"Yes, they have gills like fish do on their necks and on their ribs," and she says this as if she has seen one but she believes, and belief makes things real. "They can breathe above the water too though, we came from them, and some will still come up to ships or on the rocks to sing and comb their hair, the men too."

Absently, she spins the bracelet on her wrist, a slender silverite band with a mermaid at either end, Korrin's gift that means perhaps even more than the other woman realises. There's more to mermaids than that but they're things that go so deep in her people, things that just are, and that makes it more difficult to explain.

"Oh I do. On a ship it's watered down plenty so the sailors can do their duty, we've got rationing on board too for all other alcohol. We all grew up with a little wine at dinner too, this stuff? I've got a good tolerance, true, but I'm not the biggest person, if I don't space it out I'll end up legless." Fortunately no one but Korrin saw her after the maraas-lok because she'd remembered she had legs, just not what her legs did, or where she'd apparently left them.