Mermaids

A mermaid's image in the Living Stone

Mermaids, also known as sirens, are beautiful, aquatic women with fish-like tails.

Description

Mermaids are dual-natured spellbinders; a mixture of spellbinder and fish. Mermaids inhabit the seas of OtherWorld, along with their greatest enemy and predator, the Great Orca. This sea beast relentlessly hunts the mermaids. The only form of defence against the orca are the mermaids' mesmerizing voices.

Mermaids are very beautiful creatures but can be very vain. Mermaids think they are more beautiful than anyone else. In the episode "Bubble,Bubble, Toil and Trouble", it is implied that any mermaid who isn't beautiful, is treated as an outcast by her kind. 

Mermaids love the sea, the water and all the creatures within it. Some may care more about fish than humans as Odarelle wished to free all sea creatures from human domination, even if all humans had to drown. This, along with the mermaids' ability to communicate with aquatic fauna suggests that mermaids are vegetarians and do not approve of them being eaten, at least by land dwellers. During Tara's transition from human to mermaid, she was drawn to water and was happy just standing in the rain. As they are half fish, it is no wonder mermaids favour water over air. 

Appearance

Mermaids have the upper bodies of beautiful women. Their hair is long and red is a common colour among mermaids. Their hands are webbed like a seal's flipper or a duck's foot. A mermaid's tail is sinuous and looks like a mix between a fish's tail and an eel's body. A mermaid tail's structure allows them to swim up and down like a dolphin or side to side like a fish, depending on their choice. Most mermaids have triangular fins like Aquaphonis and her daughter but Lorelei and Odarelle have more eel-like tail fins. Short, pointed fins run over down the sides of their tails, from their hips to over halfway down their lower bodies.

Mermaid tails are covered in blue-green scales. A mermaid's clothing seems to be attached to their tails. This along with the similar style among mermaids and the blue-green colours suggests that their clothing is made of the mermaids' own scales. Some mermaids may have other colours on their scales like Aquaphonis's daughter whose chest was covered, not just in turquoise scales like other mermaids, but emerald green and deep amber. When submerged or covered in water, they gain a light blue aura.

Powers

Mermaids, like every other inhabitant of Otherworld, can cast spells like spellbinders. However, they have an array of other powers. The spellbinding abilities are mostly used to get legs to travel on land.

As they are part fish, mermaids have the ability to breathe underwater as well as air. Their voices are undiminished by water, enabling them to communicate loud and clear in the ocean. With their eel/fish-like tails, mermaids can swim quickly through the water with enhanced agility and grace. Like dolphins, mermaids can leap high out of the water. They also possess the rare ability to adapt and live in any kind of water, including fresh and saltwater. As shown by Tara in Mer-made, mermaids have a high resistance to water pressure and can dive to depths no human could withstand. A mermaid's hearing is attuned to the sound of a conch shell.

A mermaid's voice has its own magical powers. Their voices can mesmerize. As they sing their whale-like melodies, bubbles emerge from their mouths. Water reacts to the mermaids' voices and they can cause their bubbles to combine into a stream, wave or spout of water. They can use their songs to control the movements of water. Some, like Odarelle and Lorelei could influence entire oceans with their magical melodies. When they combined their voices, their duet could create the biggest tidal waves imaginable, waves capable of flooding the entire Earth. Some mermaids, like the one in "Bubble, Bubble Toil and Trouble", may be capable of changing into a partial or full liquid form. Magic grants this form limited flight as well as surface and resistance. In full liquid form, mermaids can travel through small spaces, like pipes, drains and even tiny openings in pipes. These mermaids can also generate water in the form of offensive orbs of liquid which they can project at a speed fast enough to cause damage. Mermaids can expand water molecules which they can use to keep their water forms from diminishing and allowing them to summon water wherever they are. Not all mermaids may possess this as Lorelei didn't use it to escape her cage on the jetty. However, as Lorelei was younger than the mermaid in "Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble" she may not have been old enough to be taught to assume a liquid form.

During Tara's mermaid metamorphosis, she displayed the ability to understand the language of all sea creatures, including common goldfish. Mermaids can mimic the sounds of cetaceans like whales and these musical sounds make up their language. A young mermaid's distress call is similar to the cries of an infant whale's. They may be capable of projecting their cries over vast distances underwater in a similar manner to a dolphin's echolocation in order to summon other mermaids or even sea creatures like dolphins.

Known Mermaids

• Tara Duncan(temporarily)

• Aquaphonis
• Aquaphonis's daughter
• Lorelei
• Odarelle
• Zit Mermaid

Episodes

• The Silent Siren
• Mer-made
• Boil,Bubble,Toil and Trouble
• The Golden Scepter(mentioned and appeared as an illustration)
• Clairvoyant(cameo as an illustration)

Trivia and Notes

• If a mermaid has a contagious disease, anyone splashed by the water that makes up her liquid form, will catch the sickness.
• They have a salty scent.
• They appear to be a female only species. Their male counterparts may be the tritons. Like mermaids, they are half animal spellbinders but they have a more monstrous fish-like appearance with dull green scales all over their bodies.
• With the exception of Odarelle, all the mermaids in the series have red hair.
• With the exception of Lorelei and Odarelle, all the mermaids in the series have grey eyes.
• Every mermaid seen in the series has a gold coloured necklace. Aquaphonis and her daughter had amulets to hold voices, Lorelei had the cure in a gold coloured glass bottle and the boil covered mermaid had a simple yellow amulet.
• Aquaphonis's daughter is the only mermaid seen with tanned skin.