Volume Three:

Chapter One:

By sheer coincidence, a luxurious Royal Sea-Caravan carrying 15-year-old Crown Princess Nerissa Donatella Sanderson's grandparents, Dowager Princess Nerina and Dowager Prince Caspian, and their excessive entourage, who were returning from a long trip around the Sea Nymph world, floated into Pacifica the very evening before she, her family, and Lady Coral and Lady Violet, her Ladies-in-Waiting, were going to depart from the Kingdom at the crack of sea-dawn in a different Sea Caravan for the rather unimaginatively and straightforwardly named Magical Creatures' Convention on La Isla Magica, an enchanted island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that happened to be completely invisible to the eyes of mere mortals. Like all other Sea Nymphs and their Consorts, Caspian and Nerina, both of whom Nerissa had never met before, most certainly didn't look like your typical grandparents, as they had stopped aging physically some time in their thirties.

Dowager Princess Nerina, a tall, gaunt, and admittedly striking mermaid with long, light-colored hair, high cheekbones, and a mertail in an unusual shade of powdery blue, who wore so many bulky strings of multicolored pearls and flashy sea-gold and sea-silver bangle bracelets that Princess Nerissa personally thought she looked absolutely ridiculous, though of course she had enough manners that she would never dare to say so out loud, sighed audibly as she swim-stepped from the Sea-Caravan, which essentially amounted in this case to a miniature palace pulled by a team of eight strong, white, identical sea-stallions. "What a terribly exhausting journey this has been!" she whined, seemingly more to herself than to anybody else in particular, and then she threw her hand dramatically to her forehead in a manner strangely reminiscent of the silent movie actresses of yesteryear. "I swear to Sea-God, if I ever go on another extended voyage around our realm, it will be too soon!". It was if she was wholly oblivious to the fact that her son and daughter-in-law, King Poseidon and Queen Melinda, not to mention her long-lost, half-human daughter were floating just a mere three tails in front of her and her Caravan. Following behind her were at least a dozen muscular Sea Nymph Consort servants, each hauling an armful of heavy shell-cases, presumably loaded with more and more gaudy jewelry, and Crown Princess Nerissa's slender, brown-haired, red-orange-tailed grandfather, who clutched an enormous treasure chest-like jewelry box, carved out of driftwood, near his heart.

"Might I help you with that, Father?" offered Poseidon, taking the weighty chest out of Prince Caspian's tiny, short-fingered hands.

"Thanks a million, my kind son". Caspian nodded curtly in Nerissa's direction. "My, my, my, Nerissa, the last time I saw you, dear pearl, I dare say you could've probably fit in that box! I sure hope you have a good time at your very first Magical Creatures' Convention".

On account of Melinda Sanderson being an orphan who was raised in foster care, having any living relatives at all was something of an adjustment to Nerissa, but finding herself face to face with her grandfather in this way suddenly prompted the Crown Princess of Pacifica to reflect on just how very little time she had spent with her new Pacifican relatives, since her mother revealed to her the truth about her otherworldly lineage on her fifteenth birthday. She felt a pang of regret as she realized at both of the royal balls she had attended, she pretty much ignored her numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, and several centuries' worth of ageless great-grandparents, and opted instead to devoting her full attention to the drop-dead gorgeous(both inside and out) young merman Lord Zale, who had recently left Pacifica for a boarding school near the Australian coast. However, from now on, she silently resolved, she'd make a concentrated effort to get to know the extended royal family of the Sea Nymph kingdom of Pacifica, starting with the upcoming week-long sojourn to the La Isla Magica, as her Aunt Marina, Aunt Oceana, Aunt Naida, Aunt Mariah, Aunt Aquaria, and Aunt Thalassa, all six of King Poseidon's sisters were planning on traveling to the faraway Convention along with her and her parents.

Chapter Two:

Nerissa was so excited for her trip the following morning that she scarcely slept a wink the night before her departure. She had been tossing and turning on her squishy sea-sponge mattress like a ship caught up in a hurricane for what felt like half of an eternity to her when she finally drifted off to sleep, only to roughly shaken awake a half-hour later by Violet and Coral. "Rise and shine, Princess!" chirped Lady Violet. "An exciting adventure awaits us all!" she continued to exclaim, yanking a rock-hard seashell comb through her friend's horribly tangled and matted titian tresses.

"You seem pretty well-rested, Vi" Nerissa commented with a wry smile as she tiredly forced herself to pump her iridescent pink, turquoise, and purple tail over to her sea-wood armoir and to throw on a comfortable off-white sea-silk halter top and a coordinating sheer tail-sash.

"What, aren't you?" Violet inquired absently.

"Not at all" admitted Pacifica's Crown Princess. "I never am before leaving on a trip, no matter how hard I try to get some sleep. Maybe I'll get some much-needed shut-eye on the Caravan. Do either of you know how long it takes to get to La Isla Magica, anyway?"

"I don't know, really" Coral responded. "I've never been to that part of the Pacific Ocean, but I hear it's quite lovely over there".

"I think I've passed right by it many times, whenever I visited relations in Japonia" stated Lady Violet. Japonia was the name of the Sea Nymph kingdom under the Sea of Japan. "It should take quite a few hours, I suppose, basically an entire day".

"In that case," Princess Nerissa began, "I'm really glad now that my dad insisted that I bring along our Royal Family Reef, as well as a complete set of Encyclopedia Oceanicas, for before I couldn't understand why he wanted me to spend time studying when I'm on vacation".

The Magical Creatures' Convention, which was held once every decade at different locations in the Enchanted Zones, was considered to be quite an important event in the world of Nymphs and their Consorts, so terribly momentous, in fact, that it may well-nigh be downright impossible to come up with a truly analogous human event, but the closest comparison might be the Olympic Games crossed with a United Nations summit. Nearly half of Pacifica's population, including members of hundreds of species of marine animals, had gathered outside the front gates leading to the stately Pacifican Royal Palace to see their beloved rulers off properly. They all waved and exuberantly shouted "Bon Voyage!" as Lord Mariatu, the brawny, swarthy-complected Sea Nymph Consort driver raised his seaweed whip, and the Sea-Caravan rolled away swiftly. For the young Crown Princess of Pacifica, speedily taking off in the official Royal Sea Caravan, which actually turned out to be far less grand and ornate than the one the Dowager Prince and Princess had arrived in on the previous evening, though that suited the needs of Nerissa and her family just fine, was a greater thrill than any theme park attraction she had ever ridden in before. Her already pale knuckles turned pure white as she felt the Caravan rumble further and further away from the beautiful, vibrant kingdom that she was destined to rule some day not too far off in the future, and deeper and deeper into the heart of what merfolk called the Bordergrounds, the cool, dark, overgrown, and very sparsely populated underwater wilderness that hovered perilously on the edge of the boundaries of their Enchanted Zone.

Chapter Three:

Due to some complex, ancient Sea Nymph magic that Crown Princess Nerissa could not even begin to comprehend, the Sea-Caravan, while not exactly fancy, was much bigger on the inside than it appeared to be from the outside. The vehicle's overall interior structure and layout was somewhat similar to a passenger train or Greyhound bus of the human world, with its rows of wooden pew-like seating padded with soft yellow sea-sponge cushions, and cramped overhead compartments stuffed with luggage.

Nerissa leaned back in her requested seat in the very back of the Caravan and quietly watched the still, dark sea roll by her small, porthole-shaped, sea-glass window. Whenever a lone fish or dolphin darted by, which wasn't by any means a common occurrence so far out in the Bordergrounds, many miles away from aquatic civilization, she enjoyed waving and smiling warmly at them.

"When I was your age" said Nerissa's Aunt Thalassa, who was seated beside her, "I remember going exploring out here all the time, with my Sea Familiars".

"Cool", Nerissa replied. "Speaking of which, y'know, I don't think I quite understand why none of our Familiars were invited to the Convention". Each and every Sea Nymph had three Sea Familiars, a dolphin, a fish, and a seahorse who were predestined to be her extra-special friends and companions. So close was the relationship of a mermaid to her Familiars that if one of a Sea Nymph's Familiars was killed before its time, she would always automatically pass on as well.

"No mortal creatures of any kind are allowed on La Isla Magica, not even Familiars" explained Thalassa. "Besides, space is always so limited at the Convention, which is why all my sisters and I were forced to leave our husbands and kids back home in Pacifica". She shook her head sadly, tossing her pretty golden blonde locks over her shoulder. "Oh, I miss them all so much already. Ever since our wedding day, Prince Neptune and I have never been apart for more than a couple hours at a time. You know, sweetie, I always really felt for your mother, who had no real choice but to live in a whole separate world from the man she loved more than anything in the sea, because of circumstances that were totally beyond her control".

"That must've been so hard" Princess Nerissa agreed, genuinely impressed with what a fully open person her Aunt Thalassa seemed to be, so much so that she felt momentarily tempted to share with her more than she had even told her own dear mother about her innermost, conflicted emotions in regards to Lord Zale and Adam Fonda, the human boy whom she had had a crush on for years and was now just beginning to show some interest in her, but ultimately, she decided that she didn't know Thalassa well enough, as of yet, to discuss such personal matters with her, though deep in her heart she had a wonderful gut feeling that it should not be too long before she did feel comfortable enough with Aunt Thalassa to tell her the entire, unabridged story of her extraordinary life thus far.

