RP:What All This Noise Has Woken
Part of the Two If By Sea Arc
A Strange Shipwreck
Zirael had travelled the depths of the sea in search of knowledge and power. Her absence had given some kind of respite to Cenril, though not much what with the attacks of Desparrow and his savage machinations for the city. The mermaid was beached on the sand, her pearlescent tail flapping slowly in the water as her elbows propped up her naked torso. Zirael had no care for what mortal being might stumble upon her form. She could obliterate them if she so wished and most of them knew it. Zirael. Her name was a dangerous whisper around Cenril now. The man-eating mermaid, the mermaid who threatened to devour every man, woman and child without compassion or sorrow. As dangerous as she was, she was beautiful in her own seductive way. She oozed power and confidence in the casual way her fingers twined in her silvery-white hair, as the mermaid watched the setting sun upon the horizon.
The carefree, slightly gormless and rag-clad wandering minstrel that had been traipsing the shorelines of Cenril and the eastern isles of late was barely present in the figure whose bare feet slapped the wet sand loudly, the creature still in his array of cast-offs but gone was the air of melancholy, the slow and dogged way of moving. The ‘man’ who strode this shore now, despite the strain of wearing a man-body, was no tired, elderly being simply looking for a little peace. Whatever he was, the one green eye below his black, windswept and unruly mess of hair was blazing green, green as a poison algal bloom, its pearl-hued counterpart expressionless as ever, and both fixed ahead of him in his dogged striding along this beach. He was not bent, his joints were not creaking. His oddly smooth features above his black beard were set in an expression that promised an oceanful of hurt to somebody… Zirael may as well have been a stranded halibut, for all he cared, were it not for the fact she was in his way. The seaborn had no choice, other than to stop or deviate his path. He chose to stop, for there were things he needed to know.
Mcracken said to Zirael, “Child, wouldst thou speak to me?
Zirael would not deign to speak to any mortal being that she considered lesser than herself. If it were not for the fact that Mcracken was, in fact, a being of immense and elder power and one that was so respected by her kind, she wouldn’t have bothered herself with him at all. The mermaid needn’t look at Mcracken to know what he was. She could /feel/ it. Feel it like when a prey animal is aware of a predator watching it. “I would speak to you, elderblood,” she said with a respect and reverence so rarely seen from her; though she doesn’t yet move from her spot.
Mcracken presently didn’t much care about observation of the appropriate deference.. he was ancient enough that he felt no surge of pride from it, anyway. As the surf washed over his legs, the lumps and bumps adorning his thighs blossomed into scarlet polyps, red barnacles glad that the tide had ‘returned’, so it appeared he was scattered with sea-flowers. “I wouldst have information…” he tone lacked warmth altogether, owned a deep chill that made the air about him redolent, like the foreboding of a storm. But this sea-maiden, he reminded himself in his wisdom, had done nought to rouse ire, and did not deserve such imperious treatment. He squatted in the washing waves, and peered at her with his unmatching gaze, which softened somewhat. “Long have I slept in the deep, and hath awoke to ill tides. Dost thou know the reason for it, child?” He cupped a gnarled hand, gathering water that he’d tip over his face, briefly upturned. “For this din, in the gulf. For the .. poison.. soiling thine ancestral palace?” She’s know what he meant of course, that ancient castle by the sea, which had once been a mermish stronghold, before the gods drew back the waters from it, and left it to dry.
Zirael might have been disturbed by those barnacles and blooming sea-flowers, were she not of the sea herself; were she but a silly human girl. Alas, she was not disturbed nor taken aback by it. It seemed perfectly natural to her. As Mcracken asks about what might have caused the disturbance to so wake him, the mermaid straightens her posture and gestures to the west. “Men,” she answered with virile hostility. “They rape the seas, they steal our folk and parade them like trophies if they do not enslave them. Slave ships that carry our kind roam the seas: they are so close to home and yet cannot hope to achieve freedom. These men, in their desire and greed, reached the depths to drag forth this ship and find her plunder… but they disturbed a shrine or relic of Selene. They disturbed something of ours that was not theirs to disturb and so I have come, finally, I have come to take from them that which they would take from us.”
