How DaisyMer Ruined My Birthday

Short Stories

By Fia

I’m Fia, and I spend my summers in Ireland with my family, and that means I always get to spend my birthday with my grandparents, which is much better than being back in stuffy old Rome with my parents, who just don’t understand anything.

It was my 30th birthday! Now, when you’re a regular old boring human, this means your life is pretty much over. But I am a Sidhe, and that means I have a really long lifespan. It also means I’m not even considered an adult until I am something like 100 years old. All those basic bitches I’m forced to socialise with at home with the rents would pure shit themselves if they had any idea how old I was. I know more than they do about life, anyway: I don’t understand why they still treat me as if I’m a child.

The great thing about having a whole Irish Sidhe clan in your background is that not only are most Royal Sidhe old and wise (well, some of them are wise, anyway), but they also have huge amounts of money.

In my grandparents’ case (I mean, they’re probably technically my great-great-great-I don’t know how many greats-grandparents actually, but it’s just easier to call them “grandparents”), that means a huge estate on the sea in Sligo with your own sunken viewport so you can view all the sea creatures. Grandfather uses magic to keep some of them there all the time, and one of those creatures is DaisyMer.

Maybe DaisyMer has her own name: that’s just what I named her when I was little, and it’s stuck. Mers aren’t real people, anyway. Grandfather says you might as well give an octopus a banging top half, and then you’d have as many brains as a Mer has to begin with. He always makes me giggle.

But anyway. Grandfather gave me this amazing new camera for my birthday! And I couldn’t wait to go down to the aquarium level and take some pictures of DaisyMer!

But that ungrateful bitch didn’t show! Grandfather takes care of her! He feeds her! Why do you think there are all those pretty fish down there? he said. It’s not because they’re pretty fish! It’s because DaisyMer eats them raw! That used to scare me when I was little. Would DaisyMer eat me raw too, I wondered? Probably, Grandfather said. Luckily for you, there’s 25 centimetres of marine-tempered glass between you and her. She’ll never get in! Well, that was a relief!

I waited and waited, and DaisyMer didn’t come. So finally, I took my shiny new camera upstairs and took some photos of Strandhill instead. It wasn’t as nice as pictures of DaisyMer would have been, but whatever. I guess she just didn’t care that it was my birthday.

In fact, it was days before I saw her again!

I was so excited when I saw her I forgot to be angry. ‘DaisyMer, DaisyMer! Where’ve you been? I got a new camera for my birthday’! I held it up to show her.

Of course, she can’t understand me, but I talk to her anyway. It’s like talking to a hamster. It just makes you feel better to talk to them.

She gave me a big smile—that’s how I know she’s happy to see me. I turned on the intercom and asked Grandfather to release some new fish so she could have a treat. Maybe some oysters! I love to watch her scoop the oysters out of their shells with her long claws.

I knelt down right by the glass so I could be closer to her. ‘Now, DaisyMer, I am very unhappy with you’, I said. ‘You missed my birthday. That was not very nice. I wanted to take pictures of you on my birthday, and you weren’t here! I had to take pictures of the beach‘. I scowled.

*Very little is less attractive than a pouting Mer.*

Well, that put her into a pout. Even though Grandfather says she can’t understand what you’re saying to her, she does recognise tone of voice, kind of like a dog. She went and lay down on her rock. She didn’t even poke the fish to make them go away. She just stared at me, like there was something wrong with me.

Maybe it’s because I’m thirty, and that means I’m entering my faedolescent phase, but something about that pouting just made me angry. ‘Look’, I said, and I could feel the tears coming, ‘We don’t have to take care of you, you know. You could try your luck out in Sligo Bay, with all those fishermen. You’d probably never make it to the North Atlantic, you know. It’s not like you have a real family or anybody to protect you. You’re the only Mer I know, and you’re just so ungrateful. We give you everything, and you can’t be bothered to show up on my thirtieth birthday‘? Yeah: I was crying now. I was so upset I thought about throwing the camera at the glass, but a) Grandfather would scold me because this was not a cheap camera; and b) It would mean she won because she made me angry. Never mind that I was angry already.

Then, DaisyMer did something I’ve never seen her do before.

She straight-up snarled at me, lifted herself off the rock, and flicked her tail so that it looked like she was flying at the glass! I jumped back, she scared me so much. Knocked over one of the benches.

I forgot I’d left the intercom on, and Grandfather came down via the lift to see what was wrong. He assessed the situation pretty quickly: there was DaisyMer, still looking like she wanted to come through the glass and eat me, and there I was, on the floor, backed up against the toppled bench, with tears in my eyes.

‘There there, a stór‘, he said. He bent and put a hand on my shoulder. His eyes narrowed as he looked back out into the aquarium. His voice got that tone it gets when he’s glamouring mortals or animals. ‘Now see here, you filthy thing’. His words were slow. I had to listen in the other direction the way he taught me. I don’t know what else he said, because I was listening in the other direction, but when he finally finished she was back on her rock with a lovely smile on her face. ‘That’s better’, he said. ‘Now how about some nice oysters? Fia said you should have some, since it was her birthday and all’.

We picked the bench back up and I promised I wouldn’t tell Grandmother. ‘She’s soft for these creatures, you know’, he said conspiratorially. I like having secrets with Grandfather, so I agreed. ‘Now you take some more pictures, and then when you’re done, we’ll go down to Strandhill for some ice cream, hey’?

Ooh. I like ice cream.

Author’s Note:
I’m well aware that Mers are thinking and reasoning creatures. This is a slice of life story from the point of view of a fae child who’s been enculturated to believe fae, specifically Sidhe, are more than just a little bit better than everyone else. I’m pretty sure DaisyMer (not her real name) knew exactly what this entitled little girl was telling her!

Notes & Credits:

Items Featured at Enchantment’s Siren’s Song:

Hair and Crown: Analog Dog (natch!): Aura
Eyes: Lovelysweet, Tialoc Eyes
Eyeshadow: Yoshi, Pearl Eyeshadow; layered over
- Rubedo, Siren
Lipstick: Rubedo, Siren
Necklace: Lantian Flox, Poseidon Triden Necklace
Gills: Aerth, Calysto Gills & Materials
Bra: Antaya, Scale Bra “Siren”
Tail: Krature, Princess Applier for Riptide Mermaid Tail
Claws: QE, Leviathan Claws, Siren

Other Fancy Stuff:

Base Skin: Moth & Moon, Ianthe, in Selki Tone (Available at the Moth & Moon Main Store)
Wet Hairbase: Bloom, Wet Hairbase v2
DaisyMer (probably not her real name!) was styled on a Legacy Perky body with a Lelutka EvoX Avalon head and the RipTide Mermaid Tail from Aii & Ego.
DaisyMer’s poses: Dovely, “Siren”
Photo Backdrop & Fia’s Poses: FoxCity, Aquaria Backdrop, and FoxCity, Fascinate Pose Set.