Chapter Four:

Thanks at least in part to Princess Thalassa's company, the approximately eight-hour trek to La Isla Magica went by much quicker than Crown Princess Nerissa would have ever expected it to. The Royal Sea Caravan breezed into the parking cavern of the Aqua Magica Inn, a sprawling, multi-story building, constructed out of perfectly polished silvery boulders and the largest and shiniest peachy-toned pearls Nerissa had ever laid her sea-shone blue-green eyes on, that was so impressive it just about put the Pacifican Royal Palace to shame, just in time for dinner in the hotel's Sea Nymph world-renowned restaurant. Nerissa had just begun greedily scarfing down what she was positively sure had to be the tastiest dish of leafy, green, seaweed pasta in the whole universe when she could have sworn she caught a glimpse of an astonishingly familiar face out of the corner of her startled eye. Maybe I'm hallucinating, she mused uneasily while chewing on a particularly big bite of pasta, but what happened next proved that the young Crown Princess was, in fact, altogether sane: the Pacifican corner to her budding inter-species love triangle flew up from this own humble, one-seater, driftwood table not far from the front door of the restaurant and joined his kingdom's Royal Family at their ample table with a card printed on seaweed parchment with "V.I.R.S.N", which stood for "Very Important Royal Sea Nymphs", written on it in royal purple squid ink.

"Zale!" bellowed Lady Coral, who was his first cousin. "What in the ocean are you doing here? What about the South Pacific Consort Academy?"

Lord Zale grinned, and his flawlessly pearlescent smile dazzled Princess Nerissa more than ever. "Well, when I found out on the sea-bus there that the Magical Creatures' Convention was going to be held here, and that all of you were expected to attend, I just had to ask the driver to let me off here, as it was on the way to the Academy, and I couldn't believe that he actually agreed to it!"

"I bet it was because, you, as a Lord, outranked him, and as such, he thought it would be in his interest to do whatever you say" Marina, Poseidon's eldest sister and an attractive Nymph who had strawberry blonde hair and bright green eyes and a matching fish-like tail, noted.

King Poseidon clearly did not approve of Zale's youthful spontaneity, as he stared coldly at the 15-year-old Consort, his eyebrows raised and a dismayed frown plastered over his distinguished facial features. "But do you not care about your education, young man? I mean, are you sure the South Pacific Consort Academy will allow you to start your first semester a little late, for if they don't, then you carelessly threw away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and probably disappointed your family in the process" he reprimanded, a bit too harsh for Nerissa's taste. The Crown Princess of Pacifica nudged Lord Zale's lower tail under the table with her own billowy flukes, as a gesture that silently expressed her sympathy, and in response he squeezed Nerissa's hand, an uncomplicated action which made every inch of her body tingle with contentment.

"No, don't worry, the driver reassured me that the Academy faculty members would believe the Convention, which would never turn away an Academy student even on such late notice, to be an invaluable educational experience for me" Zale assured his King calmly.

"I can't argue with that" assented the King of Pacifica. "I'm sorry I doubted you, Lord Zale, even for ever so briefly" he apologized.

"No worries" Zale said.

With Zale here now, this is turning out to be one fabulous vacation, thought Crown Princess Nerissa, gazing into his soulful, chocolate-brown eyes.

Chapter Five:

The Crown Princess of Pacifica blissfully slept like a piece of driftwood on her first night in the glamorous Royal Suite of the Aqua Magica Inn, although the bright early-morning sunlight breaking through the surface of the warm, blue, tropical waters and streaming through her incredibly gigantic window rudely awakened her from her peaceful slumber, and temporarily blinded her. She rolled over and faced Lady Violet, whom she was sharing a room with. "If this is how bright the sun looks down in the sea here, I'm not so sure I'm looking forward to going above the water today" Nerissa groaned.

"You'll get used to it" encouraged Violet. "Trust me, once we get home, you'll be complaining about how dark it is". Princess Nerissa supposed her friend had a valid point.

The esteemed attendees to the Magical Creatures' Convention included not only the core members of the Royal Families of all twenty Sea Nymph kingdoms, but also representatives of a handful of other types of what preferred to be referred to as Nymphs and their Consorts. Nerissa gazed in wonder at the diverse and colorful mob of magical beings that had amassed along the shoreline. The damp, colossal rocks in the ocean's shallows were solidly covered with dozens of mermen and mermaids, most of them chatting enthusiastically with one another in several different languages, and the white, sandy beach was dotted with Snow Nymphs and their Consorts, fair-skinned humanoid creatures with platinum blonde and blue hair, who were sweating in the toasty fur robes they were accustomed to wearing, hailing from the frigid Far North; Meadow Nymphs and Consorts or, as humans called them, centaurs and centaurettes, a proud and handsome race which resembled half-human, half-horse hybrids; and the Nymphs of the Sky and their Consorts, also commonly known as fairies, who more or less looked like people with hair in funky rainbow colors and humungous, gaily colored, butterfly-shaped wings permanently attached to their backs.

Nerissa settled her body down on a boulder, with her Aunt Thalassa to the left of her, and Princess Aquaria to her right, her neck craned as she observed a trio of magical individuals marching up to some wooden podiums that had been set up on the beach. "Good morning!" greeted one of them, a brunette centaurette, in a crisp, aristocratic, English accent. "For those who don't know, my name is Lady Lara, and five years ago, I was democratically elected by my kind to be one of the four High Guardians of the Enchanted Realms". Everybody then applauded out of respectful acknowledgment of the extremely high rank that Lara held, even though Princess Nerissa was not at all sure of precisely what being chosen as a High Guardian entailed. "Thank you. For us inhabitants of this planet's many Enchanted Zones, this past decade has been a pretty eventful one for all of us indeed, but for none of us more so than for the revered Nymphs of the Sea and their Consorts, and on that note, I shall cut this keynote address short and have every last one of you turn your attention to Dowager Princess Zarya of the Kingdom of Mediterrania, who, at twelve hundred and eight years of age holds the current record for oldest living Sea Nymph, and was elected the High Guardian of her Realm well over two centuries ago".

Zarya, a dark-tressed Sea Nymph perched on a rock near the podiums, acted sincerely surprised at being spontaneously prompted to address the Convention-goers. "As my fellow High Guardian, the Meadow Nymph Lady Lara of Greenfieldia, has already alluded to, this has been a simultaneously trying and exciting decade for us Sea Nymphs, a decade which has culminated in the return of a young Crown Princess, Miss Nerissa Donnatella Sanderson, to where she belongs. We are all eternally grateful to her for beginning to transform back the hundreds of Sea Sirens who were sired by the Cursed Black Pearls into their true state, by harnassing the mighty power of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica she most rightfully possesses. Oh, and while I'm on the subject of Enchanted Aquamarines, I'd like to take the opportunity to remind my fellow Nymphs of the Sea that while on La Isla Magica, you will unfortunately not be able to use your Enchanted Personal Aquamarines to take on human form to explore further inland, for as this island is invisible to humanity, therefore if you have human legs, there will, as a matter of fact, be no island for you to explore".

"That sucks" whispered Princess Nerissa frankly into Thalassa's ear.

"Ah, I'm sure you'll still find plenty of fun things to do that don't require human appendages" Princess Thalassa soothed, a knowing twinkle in her azure eyes.

Chapter Six:

The Meadow Nymph Cross-Island Foot Race, the first event of the Magilympics, which was arguably the most popular tradition of the Magical Creatures' Convention, took up the better part of the rest of the morning. While waiting right beside Lord Zale on a stone for the race to begin, Crown Princess Nerissa took the time to simply sit back and admire the amazing natural, or rather, more accurately supernatural beauty all around her. The sand of the perfect beach was so purely white that it reminded her of snow, although as a true native Southern Californian, of course Nerissa had never seen real snow up close before. Exotic wildflowers bloomed on some of the rocks, and as far as her turquoise eyes could see, tall palm trees gently swayed in the tropical breezes. "Some rich human tourists would pay big bucks to come to a place like this" she asserted.

"It's funny that you mention currency, Nerissa, 'cause I've heard that part of what makes this race so fun is that the spectators can bet on who they want to win" construed Zale. He then pointed to a spot further down the seashore, where Lady Lara was distributing racing forms made from leaves to an eager throng which included all four known races of Nymphs and their Consorts.

"With what?" Princess Nerissa questioned. "I didn't think we used money". She chose not to state aloud how she wondered if betting on centaurs the same way that human beings gambled at horse race tracks could some how be perceived as being in truly poor taste, to say the very least, and at any rate she couldn't help herself from it amusing her to no end.

"With just about anything, I guess. I think us Sea Nymphs and Consorts usually place our bets with seashells and pearls and seaweed and sand dollars and stuff like that".

Nerissa nodded. "Okay, I see. That makes sense". She began fanning herself, frantically itching the miniscule gill slits on the back of her neck, and flicking her tail agitatedly. "I don't know 'bout you, Zale, but I feel quite dry all of a sudden!".

