NARRATOR'S POV

"Ah, there you are, my son. I've been searching everywhere for you."

Daehyun looked startled for a moment, still blinded by the flash of light. A wave of uneasiness washed over him from the sudden teleportation - as he glanced at his surroundings, he realised he was back in the castle where he and Sooyeon had attended the ball. Blinking the lights from his vision away, he turned his attention to the Queen who was smiling a little too pleasantly at him.

His partner stood by his side and Daehyun noticed that her posture had gotten straighter and more poised. He frowned, making a mental note of it. The former glanced at him warily and he smiled at her reassuringly, pushing her odd stance to the back of his mind.

"What are you two doing? The wedding's tonight, and I will not have you two delaying it any longer with your little canoodling sessions. Get to it, now," Claudia clapped her hands and her servants went forward dutifully to separate the two.

Daehyun's eyes widened as he spluttered for a response. "W-Wait, wedding? I have no-"

Claudia clicked her tongue in disapproval. "Don't you remember two days ago we agreed on your marriage? After the ball, to be specific. Goodness, you're embarrassing yourself in front of your future wife," she sighed, her nose still held high in the air. "Quickly, now. We invited everyone from the kingdom. We don't want them to know my son hasn't the slightest clue of his wedding, now do we?"

Daehyun couldn't even respond as the butler dragged him away to his chambers. It was all too much for him to process - he had to get married tonight, to Sooyeon - speaking of which, he noticed she didn't even utter a word to him ever since they arrived in the castle. He couldn't just pass it off as Sooyeon having that time of month - she would have caused an uproar at the idea of a wedding, or at least look confused. This Sooyeon looked like a living, elegant brick.

Something was off, and he had an idea of what was happening. He just had to fix it.

----

SOOYEON'S POV

Over in Sooyeon's side...

I was squawking.

I was effin' squawking.

They just left, bibidi-babidee-boo, poof. And I was left at the lake as a damn swan!

Disgruntled, I wobbled out of the lake, my webbed feet splashing water anywhere between a three-meter radius. Walking with feet like these felt extremely strange.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious.

Shut up, conscience. If you were just tranformed into a swan, you'd be reduced to a blubbering idiot, too.

For a moment, I was blank. I hadn't a clue what to do - I didn't even know where they'd vanished to. After a while I'd gotten the hang of walking with two obnoxiously short pair of webbed feet. As I was pacing, I tried to think of why I'd ended up in this body - was it a defense mechanism, perhaps? Breaking the flute pulled me out of my own body and switched my soul with Ahyoung's - assuming Ahyoung was the one in my body.

The flute was another mystery. It was the cause of the Pied Piper phenomenon and also Ahyoung's transformation into a swan. Putting it together, that would mean that the Queen was the one behind all these antics - not just the aforementioned but also the attempt against Snow White as well as my 'Rapunzel' moment.

I recalled the words the Queen said to me during my time in the tower - just how much power did she have to throw the fairytale world into this much havoc? And how were we supposed to make everything better? This was way more complex than what Key had told us about initially, but that was probably the point. 

A vein pulsed against my forehead. I was getting a headache from all this thinking. My first course of action was to head to the castle, presuming Ahyoung's prince was locked up there. But there were two problems: One, I didn't know where the castle was, and two, I was a swan for crying out loud. How was I supposed to not draw attention? 

"You're smart. I assume you've figured it all out already, eh?"

I stilled, recognising the voice. That condescending voice could belong only to one person.

"Your Royal- Majesty," I snarled, but it came out as a squawk. I couldn't even insult her in front of her face, which made me all the more annoyed. I turned towards her in irritation, and she just smirked.

It took so much of my willpower to not attack her with my webbed feet of fatality. Her eyes were sharp and demeaning, but I wasn't afraid of her in the least. Looking at her now, with all her evildoings and her arrogant air, I just felt...pity.

"Looks like she ratted my plans to you, eh? No matter. This is all according to plan," she smiled, her voice sickly saccharine. And then she said lowly, somewhat distractedly, "I thought I'd forbade her to speak, but oh well." She her locket at this point. My eyes zeroed in on the piece of jewellery and the expression on the Queen's face. Somehow, I felt a strong pulse of magic from the Queen, the same feeling I'd gotten from the flute - perhaps it was her locket that was enchanted.

"You'd better hurry if you want to save the day and stop me," she remarked nonchalantly, examining her fingernails. "Tha