Chapter Text
Pyrrha looked around as she swam into the unknown settlement. For the past year or so, her family and the king of Astana had been going back and forth about the arranged marriage. She had just never…entirely fit into Aurelyssa. She was one to constantly travel and get away from the stability that came with the community. She was always restless and exploring as far as she could go. She could handle most other aspects of the community, the harmony, the peace, but it was hard when she was expected to be so still all the time. Astana was in need of their eldest daughter to marry somebody, so her parents, after much heartache and grief, had decided to send her away to somewhere new so that way she could hopefully be happier.
She had initially been looking forward to it, but now, she wasn’t certain about all of this. The travel had been long and hard and all she wanted was to be cozied up to her restpad on the wall. She had seen a lot of cool things while traveling along the coast, but that didn’t make up for how hard her life would be. They had passed through lots of different mermaid settlements while on the way and the manners and ways that had conflicted with her own were definitely not fun. If things had been that uncomfortable while in other places temporarily, how much worse would it be when staying somewhere else permanently?
She flicked her tail, trying to keep up with her guide. She saw the corals beginning to take shape and knew that it wouldn’t be long until she met Weiss. There was a big difference between the tropical corals she had grown up among and the colder-water corals that existed here. This was a much more temperate area, not warm all the time like her own home. Plus, she could see the shaping that took place to build homes and other structures through magic. It was subtle at first, but any mermaid worth their saltwater would be able to tell when they were entering a new settlement rather than just swimming through the open ocean. At least they hadn’t strayed too far from the shore into the truly open ocean…an idea which terrified her.
Soon, buildings began to take shape as they headed deeper into the settlement. This had to be Astana. It was…so different from what she was accustomed to. The buildings were generally lower and sweeping, clustered closer together than being spread out in Aurelyssa. However, the buildings in Aurelyssa tended to be taller as well. Many families stayed to a building rather than single-family dwellings as clans tended to prefer to stay together. She didn’t know anything about Astana, so she had no idea if there were clans here or not… She hoped there would be so at least that much could be familiar.
They arrived at a large, opulent building made of living corals where fish darted in and out of ports and swimways with mermaids following through the swimways. She swallowed hard as she went through the first swimway and headed deeper into the structure. It was a castle, she had heard it called. Aurelyssa had no structures like this. Yes, some clanhomes could be large but none like this. They tended to be tall rather than wide and long. One floor per family with clanhomes. Yet this was for one family…? She struggled to truly understand what was going on and why other mermaids lived like this. Why revere one family when everyone was important? Yes, there was a social structure in Aurelyssa, but it was nothing like simply revering one family over another.
They went down a side hallway and were brought into a small chamber. A mermaid about Pyrrha’s age floated in the water there, her long, white hair like octopus tentacles around her head. Her tail was a very pale blue, though her sun-kissed skin made her look darker than she likely was. “Um, hello,” the girl said, looking around nervously. “You’re…the one I’m supposed to marry?”
Pyrrha gave a nervous nod then dipped her upper body, hand extended to the side. The water rippled softly between them. “Yes, I am Pyrrha of Clan Nikos, a Songcrafter dedicated to the Deep Mother.” Of course, she worshiped all aspects of the One as that would cause immense disharmony. She couldn’t risk too much disharmony to break out because of her wanderings. But there were mermaids who were a bit more dedicated to an aspect of The One than other aspects. She wrote songs for the Deep Mother that others would sing, spells that would be wrought and woven for protection and nurturing.
The other girl tilted her head toward Pyrrha but didn’t say anything. For Pyrrha, the silence hung heavy and awkward. The girl tilted her head, her white hair following the motion. “What?”
“No verbal greeting?” Pyrrha asked. That…was beyond strange to her. She had no idea how to handle it. And no rippling of the water? That was incredibly rude. Why would the girl not return her greeting?
“We…don’t really do that here in Astana. But I’m Weiss.” She offered a hesitant smile. Even Pyrrha could feel the awkwardness and self-consciousness rippling off her in waves. Pyrrha had never really learned to read souls as so many other mermaids did because reading one’s soul was seen as a source of disharmony in Aurelyssa. It was considered incredibly rude to read one’s soul, so most from Aurelyssa only learned to shield themselves. Weiss had herself shielded pretty well, though. But with the nerves and anxiety, some of her defenses were slipping. Pyrrha could hardly blame her… This was really difficult.
“Honestly, you’re probably tired after the long travel, right?” Weiss asked. Pyrrha nodded. She really was. She just wanted to sleep. “I can show you to your room.”
