Fantasy/Mystical Creature AU Headcanons

[california_dreaming]

Things for starting PSLs. Each comment thread is a different fae/creature/mythical being concept. Message me if you'd like to play with a version.

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Siren!

[california_dreaming]

[california_dreaming]

Sirens aren't 'naturally' occurring fae/mystical creatures. Instead they are created by misfortune. In this case through the unhappy union of a Merrow (Merperson) and a Human. And which is which is pretty clear in Billy's case, now isn't it?

Under normal circumstances children who are mixed Merrow and Human blood live a life of balance between the two worlds until they reach majority by Merrow reckoning, roughly 18-20 years, at which time they choose one life or the other to turn to. However in some circumstances things go wrong, and the result is a Siren, a creature that those in the fae/magical world know on an almost instinctual level are just wrong.

Literal divides between their seaborne and landborne parent warps the fledgling magic of a young half-Merrow, no matter when they develop. Their blood becomes tainted by the darkness and misery of the environment they grow up in, warping their own essence in a way that must be addressed quickly through committing them to the sea or land at an early age and giving them peace, love, and support. In the situation where that doesn't happen their magic fully warps and a Siren is 'born', unable to become either a creature of land or sea, but of pain and grief and desire.

This desire becomes the root of the magic of a Siren as they mature, leading to the signature aura and ability to tempt those around them. Their magic makes them desirable to others, taking on looks that are considered compelling and breathtaking and suitable to the society and times they grow up in. This has varied greatly over history and geography, and in Billy manifests in ease in putting on lean muscle, his sun kissed skin tone, and the effortlessness that his curls fall beautifully in compared to the care he and his Merrow mother put into them when he was a child. Only his eyes, blue and piercing, are still a pure, unchanged Merrow characteristic that remains to him and is visible to all.

Because of course, Sirens are creatures with glamours on top of their native beauty and alluring aura. In Billy's case this magic hides the dusting of midnight blue scales along the back of his arms, back, and neck. It takes another fae/mystical creature/magic user to see through the glamour to what he really is, to pick out the characteristics. To notice how there are scars between his fingers where once his body would have developed webbing, and no scales on his legs where he once would have manifested his childhood tail. That part of his heritage, though, has long been lost to him, as has proper communion with the sea or the spirits of water that was his due as even a half-blood Merrow.

Classically Sirens are known for their ability to tempt, with body as much as with their voices. They are known to be able to shape and alter the wills of others, part of which is used to justify the dislike other fae/mystical creatures may have against Sirens. This is especially true because the only ones inherently immune to a Siren's compulsions are other Sirens, all Merrow, and their blood kin among Humans. Sure, other fae/creatures/magical beings can be resistant to the compulsion, but they can still fall under the sway of a Siren who knows how to use their powers.

Siren are often seen as a burden or threat to fae communities. This is a combination of the way their compulsions/tempting aura work, fear that Sirens will use their magic only to serve themselves and cause local problems, and of course distaste for the corruption that the creatures represent. Meanwhile Sirens keep their secret yearning for love and acceptance close to the chest, not wanting to offer yet another weakness out to the world. Therefore not many people are aware that most Sirens, at their core, use their powers to gain some small imitation of welcome/acceptance/affection that they inherently lacked in their childhood. A lack that, inherently, stole their rightful heritage from them.

Because of the risk of Sirens being 'born', many Merrows have ceased interspecies relationships with Humans, or hide their true natures from their spouses in hopes of providing a stable situation for their young. Therefore Sirens, already a rare species, have become even rarer. Finding them far from major waterways or bodies of water is exceedingly rare, as while they are not properly creatures of the waters/seas, they still yearn to be accepted by the waters of their youth just as much as they yearn to be accepted among human society without their magic forcing acceptance of them.

