Chapter Text
PALLID MERMAIDS
Effectively, they have no unusual abilities like the 'sharpness' of the Marlin mermaids, the mind-affecting abilities and exudations of the Thousand Strands mermaids, or the berserk frenzy of the Abyss-Hunting mermaids. This doesn't mean you can underestimate them. A Calamity is so, so much more than a regular Whale, so its mermaids are also much, much more. My previous system of categorization doesn't apply here(go back to my first chapter if you forgot that). In terms of physical strength, these are off the charts.
The Pallid Whale corrupts everything around it in a process called Pallidification. Mermaids aren't the only danger. Humans in contact with this will change-Pallid Mermaids are the end point of that, where they aren't even vaguely human anymore. I've heard that some people classify those people who are half-transformed as Mermaids, but they're wrong. Those ones actually look like the whale, and until you've fully lost your human shape I refuse to consider those ones as covered by cetology.
Those mermaids constantly...well, it's called 'whalesong'. It's not singing. The sailors I was with used to call it screaming, and that's closer.
A lot of their violence almost seems disgustingly playful. One of their only human parts is the arms... I've seen them tear people limb from limb like toys, or scythe their arms around and rip people apart like that. The worse part is when...they hold them tight, like an embrace. Usually, while they do that it's either an excuse to start eating you-though that's pointless, as they don't need to digest food-or to fuck you. I don't know what part of them still has minds that make them hold people, and even less do I know whatever part makes them decide whether to just kill someone or rape them before doing it.
If we start losing to them, run. That's my advice. If the mermaids are there, you're going to get infected by it. Not to mention that it means there's a serious possibility you'll be pulled into the water. I know we go through some terrible things on a daily basis, but I need to reiterate that we can't risk losing our corpses to the water. It's even more likely that, in the off chance you haven't been pallidified, they'll drag you to the whale living or dead after they're done.
Do you want to know the details? The sex...I've only seen it from a distance or been told about it, and I'm thankful for that at least. But I've seen people in the process of pallidifying. Stubb... For a long while I heard his screams every time I closed my eyes. I was never close to him, but what that bastard did... He would scream and scream and scream. You could hear when he stopped screaming for help. He begged, sometimes..
The other...well, not an experience I've had, but something I've been told, is probably the only experience I've ever heard of someone surviving pallidification as themselves. On the ship that bastard was Captain of before the Pequod, they had an encounter with the Pallid Whale while they were hunting. I doubt anything that's come from that bastard's mouth, but with gossip from the crew I have a fair idea of at least how some of it happened.
She actually decided to attack the whale itself with a knife, but even getting close to that meant she was already pallidifying. It's ridiculous, but I unfortunately believe it of her. The stories aren't clear on what exactly happened, and I didn't see it myself, but I do know that it set in on her leg and she cut it off. The only reason she didn't just die there and save us all so much pain was because she'd managed to distract them with that leg.
...Ugh, thinking about this story makes me just remember how I was listening to it back then. How I admired her. How incredible I thought she was. It leaves a disgusting taste in my mouth.