Lord Zale's coffee-hued eyes clouded over with intense concern, and he laid a tan hand lightly over the substantially moistureless scales on Nerissa's fishtail. "Is this the longest time that you have ever spent out of the water, Nerissa?"

"Yes, it should be" was Nerissa's breathless response. "If I recall correctly, my Dad once told me that us drying out is a fairly slow process".

"That's right. You must have a lower air tolerance than I do. If you dive down and stay under for a few minutes, you should stay wetted down for at least an hour or two when you emerge".

The Crown Princess of Pacifica thirstily dove beneath the lapping waves, counted to a thousand, and subsequently resurfaced, feeling pretty refreshed. "Phew!" she breathed, throwing herself back onto the rock.

"You stay here, and I'll swim over there and get us some betting forms, all right?"

"Sure! Do you know that on land, I have to be twenty-one years of age before I'm allowed to gamble?"

"It's not really gambling" Zale clarified with a shake of his head, "because nothing we could lose is of any real material value to us".

"I think I'll bet twenty white pearls on Tawny Destry" announced Nerissa, studying the fifty-odd names on her form, "'cause I like her name".

"I trust your judgment, so therefore I shall place the same bet" Lord Zale articulated.

"Just don't blame me if she places last" teased Crown Princess Nerissa.

"Of course I won't" Zale said.

Deathly silence fell over the Conventioneers as Lady Lara called out, "Let the race begin!"

Nerissa and Zale looked on as centaurettes, their horse legs granting them a speed and profound aura of athletic grace that champion marathon runners would envy profusely, kept on running right by where they sat. So intently focused on winning the race were most of the competitors that they did not look up from the sifting sand below their horseshoed hooves.

"The first to cross the finish line is…Tawny Destry of Hoofland!" declared the unmistakable voice of Lady Lara.

"Already?" Nerissa asked. "But the race has just started, hasn't it?"

"Let's go congratulate the winner that you successfully predicted," proposed Zale.

"Rissie, Zale, have either of you seen Violet anywhere?". Nerissa whirled around to meet the eyes of Lady Coral, whose head presently bobbed above the water.

"I thought we left her with you, Mom, Dad, and Aunt Thalassa before the race" Princess Nerissa said.

"It was the strangest thing" said Coral. "One moment she was with us, but then it was like she vanished into thin water".

"Maybe she just needed a little fresh water" Lord Zale suggested.

"Maybe" repeated Coral, but she didn't sound the least bit convinced. "Rissie, why don't you and Zale search for her on this corner of the island, and in the surrounding water, while me and the King and the other members of the Pacifican Royal Family will split up and look elsewhere?"

"You can count on us!" Zale enthused. "She surely couldn't have wandered too far…couldn't she?"

Zale's optimism was infectious, but Nerissa knew good and well that this wasn't the first time a certain 4'11" Sea Nymph with jet black hair and beautiful violet eyes got a little in over her head, and took her and Coral with her.

Chapter Seven:

Lord Zale and Crown Princess Nerissa double-checked and triple-checked every single rock and every sandbar on the southwestern portion of La Isla Magica, and they could detect no trace of Lady Violet. By the time they had taken the plunge down into the shallows surrounding the magical island, even Zale had begun to voice his acute discouragement. "Perhaps I spoke a little bit too soon" he acknowledged, placing his hands high above his totally faultless head in surrender. "Apparently my dear cousin's BFF could have wandered far".

As virtually all of the Sea Nymphs and their Consorts were above the sea socializing and collecting their winnings from the Meadow Nymph Cross-Island Foot Race, the waters seemed eerily like a ghost town to Nerissa, without even any schools of fish in sight, since non-magical creatures were banned from setting fin or foot on or near La Isla Magica, with the only exception to that golden rule being the seahorses that were necessary for transportation to and from the island. "La Isla Magica is, like, the epitome of the old human saying 'a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there'" she remarked.

"Me either" agreed Zale. "Hey, what's that?"

"What's what?" Princess Nerissa inquired, but Zale didn't respond. He proceeded to remove a boulder blocking the entrance of a small grotto that blended in so ideally with the outlining rocks that if it wasn't for Zale, Nerissa was positive that she would never have noticed that it was there at all.

Nerissa followed Zale inside the cave, where they were floored to find not Violet, but a frightened little mergirl whom Nerissa guessed to be around four or five years old. "Who…are you?" the child asked in a small voice, her pale gray eyes wide with guarded curiosity.

The Crown Princess of Pacifica smiled at the strange little girl. "I'm Nerissa, and this is Zale".

"My name is Kenda"

"What are you doing in this cavern all by yourself, Kenda?" asked Lord Zale softly.

"I've been in here for a very, very long time" Kenda replied. An ethereally faraway look overtook the young girl's teeny countenance.

"For how long, exactly?" pried Nerissa.

Kenda shrugged her shoulders. "I can't really say for sure, maybe a hundred years or so"

Nerissa and Zale looked at each other and gasped in unison. "But, how could that be possible? You're just a…"

"Child?" Kenda finished for Princess Nerissa. "If one remains at La Isla Magica, they stop growing, no matter how young they are".

"That explains why the island doesn't seem to have many permanent residents" said Lord Zale.

"Other than the workers at the Aqua Magica Inn, but of course they're all adults and most of them should be already finished aging anyway" Nerissa put in.

"How'd you survive in here for so long?" questioned Zale. "No food, no one to talk to…"

"No one ever foams here" Kenda answered. "Foaming" was the Sea Nymph world's term for death, since merfolk turned into sparkling seafoam that floats on top of the ocean when they passed away. "My Mama and Dad are both foamed, and not long after they went, I found my way to La Isla Magica and got trapped in this grotto. That is, I think that is what happened. It was so long ago that details are pretty foggy. After a while, one stops living and merely exists". It was jarring how wise beyond her physical years Kenda was.

"Well, I'll tell you what, Kenda. How'd you like for us to bring you back to Pacifica with us, where you can start truly 'living' again?" requested Lord Zale, offering the girl his hand.

"Yes!" Kenda exclaimed, for once sounding like the child she was.

Chapter Eight:

Much to Nerissa and Zale's relief, Lady Coral's royal search party was waiting for them at their rendezvous point with a noticeably wide-smiling Violet in tow, which obviously signified that their mission had been a success. "And, now, just who is this adorable little angelfish?" she asked airily, pinching Kenda's soft cheeks, which caused the poor girl to wince.

"My name is Kenda, what's yours?"

"Pearlie, I am Lady Violet Nanami of Pacifica".

"I just told you, my name is Kenda, not 'Pearlie'" Kenda retorted. Nerissa was unsure regarding whether or not the young mergirl was being sarcastic to Lady Violet.

"Vi, where were you?" questioned Crown Princess Nerissa. "You had us all so worried about you!"

"I just needed a little fresh water, but I appreciate your concern, Your Highness". Lord Zale was too much of a gentleman to give Nerissa the "I told you so" treatment.

"But why didn't you say so before you went under?" Coral asked.

This question professedly caught Lady Violet off guard, for her unsettling permagrin was promptly wiped off of her fair face. "I'm not sure, my most esteemed friend Lady Coral".

Princess Nerissa was thoroughly unable to repress the potent urge to roll her sea-blue eyes. 'Your Highness'? 'My most esteemed friend'? What has gotten into Violet to make her so formal and ultra-polite all of a sudden? I can't possibly be the only one who notices it, can I?

That afternoon, Nerissa, Zale, Violet, and Coral all agreed to represent Pacifica in the second official event of the Magilympics, the Co-ed Aquatic Relay Race. Before, during, and after the race Lady Violet obnoxiously kept going on and on till the dugongs came home about what an oh-so very slow swimmer she was, and what a great honor it was for her to be on the same team as the other three, something which did not make an ounce of sense, considering she was the star of the prestigious Sunshine Valley High girls' swim team as her human alter ego, the German exchange student Violet Van Der Zee, and it certainly wasn't like the brash, egotistical Lady Violet that Coral and Princess Nerissa knew and loved to feel insecure of herself and her abilities in any situation, or at the very least she never would in a billion tides have wanted to give others the satisfaction of being aware of her feelings of inferiority. The Pacifican team ended up finishing last, in no small part due to Violet's incessant whining being a terrible distraction to the rest of the team.

"Mama!" cried out Kenda when Dowager Princess Zarya swam over to the tide pool where the relay race was held to present the winning team, which hailed from Chinania, with a gargantuan trophy fashioned of the finest white Atlantean sea-gold.

Chapter Nine:

Dowager Princess Zarya's dainty mouth hung open in shock, as did the Crown Princess of Pacifica's, Lord Zale's, and many other people's. Why in the seven seas would this peculiar young merchild with stringy honey brown locks and a short, narrow tail of golden yellow, whom she was pretty darn sure she was a perfect stranger to her, ever mistake her for her mother? The biggest drawback to her advanced age was that she had already outlived all four of her children, as well as all of her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, and the vast majority of her great-great-great-grandchildren and great-great-great-great-grandchildren, but as the High Guardian of the Realm of Sea Nymphs and their Consorts, she liked to think of herself as spiritual mother to the more than one hundred thousand mermaids and mermen who resided in Mediterrania and the nineteen other kingdoms in the world of Sea Nymphs. "I'm quite sorry to tell you this, dear pearl, but I am afraid you must be confusing me with somebody else. I am far too old to be the magibiological Mama of a Sea Nymph as small as you are".

