A Fishy Tale, The Sequel - Fanfiction for H2O Just Add Water

Chapter 79

Chapter 79

That afternoon, Lewis spent hours, with the help of Emma, scouring through the many books on mythology that they had bought over the years; books whose mythology coincided well with what they had experienced in reality. They could not find anything specific to different kinds of mermaids or mutations.

They had not checked one book. Lewis felt quite stupid for not checking it first; the infamous purple book. He got Emma to open the secret pages within the book, the pages meant for mer-eyes only, the pages that always miraculously seemed to hold the answer.

“Here!” Emma spotted a heading halfway down the page – ‘Rare Diseases, Disabilities and Mutations.’ “That sounds like it right?” Emma asked. Lewis gestured for her to continue reading. There were numbered subheadings following – naming and defining diseases, disabilities and mutations, as well as explaining their symptoms, causes and effects.

They read down the list, reading the first few lines of what each one was. They found as they read that many of these rare conditions were untreatable, but didn’t really take enough time looking over each one to be experts. Lewis noted that amongst the specifically mermaid disorders, there were mutations that occurred to humans such as Cystic Fibrosis or diseases like Multiple Sclerosis. From a medical perspective, this was fascinating stuff.

‘Falla de Enerxía –from the Galician for ‘Power Failure.’ An Enerxian mer has an inability to access and use the powers they have. Effectively, when a mermaid or merman has no powers. Unknown cause. No cure or treatment.

 

Harmaa – from the Finnish for ‘Grey.’ When a mer is born with colourless or grey scales. No cure or treatment. Often mers with Harmaa, if they are self-conscious, will invest in scale paint or a colour charm. It affects one in one thousand mers.

 

Tailosis – When a mer cannot transform into human appearance once dry. Because many mermaids and mermen never venture onto land, sometimes it may never be known that they have tailosis.

 

Zerailia – from the Polish ‘zera’ meaning ‘zero’ and the English for ‘tail.’ Zerailia is an extremely rare mutation where the child is born with legs, without a tail, but still inherits powers. Although it is more common with children of hurmaids and morphe-maids, fully blooded mermaids can have Zerailia’

“What’s a hurmaid and a morphe-maid?” Emma asked.

“Oh, I’ve read stuff about that – there are different types of mermaids based on how you became one. A hurmaid is a mermaid with a human parent and a mer-parent, most commonly a mer from a nomadic pod, not a kingdom. And a morphe-maid is what you are – you transformed in a moon-pool,” Lewis said.