✧ | ruins

[apprentice_]

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[apprentice_]

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”beignets?”

“yes, beignets. i used to eat them all the time back home, but there aren’t any local shops around here
to buy them from.”

pearl eyes. ethereal and glowing against an otherwise dark appearance. they were hateful eyes once,
more often only sullen these days, but in this particular moment they were confused more than anything.

the witch laughed. she did often, and when asked why, she once answered because im happy. you make
me happy.

it’d been awhile now since this land last heard her laugh.

it’s been awhile since they heard her laugh, and they suppose that’s why they suddenly recall this moment
in time. they feel as though it was a dream, and they’re just waking. for as long as they knew her, it seems
so brief in their memory. they remember the first time they met.

they remember how angry they were.

anyone would be angry. you’re born alone, at the heart of a city with no ruler, no people. a city that’s half
submerged in water, but that isn’t weird to you. it’s all you’ve ever known. you might even think you’re a
fish for all you know, because you certainly have a tail like them, and there’s not much else to compare
yourself to. mostly only birds, sometimes deer on the outskirts of the city, where the water meets land, but
you think you look more like the fish than anything.

they were alone, but they weren’t lonely. they didn’t know to be lonely. the wildlife kept them company
anyhow.

years or even months didn’t exist; only days. even then, they were so fleeting that the mermaid didn’t often
notice the days passing. they didn’t notice their water blacken, or the air thicken with fog, and they didn’t
notice when their own form became something sickening.

they did notice, however, how enraged they had become. all the time, they were angry, and they didn’t know
why, and they didn’t care. it was so hard to think through their muddled thoughts. they gave into this rage.

and then they hurt someone.

the first someone they’d ever met. a young woman, visually older than them by at least a decade, sitting at
the edge of the water. surprised to see something moving, startled when it lashed out at her. she stumbled
back and held herself, her form shaking, and yet… she hadn’t ran.

she explained once that what she’d seen in the water that day wasn’t a monster, but a child.
she explained another time that she was much younger than the mermaid, chronologically, but aged must
faster. the mermaid, at that time, had not understood.

they didn’t understand most things she said to them. at first, they didn’t even understand the words,
because any spoken language they’d heard before was spoken by birds and wildlife. but as any child does,
they learned. to communicate, though, was a slower process. they understood the words, and could speak
them, but for so long they could only react in resentment.

the woman, then, taught the child a spell; a sort of meditation.

draw a circle around you. whether it be an indention in the sand or light magic surrounding you, draw a
circle. close your eyes. and let your energy flow; let the circle redirect it, untangle it, and give it back to
you. breathe.

and open your eyes.

[apprentice_]

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visit paradise! where the water is pure and the sky is blue, where there is music to soothe your soul! need
a well earned vacation? this is the place for you!

that’s what the sign just outside the city used to say. it read like the entire place was one big resort, and
maybe it was once, before it flooded. the citizens abandoned their home, and in truth, they were lucky to.
ongoing wars were making it an unsafe place to live, and one day suddenly the country was laid in ash.

enere is the force that runs throughout the universe. it might be considered your very life force, or maybe
only the energy used to harness magic. this enere comes in many forms, and when corrupted, it’s a weapon.
it turns the land black, it creates monsters. if you were to utilize this destructive energy, surely you would
win the war.

an explosion goes off, and there’s decay in its wake.

the air is foul, it makes you sick to breathe, and where it’s the worst, the government prohibits entry. the
land creeps with hatred, and it spills into the water. nature reclaims what is hers, but she loses control and
creates atrocities. a sea creature is born, already influenced by the pollution. its very body and soul created
from the enere that injured the land, it continues the war’s work in destroying. it doesn’t mean to, but over
the years its body matures and begins to release a thick liquid, turning the water blacker than even before.

the animals leave too, and their single existence is all that there is.

they meet then a witch, who teaches them what it is to be alive. she is all that they have ever met, because
this is a deserted land; she tells them that she’s created a small garden nearby, where her plants purify the
air just enough for her to live. she plants a few seeds everyday, and in between that work, she speaks to the
mermaid. calms them when the corrupted enere within is rampant, tells them stories of the world outside
this city.

they never noticed her growing old. not when her hair turned gray, or when wrinkles pressed into her face,
or when she complained about her aching back. she commented once that she missed being young, and only
then did the mermaid think that she had looked differently only a short bit ago. they, on the other hand, had
grown into young adulthood at most.

when she said goodbye that day, they didn’t know why she cried. they asked if she was sad, and she only said
that she was glad to have met them. that she had never meant to stay so long, but that she’d have had it no
other way. she asked them to take care of the trees and flowers she’d been growing for so long, and they
agreed.

fifty something years and still the mermaid didn’t understand her or her emotions. their own were always so
awful until they meditated the way she taught them, and they found then they never felt much at all.

but, looking back, they felt something that day. they felt content, because there was an unusual breeze
bringing in fresh air.

