Some say that the mermaid was a woman cursed. Many have speculated that she loved too hard, a gross obsession that ends only in disaster. Others believed she did not love enough, her vanity and arrogance the cause of her downfall. Her curse, a living breathing thing, pulled her from the village into the waters where it took away her humanity.
Furious at her fate, some say the beauty came back to have her vengeance, but her curse was thorough. The moment she left the water, her beauty warped. Fearful, the villagers rallied and chased the monstress back into the sea.
Those villagers never saw her again, but stories of a beautiful sea maiden that became a horror on land spread like wildfire. Many set sail to be, 'The hero who killed the monster,' but naught a boat returned. Years came and went, and stories grew luring even the wealthy and slavers to hunt for such elusive prey.
Alas It was not until Ymri of Day's Isle, returned, mermaid shackled to the prow of the trireme, that fantasy became a reality. When she was pulled onto land once more her form distorted, leaving a monstress in place of the beauty, all knew that Ymri had spoken the truth.
He was rewarded a cage to keep his prize, and for years Ymri would visit the rocky coasts, where a beautiful mermaid lived. The man grew grey and stooped, yet the maiden never aged. Many speculate that he disappeared when the mermaid escaped from her prison, rotted away by the sea and Ymri could not bear the loss. Others say that he grew too reckless, and the mermaid stole the key in a moment of passion fleeing into the safety of sea.
Over the years, other mermaids were found. Some enslaved and worked to expand kingdoms until they withered away, others the entertainment of the rich, while some mermaids' monstress forms decorated some noble homes like hunting trophies.
Seductress. Slave. Monstress. Trophy. Such was to be the fate of mermaids.