Black Crescent Bay

research including aquamarine

"Seeing too many murúch, you know, it takes a toll on you. You don't know what's real, what's fake, if you're going crazy, if you're sleeping or awake. I was beginning to think that'd I was the one who'd seen them."

"Murúch?" I asked.

She nodded with a hum, "Oh yeah. Little fish creatures. Selkies, merrow-- murúch. Sad little creatures those merrow. Selkies are at least happy to be here."

I didn't understand.

I still couldn't understand.

I was home now. And I was alone. And I hadn't heard, seen, nor spoken to Féilim in days. I knew he was real and what was happening was real, as I wasn't creative enough to figmentize this shit in my own brain.

But I still didn't understand. I knew about the war and Iyael, but it all seemed so far away. I knew it was REAL, I just didn't know how it could be. Everything I'd ever learned about the natural world was false, or, at least, was only the half-truth.

I sat on my sofabed in front of my laptop with my head in my hands. I had so many questions. And I needed to understand this with my own mind, without having Féilim force it.

I typed, "Merrow" into the search bar. And then "Selkies". I was given brief histories and myths and accounts. And I couldn't believe how similar it was. How people had known of their existences for years and years, all over the world, and, yet, it had been brushed off as nothing more than hogwash from a simpler, more superstitious time.

I tried to read it all from the context that it was true, that it was an actual textbook reading based in fact. I looked at movies and tv shows and documentaries that were CGI the whole way through, and I pretended as if it was actual mermaids and sirens they'd managed to capture on film.

None of my research ever told me about humans being able to stop turning into sirens, it only told me about sirens returning to the water or growing legs when they were dry.

How could I be the only one? How had nobody ever heard of this before?

I reached for my phone before I could stop myself, "Waverly, get over here this instant."

"Thanks for picking me up from jail, by the way." She sounded like she was taking a deep drag off her cigarette.

"You said your boyfriend was going to bail you out."

She snorted, "Well, he bailed."

"Okay... I'm sorry... Now... Come over, we've got serious discoveries amiss."

She arrived not twenty minutes later in a crop top that forced her F cup right up to her collarbone, as well as a high-low cheetah print skirt with a hot pink safety skirt underneath that grasped onto her thighs adoringly.

"Is this for the project in Iyaeli?"

My head snapped up as I clicked "Rent" on the streaming service.

"In what?" My eyes were bugging out of my head, as Heath trailed in behind her with a case of beer in his burly arms and a pack of smokes tucked behind his ear.

"Our language class?" Heath raised an eyebrow, "Which we have to pass? In order to get a language credit? So that we can graduate?"

I hummed and looked down at the ground. Maybe I should've actually gone to some of our classes. Or at least looked at our schedules.

"Well, no," I sighed and ran to the kitchen just as the microwave dinged. "We're watching a movie."

The popcorn was hot and dripping and melted the M&Ms that I poured over it as soon as they made contact.

They didn't even complain as we all sat down, and I pressed play. Aquamarine illuminated the dark room. And I wished that Féilim was as pretty as her when he was half-fish. He resembled what I can only describe as the offspring between an axolotl, a tarantula, and an electric eel.

Aside from the changing fingernails and shimmery, slimy tail, it was totally and utterly false.

I knew nothing about it though. I couldn't even say that for certain. Maybe I needed Féilim to break it down for me, after all.

As the credits rolled, Waverly demanded a cigarette as rectification, and Heath scratched at his mullet in disappointment.

"I don't get it," he grumbled, "Raymond wasn't even cute. Aquamarine had more romantic tension with Hailey than literally anyone else on screen."

Waverly nodded, "Or with the creepy guy... Leonard... If you discount the age difference."

_____________________

A/N:

Imagine thinking Aquamarine (2006) was an actual scientific study. Anyways.

My fucking tumblr got terminated today because I was back on my toxic bullshit and I'm back in my toxic ways. Like SORRY. If I want to hurt myself and my mental health, that should be MY decision. This is literally the first time I've ever had an account get deleted, and it was my first one. The one I've had since I was 13. So almost 10 years guys 😓😓😓 I'm devastated.

Plus my writing account was on there and I had SOOOO many aesthetics that I poured my whole bussy into. God hates me.

xoxo,
handmaiden of Venus
venus_in_fleurs