Prologue III
It would come to be the regret of each of Ursla’s lives that she’d earned her loyalty by teaching Men just how inessential a god could be.
Despite the Kept’s best efforts, Men now worshipped progress.
She was rendered little more than a muse.
The slide in active faith, in the worship of Ursla into holidays’ worth of pageantry and tradition, was slow but inevitable.
Merrine was delighted. There were yet still things to take from the witch.
The Obéid interpretation of history goes thusly:
Merrine went to Peris, aglow with possibility in the form of a woman: all skin and no scales; warm, soft, naked curves; no jagged claws or mincing fangs.
An eternity of loathing dripped from her like diamonds.
And it would soon be satisfied. No man was as delicious as the prospect of poisoning the witch’s existence.
He was easily seduced. The pair had other clandestine meetings throughout time, and these stories littered the oral traditions with some distaste.
Peris was smart, handsome—going places, as they say—but in every tale, his suggestibility was often found to be proportionate to the amount and degree of vigor of physical contact Merrine had with him.
He was loath to speak ill of the Obé, his Drowned Mother, even as Merrine cooed and licked his earlobes. She allowed him to kiss her, whispering kind interpretations of her venomous thoughts as sweet moans until he became ravenous.
“I have been a part of forever longer than you can imagine,” she promised.
“I have seen beginnings and ends, and I can promise you her future. As her power grows, so, too, will her appetite. You’ve seen she’s come for them.
Your bones will join theirs soon enough.
We can stop her together, King Peris. At least free your people’s existence from a reliance on her whims. Say yes—you and I can be joined.
We can make a king to sit a throne whose power she will be blocked from forever.
All you have to do is say yes, and we will rewrite history with you and I at the beginning. ”
Some versions of this story have the sea goddess begging for years across meetings, gradually wearing him down.
Other versions suggest the good King Peris could not say yes fast enough beneath her.
What is known is that a yes was uttered and that Merrine’s ecstasy produced a wave so powerful that it reached above the great western mountains and created our swamplands from the desert on the other side.
In the end, it was done. Only the blood of the gods could sit on the throne of the sea kingdom. Ursla could produce legions of merfolk but she would never rule over anything more than her undead in their afterlife.
The witch, having lost the adoration of men, the throne of the sea, and control of her own creations, had generations to stew in the betrayal of the creatures she had given everything. Had she not given them all life? Was she to leave and start over? Suffer again? For what?
The grief made her ravenous. The loneliness made her something else. She was owed their devouring. They should be grateful that was all she wanted.
Until the daughter of the sea king fell in love and needed legs.