![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Requested By: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
liadlaith
Prompt: Strong and sinuous like a mermaid's tale
Fandom: None
Length: 904 words
Make a request
It's legend that says that dragons can be beaten with a sword and brave words. They can be killed, certainly - but never the way the stories say; never in the metal suit on the fine horse. Sea monsters exist, and have for longer than there's been boats - but it's a myth that spears could pierce their hides or hearts. Bridges are a fine home for trolls, but it's falsehood to say they care for their food to come back when it's fatter.
The mermaids have it worse than most. The best it's been said is that half-fish things flouncing about on rocks luring sailors to doom and peril are legendary, which is all well and good so long as we take 'legend' to mean 'lie'.
Let me explain.
Once upon a time, people were weak and frail; easy to overlook, easy to ignore, and dangerously easy to eat. People fought back against this - earlier humans learned about tools, and they'd pass on their weapons and tools and trinkets and their knowledge to the next generation, which would pass it on to the next. Soon, there were farms and domestic animals and villages and laws.
Other creatures could feel this affecting the way the world worked. Dragons found it harder to find food, and demanded tribute in return for the safety of fledgeling villages. Trolls hid under bridges, safe from the sun (that part is true). Even rats turned the situation to their advantage, living in - and off - the detritus of human settlement.
People fought back against the worst of this - important bridges kept troll-free, dragons fought off into the deep wilderness. Boats and trade and books all helped to move things about, especially the stories and the knowledge. They're what really keeps the people safe.
It's the stories that matter most to the mermaids. The stories and the memories and the knowledge are what they live on, and the people readily supply them all. The feeding itself is an interesting process; I'll tell you about it shortly. What's important to know for now is that there isn't much left at the end - once all the stories and memories have been taken away. It's not fatal, but it makes it easy for the victim to die.
Travellers were always the best ones, with their thoughts and stories of faraway places - they'd simply vanish, and more often than not the trail would kill them. Their natural curiosity made it easy to lure them away; easier than the suspicious villagers or the hermitic farmers. Few survived, and those that did were locked away as madmen with chilling tales of creatures that lure men to their dooms; never two the same, but for that they called to their victims with entrancing stories and wondrous fables.
Time passed, and the people built boats, and then bigger boats. Soon, they were taking long and dangerous trips while making the roads safer. While the people made things harder for the trolls and for the dragons and for monsters in caves, the mermaids took to the ocean - a great, untamed expanse from which even experienced sailors could mysteriously vanish.
It's there that they fed easily - and there that the stories built themselves into their very own myth. The mermaids' prey could often survive on pure instinct, finding land and reinventing their lives. All they could remember was beautiful creatures, keeping them wrapped up in powerful tales for long-forgotten reasons.
If anything can be counted upon, it's peoples' imaginations to take the place of their memories. Soon enough, the myth was bilt around a tail like a fish or a dolphin. Stories were ignored completely, and replaced with songs or the calling of names or any of a million other variations. With the name 'mermaid', they were remembered as half-fish things and categorised in a way that made the people feel safe.
Time passed, as is its way. The trolls moved from the bridges to live beneath the streets, and the dragons hid wherever they pleased. The rats did better than ever, and the people thrived - so well they could afford to start forgetting their own, to let them go missing. Or so that they could care for the mad, carefully categorising them and explaining that monsters didn't exist to steal their minds away. Next came telephones and the internet, and more stories were shared, and more people were forgotten.
It made life easy for the mermaids, and they could fit right in with the millions of people in the cities. In ways both new and old, they lured people - they lured them with stories, or with promises, or with extracts from exotic flowers. The victims brought new stories - alien abductions, government mind control, damned lies or fun new party drugs.
And it's so elegantly simple, the way it's done; the way they're trapped in the strong and sinuous tales. So simple that it's absolutely impossible to explain...
But I can show you.
liadlaithPrompt: Strong and sinuous like a mermaid's tale
Fandom: None
Length: 904 words
Make a request
Sinuous, adj.Myths and legends. It's the way people tell stories that aren't true, stories based on whimsy or fancy or lies, stories that look nothing like the real world. Stories that they hope aren't true, or stories that they wish were.
3. Not direct; devious.
Mermaid, n.
A legendary sea creature having the head and upper body of a woman and the tail of a fish.
It's legend that says that dragons can be beaten with a sword and brave words. They can be killed, certainly - but never the way the stories say; never in the metal suit on the fine horse. Sea monsters exist, and have for longer than there's been boats - but it's a myth that spears could pierce their hides or hearts. Bridges are a fine home for trolls, but it's falsehood to say they care for their food to come back when it's fatter.
The mermaids have it worse than most. The best it's been said is that half-fish things flouncing about on rocks luring sailors to doom and peril are legendary, which is all well and good so long as we take 'legend' to mean 'lie'.
Let me explain.
Once upon a time, people were weak and frail; easy to overlook, easy to ignore, and dangerously easy to eat. People fought back against this - earlier humans learned about tools, and they'd pass on their weapons and tools and trinkets and their knowledge to the next generation, which would pass it on to the next. Soon, there were farms and domestic animals and villages and laws.