[apprentice_]

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out at sea, the air is always fresh. always windy, always clean. every fourteen seconds the mermaid
pauses and looks above. it’s been seven weeks since they’ve left their gulf, and still the sheer blueness
of the sky surprises them.

“and? what did you do then?” a commanding voice. one that held more curiosity than compassion, but if
it were frightening, the mermaid didn’t know to be frightened.

“i left.”

their own voice floated in a way that didn’t seem right for a creature of their complexion.

the captain they spoke to closed his eyes and placed his hand over his mouth. he was probably thinking,
or in pain, maybe. the sea monster couldn’t tell these things. suddenly and boisterously, the captain
spread his arms and greeted, “well then, welcome to alveryion! you got a name, kid?”

the mermaid, for once, is not silent because they’re distracted by the sky above or the fish below. they’re
silent because, in all truth, they have no answer. they were born with no name, and lived with no name.
when they had first met the witch, she had not introduced herself, nor had she asked for the mermaid’s
own introduction. only in talking about people she’d known had the concept of names ever came up
between the two of them.

she had still never given them her name, but perhaps she gave them their own.

the witch had had a nickname for the mermaid. she said that, in her tongue— not the one she’d taught the
mermaid, as hers was a dying language— the word simply meant life, but the context was more along the
lines of the one who gives me life. she called the mermaid by this term often, and so it was as close to a
name as any.

“evera.”

“we’re glad to have you, kid!” he still called them kid.

alveryion was about as much like a sea kingdom as there was in these parts. truly, it was hardly a kingdom
at all, but it functioned as one. it was just a huge fleet of boats tethered together. bridges between ships
made of planks of wood, residential boats that resembled shanty towns, watch towers built around cranes.
makeshift was the word, and still the place bustled w people from all over the world. they’d hop on when
alveryion floated by their country, and hop off whenever next it met land.

their leader was just called “the captain,” a man who by no means held a rank anywhere near a king’s, and
yet for the importance of alveryion in the trading between countries, he might as well have been one.

he was an interesting man. but then, to evera, everyone was interesting. when they first left their gulf, they
traveled the coast. they didn’t know where they were going, and so spent most days just swimming. more
than anything, they thought about how unusual it was to see fish and the sun again. a long time ago, their
city had seen both; they weren’t sure when the fish had left, or when the fog had grown so thick that it
blocked the sun.

these waters were warm.

they arrived, some couple weeks later, at a coastal town. it was sometime in the night, and one sailor spoke
to another on the docks about alveryion soon arriving. and boy, were they sailors, because in spotting the
sea creature drenched in apparent oil, the words they spouted were not ones in evera’s dictionary. which
was. an interesting experience, to say the least.

they hid under the docks until alveryion came near. they think, in that time, they became somewhat of a
local legend among kids and sailors alike.

following a boat to alveryion was easy. making an appearance was… less easy. the first person to spot them
sitting in the water, pondering their situation, was a young girl. she, instead of screaming, announced point
blank that there was a “foul beast” in the water, garnering a shocked and confused crowd, and soon enough,
the captain too.

that, too, was interesting. whatever works.

some long and slow explanation later, they strike a deal. evera will help alveryion’s fishermen in deeper
waters, and help their treasure hunters in shallow waters. whether it be several months or a couple years—
only the sea knew which it would be— whenever alveryion next circles back to this region, they’d send with
evera any willing travelers back to their gulf.

they’d continue the witch’s work.

[apprentice_]

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the witch asked why evera still resided in the gulf. “you could leave. there’s nothing stopping you.” she,
too, could leave if she chose. but still she was here.

evera answered that they wouldn’t know where to go.

“you could go anywhere. there’s an entire world out there, and there’s nothing to tether you to any one
place. you’re lucky in that way.”

they shrugged, and said that the oil that spilled from them would follow. that anywhere they went, they
would pollute, the way they did their city.

