The dark edges of the bleak cavern cast frightening, black shadows on the rigid walls as Serah followed the sea sorcerer into her home. Serah held tightly onto the statue of the prince's head and peered into its eyes. 

What does she want with it? Serah quietly thought to herself as she entered a narrow passageway that led to a room filled with an odor that make her feel quisy. 

"What is that smell?" Serah timidly asked, her nose scrunching to the strange scent.

"My potions at work, girl." Krystal spoke, her back turned against Serah's.  "Follow me in my lab." 

Serah obeyed and swam into the deeper ends of the room. She gasped as she saw a large black pot suspended on a grill that was choked with a chaotic fire. The insides of the pot boiled with a murky green color. 

"Give me the statue's head." The sorceror requested, and Serah immediately handed her the item. Krystal then tossed the statue's head into the pot and began singing a cacophonous chant that hurt Serah's sensitive ears. Krystal then proceeded to sprinkle a mysterious black powder and small pieces of broken bones inside the pot and swirled the remains.

"May I ask what the statue's head is for?" Serah asked, but the sorceror did not answer her. "Now, sing for me." She quickly commanded, and Serah hesitated but proceeded to do so once remembering what she had to trade off for.

"Yes...yes.." The sorceror was wearing a dark blue shell necklace, and the mermaid's song was instantly flooding inside the little shell.

"Your voice will soon belong to me." Krystal spoke under her breath, a grin widening on her face. 

When the deed was done and the black magic had disseminated among the atmosphere, the sorceror darkly smirked and turned her gaze toward Serah. "I will grant you your wish, mermaid."

Serah grinned and proceeded to thank Krystal when she realized that she no longer had a voice. The sorceror chuckled at the mermaid's attempt at speaking and twirled her seashell necklace that held the mermaid's voice. "You will no longer have a voice, and you will have to charm this so called prince with your elegant dances. I will cut your tail in half, and out will sprout two beautiful legs."

"You will struggle with these legs. You will bare utmost pain like the clashing of sharp swords against your feet."

Serah followed Krystal's words with ease, although deep inside, she was not looking forward to the pain that would result from these new legs. 

"But I said that you will be given the talent of dance to woo him." "All is well." The sorceror smiled, but her expression then shifted.

"But all is not well." 

Serah blinked and narrowed her eyebrows, giving Krystal an incredulous expression. What? There's another snitch to this? This was not a part of the deal.

"I am a sorceror whose magic cannot be controlled completely. At times, whenever I use forbidden magic, a curse accompanies such a deed." "You, Serah, have become intwined in this curse..of love." 

"If the prince were to marry someone else, the next day, when the sun rises to its highest peak, you will perish and return to the sea in the form of sea bubbles." "This will be your fate if you lose to another woman." The sorceror laughed a little and tapped her tail on the sea cavern floor. 

Serah's heart fell for she did not know how to respond to such a curse. Is..is there a way for me to get of this?

"No, you cannot return to your old life." "Your fate has been sealed, mermaid." The sorceror's black eyes looked into Serah's light blue colored ones in utmost gravity. 

Serah swallowed something down and nodded her head. She felt her nerves rising from within herself. 

She remembered the temple girl who had taken the prince back to her place after the shipwreck. She had certainly saved his life, but what if the prince woke up in that girl's arms and believed that SHE was her savior? Would he fall in love with her? Would she be doomed to sea foam? Serah gulped, and her heart shook while pondering these thoughts.

“I will now proceed to cut your tail in half with a knife dipped in this black magic. You will feel extreme pain, but this Is what must be done in order for you to grow legs.” Krystal warned Serah, who was now slightly shaking in fear.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be fairly quick. I’m using a long scythe in fact.” The sorceror slyly smiled at the mermaid and disappeared into a darker room of  the cavern to look for the final tool.

“This is really it…I will become human and be able to see him..I cannot turn back anymore..My curse has been sealed.” Serah thought to herself.

Krystal came back with a gruesome looking scythe; she dipped the scythe in the black pot of magic and then scooped it out. Serah saw a glowing green color providing a silhouette for the scythe. “Are you ready?’ Krystal questioned, and the mermaid nodded her head. She bit her lip out of anxiety, anticipating excruciating pain.

…..

“Arahwi, Yozk, It has been fulfilled.”

Serah fainted on the spot, and the sorceror caught the mermaid’s body before it tumbled into the dark abyss below them.

“Oh silly mermaid, do you think I would let you off so easily?” Krystal chuckled to herself and stared at the mermaid’s face. “I only made you look human so that you would be eaten by the sea creatures.”

“I wonder how my pets will like your taste.” The sorceror smiled and brushed a piece of hair out of Serah’s face.  Krystal then crossed her eyes and glared at Serah’s unconscious face.

“This is what you deserve for running my kind into extinction, you filthy rac-“

“Let her go.”

Krystal turned her head around and saw a fierce dolphin standing at the entranceway of her “laboratory.”

“Who the hell are you, fish?” The sorceror raised an eyebrow and held even tighter to Serah’s body.

Sehun was infuriated, and, with extreme speed, bolted into the sorceror and violently swiped his tail against her face. “Oh my..” Krystal laughed and glazed her hand over the spot where black blood was dripping down her cheeks.

“Are you perhaps in love with another species? My, that is quite peculiar.” Krystal bluntly stated.

“On second thought, maybe it’d be more entertaining to watch how this romance will eventually fail.” She laughed to herself and felt another slap from Sehun’s tail.

“Oh, you’re quite aggressive.”  “Take the girl then.” Krystal gave in, and Sehun visciously used his tail to swipe Serah’s body from the sorceror’s grasps. He gasped at the new legs Serah now possessed.

As the dolphin was about to leave the dark, mysterious room, he heard the silent, taunting voice of the sorceror.

“She is still bound to her curse. You will have to let her go to the human’s land, or she will surely suffocate a horrible repeated death.”

“Repeated death?” Sehun aqua green eyes glared into Krystal’s darker ones. “What did you do to her?!”

“Oh, you will surely find out very soon.” Krystal chuckled and folded her arms, her look continuining to break Sehun’s nerves.

“I’m leaving.”

“If you need a transformation, ask me anytime, lover fish.”

Krystal’s last comment only rekindled Sehun’s anger, but he tried to calm himself down and leave the dark cavern.

Once seeing the light out, Sehun glanced back, and his eyes softened as he looked at the mermaid’s unconscious state.

“I need to get you to land quickly.”

update 10/20/13