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There are bruises all over Elena's legs—healing blues and purples and greens, sickly yellows, and brownish-red scabs where the skin broke and bled. She's ruined many of her dresses and jeans tripping over her feet and falling on her knees on the pavement. She bumps her thighs and hips on the furniture, and her shoes always seem to not fit her feet properly even though they did in the store when she bought them. Her toes bleed from the friction, and sandal straps create blisters on the back of her heels or the top of her foot.
It's a disaster—she's a disaster—really. Always has been.
~ ~ ~ ~
Elena's favourite place is the beach. She loves the way sand feels between her toes, and the heat of it under the soles of her feet. The brine in the air makes her skin tacky, tastes salty when she licks at her lips.
And when she falls, there’s sand and water to catch her. She doesn't even mind the occasional shell that makes her knees bleed. Rather, she likes the way the ocean water stings when she walks against the waves and gets soaking wet with sea foam.
~ ~ ~ ~
The mermaid has a red, shimmery tail that glimmers in the sun and sparkles like a jewel. When she turns, fish scales reflect the light all over Elena's arms and face. Elena slips and yelps and falls on her butt in a puddle of cold water left behind between the rocks by the receding tides.
"Wait!" she says as she stands quickly, the mermaid poised on the edge of the furthest rock, ready to plunge in the water. Her eyes are wide and startled, but she doesn’t move. Elena raises a hand says, "wait," again, softer, hoping not to scare her away.
The mermaid’s long brown hair sticks to her head and temples, all down her pale skin, her shoulders and bare breasts.
"Don't go, please." Elena takes a step over the rocks. Her feet catch on the jagged edge and she winces and sits instead. Elena doesn't know if the mermaid can understand her, but she hasn't moved yet. But maybe Elena's gone crazy, maybe she slipped and knocked her head on something. "Are you real?" she says.
The mermaid's eyes snap up to her face from where they'd been looking at Elena's hand rubbing her sore foot. She rolls her eyes like she thinks Elena’s an idiot, and that’s something Elena’s seen so often it makes her giggle.
"I'm Elena."
The mermaid looks toward the sea, then back at Elena. She hitches herself up on the rocks, tail flapping against them with wet sounds that snaps in the air like a whip.
"Mithian," she says, voice deep. Her teeth are very white and very pointy.
"I didn't know mermaids were real," Elena says, and she puts her hands under her thighs, tries not to reach out to slide her fingers against the red scales of Mithian's tail.
"That's rather the point," Mithian says. And after a moment adds, "I shouldn't be here. I have to go."
"Please come back." Elena stands up quickly.
Mithian looks at her for a long time. Her hair has started to dry around her face, curling in the air, and her lips are very, very red.
When it feels like Elena's heart will explode with how hard it's beating in her chest, and all she can hear is the crashing of the waves against the rocks, Mithian reaches out with a pale hand to touch Elena's toe, her finger cold like ocean water.
"Maybe." And then she is gone, swallowed by the ocean.
~ ~ ~ ~
It takes two weeks for Mithian to come back.
~ ~ ~ ~
When she was young, Elena’s mother used to tell her stories. They’d huddle together in Elena’s bed, and her mother would open the window to let in the night ocean breeze. Her stories were always full of creatures, at once human and fish, of unfathomable depths full of kingdoms set on the ocean floor. Of sailors and seal-kin. Of sea witches and terrible, wonderful bargains. Of worlds and wonders living under the waves with the sea turtles and the whales, and all the doomed men that tried to own any of it.
Her mother spoke of water magic, and when Elena closed her eyes she could always imagine herself there, riding sea currents, gliding fast and strong and unstoppable.
And when she’d come home crying because she’d hurt herself, or because she’d been the last one chosen in gym class again, her mother would tickle her feet and kiss her toes until Elena’s tears were of laughter and not sadness. Then she’d take Elena to the beach to look for seashells.
Her mother’s hair always smelled like salt and sunshine, and she had bruises all over her legs.
~ ~ ~ ~
"What's that?" Mithian asks, and pokes at a large bruise on Elena's thigh making her hiss between her teeth.
"It's a bruise." Elena frowns, tries to pull her shorts down over it. "I get them a lot." Mithian looks at her, confused. "I'm clumsy."
"I don't know what that means."
"It means I'm not very good on my feet. I fall a lot."
The night air is cool on Elena's skin—she can feel the heat of the sunburn on the back of her neck, and her scalp itches from the salt and sand, but her legs and arms are covered in goosebumps. There's a sharp smell of fish in the air, and she wonders if it's from Mithian.
As Mithian's finger traces the edges of the bruise, gentler this time, Elena shivers, captivated by the look of wonder on Mithian's face.
Her cry is loud over the sound of the waves when Mithian leans forward to mouth at the purplish-skin, fingers circling tightly around Elena's ankle.
Elena clamps a hand over her mouth and closes her eyes.
~ ~ ~ ~
“Tell me about your kingdom.” Elena laughs as Mithian holds one of her feet in her lap, fascinated with how ticklish she is.
Mithian’s stories have the benefit of being real.
~ ~ ~ ~
"I wish I was a mermaid."
