[ The forest is cold and unpleasant, and so far Wrathion has neither seen a single useful flower nor learned anything of interest. Icy leaves crunch under his feet, and the pervasive silence is periodically broken by unpleasant sounds.

He is thinking, somewhat against his will, about feet. About Haiva's obsession with feet. About the siren, or whatever it is. About the scaled creature in the lake. Their walking is blessedly silent as his mind whirrs, until finally he breaks it: ]

There's a tale, in my world, told by the sailors of the sea port Boralus about mermaids. The sailors of Boralus associated mermaids with disaster, claiming they were often seen before a storm. Boralus itself relied heavily on fishing, on sea trade, and it used tidesages to guide their vessels. Tidesages can tame the wind and waves, bring vessels through unpleasant weather by sheer force of will.

[ He glances aside at Lan Wangji. ]

Bear with me, there is some relevance. The story goes that one day, a tidesage by the name of Ery drew the attention of a young mermaid named Halia. Halia swum alongside Ery's ship and Ery instructed her crew to leave the mermaid be. The mermaid courted her, and eventually they met and spoke properly. Ery waded out into the water to offer Halia a gift, and Halia begged Ery to come live in the sea with her. When Ery explained she could not, for she cannot breathe underwater, the mermaid assured her she could. That if she cut her feet and waded into the water, she would grow a tail and become a mermaid.