Chapter Text
The mist had taken over the cliffs the day Bilba first encountered her. These heavy fogs were common enough along the Orcadian shores, rolling in from the sea like spectral fingers, grasping at the black, jagged cliffs and smothering the heather that clung stubbornly to the windswept terrain, the salt-laden air weaving into a living gauze that blurred the boundaries between land, and sea and sky, and muffled all sounds, the calling and cackling of birds, the howl of the wind and the roar of the waves.
Bilba had grown accustomed to the uncanny mists in the three years since she had returned to occupy the stone cottage perched atop the western headland. It was a refuge not only from the whispers that had followed her through life but from the disappointment city life had presented after growing up in the wildest, northernmost corner of Scotland.
The cottage had belonged to her father, a respected ornithologist whose meticulous volumes on North Sea seabirds still occupied a place of honor in university libraries across Britain. They also continued to provide Bilba with some reliable income from royalties, supplementing her own much more modest literary earnings. Neither side of the family had ever wanted for money, but it was her paternal grandfather's investments in transatlantic shipping what saw to the comfortable allowance she began receiving after her father had passed away.
The Orkneys were remote, yes, seventy islands scattered across the turbulent meeting place of the cold North Sea and the wild Atlantic, most claimed only by seabirds and seals. A flimsy ferry service connected them to the Scottish mainland, but they were completely cut-off for weeks at a time in winter, when the harsh tides and winds rendered the sea passage treacherous. But unlike Bilba, it wasn’t the separation from the frenetic pace of contemporary existence, what had compelled his father to move here, a few decades prior.
No, it had been the unique wildlife. Here, cataloguing the nesting habits of puffins and fulmars along the cliffs, that Bungo Baggins had met Belladonna Took, a Scottish woman with luminous hazel eyes and first-hand knowledge of the island’s unique flora which perfectly complemented his own interests. Their courtship had been brief but intense, their marriage happy though childless for many years. Bilba had been born when Belladonna was over forty, a miracle in the words of the local midwife. But the miracle had exacted its price; Belladonna had survived the birth by mere days, leaving Bungo with an infant daughter and a grief that never fully abated.
Bilba had been raised between two different worlds, once she has old enough to be weaned from the kind fisherman’s wife who had nursed her—summers in Orkney with her increasingly reclusive father, term-time with some relatives on her mother's sister in Inverness, where she learned her first letters and qualified for a college grant, which had culminated with a degree in Classics. Christmas and Easter holidays would often be spent with the Baggins relations in London that were as Catholic as the Tooks, but thrice as devout. Bilba herself had never felt that divine spark but the rituals had seeped into her bones despite her intellectual disavowal. Even now, she would occasionally catch herself making the sign of the cross when passing the small stone church in Kirkwall, or whispering fragments of prayers she thought long forgotten when confronted with moments of particular beauty or terror.
Bilba was a short yet strong woman. From her father, she inherited not only his copper, unruly hair and small button nose, but his intellect and passion for books. From her mother came her perpetual freckles on her wind-chapped ruddy skin and her keen hazel eyes that appeared the warmest brown or the most ethereal green depending on the light conditions; from her she could also claim a connection to this harsh, beautiful landscape, its botanical riches and its folklore.
At six-and-thirty, Bilba had long since abandoned concerns about what others thought of her. “Too bookish by half for any decent man to consider”, the Baggins aunts had murmured behind teacups when she was younger. “Such a pity, with those features, if only she would apply herself to womanly pursuits”. Those same aunts had fallen silent when her first book on Classical mythology had been published to modest acclaim, and positively choked on their Earl Grey when her collection of reimagined myths written under the pseudonym B. Corvus (a not very subtle pseudonym for Bilba Branwen Baggins), had become something of a minor sensation among the literary circles of London.
When her father had died, leaving the cottage to her along with his substantial library, Bilba had recognized the opportunity for what it was: freedom. Freedom to write without constraint, to pursue her interests without justification, to live as she pleased without explanation. Here, in her childhood summer home turned permanent residence, the whispers came only from the wind and sea. Orkney suited her; its ancient stones and older legends, its harsh beauty and unforgiving climate. It was a landscape that demanded authenticity, stripping away pretense with its brine-ridden winds just as surely as it stripped paint from doors and windowsills.
On this particular morning, Bilba had woken earlier than was her habit, troubled by dreams of drowning. It was not an uncommon nightmare for those who dwelled by these waters, where the tide could turn treacherous without warning and the currents claimed lives each passing season. Still, the lingering unease that had accompanied her throughout her morning ablutions and an ineffectual attempt at writing had driven her from her cottage and down to the shore path sometime after lunch, when the sun was still high on the sky, even if thickly veiled by the stubborn brumes.
Her daily constitutionals rarely took her down to the pebbled beach below the cliffs where her cottage stood. The path was treacherous at best, a winding trail of loose scree and muddy sands. But something—perhaps the remnants of her dream, perhaps some ineffable intuition—guided her steps downward, her sturdy boots firm and unwavering where normally she might have trodden more carefully.
