QUENYA, frieda marlene

FRIEDA G. MARLENE

Frieda comes from the sea.

She spends her days amongst a school of her hundred and one sisters and brothers, spends her nights pressed up against the same crowd, and together (never apart, always one body) they span the shallow ocean waters, tracking food and enjoying the sunlight that filters in from the fresh air above. The routine is always the same – wake at the same time, move at the same time, feed at the same time, retire at the same time. No one ever breaks schedule, no one ever breaks off from the group, and it is as one singular mass of red-scaled aquatics that they live their lives. And she is pretty okay with this, she thinks; a lack of individuality is a small price to pay for comfortable living, always with food, never without company.

These are all things she thinks, that is, until brothers and sisters start disappearing, flaking off from the one body and failing to return to the pack. Mother claims them dead. Fools who couldn't get it into their minds that unity was survival were doomed to such untimely fates. And, as hours turn to days and days into weeks without a word from Mary, Nikki, Sammy, or Sue, acceptance bubbles withing her mind and that of her other doubtful siblings. It's then that she decides never to stray, never to act on the thoughts that have her eyes drifting toward the water's surface, or further out than the body ever dares to swim.

But then, they start coming back.

First Sammy, then Mary, Nikki, Sue, and one after the other, nearly every single one returns. They spew stories of a different life – one with legs and dry air, of running and playing and making friends with humans of all things. They were Quenya, a title she'd thought was only given to label their extended family, but in reality granted them the powers of having an entirely different life.

And, goodness if defiant little Frieda didn't want that.


The first time she turns, it's deep, deep underwater. Scales turn to flesh, fins to hair and fingers, beady eyes into pretty red orbs. Gills to lungs. An ability to breath underwater to a lack thereof. She chokes immediately, instinct guiding her upward, and once she's broken the waters surface, she's coughing up sea water like a person who's had one smoke too many. The rags that clothe her are sopping wet, as is her hair, and the rest of her body, for that matter, and when she finds her way to shore, she's exhausted and freezing. Her siblings never told her about this part of their fantastical trips.

The city nearby – Paralia, she hears someone say, Paralia – is crowded, people constantly bumping into her drenched form and few bothering to offer her a bit of help or, gods forbid, a pair of dry clothes. She stumbles to a bench, stomach growling, new flesh covered in goosebumps, and wishes she'd the company of one of her turned siblings. When a shadow is cast over her, in fact, for a fleeting moment, she's so sure it's one of them – only it isn't. Instead, she is met with Lorelei Ackermann, a young human girl (still older by at least five years, though, the red head has to guess) who just so happens to be holding out a neatly folded shirt.

“You look a tad bit wet,” she says, sarcasm dripping from her words. That's all it takes to crack a smile out of her.


Frieda doesn't know how she feels about calling Lorelei her sister – she has so many real sisters, after all, carbon copies of herself and nothing at all like the elegant teenager who deigns to take her in – but their dynamic is much the same as that of what she understands to be human sisters. Yes, she always has to return to the ocean at night (or spend the night in the bathtub, although the thought alone makes her shutter in disgust), and they're anything but blood related, but they have one another's backs at all times, and do silly platonic things like going out into town or talking about “cute boys”. Lorelei helps her adapt to human life, seeing as instinct still only gets her so far, and Frieda teaches her all sorts of things about the sea. Never mind that her “sister” tends to dose off during her pantomime and excited flood of words – she still considers it a fair trade in the end.

Years pass, Lorelei becoming an adult and herself becoming a teen. She begs to be allowed to go to school, to learn more about the world she's now the honor of being a part of. It was a demand her new legal guardian couldn't refuse, really; people were beginning to question why a a young girl like the red-haired Quenya was out in town rather than at a desk. It was only one of many things that the Ackermann gave to her, though, and no matter what fate has in store for the two, Frieda knows she'll always be thankful for everything that's been done for and given to her.


All of the adaption to “regular” life, however, and her refusal to return to “the body” has done nothing to quell her love of the ocean. It is where she came from, after all, and in the end, it's where she always returns. Also known as, Leap ran out of ideas and half-butted an ending, WOO.

played by leap