The two stories that follow come from a mixture of several ideas I had read about Black mermaids. They are a part of a short story collection I have been working on for about two years now. What you need to know is that the place mentioned in the first story, Ladouleur is a magical island that has suffered from the effects of imperialism and colonialism but fought back. On this island, the fairytales we grew up with are rewritten and transformed. I hope you enjoy the following two stories from Ladouleur, where I am merely a scribe.
Off the coast of Ladouleur lived something beneath the waves. Deep, deep, deep down, where the sun can no longer penetrate and the animals’ glow and the volcanos bubble, down further than any anchor can reach is a city. No, it is a kingdom. This is where the Dûàlamer live. A people that were owed to the sea.
The Dûàlamer were birthed from a need for survival. Their pregnant, land walking, ancestors were stolen and brought aboard enemy ships. There they were tied down. They were forced into labor. In their panic and fear the women then threw themselves over the edges of the boats. For they knew it was better to drown beneath the waves than to live within chains. The children of those women were born beneath the tide.
The fetus’s amniotic fluid mixed with the salt of the ocean. The gill slits that should have disappeared had they been born naturally grew and started to filter the oxygen out of the water. They tore themselves from the bodies of their drowned mothers and sunk deep down to the bed of the ocean. The children dragged the corpses of their mothers behind them as they went. Underneath the waves, they grew and evolved.
The Dûàlamer had fiery red hair and deep dark skin. Their mouths were wide and filled with sharp teeth. Their skin had grown darker in the ocean’s depths. It was now taupe and glowed slightly with ingrained bioluminescence. They were blind as the day they emerged from the womb, yet their eyes were as large as discs. They communicated through dance and sound. The movement of their bodies signified danger, home, food, safety, and joy. They manufactured drums from the carcasses of whales. Their vocal cords vibrate and travel through the water.
As the years passed, a society under the ocean was formed. The Dûàlamer became protective of the land that they had sunk to. They formed walls out of the coral to make their homes. A hot spring at the bottom of the ocean provided warmth and a place to gather around. They hunted the fish that swam near them and then used the bones as weapons. There was no distinct hierarchy, but there were the protectors and the protected.
The Dûàlamer were a fighting race of people. They swore off the surface for there was too much blood there. The history of the violence against their mothers was too fresh and too raw. Instead, they stayed and withstood the pressure of the deep. They warned their children to never venture past their land. They told stories of the horrors that lurked just beyond the horizon if they left. And for generations no one did.
You aren’t supposed to go to the surface.
You aren’t supposed to go to the surface.
You are not supposed to go to the surface.
This mantra has been drilled into Aralyn’s head since she was a child. The surface was dangerous. The surface was unknown. The surface was the home of their mothers and Aralyn had always been enraptured by the idea of visiting. The unknown called out to her. It thrummed through her veins and wound through her hair. Her father would move left and right and flutter about in anger if he knew where her thoughts were headed. If he knew just how badly she wanted to go beyond the little world she knew. She wanted to go beyond the dark. Her history was on that land.
Her father did not speak much of their origins. She doesn’t know much past her great-grandmother. However, her mother used to tell her marvelous tales, stories of their home, stories of Ladouleur. Aralyn’s mother would hum these rhythms into her scalp when she was just a baby, filling her mind with dances. When her mother passed on the tales stopped. Yet, when Aralyn’s father would sleep, and the oceans were calm and the fish floated by, Aralyn would dance those tales for herself. She would feel each story in her limbs and release them into the blue depth. Her extremities relayed the journey of her foremothers and how they came down to the sea for protection. The moves were second nature to her. She would lift a hand towards the surface and twirl it around. A triple spin here, a flip there. Her energy would only grow as the story continued. It was a conversation between herself, the ghost of her mother, and the open sea.
And then someone discovered her night trysts.
It was an elder of her home, Uzuri. Uzuri haunted the rest of their people for she had been the only one of them who had been to the surface. She never told anyone of what she had seen there but it shadowed all her movements. She never danced. She never hummed. She simply floated existing somewhere between the past and the future but never in the present. Never join in on the music or the celebrations of their home.
Uzuri catching Aralyn was not a surprise. Truly Aralyn should not have expected her movements to remain hidden for she took too much joy in expressing her history. The surprise was when Uzuri danced back. She took hold of Aralyn’s arms and vibrated her vocal cords with her. It was exuberant. Aralyn had not been able to share this dance with anyone and now she found a kindred soul.
When their dancing came to an end, Uzuri simply held Aralyn in her arms, as if basking in a rare moment of contact. It was a rare peace that almost calmed Aralyn’s raging desire for adventure. Almost. Then she remembered who she was dancing with.
“Uzuri, you have been to the surface. Can you tell me what it was like?”
Uzuri swam back, startled out of her restful reverie. Her heartbeat started to race, and it was like the currents responded to her. She tried to swim away but Aralyn caught her arm.
Her next movements were desperate and pleading.
“Please tell me about the surface. Or tell me how I can go there. How I can see for myself.”