Mcracken’s anthropomorphic mouth compressed, his lips setting in a hard line as the silvery sea-child spoke. In his youth, aeons past, he would have approved swift and brutal retribution on any human within reach. In high dudgeon as he was, currently, over the very recent discovery of the taint surrounding the coral palace, nevertheless the Old One had tempered with time, and knew how to play a long game. “Yet, long ago, there were men with whom we did not war. Who offered respect, and were afforded such in return, that all the oceanic people wouldst leave them at peace.” The sunset turned the white buildings of Cenril pink, hued golden at their tops, it was not wholly displeasing sight as he glanced to it, and then back to Zirael. “And how doth the saying go? Vengeance maketh one hunger for one’s own tail…” his mouth softened, but it was his tone that imparted the smile, his voice losing its choppy harshness, “Are all men soiling our realm, are all men thieves and killers? I wouldst rend the flesh of any whom so mistreated our kin, if I couldst know which were at fault.” He glowered once more, “Or catch them, at sea..”
Zirael hissed at Mcracken’s words. Elder or not, she did not agree with him. “I would rend the flesh off them regardless!” Zirael was passionate about this. The waves lapped the shore with greater ferocity now, the once beautiful sunset now drawing in some darkening and thunder bearing clouds. “They reave the seas; they steal our men, women and children for their own entertainment. They rape us, they eat us, they pry parts off of us to sell or keep for a tale. You speak of vengeance, I speak of justice!” she indignantly spat the words. “This cesspool of a city harbours these land-lubbers who reave our seas. Who hold hostage an elder aboard their ships in an effort to subdue the rest of us, but I shall not be held prisoner; I shall not be cowed by their machinations. I shall resist. If I must drown this city to purge the world of its filth, then so be it.” Zirael would have it no other way. “I will not let these whoring monkeys harm more of our people.”
Mcracken was not all disgruntled by Zirael’s dissent; he could not help finding pleasure in the mermaiden’s fervent speech. She sounded not unlike himself in his youth, when the notion of ‘justice’ burned like deep-sea lava in all three of his hearts. He tipped forward, planting one splayed hand in the wet sand, and reached toward her face with the other, slowly (he knew how hasty this breed was to snap by sheer reflex), and should she allow it, the ball of his thumb would brush her lips. “Thou has the gift, child, of persuasion.” In any case, the gesture was brief. There was pause then, in which the only sounds were the ceaseless oceanic shush, and drowsy gulls yawping to each other, in which the elder contemplated what Zirael had told him. In fact, he was not overly concerned with the fate of men, though he loathed harm to innocent creatures of any kind. Still, this transgression was dire… who would dare rob Selene, the Great Mother of the Sea, least of all in her own deep halls? It made his flesh hurt with the weight of it. And has she said.. elder, trapped somehow in a cup of wood afloat, upon the sea? Nuances in Mac’s next words strongly suggested that he was leaning hard toward a lack of apathy, here. “What is this you speak of, an elder… “ Not one lie himself, surely. It was.. unthinkable. Untenable.
Zirael remained still when the elder reached for her. Zirael was a power unto herself, feared by many a mermaid and lesser creatures alike but she was no fool. She knew when to offer that same respectful fear to a creature that might easily overwhelm her. But being told she was persuasive was not news to her. It was her natural gift as a mermaid, as a powerful siren of the sea. If it had come from a mortal man, she might have sneered at the remark before devouring the fool there and then but this was no mortal man. This was a seaborn. This was someone who she afforded a modicum of respect to. “A kraken,” she answered, “by the name of Lysander. Some say he went willingly to try and spare our people, some say he was tricked. But he is old and he is powerful. I seek to free him from his bondage.”
To the Old One, the very idea of one of his own breed being ‘tricked’ by land-walkers could only mean Lysander was (relatively) young and brash, lacking the guile and cunning that extremes of time will wreak in any creature with constitution to withstand its ravages. “Daughter of Selene, once I would have smashed this ship to splinters and devoured its crew, ground them to pulp in my maw and spat the effluent out as food for fishes…” his expression told her he still liked that idea, very much. “But if it is the will of this Lysander to protect innocents of Seaborn-kind, then perhaps there be a tactic that mayest serve us all, and preserve life as near and best we can. Where we who swim in the sea-goddess’ blessed arms know a kind of unity under attack, the land-walkers war among themselves. Couldst thy persuasion mayhap lead to.. an escalation.. of their bickering? Distraction hath its purposes, and should they kill each other, the less effort thou must make to wash the shores clean of them. And therein, perhaps the opportunity of those of us who more easily tread dry ground, to aid those sea-folk whom the, uh..” he was trying to remember her term for them, it amused him, “.. whoring monkeys.. wouldst dare to keep from the vasty, brine arms of their Mother.” His teeth shone very white, as he added, “And then.. oh, then, these thieves shall slumber with the fishes.”
