Ah, sort of like those old folk tales about how eating mermaid flesh would make one immortal?

[ He's heard the stories, of course, but he never really put much stock in them. In a land of gods and monsters, even something as fanciful as mermaids seemed preposterous. It was more like something out a child's dream than anything without any real merit.

But of course, Childe would never tell his own siblings that. Better to let them dream while they still could. ]

Did they only think it would protect them because you looked as you do? Or is it just one of those cases where people try to reason with things they don't understand?