.” She scoffed. “An idiotic ploy of a child, really. It would have killed her.” Mel might have killed her. “Mermaids have the oceans, sirens took the seas.”
Here Mel was telling Steph that none of them were storybook characters, but the evidence indeed pointed to them being them. At least having dwelled in human’s imaginations long before they dwelled in the water. “Selkies were not, as far as I know. Mermaids have only lived for a handful of centuries. Even the eldest ocean dweller I know doesn’t predate humans. You bipeds are the eldest.”
Other than horseshoe crabs, those assholes had been toddling around for millions of years with no signs of stopping. Mellora, while fond of them, counted them among the supernatural.
“Of course you told Emilia.” Mel tapped her fingers against Steph’s cheek were she still held her firm. Leaning forward, she pressed the quickest of kisses to her lips before continuing, her voice as hard as steel as before. “Telling anyone else will put people in danger, mine and yours. You will be a danger and a liability if you spread it. Stephanie, you need to keep your admittedly very kissable mouth shut.” The allowed the order to hang over them like the tolling of a bell. “I’m pleased about Emilia and Renzie, though, they deserve that. Is Renzie really losing his mind?”
The truth of Mellora, the duty she held as dear and close as a wee mer, would come to light and the last vestige of her act, of her comforting, gentle act as a simple curator, would come to an end in Steph’s eyes. It shouldn’t feel so disappointing, the guilt of it shouldn’t cut so deeply. She straightened her spine. “As I said, the ocean is mine. I am the unanimously elected leader of the North Atlantic. Elected after my friend, the princess, was murdered. We used to be a monarchy, the princess pendant creating a new leader after their passing, but it didn’t this time. I was the best choice.”
Watching Stephanie in the moonlight at once eased her anxiety and kindled it anew. “You should know that I’ve served my people for a very long time. Do you remember when we watched Twilight together?”
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Nothing was real in the museum. Well, that made it easy to figure out what was worth checking out and what wasn't. Nothing was real-- not since the pendant. That one thing was real, and Mel was protecting it so much more than before. "That's why you took up the job, didn't you? Or at least part of it. Make sure nobody could get any actual facts about you guys." It made sense, really. And it was a smart tactict. Of course it was a smart tactic, Mellora was smart.
Steph nodded at Mellora saying they were all just people. Logically she knew, of course she did, she said the same arguments to Renzie as well - but she also spent her entire life without actual mermaids in her life, with nothing more than stories and legends and heresay about them. She'd need some time to switch her brain over.
The way Mellora so easily and so matter of factly saying that she didn't want her dead reminded her so much of Renzie and his worries, and still, part of Steph still didn't hear it, ddin't fully understand. She was fine all this time, she'd be fine after this, too.
And when she told her that Valentina was a siren, there was a part of part of Steph that felt such vindication. "A sir-- A siren! There are sirens in town too! She's a siren!" she exclaimed, her excitement at the reveal and the knowledge that sirens also existed overtaking her and then she quickly rearranged her face and pushed the excitement down as Mellora shared the history of them. Full out war between mermaids and sirens. She's known that they were two different species, but she never realized there'd be animosity and actual war between them. "So us humans basically fucked up so badly that we created a completely new and different species, that is... wow." That was huge, that was insane to think about, really.
And the fact that she tried using her in stealing the pendant turned her stomach upside down even more. There was so much history there, and Val put her right in the middle of it without knowing. While she was telling her all kinds of lies - she so knew there was more to Val than she was willing to admit. "So wait... you said you guys are in danger, right? That is part of the reason why Valentina is here too, right? Does the pendant or the town itself have anything to do with the danger or is it just a coincidence that you and her and maybe others are all here of all places?"
Selkies were all new. The stories predated them - how was that even possible? But she didn't really have time to voice any of her questions because she was very much pushing the limits she felt like with Emilia and Renzie. And still, somehow Mellora's order to keep her mouth shut was both soft and stern at the same time, and it might have been just a short kiss, but she leaned into it, feeling such relief. She missed Mel so much. She was hurt and confused, but she still missed her. "I'll try my best, I promise. You really didn't--" she shook her head, sheepishly letting out a chuckle. "You got involved with probably the worst person you could have in this town. The mermaid crazy who can't stop talking about it all..." She was baffled, that Mellora ever let her this close, if she was being honest.
"Renzie is... he is taking it better and worse at the same time. He locked himself away for days after he saw Siobhan change, but I talked to him and that helped. Now... well, now he is all around talking about it with as many people as possible. And is suspicious of every newcomer who recently arrived. But-- his entire life was turned upside down. He never believed me, he just let me ramble on at him, so for him to realize it was all true... it's a lot to take in for him."
The ocean was hers. Mellora's. She was the leader of an entire ocean, elected and everything, after she lost her friend and leader. Out of everything Steph's heard that day, that was the biggest thing to take in and she wasn't even sure how to react, and then Mellora continued and mentioned serving her people for a long time and Twilight and she just frowned for a moment, not even putting it all together. "Yeah, I do, what do you mea--" and then it hit her.
"Shit, you're-- are you trying to tell me-- am I Bella? Is that what you're trying to tell me? And you're Edward except a lot more beautiful and less sparkly and with more tails and-- unless you actually sparkle and I somehow missed the memo on that one. And you're-- how old are you exactly?" She shook her head. “No, I-- I am not sure I want to know. Actually, I just. I just need some time processing all of this.”
Steph pushed herself up onto her feet. “I need to--thank you so much for telling me all of this and I would love to keep talking and keep doing the kissing and the dating part, I just-- give me just a little bit more time to process all this new information.”