“That…sounds nice… I would appreciate it, Weiss.” Pyrrha offered the best smile she could muster. It was so hard to deal with this. All of this just because she didn’t like to stay in Aurelyssa as much as anybody else… It sucked and it sucked hard. All she really wanted was to be back home with her parents and the rest of Clan Nikos. But her parents had decided it was better for her go and see the world rather than stay in Aurelyssa since it caused her so much stress and anxiety… But this was causing her stress and anxiety as well. There was no real good way to handle any of this.
Weiss took Pyrrha and her servant out of the receiving chamber and they swam through hallways that twisted and wound around. This was the biggest structure she’d ever been in. She had no idea how they lived here. Clanhomes could be big, but they weren’t this labyrinthine by any means. She was going to get lost here so easily. Astana was also larger than Aurelyssa by the looks of it. It was going to take her quite a bit of time to get used to Astana, its layout, and its different manners. By Aurelyssan standards, the people of Astana seemed so rude, but it was a different settlement with different rules… It would take her time to learn said manners.
Weiss led her to a side hallway where a room sat. “Here you go.” Weiss smiled hesitantly and Pyrrha nodded.
“Thank you.” She swam inside and felt the familiar ripple of energy that came with privacy spells. Fish and such could swim in and out of ports and swimways, but it would prevent anybody from hearing and understanding her. It was a much larger room than her own back in Aurelyssa by quite a bit. Fish swam lazily around the room, going in and out of ports. They were much different species than what she was used to… She was used to bright, colorful fish, but these ones were much more drab and blended into the environment more. She had definitely noticed that the fish became less and less colorful the more northerly they went. The tropical reefs were something she had grown accustomed to, but now…she may very well never see them again.
She found the restpad and leaned against it, closing her eyes. What a long day…and it was only the beginning. She had no idea how to handle all of this. It was so hard to deal with all of it. So very, very difficult… Adapting to a new way of life with new manners and a new social structure was going to be incredibly draining. She already desperately missed Aurelyssa, but it wasn’t like she could back out now… Within a few moments, she drifted into darkness, uneasy sleep gripping her like the jaws of a shark.
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Weiss went back to her restchamber and slumped against her restpad, eyes closed. Their interaction hadn’t even been that long, but it had drained her immensely. She had known this was coming for quite some time, but there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. Her stepfather had decided that she needed to marry somebody from abroad which hurt. There were plenty of eligible bachelors and bachelorettes in Astana, but no, apparently she needed to marry somebody that wasn’t from her home. Already, the girl seemed quite rude by Astana standards. Greetings were not spoken. A spoken greeting was seen as an affront to The One in their culture, so she didn’t understand why Pyrrha would do that. Greetings were to be performed through hand gestures and not spoken.
Ugh.
She opted to swim out of the port of her room and started toward the shore. Of course, there would be no guarantee that Sun would be there, but she hoped he would be. He was her best friend in the entire world and her confidant in a way that nobody could be. He didn’t entirely understand everything she was going through, of course, but that was just the way it was between land dwellers and mermaids. They couldn’t begin to grasp the underwater world and its politics, but she also couldn’t really grasp the world above… There were so many things they didn’t understand about each other’s worlds, but they did understand the mutual cruelty each experienced…and that was more than enough for her.
She swam up toward the beach and popped her head above the surface, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw a very familiar figure sitting there. It had been a few weeks since they’d last saw each other, so she hoped he would have time to talk. Granted, she knew that Sun’s parents didn’t let him leave for too long. They were abusive and hit him quite often. Her own stepsiblings could be fairly abusive to her, so she did understand his issues to some degree. All she wanted was to escape… In some regards, she wished she had been sent away rather than staying in Astana…but she would miss Sun for the rest of her life if she were sent away.
The figure on the beach raised his hand and waved to her. She smiled and swam much closer to the beach, then turned her tail into legs. She ran onto the beach and straight into his arms, her hair dripping wet. “Sun! I’ve missed you!” They could only see each other when Sun was at the beach for whatever reason and she just so happened to come up to the surface. It wasn’t the best way to maintain a friendship, but it worked for them. All that mattered was they could see and find each other from time to time and talk about what ailed them.
“I missed you too, Weiss.” He hugged her tightly, then picked her up and spun her around. She laughed, a joyful noise even to her own ears. This was one of the few times she could escape her stepsiblings and their cruelty. The surface was a refuge for her in many regards… But she might not be so able to see Sun now that her betrothed had arrived. “What’s up?”
“Too much.” Her smile faded to a frown and she sighed. Yeah, too much.
Sun put her down and they sat on the beach together. The wind stirred her sodden hair, but she did not shiver. The gemstones that all mermaids wore protected her from any sort of cold or even the warmth. She was always comfortable due to it. “So what’s bugging you?” He had such a weird vocabulary, but then again, so did she in some regards. The surface and underwater were such different worlds that it was really hard for them to even meet in the middle.