When it comes to Billy, his father is fully aware of what his mother was, and had not desired a child. The friction between him and Billy's mother started early enough that Billy's magic twisting took place exceedingly early, and he reached full Siren status at ten where most do not fall into it until far closer to their majority. This magic did make Billy's life a bit easier outside of his home, and he used it to find acceptance in school (and thus on the land and with humans) while he sated his formerly Merrow side with his love of surfing.

Sadly for him things went sideways with his father and after his father remarried, the family eventually moved far inland. Anger, bitterness, and grief only served to cause Billy's magic to grow more potent. While this serves him well in gaining a place in Human circles, it seemed to lose purchase on fae/mystical creatures/magic users as he grew older and more disenfranchised with the idea of finding a place in that community.

In theory while Sirens are quite content with serial monogamy, they actually prefer to mate for life. This is very rarely achieved due to their frequent inability to believe feelings held for them are genuinely held and not inspired by their magic.

Often Sirens are not familiar with proper etiquette, rules, and boundaries with other non-humans and non-mundanes as they are rarely welcomed in those communities and often inherently lose their Merrow parent. Only in rare cases do Siren children end up with their Merrow parent, but it was cases such as these which have lead to Human mythical and folklore representations of Sirens as beings that lure people to their deaths, as they will live on rocky shores to be near their Merrow parent in a more secure manner.

Selkie!

[california_dreaming]

[california_dreaming]

There wasn't exactly consent between Billy's mother and her marriage to Neil Hargrove. She was just a selkie whose pelt got stolen. For a while she tried to make it work. Back then Neil was charming, he was warm. He was a good partner. Surely he would give her pelt back, he could love her enough to let her go.

He did not. And having a child only complicated it. Billy became a second anchor around her neck. Still, she tried. She taught her son of the seas, taught him to swim and enjoy it. He even got a few brief, shining years with his pelt, watched over by his mother in a secret cove.

At last she could take it no more, and whispered to her son to hide his pelt where his father could never find it, outside of the house. She promised to come back when he was old enough for her to take to the sea, to head north, to get away from Neil.

Billy never saw his mother again. And his attempt at hiding things went poorly. His pelt even more so. So of course his father got his hands on it. And by the very nature of the magic locked in the skinchanger's pelt, it wasn't like he could steal it back. Nor was he willing to just run away like his mother had, doom himself to a human life.

But there was another problem. Because of course there was. Selkie are irrevocably bound to the oceans they are native to. Salt water is their essence, something they normally commune with in their seal forms. That was their home, that was how they were supposed to find their place in a pod, that was supposed to be their safety. Which it could never be for Billy. He didn't look like the average Selkie, with his golden brown pelt and his piercing blue eyes. They would never taken him away, shelter him in their community, help him figure out how to live as a human bound to the surf and cursed never to be a creature of it because of his father.

At least he had the shore. Swimming in the ocean, surfing, Billy spent every spare moment in the water he could. While it was no perfect replacement for his other form, the water around him sustained him, fed him in a way. Something Neil seemed to know. He would punish him with forbidding beach trips at first. Just a day or two. Then a whole weekend. Weeks at a time.

It's brutal, being a selkie who has to get by with only the water of brief showers in the house and at school. Skin gets easily damaged and dried out, hair gets limp, tempers rise. But he had the ocean. He could go there. He could have his moments.

Until he couldn't. Until moving. Until the worst punishment of them all. Inland. Far from seas, with a lack that could barely be counted as such. Billy was suddenly on a timer. Because while Selkie's hearts might languish in captivity or away from the ocean, their bodies can break down even worse as heartbreak starts to overwhelm them. For a time Billy staves off the degradation because he plans on going home. Becomes the top dog of the school, makes people see him, finds excuses to go to parties near the lake to get some water around him. Even becomes a life guard.

But truly, Billy's on a timer, and the longer he is away from the ocean, the more he's going to break down. And if, perhaps, he survives Starcourt and can't get home... Well, there just isn't enough hope anymore. And wasting away grows more and more likely with time, especially with Neil gone, his pelt MIA, and no one aware of Billy's secret...