Zirael smirked as Mcracken spoke of infighting amongst the idiot monkeys. “In their fear of me and what I will do, one amongst them besieges this city. There are rumours of war in the frozen north and some kind of pestilence in that rat ridden city that is close to the forests,” she informs the elder. “In an effort to prepare the city against me, one has besieged it and weakened it terribly. A foolish move on his part, but a seed that I have sown and am ready to reap very soon,” she so very nearly purred out that last sentence. Her ability of persuasion had already been at work it would seem. “I will make them suffer.”
Mcracken’s brows drew down, the facial gesture sheerly a habit formed by time spent in humanoid guise, as was the nod he gave in approval to Zirael’s obvious ability to think ahead.. a trait he considered to be rare among the mer-folk. “Hast thou knowledge of where the Seaborn be held in captivity? This body…” he glanced down at it, momentarily, “.. alloweth passage through the dry lands, but doth not permit battle, for should I lose this form on land…” He probably didn’t need to paint her a picture of what would happen to a creature of that sheer size, being stranded far from the buoyant sea. “.. and until this Lysander doth request aid, I am bound to respect his will to remain captive..” Surely, he wasn’t ‘tricked’… it was easier to believe, now Mac thought about it, that the kraken was prisoner by design. “.. thus, all I may do to help our people lieth in smashing ships in the deep. Or using this man-mask I bear, to thy advantage, and mine, and that of our people.” Subtle inflections told the mermaid that he didn’t care which. “And once thy goal is accomplished, then perhaps thou wouldst aid me, in my own.”
Zirael gestured outwards, towards the expansive sea where many ships were mere dots upon the horizon. “The Nautilus is a known seaborn hunter,” she informed the elder without fear. She did not fear this ship. “Though it is said to be harboured somewhere to the east, perhaps plying trade or seeking more of our more exotic kind,” these were rumours and suggestions, but nothing had explained the mysterious silence of The Nautilus. “But taking it down is in my plans… Your aid in doing so would be, of course, substantial and appreciated. I will gladly die for the cause of our people, for the search of justice for them. But say that I live and survive this glorious battle, I will endeavour to help you, elder.”
Were they in the deep, Mac would have made a different sound to express his amusement. Dressed in man-flesh, it erupted as a deep chuckle. “One of such mettle as thee will prove hard to kill, methinks.” His gaze, sharp sea-green and pearly void, was cast out toward the eastern waters. “I will break this wooden cup, Daughter of Selene.” He rummaged through the rags festooning his human frame, and drew out a small item, holding it forth on the palm of his hand, “This token of the abyss will bring me to thy beckon, if thou merely whisper to it thy need. By deep or dry, I will hear it, and come.” Whatever aid he required of Zirael was clearly a matter to be spoken of, once Seaborn lives were not at imminent risk. But given his obvious umbrage regarding the ‘poisoning’ of the ancient coral seahold, it probably wasn’t hard to surmise.
Mcracken gave Zirael an unusual sea-shell
Zirael accepted the token with quiet gratitude. She was not one to be beholden unto others or to give gracious thanks, her pride would never allow for it. “And I will give you this, as fair exchange,” she said, putting her accepted token to the side for a moment in order to prise a scale from her own precious tail and pass it upward to the elder seaborn. A mermaid’s scale, so pearlescent, was rare and bountiful. Freely given rarer still.
Zirael gave Mcracken a glistening mermaid scale pendant.
Mcracken took the scale with a show of equal reverence, for while his breed were the elder, and the larger, Mac was only too cognizant of the heights Mermish pride could leap to, and it pleased him to indulge the haughtiness of this feisty, loyal maid. “All things are come to balance.” It was a phrase of his own people that may hold familiarity to some mers, denoting the close of a pact, with the implication that such a bond was regarded a sacrosanct trust, one not to be broken. Mac stood then, from his squat, the silvery pendant closed up in his fist. If the argent maid had any words of parting, he would stay to hear them.
Zirael , having reached the limits of her pride, wiggled her way into the water and swam off like a little wink of pearl and silver into the deep.