“you’re just making up excuses. you may have been born in a world that’s treated you unkindly, and
taught you to act a certain way, but that doesn’t mean you can’t change. i think you’re afraid, and you
don’t know it.”

these words were puzzling. evera’s very being was a pollutant, and that was not something they knew
could change. and even more so— fear? they think, awhile ago, before they met the witch, they were
afraid, and maybe that’s why they were so angry all the time. but now, they rarely felt anything. not fear,
or anger, or happiness. the witch told them it was probably because of their meditation; it was a spell to
calm their enere and their emotions, and maybe it worked too well. they were almost apathetic for it.

so they probably weren’t afraid. that’s all.

the witch continued, “so then, you worry about polluting the water? you care about that sort of thing?”

questions about the self were evera’s least favorite, but they were the questions the witch asked the most.
evera never knew immediately how to answer. they didn’t know who they were, because first they felt
anger, and then nothing, and in their tiny portion of the world, they’d been introduced to so little. they
didn’t so much as know their favorite color.

they took a breath. “when it was just me, a long time ago, there were fish here.” they looked to the witch
to make sure that was the word, because they’d only ever described them to her. she nodded. “and when
the water turned bad, they left. and i miss them.”

“so you just miss the fish is all?”

“i miss a lot of things.”

[apprentice_]

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the schools of fish in the vastness of the ocean were unlike what evera had seen in their home; they
realized in short time that they had never known their city in a state of cleanliness. by the time they
were born, the water was already dim, and the wildlife populations were a fraction of what they had
probably been. this thought occurred to them several times a day, because at the time of leaving their
gulf, they hadn’t even begun to process it.

now it was all they thought about.
bright blue waters, warmth, life. fish and bird and person alike, they could feel the presence of every
creature in the way the world moved. it wasn’t the stagnation they were used to; they had only ever
tasted death in the air, and now they tasted life— and salt.

“you gonna stare into the sun forever, kid? get a move on.”

evera blinked, and near went blind from the light in their eyes. they spun around and further followed
the captain. he walked on the edge of the ship, and evera followed from the water between boats; this
was an inconvenience they knew well, as everyday they used to watch the witch walk away into the
woods to her house, and they could not follow.

“don’t get your head knocked off down there, there are a lot of moving parts.” the captain glances down
to look for a reaction, and only receives the vaguest concern. he laughed anyway. “not real emotive, are
you? no matter, at least the youngsters will leave you be. first thing’s first!” he claps his hands together.
“let’s getcha cleaned up, huh? looks like you fell victim to an oil spoil. haven’t heard of any recently, but,”
he gestures.

“actually,” evera hesitates. they don’t know why they do; maybe they think they’ll be turned away if they
speak the truth of their body. it’s not possibly something they could hide, though, and they stop following
the captain, stopping him as well. “i’m creating the oil.”

“hah?”

evera repeats what the witch told them of themself. it looks like it’s as much nonsense to the captain as it
is to evera, and they only hope they didn’t describe it too poorly. even when the witch spoke of it, she
seemed to know only some of the story.

“well,” the captain folds his arms, “we really can’t have you polluting the water. the ocean is sacred, you
know. we have to treat her well. i suppose… we could take you on board, for the time being. we have a
pretty powerful mage with us right now, so i’ll ask him if there’s anything we can do about your, err,
condition, but… im afraid if not, i’ll have to send you off.”

the man looked genuinely sorrowful. the witch had told evera before not to accept pity, and until now,
evera had never entirely known what pity was.

“i understand.”

[apprentice_]

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how many people does it take to lift a mermaid into a wheelbarrow? there’s no punchline, it takes four.
by the end of it, they’re wet with water and oil, and evera apologizes softly. there’s visible discomfort
in the way they sit in the cart, but they don’t complain. if anything, it looks like they have more to say
about the crowd of people surrounding them. between this and the docks, they think they’ve learned at
least one thing about the nature of people: word travels fast.

that, and people are cautious of the things they don’t understand.
the sailors talked of a monster. the alveryians stood several feet back. and evera didn’t fault them for it.
they, too, are apprehensive about the unknown, from leaving their home to swimming further down than
the light travels; the water back in their city wasn’t as deep as the ocean.

a crew member wheels evera around, and they can feel her gaze on them. they aren’t sure what she’s
thinking.

as much as they’ve disturbed the daily life of many of the townsfolk, still the city moves. mail carriers
dashing about, shopkeepers manning their stores and stalls, children playing kickball even in these early
hours.

they arrive in haste to their destination, leaving little time for evera to look more at the settlement. it’s
a few levels higher, a balcony overseeing the lower ships, and the ocean in the distance. there’s a small
pool set into the ground, and evera ponders why what’s practically an island needs a pool. never mind that
alveryion was often moving; no time to swim.

a man in white is already waiting for them by the time they’ve arrived. he has a particular energy to him,
and by the looks of it, he recognizes that evera has a similar energy. they put together that this is the aura
of a being that wields strong enere. whether the man holds his own curse, however, evera doesn’t bother
to look into.

the captain waves the both of them off, taking the assistant as well. “have fun and good luck!” he smiles,
and it puts an easiness in the air.

the mage turns his gaze down to the mermaid. “you’re evera?”

evera nods. “you’re… the mage?”

