Chapter Text
The first contact the monstrosity had with humans was a long, long time ago. Back then, the dams broke due to the fierce force of a storm, and the flood that followed swallowed not only houses and vegetation, but also humans and livestock.
It had been searching the coastline for prey, when it had noticed the differences in the water currents. Driven by an unusual bout of curiosity, the monster swam with the undertow, which brought it to the flooded fields. The water was just some feet deep, but it was muddy from all the sludge and grass the waves had ripped from the ground. Still, the thing could navigate just fine, as it gave out high pitched calls and clicks every now and then, to know which way to swim. It noticed the unusual texture of the ground. Until then, it had only seen grass from far away, and now it rolled itself in it. It took notice that grass felt rougher than seaweed, but softer than sand. It went on, gazing the surface now and again with its tall dorsal fin.
There were carts in the water, left hastily by their owners, and the monster swam around them, over them and under them, but it never asked itself why they looked the way they looked. It certainly had never seen one of them before, and without understanding those weird constructs, it moved on, to never remember them again.
Soon, it would arrive at a wooden crate, and the water that was streaming out of it tasted of blood and decay. The creature pried the doors open with its claws and long snout, and found many four legged, hairy animals. Some of them were still moveing and gave out high pitched calls in their distress, but most of them had their heads under the water, stiff and cold. Their fur got caught in its teeth as it bit into one of them, and with a mouth full hair, it desisted to eat them.
It glided out of the sheepfold and soon found another strange thing. This one had four corners, as the stall had, but was made out of red stone. Howsoever, there was a wooden door, and as the thing rammed itself against it with force, it was sucked into the house when the wood gave away.
Because the room was now filled with water, the monster swam through it. Never had it seen a stool, so it threw it around and bit into the wood, its pointy teeth leaving marks. A small table was there, too, and the legs broke as the monster tried to pull itself on it, and it fell back into the water. This strange hole was way too small for it, as the walls rubbed at its sensitive skin. But there still were so many exciting objects; there were ones that gleamed in the light that shone through a window, things it had never seen, which awoke its curiosity and playfulness. The creature was especially found of a little teaspoon. The monster touched it with its clawed, cold hands, took it in its mouth and nearly swallowed the spoon. It gagged and spit it out, and irritated, moved to the china. That could not catch its interest for long, even when the sound it made when broken was very endearing.
A dark sound appeared, and interrupted the sea creature. Wondering, it looked around, but could not find where it came from. The noise returned, and the monstrosity noticed that it had to come from above. It stuck its head out of the cool water and the sound was now clear. It was a damp ‘wong’ which came from a wooden box hanging at the wall. The box made the sound twelve times, and then it was quiet. Almost. There was the sound of breathing. Out of the corner of its eye it saw a noticeable shaking shape.
It turned its head to see the source of the tone and movement.
And there she was, the first human the monster had ever seen. Though the creature was not someone to think much about the living things around it besides food, its eyes grew bright with nosiness. The human- the monster did not now it was one, but would learn it one day- had warm, soft looking skin, instead of the pale grey that clung to the monster. The eyes were not slim and pointed, without pupils and coloured in a deep, swampy green, but had long eyelashes, were opened wide and revealing a soft blue iris. Her hands, that clung to the banister of the stairs she stood on, were small and round. There were no long claws, just small harmless fingernails. The creature itself had muscular arms with long, thin fingers, of which the little and ring finger were fused together into one long fin. The human was, so to say, bare of any webbing.
To the monster, the human could had as well been made out of delicate foam, standing there shaking on her two legs.
The monstrosity would have gladly seen more and thus moved forward, but the human was startled out of her fear induced stiffness and stormed up the stairs. Unhappy, the monster swam outside, while it lifted and narrowed its lips in sudden anger. Small bubbles escaped its nostrils and glided to the surface.
It could not consider, that its future would entangle very closely with the species it had just taken a short lived interest in.
Unsuspecting, it swam trough the flooded fields.
Then again, there were moves in the water and its displeasure was overtaken by curiosity. For one more time, it flowed through the water like an eel, towards the unknown. Whatever it was, it had four legs and tried to hold its heavy body over the surface. Instead of white, woolly fur, they had short, brown hair. As the monstrosity heaved its head over water, it looked into big, brown eyes. The big, brown eyes belonged to a long head. The horse had its ears pressed closely to its head in fear and showed its teeth by the sigh of the creature. Which would have been cowed, if it had not been double the length of the horse, with more impressive fangs. It showed them to the horse open mouthed, and the animal winced away, desperately trying to flee.
It began to circle the horse, which now did not only kick with all its legs to stay over water, but also to chase the bothersome sea folk away.
But the creature began to play with it and the poor animal was poked with long claws, pinched with teeth or rammed in the side so that it nearly drowned. The horse became even more panicked and as the monster tried to wrap itself around the animal to kill it, it finally touched the ground with its hooves and kicked forcefully backwards.
The strong legs broke several rips of the monster and hissing, it left the herbivore alone. The horseshoe had ripped its skin and the wound left a faint bloody trail in the water.
Its body was hurt and unable to bent like an eel, it had to move its sturdy fluke to find back into the deep comforting ocean as fast as possible.
The human had already been forgotten.
But from that day on, there were rumours that mermaids had come back to the north. Some of the tales were romanticised, about beautiful young maiden, with deep, green eyes. But other, more trustworthy ones, mentioned snail-like, wolf-faced mermen, which had bitten an arm long wound into a decayed sheep and had ripped open doors to steal the children of poor unsuspecting families.