She pulled her knees to her chest and sighed. “Remember how I mentioned the fact that I was betrothed?” She frowned. “She arrived today. She’s currently sleeping…but I know I won’t be able to avoid her forever.” They were to be married. There was no timeline, at least, as mermaids didn’t like to rush the marriage part. Astana’s manners had the courtship part where they learned about each other last from weeks to even years; it all depended on how well they got along and how quickly they bonded. With as awkward as she and Pyrrha were as well as the cultural diferences…it would probably take them time.
Sun offered his hand to her and she took it. “I’m so sorry. What a shitty move for your parents to pull.”
“My stepfather, not my mother.” Willow was the queen of Astana and had most say in things… But her stepfather, Iskendrel, ran a lot of the day-to-day parts of the castle. He handled his children and the servants. Willow handled politics while Iskendrel handled more mundane things. Iskendrel had pulled a sly move by going behind her mother’s back in order to arrange a marriage for her. By time Willow knew, it was too late; the contract had been sealed and arranged. A whole year… She knew he was nothing but a scoundrel, but this was awful. At least he hadn’t sent her away.
“Right… He doesn’t sound much better than my parents from what you’ve said.” Sun shook his head. She had to concur with that in some regards. He wasn’t outright abusive to her, but he clearly thought lesser of her and Winter due to them being from Willow’s previous marriage. She knew it would only be a matter of time until she had half siblings. Honestly, she was surprised it hadn’t happened yet. Then again, the marriage had more or less been forced on Willow by her advisors without her input. Willow and Iskendrel was a marriage of convenience for the advisors rather than a marriage of love like the marriage to her father had been.
“He’s definitely politically conniving, that’s for sure. The Thalovar family is connected to old, old magic. I’m not surprised they went after my mother.” She shook her head. “But we’re not here to talk about my stepfather and his political ambitions…” She rested her head against his shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t even want to talk about Pyrrha…” She just… Her time with Sun was so limited in general and she hated that she couldn’t spend more time with him. But he had lessons to attend to learn how to rule the dutchy and other things. And his parents just wouldn’t let him out in general…
“We can talk if you’d like. No idea when we’ll see each other again.” That was true… He squeezed her hand gently. “What does she seem like?”
“We didn’t have that long of an interaction really… It was…tense and awkward to put it lightly.” It wasn’t the formal introduction that they would need to have to make the courtship official. It had just been a quick introduction. The true appointment would probably be set for tomorrow or the day after that. It would be relatively quiet as far as Weiss was aware, but it didn’t mean it’d be easy… She wasn’t looking forward to it. She really didn’t want to go through with this… She wanted to fall in love and marry someone she chose rather than being forced to marry someone else. It wasn’t fair; it wasn’t fair at all. Why was wanting freedom so wrong? But she knew that turning down an arranged marriage would have disastrous consequences for both communities, so she couldn’t just swim away from it. She couldn’t. She really wished her mother had found out before the contract had gone through. She just… All she wanted was freedom to live her life like she wanted, but now she was bound to a marriage she didn’t relish at all…
Sun petted her head. “I’m so sorry, Weiss. I know arranged marriages are a thing, but I really hope that never happens to me.” He shook his head. “It’s so unfair to have your heart taken away from you like that. I get why they happen, but it’s just not fair to everyone. Advantageous for the bloodline, but not advantageous for the people involved.” She could agree to that. Astana wasn’t huge on arranged marriages, but they did happen from time to time. It sounded like they were far more common on the surface if what Sun said was true. But no, it wasn’t fair at all… She just wanted her heart to be free. “I wish I could help you.”
“Not much you can do, unfortunately…” He continued to pet her head and she leaned into it. It really did feel good. She should put her hair up into an eel tail when on land, though… Granted, this had been an incredibly split-second decision. She had decided to do this without much thought with only the barest hope that Sun would be on the surface. At least he had been. She didn’t know what she’d do without him. He was the light of her life and she would never hope anything bad ever happened to him. He had helped her through so much and she had done the same for him. “How are things on your end?” Might as well see how he was doing.
He shrugged slightly. “‘Bout the same as always. Parents are dickheads, shouting and beating me. I’m in for it again since I’ve been out here so long today. Yesterday was real nasty and I needed to get away. Been here since morning.” Weiss looked at the position of the sun and frowned. He’d been out here like half the day… Wasn’t that boring? But he would also be in some serious trouble, if she understood his parents right. Even he was admitting that they would probably beat him for his infraction of spending too much time out on the beach. She wished there were some way to contact each other long distance so they could easily coordinate when one was free or something like that…but that felt like a complete and utter fantasy to her. Nothing like that existed and never would as far as she was aware.
