#attheborderofoblivion

My father was a brave man. And the shark tastes good, and his skin is useful for many things, and his teeth make special charms or are added easily to weapons. So he took his club and hit it hard, once, twice, three times. Finally it stopped moving it’s great tail, and we took it home. I still wear the one of it’s teeth in my braids. 

I did not feel horrible about the death. We needed food, as always. They get tangled in the nets, and eat the fish inside them, and if we are not careful, the young serpents will be eaten by them. A predator simple became prey due to bad fate, a lesson to us all. 

But I doubt you want this technicality. You want real death, mer death. We are a small people, even for mer. So though we are all Maormer, we all still have to fight to survive. Away from the capital, most places are the property of a clan or village, with markers that tell you when you are entering another territory. For reference, my peoples land was known for having many lava fields that constantly opened up and changed, and my people themselves were called the Broken Tooth people. I am actually unsure why. But, enough background. 

As I said, we fight to make sure we survive, and sometimes that leads to war. Especially when a pāmu wēra washes ashore. They are giants of the sea, with great fat teeth and big heads. But their lower jaw is small, easy enough to turn into some weapon. And they have much meat, and much blubber fat, and good bones and strong teeth. They are much valued when they wash up on the shore, and it is enough to cause an... argument over resources. 

I was a teenager, flush with half healed tattoos and pointed teeth that still ached when I drank cold water or ate hot stew. But we were going to get the meat, and we ran into people from another village, further down the coastline. My fathers village was not a village that bred warriors, but my grandfather had been a great warrior, and had trained many. And besides. We are Maormer, warrior blood beats in our veins. 

The battle was joined, for neither side would agree to fair shares of the meat. we called out to the ancestors, showed our teeth, but of course that did not scare others who did the same. 

I still remember the shock that traveled up my arm as my wood blade struck the other mer in the temple. He had charged in, an older warrior. Maybe he had wanted this fight. No warrior wants to grow old and feeble and die in bed. To this day, I still don’t know if it was my skill that helped me strike, or his possible desire to leave this world. But I struck him in the temple, and he dropped to a knee, and then I gave him a blow between the eyes with the pommel of the blade. 

He did not rise. 

We won our battle, won the pāmu wēra meat and blubber. And my grandfather took me into his hut, and he tattooed the fingers of my hand himself, to show honour and glory claim to anyone who seen me and knew how to read the lines. 

Death has always been there for us. I do not believe in immortality, or that one can live forever. The constant truth is that death chases us, and any attempts to change that truth are merely lies. You have the opportunity to choose your death at times, but most of us have no option. It comes for us, bandit spear, old age, sickness, the clawing of hunger as you lay adrift on the indifferent ocean.