Mithian's scales are smooth under the palm of Elena's hand, and her tail jerks suddenly when she carefully curls her fingers around the webbing of her fins. The water-smoothed rocks under her other hand where she's leaning, holding herself up beside Mithian, feel rough and crude in comparison.
"No," Mithian says, then clamps her hand on Elena's bare thigh, a whine at the back of her throat. "No."
~ ~ ~ ~
Mithian’s laugh is clear and bright and her smile feral.
Mithian’s a princess of the sea.
Mithian had never talked to another human before Elena and she says, “I can’t stop coming back,” with a confused frown.
Mithian’s hair is silky soft between Elena’s fingers when she braids it and her skin is cool and smooth when Elena brushes her shoulders with her fingertips.
Mithian likes to chase seals and bite into their flesh.
Mithian can sing, but refuses to do so when Elena asks, a wild look in her eyes.
Mithian snorts when Elena tells her about The Little Mermaid, and almost falls off the rocks with laughter when she dies instead of killing the prince.
Mithian’s stomach is flat and smooth.
Mithian teaches Elena how to make a necklace with seashells and Elena sleeps with the one Mithian made under her pillow.
Mithian.
Mithian.
Mithian.
~ ~ ~ ~
"I won't come back," Mithian says, head turned away from Elena, dark eyes fixed on the horizon. The setting sun spills bright orange over her, and she looks limned in gold. A foghorn sounds far off the coast on their left, but Elena can only vaguely hear it, the rushing of blood too loud in her ears.
“What? Why?”
“Summer is almost over,” Mithian says. “I… have duties to attend to. I can’t stay here.”
“I don’t understand.”
Elena sits beside Mithian on the rocks, right at the edge where waves break under her feet and soak the bottom of her dress. Mithian pushes her wet hair over her shoulders, baring her breasts and Elena feels herself flush, Mithian’s pale and cold skin too inviting in the light of the setting sun. Elena wants to lick the sea water on her ribcage.
With a steady hand, Mithian counts the bruises on Elena’s leg, traces the scars on her knee with a fingertip.
“It’s like you weren’t meant for land,” she says.
“Sometimes, I think I wasn’t.” Elena swallows, unable to look away from Mithian as she slowly caresses Elena’s leg, like something fragile and precious, something like envy and sadness on her face.
Mithian runs the tip of her tongue over her teeth. They’re sharp. Perfect for tearing flesh, for sinking into skin.
Vaguely, at the back of her mind, Elena thinks she should be afraid, but instead she just turns to face Mithian and puts her hand on her tail where her thighs would be if she had legs. If she was human.
With a fond, sad look, Mithian tucks a strand of Elena’s hair behind her ear, fingertips lingering on her cheek before she sighs and looks away again.
“I wish—” Mithian bites her lip. “I’ve wondered so long about this world. I’d look at the ships, and the people on the beach. I’d see them move on their legs, on land, and I’d think it so beautiful, yet strange. Humans— Humans looked so slow and sluggish, but sometimes, I’d think they seemed freer than us. Than me.”
“Mith—”
“In all that time, though, I never wished, not once, to have legs.”
Elena just looks at Mithian, eyes searching. She wants to let herself go and plunge into the waves, let Mithian carry her away with her until the sea works her magic and changes her cumbersome legs into a shimmering tail, until she is consumed by the water, reborn.
Maybe some of her thoughts show on her face, maybe her chest is so full of want it overflows, because Mithian whimpers, almost growls, teeth baring in a snarl and for one, bright moment Elena thinks Mithian will really drag her away. But Mithian only grips Elena’s arm and shakes her, then smiles sadly.
“I wish I was a selkie,” Mithian says. “I’d have the sea, and I’d have the land.” She trails her fingers down Elena’s arm to rest lightly at the soft inside of her elbow. “And I’d have you.”
There’s a wet sob stuck in Elena’s throat, something that lurches, sends her straddling Mithian’s tail to bury her fingers in her hair. Mithian’s mouth is wet and salty under her lips, tastes vaguely like fish and seaweed, like ocean water, but her tongue is warm against Elena’s. When Mithian bites too hard on Elena’s bottom lip, the taste of coppery blood fills her mouth and she cries out.
“Sorry, sorry,” Mithian mumbles wetly between them, then licks at the wound, chases at the blood until none is left.
Her fingers dig into Elena’s bruises, her scales scrape at the inside of Elena’s thighs where she can feel Mithian quiver and shake.
Elena closes her eyes and thinks she might be drowning.
~ ~ ~ ~
Elena has always loved the ocean in winter. It feels wilder, raging against the shore under the white-grey sky. The wind whips at her like it’s trying to push her away from the surf.
Elena isn’t so easily cowed.
When she trips, she falls on a jagged seashell. It cuts at her tights, at her knee, and she bleeds into the hard sand. The red of it is stark and bright and shimmers into the dull winter light, like fish scales.
She touches the wound and brings her fingers to her mouth. It reminds her of how her blood had tasted against Mithian’s tongue. When she thought she’d swallowed the ocean, or had been swallowed by it, and had held a sea-girl between her thighs. Her sea-girl—who had wanted legs like Elena’s, she’d said, full of bruises and perfect toes. Imperfectly, and clumsily, land-locked.
Elena runs her tongue on the inside of her lip where there’s a scar and smiles.
She picks the seashell with its bloody edge and throws it into the waves.