Other creatures could feel this affecting the way the world worked. Dragons found it harder to find food, and demanded tribute in return for the safety of fledgeling villages. Trolls hid under bridges, safe from the sun (that part is true). Even rats turned the situation to their advantage, living in - and off - the detritus of human settlement.
People fought back against the worst of this - important bridges kept troll-free, dragons fought off into the deep wilderness. Boats and trade and books all helped to move things about, especially the stories and the knowledge. They're what really keeps the people safe.
It's the stories that matter most to the mermaids. The stories and the memories and the knowledge are what they live on, and the people readily supply them all. The feeding itself is an interesting process; I'll tell you about it shortly. What's important to know for now is that there isn't much left at the end - once all the stories and memories have been taken away. It's not fatal, but it makes it easy for the victim to die.
Travellers were always the best ones, with their thoughts and stories of faraway places - they'd simply vanish, and more often than not the trail would kill them. Their natural curiosity made it easy to lure them away; easier than the suspicious villagers or the hermitic farmers. Few survived, and those that did were locked away as madmen with chilling tales of creatures that lure men to their dooms; never two the same, but for that they called to their victims with entrancing stories and wondrous fables.
Time passed, and the people built boats, and then bigger boats. Soon, they were taking long and dangerous trips while making the roads safer. While the people made things harder for the trolls and for the dragons and for monsters in caves, the mermaids took to the ocean - a great, untamed expanse from which even experienced sailors could mysteriously vanish.
It's there that they fed easily - and there that the stories built themselves into their very own myth. The mermaids' prey could often survive on pure instinct, finding land and reinventing their lives. All they could remember was beautiful creatures, keeping them wrapped up in powerful tales for long-forgotten reasons.
If anything can be counted upon, it's peoples' imaginations to take the place of their memories. Soon enough, the myth was bilt around a tail like a fish or a dolphin. Stories were ignored completely, and replaced with songs or the calling of names or any of a million other variations. With the name 'mermaid', they were remembered as half-fish things and categorised in a way that made the people feel safe.
Time passed, as is its way. The trolls moved from the bridges to live beneath the streets, and the dragons hid wherever they pleased. The rats did better than ever, and the people thrived - so well they could afford to start forgetting their own, to let them go missing. Or so that they could care for the mad, carefully categorising them and explaining that monsters didn't exist to steal their minds away. Next came telephones and the internet, and more stories were shared, and more people were forgotten.
It made life easy for the mermaids, and they could fit right in with the millions of people in the cities. In ways both new and old, they lured people - they lured them with stories, or with promises, or with extracts from exotic flowers. The victims brought new stories - alien abductions, government mind control, damned lies or fun new party drugs.
And it's so elegantly simple, the way it's done; the way they're trapped in the strong and sinuous tales. So simple that it's absolutely impossible to explain...
But I can show you.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 02:57 pm (UTC)Seriously.
You should see about expanding upon this!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 12:04 pm (UTC)I have a chance now.
Uh, it's good. *grins* I'd compare it to Eric Burns, actually, and say that the lack of digressions* improves it substantially, while keeping the core of it the same. Moreover, it is not the same sort of thing at all, being distinctly yours.
Good work. I especially liked the sneaky way you twisted your prompt, oh yes. Any finanglaming with language gets me all happified.
There's something I can't put my finger on, though. In the centre, where you switch from how things were, to how things shifted, to how things are... It's not right. Unbalanced, perhaps? You have more build-up, more 'were' and not enough 'are.' I think. It could do with some more detail in the latter half.
I'd like to see you expand on this story, and do more in this vein. What happened to the dragons, anyway?
It's very good. My criticism is extremely minor. Also badly grammarfied, because I'm lazy tonight.
===
*It's a cute trope of his, but it's beginning to wear thin on me.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 12:23 pm (UTC)The prompt came pre-finagled; the wordplay was already done, and what's there is just interpretation. It was a fun prompt, too.
I kind of get that it's lighter toward the end, which really kind of breaks the theme. I might redo it one day and try to balance it out better, but this version's going to stay here just so because it actually was built in a day.
I'm not entirely sure what happened to them, but you could ask me to find out. :D
And, meh. Lazy is fine, or at least that's what I'm telling myself at the moment.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 12:30 pm (UTC)Oh, I wasn't suggestion you repair this post. My policy on my wordsketches is the same; they goes up as they are, precious. All rough and tumbly. My recent ones I've been very unhappy with, actually, with the same problem that I saw here: lighter towards the end.
And I think I do want to know what happened to the dwagons, and so have asked. In a somewhat demanding manner, but such is my way.
For my next request, I'll demand a novel-length piece set in the Firefly universe.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 12:47 pm (UTC)I didn't think you were; it was mostly there as... something. A reminder, maybe.
It's ok, I think I see what you mean. And now I'll have to go and decide; hmm. If I were a dragon, where would- ooh.
...novel-length? I don't get novel-sized plotses, unfortunately.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 12:50 pm (UTC)