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Her name was Merenwen, and she was the Guardian of the Oceans. Not a mermaid, as many sailors thought, but a spirit, bound the the water as a dryad is bound to her tree. She was as strong and fierce as she was beautiful, and she thought she loved everything in her seas. That is, until she met a young sailor during a storm.

His name was Fëanáro. His ship had been lost to the waves, and he was the only survivor. As she came to him, prepared to take his life, as was custom, their eyes met, and she finally, truly, knew love. She spared him that night, and brought him to a coastal town. He lived, and he remembered what had happened, so he ran to the water's edge and called out to her. "Oh kind Spirit, I am eternally grateful to you. Please, make yourself known, so that I may thank you properly."

As night was falling, she decided to come forth. The moment he saw her, Fëanáro fell to his knees and cried, "O compassionate gods! You have blessed me to no end for me to look upon this being of beauty." Looking to the Spirit, where she stood in the surf, he called, "Gentle Lady, please give me the honor of knowing your name!"

Deeply touched, she replied, "Kind sailor, my name is Merenwen, and I am the guardian of all oceans." To this, he responded, "Beauteous Merenwen, I pray you not think me foolish, but nothing would please me more than to have your hand in marriage."

Merenwen was surprised to say the least, but her heart was now torn; As deeply as she loved him, she could not turn her back on the seas. "My love," She mourned, "I cannot. My place is in the sea, we could never be together." Fëanáro cried that he'd give up the land for her, but she stopped him. "I could never take you from the land. It is your home." She left him standing there on that beach, but saw him again, many times, on the ships.

Every time he saw her, he would wave, and she would return it. They continued in this manner until it happened that a war broke out. The once tranquil became a battle ground, something Merenwen to do nothing to stop.

One dark, dismal morning, after one of the fiercer battles, she search a destroyed ship, looking for survivors. To her horror, she found her Fëanáro dead on the deck, his heart pierced by an arrow. She gave a melancholy cry when she saw him.

In her grief, rage took hold. Fueled by her pain and anger, she summoned a storm the likes of which none had seen. It raged for a full year, before draining the energy from her, and she drifted to the sea floor, swearing never to go to the surface again.

They say that, on a quiet morning, you can still hear her anguished sobs as she mourns her lost love. in a storm, you can hear her rage roar, calling a death's trumpet to those who would bring more sorrow and pain to the Guardian of the Oceans.