"But I'm really over a hundred years old!" protested Kenda. She scooted to the edge of the round rock that she was sitting on so that she could be just a little bit closer to the woman whom she still sincerely believed with every beat of her heart to be her mother, even if she firmly persisted that that was not the case. "I've been trapped in a cave not far from this island since some time in the final decade of the nineteenth century in the year of our Sea Lord, and I always thought you had, you know, foamed, but I'd know you anywhere, Mama! Your hazel eyes and ebony tresses have constantly glided through my memory for all these years, even when I forgot so much else about myself and my old life, including the precise details of how I became locked in that cavern in the first place".

"Oh, sweetie, you have no idea how much it pains me to burst your bubble like this, but a lot of Sea Nymphs have hazel eyes and ebony tresses, and there is just simply no possible way I could be who you're thinking of".

"Is your name Zarya, and are you a Princess of the Sea Nymph kingdom of Mediterrania?" Kenda interrogated.

"Why yes, actually, but as a matter of fact I have quite a few descendents with the same name as me. Hmm, could one of those perhaps be your missing mother? What is your name, child?"

"Kenda".

This name apparently rang a bell in Zarya's head that opened up the floodgates of her copious memory bank. "Oh my good sea-god, it's a miracle that you're still alive! The hands of fate have delivered you not to your Mama, who I am regretfully sorry to say has been floating among the foam on the waters for quite a long while indeed, but to your fifty-times-great-grandmother, though naturally you may still call be 'Mama' if you so desire, for I believe I have but no choice but to adopt you and give you all the love and care you so rightfully deserve". Lady Violet, of all Sea Nymphs, sobbed louder than a newborn sea-baby over this touching scene, while everybody else oohed and aahed as Zarya held her long-lost great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter in a warm, tight embrace. It was almost enough to cause Nerissa to put her Lady-in-Waiting's increasingly uncharacteristic behavior on the mental back burner, but not quite.

Chapter Ten:

Exhausted from the events of the first full day of the Magical Creatures' Convention and glad to beat the scorching heat of the balmy tropical afternoon, Crown Princess Nerissa retired to her family's Royal Suite at the Aqua Magica Inn. She lazily slouched down on the sea-sponge sofa in the suite's sitting room and opened the first volume of the Encyclopedia Oceanica, which she had placed on the low sea-wood table in front of the couch the night before. One of the first articles was a short blurb about the Aqua Magica Inn which ended in "See also, La Isla Magica". Curious about what she could learn about the island from it, the Princess of Pacifica then eagerly grabbed the H-L volume of Encyclopedia. "La Isla Magica is the only magical island of its kind on Planet Earth" she began reading out loud, but she was unexpectedly interrupted by a soft but rhythmic knock on the door.

Her visitor was none other than precisely who she had hoped it to be: Lord Zale. "Greetings, Princess. I found something on the beach that made me think of you". He handed Nerissa a tiny, uniquely gorgeous pearl in shades of pink, blue, and lavender, coincidentally the exact same colors as her tail. When she set it on her lap, it blended in perfectly with her multi-hued scales.

"Thanks, Zale. It's beautiful".

"It's the rarest of all pearls, a Pearl of Pure Joy. I think our little friend Kenda left it behind". When merfolk cried, their tears sometimes turned into pearls, which were color-coded based on their reason for shedding tears. "Usually our tears settle on the ocean floor, where they are eventually transformed into pearls, but in the case of a Pearl of Pure Joy, tears of great joy are solidified immediately" Lord Zale explained. "It reminded me of you, because whenever I'm around you, pure joy is what I feel".

Nerissa suddenly felt like crying a few tears of her own as she gratefully hugged the stunning, raven-haired young Sea Nymph Consort. "Oh, Zale, you are without a doubt, the sweetest guy I've ever met".

Zale pointed at the open book on the table. "So, what are you reading? Anything interesting?"

"It's just the Encyclopedia Oceanica".

Lord Zale nodded. "My family has a set of those as well. My dad wanted me to bring them to school with me, but I managed to talk him out of it by reminding him that surely the library at the South Pacific Consort Academy would have a set of Encyclopedias of their own". He then started to read the article about La Isla Magica aloud to Nerissa, who got goose pimples whenever Zale said the name of the isle in his fluent Spanish accent. It briefly recalled the history and described the geographic location of the island, and then it went on to talk about the strange effects the enchanted place occasionally had on unsuspecting Sea Nymph tourists, effects which it claimed "even the wisest and most knowledgeable of Sea Nymphs and their Consorts fail to fully comprehend, if at all". "There have been cases reported", read Zale, "of former Sea Sirens arriving at the island only to be Bisected, or transformed into two separate individuals, each with a mind and body of their own, one a good Sea Nymph and the other, an evil Sea Siren". He paused. "Whoa, I guess what's up with Violet. She's been acting like a Siren doing a bad impression of a Sea Nymph because that is exactly what she is".

Chapter Eleven:

On her second night at the Aqua Magica Inn, Crown Princess Nerissa was haunted by disturbing nightmares of Lady Violet helplessly imprisoned in a claustrophobically tiny, bone-dry cave somewhere on some remote spot along the coastline, her hands and flukes tightly bound together with thick seaweed twine, and her mouth gagged with a silky purple sea-satin scarf. Not wanting to risk Violet's doppelganger catching on that she was on to her and thus putting herself and all those around her in probably mortal danger, Nerissa at first decided to keep her horrible dreams to herself, but she was caught off guard when Lord Zale pulled her discreetly aside before breakfast and confessed that he, too, had had the same visions in his head over the previous night. "For all we know, she could be dead by now!" the Princess of Pacifica stated, perhaps much louder than was really necessary, especially considering the faux "Violet" was in the next room, and just happened to hear every last word that had been exchanged between Zale and Nerissa.

"But didn't Kenda tell us that nobody ever foams here?" Zale questioned.

"Yes, but I have a feeling that this island, which the Encyclopedia says has a mind and soul of its own, makes the rules up as it goes along, and then breaks them all whenever it feels like it. Logic and reason are no use at a place like this".

"La Isla Magica is an island after Lewis Carroll's own heart, eh?" said Lord Zale, surprising Princess Nerissa with his knowledge of the human literary canon.

"Exactly!" Nerissa affirmed.

"And it looks like we're off on another search-and-rescue mission. Hmm, if we could some how use reverse psychology to trick her into…"

Zale unfortunately never got the chance to finish describing his modest proposal to the Keeper of Pacifica's Enchanted Royal Aquamarine, for his muscular body noisily hit the floor of the hotel lobby in a faint. Everyone else in the room, from the desk clerk to a large family checking out of La Isla Magica, could not keep themselves from staring as the most stunningly handsome young Sea Nymph Consort that they had even seen underwent a most ghastly metamorphosis.

Lord Zale's smooth skin wrinkled up like a waterlogged leg-walker's, and the scales on his beautiful, sturdy, green-and-silver mertail completely lost all of their pretty shine, sparkle and shimmer. He quickly gained at least fifty pounds, and unsightly hairs grew on his upper body. His wavy midnight-black hair turned gray as a dolphin's dorsal fin, and a long, tangled beard sprouted out his chin.

His transformation finally completed, Lord Zale opened his eyes and looked down at his brand-new physique in horror. "What…what's…happened…to…me?" he stammered, his voice now creaky like an old human man's.

Princess Nerissa gently clasped Zale's wrinkly, hairy hand in hers. She didn't feel nearly as repulsed by Lord Zale's new appearance as most would expect her to be, for she knew inside, where it really counted, he would always be the Zale Delmar she knew and cared for, and she understood better than anybody else in the Sea Nymph world what is like to suddenly change forms, only of course in her case she went from an average-looking human teenager with glasses, braces, and pimples to an enchanting mermaid Crown Princess, which was obviously the polar opposite of her good friend's situation. "Let's see if we can get you to a doctor"

"My deepest apologies, Your Royal Highness" the hotel manager who had just rushed to Zale's side, Mr. Kai, declared, shaking his head in remorse. "There isn't an infirmary within a five hundred nautical mile radius of La Isla Magica, and I seriously doubt modern sea-medicine could do anything anyway about what appears to me to be the work of a very powerful Sea Witch".

"Sea Witch?" Nerissa echoed. "You mean like Ursula in Disney's The Little Mermaid? Those actually exist?!" So the phony Violet is turning into something other than your run-of-the-mill Sea Siren, huh?

Chapter Twelve:

When King Poseidon saw what had happened to Lord Zale, he announced that with circumstances being what they were, the Royal Family of Pacifica and their entourage will not eat their breakfast in the hotel restaurant as they had originally planned on doing, but to instead, swim back up to their suites and order room service. "Are you in any way embarrassed or ashamed to be seen with me in public when I look this way, Your Majesty?" Zale hesitantly inquired, as he struggled to slowly maneuver his new, weak, heavy fishtail down the long corridors of the Aqua Magica Inn.