“your soul is corrupted.” blunt. he didn’t even answer, but he couldn’t have been anyone else. evera
nodded again. “you shouldn’t act so casually. you shouldn’t have come here.”

evera tilts his head, and there’s silence between them for awhile. their voice is quiet when they reply.
“why not?”

the expression the man gives isn’t one of anger, but, at evera’s best guess, exhaustion. “a corrupted soul is
one born of corrupted enere, of malice. left unchecked, that enere spreads, and pollutes its surroundings.
your presence endangers these people.” he points at the trail of oil left in evera’s path. “and that, by all
means, is an issue.”

“that’s why i’m here.”

“i know.”

“can you. . . fix it?”

the mage sighs, and rests his fingers on his temple. “no. nothing permanent. nature is more powerful than
man, and i can’t lift the curse she’s given you. you are what she’s created in turn for man’s hatred.”

“how do you know this?” evera rarely verbalized their questions, despite their bountiful curiosities. evera
rarely felt anxious, either, but here they were.

“i’ve lived a long time.”
he didn’t look very old.

“so you can’t help me?”

“i can try, if you can tell me why i should.”

evera pauses. presses their lips together. thinks. “i don’t know.”

the man’s face softens. it’s not a smile, but it’s kind. “at least you’re honest, if nothing else. listen, i
can’t cure you, or anything of the like. but there’s a spell that can be used to cleanse your enere. it’s
not permanent, so you’ll have to find someone to cast it again when it wears off.”

“you can’t do it again?”

he laughs. “i don’t live here, unfortunately.” he takes the wheelbarrow closer to the pool, and helps to
lower evera in. “i heard you’re trying to gather people to clean up the pollution from the enere bomb.
that’s why i’ll help you.”

he waves off any response before evera can give one, and he circles the pool. he draws a rune with light
itself, surrounding the mermaid. he uses magic in a way that’s smooth and pure. evera has only ever
performed simple spells, and their magic has always felt rough and uncoordinated— powerful, but
disastrous.

they stopped really using magic the first time they truly lost control of it.

a glow emits from the runes, from the water, from evera. the man closes his eyes, he’s focused. and
suddenly, there’s not pain that evera feels, it’s— it’s the absence of pain, they realize. never had they
thought their body ached, but lord, every second that passed was weight lifting from them. it was easier
to breathe, easier to think. this spell, in some form, resembled their own for meditation, if only stronger;
it’s not just rearranging their enere but purifying it, relieving their mind and their body.

the light dimmed. they touch their face.

“they’re pink!” a little girl yells from her spot on another balcony.

“you’re pink,” the man repeats.

“huh?” evera looks at their hands, then spins to look at their tail. “so i am. i’m pink!” they look up at
the man, and there’s excitement in their eyes— their, notably, very blue eyes. “why is that?”

“i guess, because. . . corrupted enere changes not just the soul, but the mind and body. what we were
seeing was probably your body under the influence of enere. this is what you’d look like if not for the
enere.”

“it worked,” they whisper, and there’s genuine cheer in their tone.

“sure, but you’re still covered in oil.” the man walks away, into a doorway to the side. when he exits,
he tosses a sponge at evera. more of a throw, really. it hits them square in the face. “get scrubbing.”

[apprentice_]

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they like blue.

they decided this when, of all things, a child asked for their favorite color. they looked at the sky, and
they looked at the ocean. blue from all angles. and they quite liked it that way. much prettier than the
muddy purples and grays of their gulf— their swamp, they’ve come to think of it as, in comparison to
the open sea.

the captain has been having them spend a lot of time at a distance from alveryion, following fishing ships
and treasure divers. the latter of which evera seemed especially good at, and they attribute it to their
home town being one big buried treasure. there had been a lot of old junk there they’d find; never knew
what any of it was, or if it was worth anything.

a fisherman waves as evera returns with a net full of miscellania. she rummages through their findings,
pleased with what bit of it was valuable— only a portion, as evera had no honest clue what was treasure
and what was trash, but they had a knack for picking the best among the worst. guess they were cleaning
the ocean a bit while they were at it, even if only incidentally.

