Mermay 22 9 - Bathhouse

The  great city of Ker-Ys was the jewel of the North, a powerful city where  the Bediz and the Fae lived together, achieving great things.  But  treachery and hate brought destruction to the Beacon City, and a great  storm sank it beneath the waves.  Only Ahes Dahut, the Princess of  Kernev, remained, trapped by a powerful curse in the form of a mermaid  in the silent city beneath the waves.  Driven by her loneliness, Ahes  sought to recreate the spell that cursed her, transforming other lonely  souls into mermaids, rebuilding her city and her family.

Isra  fancied himself a force within the upper classes of Iram of the  Pillars, a wealthy spice merchant on the rise, with connections from  Pharos to Naoned, flush with gold and silver, ready to make his name.   To that effect, he purchased a remote Oasis, deep in the Shifting Sands,  overseeing the construction of a grand villa of pools, fountains and  gardens, filling it with exotic foods, animals and slaves from all  across the worlds. When he saw Maireid, a Marie-Morgane captured from  the Northern Barbarians, he needed her, showering the slaver with gold  and taking the mermaid deep into the desert.  But Maireid was clever and  a powerful mage, taking her time to build her influence within the  Oasis.  Isra fell in love with her, spending more and more time at the  water's edge, listening to her adventures and stories.  But when the  time came, Maireid used her magic to turn the tables on her "master"  into a Marie-Morgane, convincing others that the young man had gone on a  long journey, leaving Maireid in charge, with Isra taking on the role  of a new addition to her own harem.  Gradually, the spoiled princeling,  initially shocked at the change in circumstances and her new form,  became more and more accepting and happy with the changes.  Rather than  forcing her to be a slave herself, Maireid treated her as an equal, and  the two took over the villa, adding more Marie-Morgane from the slaves,  staff and visitors, continuing their guise as Isra's harem, establishing  a refuge for the Marie-Morgane and refugees deep in the deserts of  Ubar.

-------------------------

Isra and  Maireid came about during a project explaining some of the deeper lore  of the Marie-Morgane in the world of Kroashent, arising from a small  anecdote of the "dangers" of attempting to place the Marie-Morgane into  the slave trade, an unfortunate evil that exists in Alvez.  Maireid and  Isra are the personifications inspired by that throwaway anecdote and  live quite far from Ys, but play a large role in how the the  Marie-Morgane interact with the surface world, operating as an  intelligence gathering point and smuggling operation for others caught  in the trade in Ubar, one of the largest slave markets in the worlds.

Alternate Version on Patreon

-------------------------

2019 - Tails of Ys (Meet the Marie-Morgane!): https://www.deviantart.com/kathalia/gallery/69216503/tails-of-ys

2020 - Return to Ys: https://www.deviantart.com/kathalia/gallery/73258197/return-to-ys-mermay-2020

2022 (Previous): https://www.deviantart.com/kathalia/art/Mermay-22-8-Princess-917429037

More Isra and Maireid:

https://www.deviantart.com/kathalia/art/Mermay-8-841390356

---------------------

Kroashent on Discord: discord.gg/MZjc3Gg