Poseidon shook his head firmly and threw a sympathetic arm around Zale's aged, ailing figure. "Oh no, of course not, young Consort, but as your King, I hereby order you to stay inside and rest until we can figure out an antidote to this mysterious curse".

"Is there any chance, Your Majesty, that I could be stuck this way for the rest of my life?"

"Perhaps there's something in the water here" theorized Princess Thalassa.

"No, that couldn't be it" Poseidon countered. "Then why isn't anyone else infected?"

"Are you sure?" the counterfeit "Lady Violet" pressed. "You know what they say, better safe than sorry, ne? Let's pack our bags and blow this sea-berry ice cream stand, y'know, just in case Zale will return to normal once we're away from this island…". Zale and Nerissa both knew right away exactly why "Violet" couldn't wait to high-tail it back to Pacifica: with the real Lady Violet Nanami tied up and abandoned somewhere, she was free to replace her and the true Violet would cease to exist. It's like something out of some cheesy old sci-fi B-movie, Crown Princess Nerissa realized.

Queen Melinda helped Lord Zale get comfortable on the couch in his small room at the Aqua Magica, a soft green sea-silk quilt covering his brittle tail, and Nerissa placed a sea-silver breakfast tray on his lap. "Mmm, seaweed pancakes! My favorite!" he remarked. He hadn't quite finished chewing his first bite of green pancake when Zale could swear he felt his heartbeat stop for roughly a split-second. "I…think…I'm…foaming!" he stuttered. "Princess Nerissa, find Violet!" were his final words prior to passing out once again. Luckily, at least for the time being, he appeared to still be breathing.

"But I'm right here!" "Violet" protested. "He must be getting delirious in his old age".

All of a sudden, it was if something had snapped inside Nerissa, and she was not going to play along with "Lady Violet"'s games any longer. "The jig is up, whoever, or shall I say whatever you are!" the Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica exclaimed angrily before swimming out of the room at a previously unheard of speed of one hundred and fifty miles per hour, knowing she had no time to explain to her family and Lady Coral about what was going on, for this was an urgent matter of life and death for two people very close to her.

"Hmm, I can see that I am neither needed nor wanted around here" said "Violet" the Sea Witch once Nerissa had gone, and in the blink of an eye, she was gone as well. That was more than enough to clue Poseidon, Melinda, and Coral in on the fact that she wasn't what she seemed, because even Sea Sirens didn't have the ability to teleport.

Chapter Thirteen:

Crown Princess Nerissa surfaced by a mostly secluded corner of the beach, where the only other living beings nearby her were a pink-haired, pink-winged, pink-eyed Sky Nymph around her age who was attired from her head down to her toes in a kaleidoscope of different shades of pink, and a young centaurette whom she immediately recognized as the winner of the previous day's Meadow Nymph Cross-Island Foot Race.

"Need a ride anywhere, Princess?" offered Tawny Destry. She patted her horse back, her chestnut horse's tail blowing in the oceanic winds. "Say, you didn't happen to be the very same Sea Nymph royal who betted on me yesterday and then for some reason forgot to pick up her winnings from Lady Lara?"

Nerissa, who already knew that she liked Tawny quite a lot, laughed in spite of herself. "Yeah, that would be me, and, man, that was some race yesterday! My name's Nerissa, and I'm the Crown Princess of the Sea Nymph kingdom of Pacifica".

"I'm Magenta!" the fairy vociferated. "Everybody says my name fits me like a spider-silk glove, and who am I to disagree?". The pitch of Magenta's voice was so high that the most apt comparison that Princess Nerissa could think of would have to have been to Minnie Mouse. "And surely you know Tawny".

"Magenta can lift you onto my back, Princess, and I can show you the parts of this island you fish-people usually never get to see" proposed Tawny.

Every though the very idea of riding on the back of another humanoid creature as if they were a draft animal struck Nerissa as more than a little bit weird, she could not say 'no' to Tawny, and what's more is that she figured that she could use all of the help that she could get. "I'm looking for a friend of mine, a fellow Sea Nymph called Lady Violet" the Keeper of Pacifica's Enchanted Royal Aquamarine pendant explained. "I think something very evil has her held captive in this dark cave. Do you have any clue where on La Isla Magica that might be?"

"It's probably Dead Nymph's Cave, which is located near the southeastern shore of the island" pronounced Tawny. "With a name like that, it sure makes you want to come inside of it, doesn't it?". Tawny's sarcasm reminded Nerissa of Vanessa Hogland, her human best friend whom she had known since they were both in kindergarten, and still did not know that Nerissa was a half-mermaid, half-human Princess who had magical Aquamarine jewelry in her possession and lived with a pair of Sea Nymph servants disguised as foreign exchange students. "If I run at top speed, we should make it there in a jiffy. If your gills aren't still moist when we get there, I'll give you a money-back guarantee, which of course would be nada, since I ain't charging you anything for the trip, Your Highness".

"Thank you". Magenta took Nerissa by the hand, and, her enormous wings beating furiously, helped the Crown Princess of Pacifica slide onto Tawny's powerfully built, auburn back, and within a matter of seconds, the Meadow Nymph was off and running, with Magenta flying above her. Supporting the weight of a mermaid princess didn't seem to slow her down in the slightest, amazingly enough.

Chapter Fourteen:

Dead Nymph's Cave turned out to be nothing but a pile of sharp, jagged rocks hidden behind a sand dune which had remained miraculously dry for countless millennia. "Legend has it that Dead Nymph's Cave was created long, long ago as a prison for a Sea Siren who had escaped to La Isla Magica" Tawny informed Nerissa and Magenta.

The centaurette's knowledge of island lore had impressed the Crown Princess of Pacifica immensely. "It sure is ironic that while Lord Zale and I were helping to free one trapped Sea Nymph, Lady Violet was stuck in here, gasping for dear life!"

With a single kick of her powerful horse legs, Tawny knocked down all of the rocks that made up the mini-fortress of sorts that had been known as Dead Nymph's Cave, violently tossing Princess Nerissa from her back in the process, but Magenta swooped in and set the half-Sea Nymph gently down upon the powdery ivory sand. All three girls could not believe what they saw lying behind the dune: not one, but two pretty young mermaids with black hair, purple tails, and glassy violet-colored eyes, and neither one was actually tied up. "Hi, Rissie!" two identical-sounding voices greeted the Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica in eerily perfect unison. "We bet you can't guess which one of us is the real Lady Violet Nanami!"

"Maybe she can't, but I betcha I can!" attested Tawny, her hands defiantly placed on her horse-hips.

"No, Tawny!" Nerissa objected. "This has nothing to do with you, so run along! You two, Magenta! Don't get yourselves hurt when you don't need to".

"Trust me, Princess, I can help you!" insisted the Meadow Nymph, while Magenta obeyed the Pacifican Princess by fluttering away to safety.

"How do you figure, horsey?" the two Violets questioned mockingly. They slithered on the beach in a snakelike manner toward Tawny.

The centaurette cleared her throat. "For your information, Fishies, we Meadow Nymphs and our Consorts spend much of our free time looking up at the night sky, and as such, we are quite well-versed on the movements of the constellations, as well as of course the cycles of this planet's largest satellite, the Moon. Why, we probably know more about the phases of the moon that any other race of creatures on God's Green Earth, even though logically one would think you Sea Nymphs really should know more about it, considering it controls the tides of the oceans you guys live in and all. I've heard of rare occurrences when Sea Nymphs are exposed to the light of a full moon, and it alters their magi-genetic makeup, which is a condition that apparently continues to worsen progressively as long as an afflicted fishy maiden stays on or in the waters beside this island, with the most common symptom being…"

"Bisection" finished Crown Princess Nerissa, remembering the Encyclopedia Oceanica entry her and Zale had read together the day before. "Everything's starting to make some sense now".

Both Lady Violets rolled their eyes emphatically. "This is all very interesting and everything, but what does all this have to do with you telling us apart? We don't have all day, hoofer, so cut to the chase and spit it out, or else!"

"I learned in Nymph school that every single Sea Nymph is born clutching their Enchanted Personal Aquamarine ring in their right hand, so as a result of this, a supernatural-born Sea Nymph always has an indent in their right palm where their Aquamarine sat, something that no human-born Nymph or Bisector has. The only cure to a Bisection is to correctly identify, without a doubt in one's mind, which is the true Sea Nymph and which is the imposter, when they're both together. All I need is one quick glance at your hands, and I believe Lady Violet Nanami will never be Bisected again!"

As Tawny yanked one of the Violets' hands toward her and pressed down on her pale palm, the evil doppelganger began to slowly fade away into nothingness, but not before she served Nerissa and the still-bewitched, but now conscious Lord Zale one final helping of magical revenge.

Chapter Fifteen:

Nerissa gasped as she found herself teleported from the beach on the southeastern shore of La Isla Magica to a part of the ocean that she was one hundred percent sure had to be an Unenchanted Zone, for the saltwater she was now forced to breathe reeked of rotting fish flesh, harmfully polluting chemicals, and grossest of all, the excrement of a wide variety of marine animals, which was an issue that simply did not exist in Pacifica, due to the powerful Sea Nymph Enchantment that protected the kingdom from the considerable horrors of mundane natural processes, and it was so dark that she had to squint to see anything even remotely clearly. Freezing her lovely tail off in the ice-cold waters, she pondered over whether or not it would be possible for a Sea Nymph to die of hypothermia.

