Om Nom Nom

Mermaids lure sailors to their deaths by being extremely pretty and alluring. Now they are typically more passive in the killing them regard. Usually waiting for them to drown or get bashed against the rocks. Some times mermaids will use water magic to get this done quicker. But the sailors usually die thinking it's their fault. Then the mermaids eat them.

Sirens lure sailors with their voices, and as a consequence, look more monstrous. They are also a fair bit more violent. They either drag the sailors under and wait for them to drown, or they just rip the sailor apart while they're alive like a fucking humboldt squid. Some times, if the siren is kind, they'll continue singing, leaving the sailor in a hypnosis like state where they don't even know they're dying.

Leviathans are the rarest. But they don't usually use much magic during hunting. They'll typically just grab a boat and drag it under. However, if a sailor locks eyes with one, the'll get that call of the void feeling, and might end up throwing them selves over board. This is not the preferred method of hunting though, and usually happens by accident. If a boat is too large, they'll summon a storm to capsize it. They are said to have some cannibalistic tendencies, so others often fear them. It's a misunderstanding of what's actually happening. Leviathans spend most of their time in the midnight and abyssal zones of the ocean, and there's not a lot of food down there. When a leviathan vores another, it's like a loan of energy. When the leviathan reforms, they are considerably smaller, and in exchange for allowing themselves to be vored, the one that vored them has to protect them until they grow to a large enough size again

Selikes are the odd one out. They don't really lure people, or drown them, or even eat them most of the time, for one simple reason: some selkies, were once humans who drowned themselves at sea. Selkies are however, extremely vindictive. If you slight one (usually by taking it's skin and forcing it to marry you), you'll likely have extreme misfortune for the rest of your life until you inevitably die a horrible death. Said death is often at sea, where other selkies, mermaids, sirens, or leviathans will eat the corps.

Now all these creatures have some level of shape shifting powers

Mermaids can take the form of a human for a limited time.

Sirens can take the form of a human for a limited time

Leviathans can shift in to a smaller version of themselves for a limited time. They can not take the form of a human.

Selkies have their seal form, a human like form with seal aspects (their skin is still partly attached to them), and a fully human form. And they can take both partial, and human forms for as long as they want.

Now all these creatures, with the exception of selkies, can not have kids with humans, due to incompatable anatomy. Mermaids, sirens, leviathans, and selkies in their seal and partial form, have an ovipositer plus vagina. Now, it's sheathed most of the time, and that lead to the beleif that these creaturs are always women, because sailors didn't see a dick or balls.

Selkies can only have kids with humans if they are in their fully human form. But they can still have kids with sirens, mermaids and leviathans, it's just more dificult.

On to the story

So before Zoey was born, her mother was being heavily pressured to find a husband and get married. One day, she stumbled across a colony of selkies having a naked beach party. And instead of ignoring it and continuing to date the normal way, she steels a selkie's skin, and forces him to marry her and eventual give her kids of which they have several. (Yeah Zoey's mom is not a good person).

If you know selkie myths, you can probably guess where this is going.

Now Zoey, and the rest of her siblings, loved the water, and the sea. But Zoey by far loved them the most. And she also loved her father.

Her father, despite the circumstances, loved his children too, but not as much as he wanted to return to the sea.

Her father's skin was kept in a hidden safe that only the mom had the code too. Now Zoey (I'm thinking she's about 10 rn), little autistic girl that she is, developed a lock picking hyperfixation. She was going around the house looking for stuff to test her skills on, found the safe, and successfully opened it. Her mom wasn't home at the time, so she went to show her dad what she found.

Her dad took the skin, said he needed to go out for a bit, and then left. It was taking every thing in his power not to yank the skin out of her hand, and bolt out the door.

Zoey's mom came home, saw the lock picking stuff, the open safe, and the lack of the dad. And thought the dad was the one who opened the safe and ran away. She tells her kids that their father just got up and left. Zoey was the only one who knew the truth.

With no husband, she decides to move back to korea. And that night, her ex-husband comes to her in a dream, and tells her to tell the kids the truth about their relationship, and to tell them they have a choice and can join him for a life under the sea if they want to and tells her how they can do that. And that she has a week to do this.

The mom doesn't listen. The father comes back in his partial form, and curses the mom so that she has to watch her entire family suffer horrible deaths, before finally being killed by the child that chooses the sea. The kids don't know this. And in an effort to prevent the curse from happening, she lives as far away from the sea as she can, and also tries to curb Zoey's interests away from the ocean.

It doesn't work, and in the process, drives Zoey away from her mom.

All her life, Zoey's had these intrusive thoughts about drowning herself. Not in a suicidal way, more like a call of the void kinda way. And they only got stronger and more frequent after the whole curse thing (but she doesn't know about that yet). She's also kinda repressed the finding her fathers skin memory, and thinks he just left.

When the story starts, she's a marine biology student (much to the dismay of her mother) working on her PhD, and doing field work. Because she loves the ocean, she always goes for walks on the beach at night. And one night, she hears singing. It's probably the most beautiful voice she's ever heard so she goes to investigate it.

It's coming from the water. Now it's night, and it'a not like Korea's oceans are warm, but cold water has never really bothered her, so she decides to swim out to it.

She still can't find the source, but then something grabs her leg and pulls her under. She struggles, kicks it in the face, and it lets go.

Now this shouldn't have happened. Rumi was still singing, and that put's humans under a hypnosis like effect. So Rumi tells Mira to shift in to human form and see if her beauty works on Zoey.

Mira surfaces, and while Zoey does think she's hot, she doesn't react in the way a human would to seeing a mermaid. This piques Rumira's curiosity. They talk for a bit, and Zoey leaves. And she wakes up the next day thinking it was all a weird dream. Until she hears singing again when she goes for a walk on the beach that night.

They get to know each other, and eventually Rumi and Mira reveal their inhuman forms, admit that they low key tried to eat her, but she didn't react how humans normally do, so they let her go.

Eventually, they have sex, Zoey lets Rumira deposits their eggs in her, as none of them think they'd be able to get fertilized.

Some time later, pregnancy symptoms start showing, Zoey takes a test and it's positive.

They are able to terminate the pregnancy btw, this isn't going to be a baby fic.

But like Rumira had their suspicions that there was something different about Zoey. And well, this confirms that Zoey was never fully human. And she has to come to terms with that.

Also she will eventually have to chose a whether to live on land or in the sea. It's something all half selkies go through if they find out.

Although, I think subconsciously, Zoey already has chosen the sea. She's has since she was young. Like she was devastated when she found out they weren't going to live with in walking distance of the ocean. She just doesn't want to admit it to herself, as she doesn't want to have to chose a side, and also because her girlfriends eat people.

Though I think Rumira can kinda tell the choice Zoey has made. Like when Zoey finds out what her mother did to her father, she straight up wants her dead. And it scares Zoey how easily she can turn on her family like that, but to Mira and Rumi, that's a pretty standard selkie response.

There's also the fact that Zoey's not as pissed about the whole eating people thing as she should be. Like yeah, it's off putting to her, but like she thinks she's more okay to her cause "they're just doing what's natural to them." The typical human response would be to go to spread the word and genocide the entire species.

She also actively encourages them to do their whole "eating people thing" when she sees sailors dump a fin-less shark over board. (Remember what I said about selkies being vindictive as hell)

Because I'm incredibly mentally ill

And of course. It's a catch and release