The mist obscured all but the immediate surroundings as she descended. The rhythmic pulse of the sea was her only companion until she reached the narrow strip of pebbled beach, tide just starting to recede. Bilba paused at the bottom of the path, her leather satchel—ever-present, containing her notebook, graphite sticks, a handkerchief and a small flask of water—pressed against her hip as she looked around. Something in the quality of the silence struck her as peculiar, and she strained her ears against the hush of waves.
There—a rasping sound, like labored breathing.
Bilba moved forward cautiously, one hand extended before her as if to ward off whatever spectre the fog might conceal, the other fisted against her chest, containing the impulse to cross herself. The pebbles shifted beneath her feet, slowing her gait as she advanced toward the water's edge. The sound grew more distinct with each step: a wet, rasping gasp followed by silence, then another gasp.
When the mist parted, Bilba nearly stumbled backward in shock. There, sprawled half-in and half-out of the gentle surf, lay a figure unlike any she had ever encountered beyond the pages of her treasured mythology texts.
From the waist up, the creature possessed the form of a woman—skin pallid as moonlight on water, with an unearthly blue undertone that spoke of marine depths rather than flesh and blood. Her torso was slender but strong, the shoulders broader than fashion would dictate proper for a lady, and marked with strange, linear patterns like the phosphorescent trails left by disturbed seaweeds at night. Hair the color of wet slate cascaded over her shoulders in heavy, sodden ropes adorned with tiny shells and fragments of sea glass that glinted dully in the weak light, the only thing covering her otherwise naked body. But where legs should have been...
Crossing herself, Bilba then pressed the hand to her mouth, stifling a cry of mingled horror and fascination. For below the waist, the being's form was horrifically inhuman. Not the coquettish fish-tail of storybook mermaids, but something far larger, primeval in its shape and size. Scales of the deepest indigo, almost black in the half-light, covered a powerful lower body that now lay twisted at an unnatural angle.
Through rents in this armored skin, Bilba could see cerulean flesh that pulsed with an internal light, seeping not blood but a viscous substance the color of crushed blackberries. The wounds were ghastly, long, deep gashes that exposed what appeared to be delicate structures of cartilage rather than bone, and in places the scales had been torn away entirely, leaving raw patches that wept that strange, luminescent fluid.
“Dear heavens”, Bilba whispered, sinking to her knees on the wet stones.
At the sound, the creature's eyes flew open—pure silver-blue, like the ocean itself captured in orbs of light, with no discernible pupil, only rippling depths that seemed to contain currents within them. These eerie eyes fixed upon Bilba with an intelligence that was unmistakably sentient, unmistakably aware.
And unmistakably furious.
The creature's mouth opened, revealing teeth that came to delicate points—not the savage fangs of a predator, but something more akin to those of a child who had never lost her milk teeth, only sharpened like fine needles. No sound emerged, however, save a rasping wheeze that caused the gills at the sides of her neck, half-concealed by the wet ropes of long black hair, to flutter weakly.
Every rational instinct urged Bilba to flee, to scramble back up the treacherous path to her cottage and bolt the door against whatever uncanny being had washed up on the shore.
She had heard the tales, of course—what Orcadian had not? Stories whispered around peat fires on cold nights, of the Finfolk who dwelled in their hidden realm of Finfolkaheem, sometimes venturing forth to claim unwary humans as slaves or spouses.
Tales of their secret island of Eynhallow, which appeared from the mists only once a year, where ordinary mortals who set foot would find themselves trapped forever in its enchantments.
But the tales had never mentioned injured and helpless merfolk, cast ashore like flotsam.
The creature made another attempt to speak, and this time a sound emerged, a terrible, keening note that pierced the air like a blade of ice, causing Bilba to clap her hands over her ears in pain.
The cry hung in the mist for a moment before dissipating, leaving behind a silence more profound than before.
Then, with visible effort, the being raised one hand—long-fingered and webbed between the first joints—and pressed it against her own throat in frustration as she attempted to vocalise again. When she couldn’t, she extended it toward Bilba in what might have been supplication or threat.
Later, when registering this moment in her journal, Bilba would be unable to explain what compelled her next action. She was not, by nature, an impulsive woman. Her life had been one of careful consideration, of weighing consequences against desires and invariably choosing the path of prudence. Perhaps it was the creature's eyes, which despite their alien nature conveyed a desperation that transcended the boundaries of species.
Or perhaps it was simply that Bilba, who had spent a lifetime feeling herself unlike those around her, recognized in this otherworldly being a kindred spirit.
Whatever the cause, she reached out and took the offered hand.
The skin was cool but not cold, slick but not slimy, and possessed a subtle texture like the finest kid leather with a faint underlying pattern reminiscent of scales. The creature's grip tightened immediately, with surprising strength considering her apparent condition.
“I... I will help you”, Bilba promised. “Though I confess I know not how”.