Holding her nose and shivering in her skimpy aqua sea-satin bikini top, the Crown Princess of Pacifica cautiously looked both ways, as if she was a human being crossing a crowded city street, before propelling herself forward, for she did not care to become a hearty dinner for some hungry Great White shark who might be lurking in the shadows of the abyss for all she knew. She bumped into a school of some rather, in her opinion, unattractive grayish-scaled fishes, each one not much larger than the palm of one of her delicate hands. "Hi!" she said to them nervously, smiling and raising her hand in greeting. They stared at her sharply and then swam away in fear, as they had never seen a mermaid before, and were thus unsure of what this odd-looking and huge fish had in store for them. Nerissa frowned and shrugged out of disappointment, for she had been foolishly hoping that they could speak English so they could tell her where in the seven seas Lady Violet's dying clone had sent her to against her will.

Princess Nerissa started towards the surface in order to check if she was anywhere near land, but the currents in the open sea which surrounded her were so exceedingly strong that that was no easy task. Once she was halfway there, her flukes and arms, which she needed to use to help steer her body through the treacherous ebb and flow, felt so sore that she wasn't sure if she could swim another stroke without fainting from exhaustion, but like a bolt out of the clear blue, she suddenly could make out a bearded form floating determinedly towards her.

"Nerissa, tell me you are really here, and not just some mirage that my mind created to comfort me as I float here slowly foaming, for I'm sure to make for easy prey out here, right?" Lord Zale sighed wearily.

Nerissa shook her head, and reached out and touched Zale's still-hairy chest. "Yes, I am really here, and you are not going to foam, I mean, at least not for another thousand or more years. I'm sure we'll find out how to break your spell pretty soon" she reassured him. It absolutely broke her heart to see Zale looking and sounding so discouraged, for it was so contrary to his typically sunny, easygoing disposition. "Keep your chin up, every storm cloud over the sea has its silver lining, and all that!"

Zale shakily grinned. "So, my dearest Princess, do you think that if we hold onto each other's hands and pool our energy, we'll be able to make it to the surface?"

"We'll never know if we don't give it the old Sea Nymph try" answered the Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica soberly.

Chapter Sixteen:

The air above the unknown region of the sea that Lord Zale and Crown Princess Nerissa had been magically transported to was fairly warm, which was naturally quite a relief to the young Sea Nymph and her physically geriatric companion after their long swim in the icy Unenchanted waters. "Do you see any land, Nerissa?" Zale asked. "My eyes ain't what they used to be".

The Keeper of Pacifica's Enchanted Royal Aquamarine shook her head. "Nope, nothing but water, water, water everywhere! Drat, I was hoping that I could go on land and figure out where we are".

"The sky looks pretty dark" observed Lord Zale. "I wonder what time zone we're in".

"I don't know for sure, but my gut instinct suddenly tells me that we're most likely somewhere in the Northern Pacific Ocean" Nerissa stated.

"If that's true, I suppose if we keep swimming east, we should reach the coastline, and then if we turn south, we'll eventually find ourselves back at good ol' Pacifica, but..."

"All that talk of swimming makes me feel even more wiped than I already felt!"

Without warning, clouds filled and lightning streaked across the blackening sky, and torrential rain poured down rapidly over the ocean. The unexpected storm caused the already unstable sea to churn like butter and forcibly drag Nerissa and Zale several feet under the rugged waves. A white plastic grocery bag floated onto Princess Nerissa's head, and she quickly flicked it off in disgust. "Ugh, I'm so glad that my Mom switched to using only reusable shopping bags!"

"How hungry are you, Princess?" inquired Lord Zale. A chunk of seaweed drifted by him, which he then grasped in his wrinkled hands.

The Princess of Pacifica eyed the wild sea vegetable with suspicion. "You really think that is safe for us to eat, Zale? It could be contaminated with goodness knows what!"

"I know, but we gotta eat something, right, to have the energy we need to swim away from this horrid hellhole, and, look around us, Nerissa, what other potential meal options can you see? Needless to say, trying to hunt for live feed is always out of the question for our kind, so I guess it's either this or nothing, take your pick".

"I like this new tough attitude of yours, Zale" Nerissa uttered.

"Well, after what you said to me about every storm cloud having a silver lining, I just want to make sure I never give up on life again. When life gives me seaweed, I'll make some yummy seaweed pasta! You know, when I was unconscious, I had this very vivid dream that I had an audience with the Goddess of the Sea. I asked Her if I was foamed, and She told me that I wasn't, and that I had a Sea Nymph who needed me back in the realm of the living, so when I woke up and found myself here, I wondered if She was playing some kind of cruel joke on me by sending me to the worst place imaginable, where I thought I'd never, ever see you again".

"Zale, I'm so sorry" whispered the Crown Princess of Pacifica, and then she brushed her wet lips against Zale's hairy mouth, and threw her arms around him tightly, looking beyond his outward appearance. Brilliantly colored underwater fireworks circled the kissing and hugging couple and brightened the inky seawater as the spell put upon Lord Zale by the evil Lady Violet was broken for once and for all.

Chapter Seventeen:

After chowing down on a surprisingly satisfying dinner of hand-shredded wild seaweed pasta, Crown Princess Nerissa and Lord Zale set out for the coastline under the cloak of night, swimming proximately thirty fathoms below the surface of the ocean. Despite both of them truly trying their darnedest to watch each other's backs, somewhere near San Francisco Bay a sixteen-foot tiger shark was so well-camouflaged to its murky environment that the sharp-toothed light green and yellow macropredator practically appeared from out of nowhere and aggressively attacked Zale and Nerissa. It circled around the young mermaid, who discovered that her Enchanted Aquamarines were completely useless in the Unenchanted Zone when she attempted to project a bubble-shaped forcefield around them, and her friend and studied them by prodding their tails with its snout.

As her short life flashed before her eyes, Nerissa remembered her mother, a marine biology professor at the Sunshine Valley campus of the University of California, informing her that Unenchanted tiger sharks have a habit of mistakenly eating all sorts of inedible objects, and for that reason they are often regarded as "the ocean's garbage cans". "Here, dine on this instead!" the Princess of Pacifica roared as she took off her exquisite pearl-and-shell tiara and tossed it at the shark, although aiming and throwing underwater is sometimes easier said than done. "Haven't you heard the latest news, Jaws? Sea Nymphs and their Consorts are your friends, not your food!"

Although the shark did take the bait and swallow Nerissa's crown whole, that apparently was not enough to quench its monstrous appetite, as the Keeper of Pacifica's Enchanted Royal Aquamarine had desperately prayed to the Goddess of the Sea that it would, for just when the young merfolk thought they had actually managed to escape from its clutches, it fleetly chased them from behind, licking its chops and its beady eyes peering ahead ravenously at its scrumptious, sweet-smelling prey. Since, unlike Lord Zale and Princess Nerissa, the tiger shark was perfectly adapted to its surroundings, it had them cornered yet again in no time at all.

"Maybe one of us will be enough for you" Zale said. He shoved his body closer to the shark and tantalized the beast by moving his left hand back and forth in front of its mouth. "Go on, eat me! I don't care, you can do whatever you'd like to me, as long as you leave Nerissa alone!"

"Zale, no!" balked Nerissa, pulling his hand away from the shark's jaws.

"I don't think I have a choice, love!" he persisted, holding her close to him for what he believed to be the very last time. "You know that neither one of us is strong enough to fight him off, but I'll never forgive myself if anything happens to you, so you must save yourself, leave me here now to face the music! I know I promised I'd never give up on life ever again, but you're the Crown Princess of Pacifica, as your faithful subject, it's my duty to bleed and die for you if it's necessary. Swim for your life and never look back! If you won't do it for yourself, please do it for me, and do it for your family and your Kingdom!"

Chapter Eighteen:

The extremely surprisingly arrival of a seahorse-drawn Sea-Shuttle that happened to be several times as long as the large and gluttonous tiger shark frightened the poor creature so badly that it scurried away like a hapless mouse running away from a menacing tomcat. "We're saved, we're saved!" exclaimed the Crown Princess of Pacifica, hugging Lord Zale so close to her body that it was as if their two hearts beated as one for a brief but extraordinarily precious moment. "It looks like you won't have to sacrifice yourself after all!"

"But what under the sea would a Sea-Shuttle from our world be doing clear out here in the Unenchanted Zone?" Zale pondered out loud, before the vehicle pulled up beside him and Nerissa.

A wonderfully familiar face gazed up at them from one of the Shuttle's many rectangular sea-glass windows. "Mom!" shouted Princess Nerissa, who felt so overcome with joy and relief that she started to cry, which caused beautiful multicolored pearls to immediately spring from her pretty turquoise eyes.

