Mermay 22 6 - Carolina

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.

Not all the  Marie-Morgane live in the Beacon City among their kind.  While the  Oceansong prevents them from bringing harm to the city, it does not  compel love or loyalty, and some reject Ahes and the Marie-Morgane and  striking out on their own.  Some are exiled for crimes against the  Marie-Morgane, forced out to challenge the darkness.  Carolina Giambalvo  was the daughter of a "textile merchant" from the Golden Sea, or so she  thought.  In reality, he was a slaver, dragging souls in chains from  the ports of the North to the Markets of the South.  The Marie-Morgane  attacked the ship as it traveled to pick up its cursed cargo, consigning  all aboard to a watery grave.  Carolina, ignorant of her father's  horrific enterprise, was spared, transformed into a Marie-Morgane as a  tempest stuck the ship.  But, embittered at the loss of her family, she  rejected the embrace of the Marie-Morgane, setting off on a dangerous  journey.  Unable to return to land, she established a colony of  likeminded individuals in the Point of Pen Be, in Southeastern Letha.   While the Pen-Be Drifting is the largest and arguably most successful of  its kind, life in the treacherous deep is difficult and often deadly.

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This  year, I'm going to try the Mermay challenge once more with more  pictures of the Marie-Morgane of Ys-Beneath-the-Waves, from my fantasy  series Kroashent, inspired by the folklore and history of Brittany.   Poor Carolina.  She doesn't have a very happy story.  Someday, hopefully  that will change for her.

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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-Symbiotic-915569239

More Carolina:

https://www.deviantart.com/kathalia/art/Mermay-18-The-Drifting-842746174