Uzuri stilled for a long moment. Her heart settled down. Slowly she grabbed on to Aralyn and began pulling her deeper into the ocean, away from her home. The water began to grow icy. The cold shocked Aralyn deep to her core. She had never felt this cold before, never been quite this deep.
When they slowed down, Uzuri placed Aralyn’s hands on the sea floor. She began to feel around the ground for some time before finding a smooth bone. With a start, Aralyn realized this was neither whale nor fish bone. Instead, it was something stranger, something completely foreign yet familiar at the same time.
Uzuri began to move again.
“These are all that remains of our foremothers. The women who threw themselves out of the jaws of death and into the ocean so that we may have life.”
Picking up a bone from the floor she raised it above her head.
“They did not look like us. They lived on the surface. But they were stolen in the night and in turn, our home was stolen from us.”
She touched the bone to Aralyn’s forehead, and she began to hum. Aralyn went from freezing to burning to boiling.
“You must be sure that you want to go to the surface. You won’t come back unchanged. Or unscathed. You need to be sure.”
“I’m sure.” And she was sure. She needed to do this. She needed to know that the stories were real. She needed to know the source of her mother’s tales. Nothing was more important than that. Nothing was more important than being able to feel it with her own hands.
Uzuri took the bone and tapped it on her temple. Once. Twice. Three Times. Aralyn’s heartbeat synched to the rhythm Uzuri created on her head. Pressure started to build up around Aralyn’s body. Her ears popped. She shot in a stream of water to the surface. Her fleshed compressed. Then stretched out and elongated until finally, it snapped back, conforming once again to her body.
She was launched onto the sand. But she had never felt sand like this before. She tried to call out, but speaking was something new. Something strange. She had never felt anything other than water flow over her vocal cords. The air was too dry. Sight was even more overwhelming. She couldn’t make sense of the new images that were assaulting her eyes. Her once webbed hands now grabbled for purchase on the sandy ground. It was too much. Everything was too still and too wobbly all at once.
When her world came into focus once more, she was startled again. Something vibrant grew out of her head. A color she had never seen before. It was hot like the sun on her skin and the burning sand under her knees. It was beautiful. It was heavy, weighed down by the water that it had floated in all these years. It tickled her ears. It was something new.
She tried once more to stand, and she tipped forward but was able to right herself. She took one step forward, then another, then another. Before she knew it Aralyn was back on the ground. She had only been moving one foot and somehow found herself in a split. She grew frustrated. Her hands began to thump on the ground. The ground started to thumb back. Except it wasn’t a language she was familiar with.
Sounds came out of nowhere.
There were strange beings grabbing her. Their hands touched her hair and they screeched at her. She had never experienced anything like this. She had tried to communicate. She tried to dance for help, but more hands were on her. Keeping her still. Rendering her motionless.
They were taking her somewhere. Aralyn blinked. Or she assumed she blinked. She had never felt the sensation of her eyes being covered. It was startling and distracted her from her situation. It was not long before she was brought down to the ground. The beings who had once held her backed away suddenly.
Aralyn realizes these people, are like the bones in the ocean. They are the ones starring in her mother’s story. She examines them. Their skin was lighter than her own and their hair did not have the same vibrant hues as hers, but they curled the same way. Their noses were the same. In an instant, it was like Aralyn was seeing her own mother again. It only lasted for a second, but it was enough. These were the ones she was looking for.
One of the people in the crowd came forward. Her mouth moved but Aralyn could not decipher the sounds. She did not look angry. Just intrigued. Another voice rang out from the crowd. Although Aralyn could not understand this one either the timbre felt different. It was deeper. Scarier.
The sound of the people's voices rose. More noises left the other mouths. It was cacophonous. It was terrifying.
But there was something there. A rhythm in their speech. One that Aralyn has known her whole life. Before she knew it, she was moving. Her legs and arms made jagged awkward shapes as she tried to get aquatinted to moving without heavy pressure around her body. She became fluid again.
The shouts of the people had quieted down as they watched her. Familiarity glimmered in their eyes. From the back of the crowd, a small child burst forth. In his hands, he held a single drum. He began to beat out the rhythm that lived in Aralyn’s head.
Other children joined him soon after. They brought their drums, and their voices formed a chorus. Aralyn wished she could join in their song, but she did not have the words, so she just continued to move. Hands in the air, a triple twirl. Her body took over and she began doing steps she could not do in the sea. Her feet stomped on the ground. Her hips swayed. Before she knew it the others had joined. Despite not even knowing them, their steps were in sync. As if they had been dancing together their whole lives.
The dance was in their blood just like it was in hers. She felt so connected in this moment. As she watched them dance, she realized they were speaking to her. She doesn’t know if they know that she can finally understand what they are saying. They had joined her song. They were welcoming her to Ladouleur. She had come back home.
Her cheeks were wet.
Her eyes were leaking.
Another new feeling.
This was the surface.
This was home.
Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think of Aralyn and if you know what the name of her people means! These stories have a special place in my heart and I can’t wait to share some of the others with you!