The door on the side of the Sea-Shuttle was opened, and Zale and Nerissa eagerly slid inside. "How in the Goddess of the Sea's clear, deep, blue oceans did you get here so quickly, and, for that matter, how did you even know where we were, Your Majesties?" Lord Zale wanted to know.

King Poseidon, who was seated to his wife's right, explained that the owners of the Aqua Magica Inn had been kind enough to allow them to borrow the hotel's fastest Sea-Shuttle. "They claimed it moves at least as fast, if not even faster than a human's airplane, and I'm certainly not inclined to disagree".

"And as for how we knew where to look for you two, they could not have done it without me!" declared Lady Violet, turning around in her seat to face the Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica. "When my evil twin of sorts sent you here, I was still under her weird mind-meld spell so I could hear every little thing that went on in her sick and twisted mind, so of course I knew where you were, and I knew how to get there".

"Lady Violet, mere words could never in a million tides express how grateful Queen Melinda and I are for you saving my daughter and Lord Zale's lives" stated Poseidon.

"If it wasn't for you, they would have become Unenchanted shark food for sure!" Melinda added.

"Will I be awarded a Royal Conch Shell of Honor?" questioned Violet, with a greedy glint in her purple eyes.

"We'll see" Queen Melinda answered plainly.

Chapter Nineteen:

The following morning, the King and Queen of Pacifica surprised their fifteen-year-old daughter, both of her Ladies-in-Waiting, and Lord Zale by treating them to a full day of pampering at the Aqua Magica Inn's Sea Nymph-world-class Health And Beauty Sea-Spa. Crown Princess Nerissa was somewhat bewildered at first that Zale seemed just as thrilled by the prospect of spending an entire day being beautified, but Queen Melinda reminded her in a whisper that "remember, all Consorts are taught from a very young age that their greatest duty in life is to please the special Nymph in their life, which of course includes looking their very best, although vanity and conceit is strongly discouraged" once she noticed Nerissa's bemused expression.

As Princess Nerissa, Lady Violet, and Lady Coral entered the pleasant, pearl-walled, gender-segregated waiting room of the spa, the striking golden-tressed receptionist who sat in a straight-backed, shell-shaped chair behind the high driftwood counter loudly "tsk-tsked". "You poor little maiden!" she burst out. "Your Royal Highness, what the halibut has happened to you? You flukes are all swollen, and may I be so bold as to inquire about that faint yet foul odor emitting from your body?"

"Believe me, you don't want to know!" assured the Princess of Pacifica with a playfully coy wink of her eye.

"Whatever you say, Your Highness" the receptionist, whose square sea-wood name-tag identified as Marian said, her disappointment plain as day on her comely heart-shaped face. "Why don't you gals take a seat and we'll try to schedule you in as soon as Sea Nymphly possible!"

"As soon as Sea Nymphly possible" turned out to be well over an hour after the Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine, Coral, and Violet floated through the door to the Health And Beauty Sea-Spa, when Nerissa was finally escorted into a private massage room by a green-haired mermaid in a woven seaweed smock. Inside the dimly lit room, a generously muscular Sea Nymph Consort rubbed a lightly-colored, lotion-like plant oil all over her still-aching mertail and presently smelly titian locks, which magically made her feel energized and cleansed, and caused every part of her body, from the top of her wavy hair to the bottom of her flukes, to glamorously sparkle and shimmer as if she had just bathed in a pool of colorful glitter. The young Crown Princess of Pacifica could not keep herself from gasping when she saw her literally glittering reflection in a hand mirror that her handsome massage therapist had handed her.

"I take it you are reasonably satisfied with the results of your treatment, Your Highness?" asked the masseuse.

"Yes, very satisfied!" Nerissa reassured him. "I can't wait to see what my friends look like after their beauty treatments!". Especially Lord Zale, she added silently to herself.

Chapter Twenty:

Crown Princess Nerissa Sanderson's jaw practically hit the ocean floor when Lord Zale emerged from the pearl-covered door with a driftwood sign on it which read "Exit Of The Consorts To The Sea Nymphs' Handsomification Chamber", an interesting inscription that the 15-year-old Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica thought had a sort of futuristic ring to it, like something out of Star Trek. Because of the spa's incredibly strict sex-segregation policies, the Princess of Pacifica and Lord Zale were not allowed to see each other anywhere actually inside of the establishment, but there were doors that conveniently led to the hallway outside of the Health And Beauty Sea-Spa, where all patrons were sent when their treatments were finished.

Zale now resembled an aquatic angel, as every part of his ideal body appeared to ethereally glow from deep within, and his long, dark hair was restyled into an elaborately layered and feathered hairdo that reminded Nerissa of wings. Every last shiny lock on Lord Zale's perfectly shaped head boldly defied even the most basic laws of underwater physics by remaining stiffly in place thanks to plenty of SeaMuck, a sticky substance which was in essence the Sea Nymph world's version of hairspray.

Lord Zale then gazed into Princess Nerissa's eyes and smiled down at her alluringly. "I can't honestly see how there could be a more stunning Sea Nymph somewhere, anywhere out there in our great, big, blue, beautiful world!"

"And I can't see how there be a more dashing Sea Nymph Consort anywhere!" Nerissa responded, returning Zale's smile and motioning for him to take a seat in the bright blue sea-plastic chair next to hers.

"I wonder what's taking my dear cousin and our most unlikely savior so long" sighed Zale.

Pacifica's Crown Princess shrugged her glittery shoulders. "Who knows? I mean, it's not like they needed even close to as much work done as we both did!"

"Like my splashin' new look, Rissie?" inquired Lady Violet after her and Coral came out of a door marked "Sea Nymphs' Beautification Chamber". While Lady Coral really did not look overly different to Nerissa, Violet had undergone a rather drastic makeover, with each and every centimeter of her skin and hair artificially colored a bold shade of royal purple.

Princess Nerissa's first impression was that her friend bore more than a passing resemblance to Grimace, the grape-colored, milkshake-guzzling character from the McDonald's commercials, but the last thing she wanted to do was to crush Violet's spirits, especially since Zale and her probably wouldn't even be alive right then if it wasn't for her, just as her mother had said. "It's, uh, very nice, Vi".

"Don't worry, Rissie" Lady Coral whispered into Nerissa's ear, much to her relief. "It's only temporary. Vi will look like her old, non-sea-grape-like self within a couple of days.

"Thank the Goddess of the Sea for that!"

"I just had an idea even more brilliant than I look!" asserted Violet. "Let's have a surface party tonight, where I can show off the new and improved Lady Violet Nanami!"

"I don't want to sound like a total idiot here, Vi, but what exactly is a surface party?" Nerissa asked.

"It's when us Sea Nymphs gather above the surface and comb our hair and sing songs and chat and stuff" explained Lady Violet.

"Back in the Middle Ages, it wasn't at all uncommon for us to have surface parties in broad daylight, which gave some humans the wrong idea that all we ever do is sing and mess with our hair" Coral uttered, rolling her golden brown eyes.

Chapter Twenty-One:

As was customary in the generally matriarchal Sea Nymph world, not a single Sea Nymph Consort was invited to Crown Princess Nerissa and Lady Violet's surface party, but that didn't keep most of the young merman in attendance at the Magical Creatures' Convention from gathering far below the ocean's surface to discuss whether or not they should spy on the mermaids or do anything to disrupt their peaceful get-together. "I don't believe you guys" said Lord Zale, shaking his head disapprovingly.

"What do you mean?" Prince Yaxha of MexiSea, who was, at age of twenty-three, was the eldest unmarried male Conventioneer, and was also a third cousin of Zale and Lady Coral's.

"It's just that my parents raised me to respect Sea Nymphs' privacy, and I'm sure that yours did as well, that's all".

Prince Yaxha raised his thick, bushy eyebrows in amusement. "You weren't always such a goody-two-flukes spoilsport, you know. Remember that one summer when your family stayed at our Palace, and you couldn't shut up about all the practical jokes you had pulled on our cousin Lady Coral up in Pacifica? You boasted about how one morning you tied all her shell tops together while she was still sleeping, and all the clever places you would hide her Enchanted Personal Aquamarine ring from her!"

Zale's cheeks suddenly blushed redder than the gingery-toned hair on the head of his Kingdom's beloved Crown Princess. "Yes, I am afraid that is true, but Yaxha, the thing is, I was just a little kid then! We're all grown Consorts to the Sea Nymphs, or at least close enough to marriageable age that we should know better than to act like a bunch of nosy, immature human teenage boys with nothing better to do than eavesdrop on the very young maidens we were put on this planet to love, honor, cherish, and protect till the waves do us part".

"I say we shall take a vote" suggested Prince Fiske, the dark-skinned, dreadlocked, 19-year-old Crown Prince of Atlantis. "After all, as the leg-walkers are fond of saying, majority rules, right?"

"All right then, all in favor of eavesdropping on the surface party that will be held later tonight, say 'aye'!" Prince Yaxha announced.

"Aye!" Prince Irwyn of Caribbeania, Prince Mar of Chilea, Prince Proteus of Mediterrania, Prince Dalit of Mosesia, Prince Bo of Chinania, Prince Toru of Japonia, Prince Matsya of Andamia, Prince Seton of Timoria, Prince Sewell of Tasman, Prince Saegar of Solomon, Fiske, and of course Yaxha declared simultaneously.