“I’m so sorry, Sun… I wish you could come live in the sea with me. But I know your parents wouldn’t rest until they got you back.” It would endanger all of Astana and she couldn’t risk that. Plus, she wasn’t sure how happy he’d be underwater either. The same spell that let her have her tail turn into legs worked in reverse. She could cast it on land dwellers to make them able to live underwater. But mermaid culture seemed much different than land-dweller culture from what little she’d seen of it and what she’d heard from Sun.
He nodded and sighed. “Yeah. They’d definitely kill as many mermaids as it took to get me back if they figured it out.” She knew his parents were no strangers to killing mermaids. Sun had told her time and again about how they had sailors fish them up and then split them tail to sternum while still alive. It was an absolutely abhorrent thing to do to another sentient being, but his parents thought far lesser of mermaids than most did. Most land dwellers and mermaids just left each other alone…but his parents were active and malicious toward those they probably should’ve been trading with… It really sucked that Astana couldn’t have a good trade partnership with his parents due to their bigotry.
“I really wish I could rescue you from them…” It was an impossible dream, she knew that much. To let him be free, truly free of his awful parents who beat and berated him because he wasn’t good enough for them. She fell silent for a bit, watching the waves lap at the beach. “I’m worried we won’t be compatible, though.” She was changing topics back to the marriage. Her mother was still outraged by it, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it at this point. They could not risk angering Aurelyssa by refusing the marriage that Iskendrel had set up for her. She had seen some arranged marriages go south really badly and how much they hated each other.
Sun petted her head. “I know, but did she seem nice?”
“It’s hard to get a first impression when barely any words pass between you…though she was rude by Astana standards. Greetings are done with the hands and verbal greetings are an affront to The One.” She sighed. “But maybe it’s just a cultural difference.” She had no idea. She’d met deep-sea and open-sea mermaids before and they were vastly different than shore ones. It was crazy just how much they varied in culture. They all worshiped The One, but many different cultures had different aspects for The One than Astana did. She would have to ask Pyrrha what aspects Aurelyssan mermaids had for The One and tell her what aspects Astana had.
“That would be my guess, just a difference in culture. If you saw her as rude, do you think she saw you as rude?” Weiss blinked at Sun’s words, not having considered that.
“I— No, actually. She’s shielded pretty well, so I couldn’t get much of a read on her soul.” All mermaids could read souls naturally, so shielding was an important part of any mermaid’s upbringing. Being so open with one’s soul was generally seen as very intimate, at least between mermaids. Land dwellers didn’t seem to have the same conception of the soul as mermaids did and generally lacked the ability to do anything with the soul like mermaids did. “I guess maybe she might have…”
“You’ll have to ask her. Keep in mind her culture is different from yours and yours is different from hers. Remember how much we conflicted right at first?” Weiss nodded a bit and put her chin on top of her knees. Yeah, they had definitely had a lot of conflicts due to the cultural differences when they’d first started to get to know each other. Honestly, Sun was good for balancing her out and reminding her about things like this. She would have to be patient with Pyrrha while she adapted to Astana. It would be the same if Weiss had gone to Aurelyssa. She’d have to help Pyrrha understand Astani ways before they could really do anything…and she would need to ask Pyrrha about how Aurelyssa handled things as well. This was all a good reminder that things were different no matter where one went.
“I’ll have to. Thanks for the reminder.” She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. Even if they could go a while between seeing each other, nothing was easier for her than spending time with Sun. She just hoped that Pyrrha wouldn’t mind she had a land dweller for a friend… A lot of mermaids disapproved, but her mother didn’t care…especially not with the conflict between her and her stepsiblings. They had never gotten along and Willow was frustrated. Then again, the entire marriage hadn’t been Willow’s idea and she frankly resented her husband… Weiss felt nothing but antipathy toward her stepfather and wished he would leave their lives… She didn’t understand why her mother had been forced to remarry…but she wouldn’t be surprised if her mother’s advisors really started pushing for more heirs.
Ugh.
She didn’t want half siblings.
“Honestly, I should probably go… Might as well get this over with.” Sun stood up and brushed the sand off his clothes. He held his hand out for Weiss and she stood.
“See you,” she said, her heart dropping through her stomach.
He smiled at her, though it was strained. “See you. Hope things go well for you.”
“You too.”
He gave her hand a squeeze and she returned it, then he turned and left the beach. With nothing left to do, Weiss walked back to the sea and swam off, going back down into the depths to her awaiting bride.