“good day’s work as always, evera.” she tosses a small pouch at them. “there’s your pay for the week.”

having a job is still bizarre to them. they had planned on working only in return for travelers, as per their
deal w the captain, but he’d said to them, you’ve gotta eat, don’tcha? of course we’re gonna pay ya.

they catch the bag with a deal of enthusiasm. the fisherman laughs. “you’re quite the emotive one, you
know that?”

“am i?”

“you certainly are.”

they smile, and it’s not the first time. it took only two days after the purification spell for them to realize
it hadn’t played nice with their spell for meditation. that strangeness they’d been feeling was, in fact,
raw, unaltered emotion. no magic to suppress it. no corrupted enere to mess with it.

that night, they’d cried. for what reason, they could hardly tell. they longed for the company of the witch.
they felt homesick. they were experiencing so many new things, and they felt the fear they hadn’t allowed
previously. and, above all else, they were happy. because, for all the things that had happened until now,
they had lead up to this— adventure. community. life.

they denied having been sobbing when someone walked by, despite teary eyes. it was quite possibly the first
time they had ever felt embarrassed, and that made lesson number one about themself: they were emotional.
maybe that much had always been true, and it’d just been that they could only feel anger; now, they felt
everything, and sometimes they hated it.

one night, the mage caught them mid performing their meditation spell. the look he gave was a cold one, and
evera decided not to follow through with the spell. they hadn’t seen the mage since. it’d been a few weeks.
supposed he went back home. they considered, sometimes, using the spell. most so the days when they missed
the witch; but the least they could do for her was remember her. miss her.

so they did.

[apprentice_]

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the captain tells evera they’ve been aboard alveryion (or trailing it, at least) for three months.

their body begins to blacken, and they writhe in pain. they recall, suddenly, that the mage had said the
purification spell wouldn’t last forever. at some point, they’d forgotten about the warning. they were
enjoying themself, no time to worry about the inevitability of their body polluting itself again. they loved
the open sea, they loved talking to the locals, and the travelers, they loved learning new things.

they didn’t want to give that up.

when the captain asked if they were alright, evera shrugged off any twinge of pain they’d felt. a couple
days later, they could hardly move. they didn’t make an effort to hide the pain they were in, and those
around them recoiled.

the captain kept evera locked up for a few days, for their own safety, and, honestly, maybe the safety of
others. he didn’t really know.

he comes back with a woman, and even through blurry eyes, she reminds evera of the witch. the captain
speaks, i called in a personal favor. she’ll accompany you during your stay on alveryion, to tend to you.

she performs the spell and evera breathes again. but they still shake, and they scrub themself raw.

they scrub the oil from them everyday from then on, even when there’s no oil to scrub.

[apprentice_]

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“we’re nearing the coast.”

evera holds their breath. they’re tempted to yell, just yell, because it’s been a year since they’ve been
home. they’re not sure if what they’re feeling is excitement or dread. they’ve thought for so long that
they wanted to see home again, but in finally coming back, they think— was it ever home? black water,
foggy skies, silence. they don’t remember it as fondly as they had before.

it was the witch that made it a home, and she was gone now.

so they, too, would make it a home. not just for themself, but for everyone; for those they’d lead there,
and for the wildlife they hoped to restore.

“i’m gonna miss ya, kid. you sure did help out a lot.”

they turn to the captain, a look in their eyes like they didn’t know whether to be sad or not. it manifested
in a sort of melancholic smile. “thank you for having let me stay. i learned a lot.”

“oh?” the old man is half about teary eyed himself. “like what?”

“like… how to coexist with the ocean.” alveryion just about worshipped the sea— they thanked her for
every fish they took. “and i learned a lot about people.”

i learned a lot about myself, too. they don’t say it aloud.

the captain nods. “visit sometime, huh? i’m sure we still have a lot more to teach.” he turns his attention
to the distance. “better get going. this is about as close as we’ll get.”

evera takes their place alongside a small boat of volunteers. it starts up, and evera waves at the captain.
“see you again.”

he waves back.

only once does evera glance at alveryion as they depart. there’s a crowd lined at the edge of it, waving
them off— there are as many familiar faces as there are strangers. this, they thought, must have been
what the witch so often talked about in her rambles. this feeling.

they realized they were leaving home again. but they’d be back, someday.

“feeling emotional?” the voice of the woman mage that’d been purifying evera’s enere.

they laugh it off.