"All those opposed to us eavesdropping on tonight's surface party say 'aye!"

"Aye!" exclaimed Lord Zale, Prince Atl of MexiSea, Prince Murray of Atlantis, Prince Wyatt of Mediterrania, Prince Juan of Bohai, Prince Liang of Chinania, Prince Jaladhi of Andamia, Prince Merrill of Celebes, and Prince Colvert of Timoria.

"Well, Zale, you have just been outvoted 12 to 9, but those of you who voted opposite of me don't have to tag along with us if you don't want to" Prince Yaxha affirmed.

"Oh, I'm coming along alright!" Lord Zale insisted. If only to keep the others out of the worst sorts of trouble.

Chapter Twenty-Two:

"Seasational, as Lady Vi might say!" the Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica proclaimed, after poking her head above the waves. "Tawny, Magenta, the two of you are just the magical creatures I have been looking for! I'm so relieved that you two just happened to be taking a stroll along the beach together at this moment, because you know that I cannot easily move myself much further away from the shoreline than I am right now".

Tough-as-nails Tawny wasn't usually much of a hugger, but even she couldn't resist throwing her buff arms around her fish-tailed friend, who neither her nor Magenta had seen since her and Lord Zale had been magically relocated to the Unenchanted Zone by Violet's malevolent doppelganger. "And I am so relieved that you made it back some how, and even after all the horse apples you must have gone through, not only are you still in one piece, I bet you've never looked better…or sparklier! You gotta be a much, much tougher sea-chick that I had initially taken you for you, Your Highness!"

"I'm not much for formalities, so I'd really prefer if you'd please call me Nerissa".

"You, Nerissa, sure are different from what I always thought a Sea Nymph would be like, and you better believe that I mean that as a great compliment" stated Tawny.

"You can chalk that up to the fact that I am actually half-human" Nerissa remarked.

"That's so fluttersome!" shrieked Magenta. "I'm one-eighth human! We could even be related, who knows?"

"I'm afraid that that's pretty darn unlikely, Magenta, considering that the human world is so grossly overpopulated that they have literally billions more members of their species than all of the magical races combined" Tawny said.

"You see, girls, the reason why I went in search of you two is to invite you to what we Sea Nymphs call a surface party" explained Crown Princess Nerissa.

"Wow, I don't know of any Sky Nymph ever been invited to one of those before!" Magenta chirped, clapping her hands together enthusiastically.

"Yeah, it's like I said before, our Princess Nerissa is by no means your average, everyday Sea Nymph" asserted Tawny.

"So, when is this surface party?" Magenta wanted to know. "Tonight" said the Princess of Pacifica.

"Talk about short notice!" Tawny exclaimed.

"If you guys have other plans, I totally understand" reassured Nerissa.

"Nope, I wouldn't miss this for the whole world!" Tawny affirmed.

"Me either!" chimed in Magenta.

Chapter Twenty-Three:

Lady Violet's purple-tinted skin and hair did in fact manage to capture the attention of every single guest at her and Crown Princess Nerissa's Surface Party, although it most certainly was not because they thought that she looked so breathtakingly beautiful that they couldn't take their eyes off her, which of course, Violet being who she was, she had been positively sure was bound to happen that night. Tawny, for one, burst out laughing uncontrollably when she first caught sight of the Princess of Pacifica's currently purple-skinned Lady-in-Waiting. The sound of the centaurette's laughter was a very loud and quirky neigh-like guffaw unlike anything Nerissa had ever heard emitting from the mouth of any Sea Nymph or human before.

"What in the greenest pastures happened to you?" Tawny breathlessly asked in between chuckles. "I've heard of the monochromatic look, but that is just hoofing ridiculous, Violet!"

"Ah, come on, it doesn't look that bad!" fibbed the Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica, lightly poking her semi-equine friend in the ribs. Since neither Lady Violet nor Coral knew Tawny and Magenta particularly well, Princess Nerissa hoped with all her heart that her new friends would make good impressions on her Ladies-in-Waiting, not to mention all the other Sea Nymphs at the party, and there was nothing that would make a worse impression on Lady Violet than insulting her appearance, no matter how justified the criticism seemed to be.

"Oh, riiigghht! I was only horsing with you" Tawny lied through her perfectly white teeth. "You look, really grape, uh, I mean great!". Magenta, along with several other party guests, were unable to hold back their giggles.

"You weren't actually, y'know, born that way, were you?" inquired Crown Princess Nerita, Prince Yaxha's younger sister and Keeper of the kingdom of MexiSea's Enchanted Royal Aquamarine.

Violet shook her head. "No, of course not, dahling! Those fabulous Sea Nymphs and Consorts at the Inn's Health And Beauty Sea-Spa just gave me an up-to-the-split-second, head-to-flukes makeover".

"I see" Nerita responded, eyeing Lady Violet doubtfully.

"Let's sing some Gossip Songs!" enthused Violet.

"Gossip…Songs?" Nerissa repeated in a questioning tone.

"I didn't know that Sea Nymphs were the type to engage in gossip" remarked Tawny, a disapproving frown developing on her attractive face.

"What's wrong with gossip?" Magenta needled obliviously, floating in place a few feet above the edge of the sandy beach. Tawny automatically rolled her gold eyes in response.

"Gossip Songs are an ancient tradition that we Sea Nymphs have been observing at our Surface Parties since time immemorial" explained Princess Coraline of Atlantis, who happened to be the niece of Princess Thalassa and her husband, Prince Neptune.

"We Sea Nymphs will each take turns singing songs that we'll make up on the spot about what's on our minds and in our hearts" Mara, the Crown Princess of Mosesia, a Sea Nymph Kingdom which was located under the Red Sea.

Tawny threw her left palm up out of protest, her eyes blazing. "Just wait a second right there, little fish-girl! What on Earth did you mean by 'we Sea Nymphs'? Just in case you have not already noticed, you sea-girlies happen to be in the presence of a proud Meadow Nymph, or as the two-leggers like to say, a centaurette".

"And I'm a proud Sky Nymph!" put in Magenta.

Princess Nerissa shifted uncomfortably on the rock that she was presently seated on and looked down at her flukes. "Well, I hereby propose that 'we Sea Nymphs' make Tawny and Magenta honorary Sea Nymphs!" she advocated. She then briefly glanced around at the open-mouthed expressions on the lovely faces of her dozen or so fellow young mermaids who were huddled closely together on top of a trio of large rocks that poked above the surface of the shallows. "What do you say, girls?"

"Sure, why not?" Princess Nerita answered with a shrug of her swarthy shoulders.

"I bet you cold fishes think that Magenta and I are too stupid to realize that 'honorary Sea Nymph' is nothing but a nicer way of saying 'token air-breathing creature', dontcha? Sorry ladies, but Magenta and I have far too much pride in ourselves and the proud races that we are part of to agree to be glorified pets to any bunch of sea-chicks who everybody knows deep down consider themselves superior to all other kinds of magical creatures!" seethed Tawny prior to breaking into a brisk canter and heading inland, a seemingly reluctant Magenta trailing behind her.

Even though what Tawny said about Sea Nymphs feeling superior to other magical beings was, to say the least, hurtful to Nerissa, The Crown Princess of Pacifica nevertheless wanted more than anything to run after them and deliver a heartfelt apology to her friends for inadvertedly hurting their pride, but since she was a mermaid with no present means of changing her fish-like tail into legs, it should go without saying that that was physically impossible. Lady Violet's voice broke through the awkward silence that now engulfed the Surface Party by declaring that "as the old Sea Nymph saying goes, the Party must go on!". Nerissa couldn't believe that her Lady-in-Waiting didn't seem to be the least bit concerned about Magenta and Tawny's hurt feelings and bruised egos, or at least if she was she clearly had a funny way of showing it, especially considering that they had more or less saved her life earlier that week, but for some strange reason she chose to hold her tongue about the matter.

Chapter Twenty-Four:

"Eureka!" exclaimed Prince Yaxha. "Now, that's what I call a perfect location for doing some serious eavesdropping!". He pointed at a tall, sharp rock formation that was located several yards away from where he was sure the Sea Nymphs would hold their Surface Party.

Some of the other young mermen were not at all completely convinced of the supposed "perfection" of the site. "But we wouldn't be able to see the Sea Nymphs, or much else for that matter, from behind these boulders!" Mar, a Prince from Chilea, an underwater kingdom off the coast of South America, objected, his arms crossed stubbornly across his broad chest.

Yaxha shook his head and sighed in resignation. "You're entirely missing the point, barnacle-brain! If we can't see the girls from behind these big rocks, then they should not be able to see us either!"

Prince Fiske of Atlantis and his twin brother, Prince Murray, looked at each other and nodded knowingly. "But we can…" began Fiske.

"Hear them perfectly!" Prince Murray finished.

"That's exactly right!" said Yaxha, a wicked grin developing on his handsome face. "The party should be off to a start any minute now, so let's go make ourselves scarce before our precious little Sea Nymphs show up!". He rubbed his palms together excitedly, then he dove down into the water and made his way toward the oversized grouping of stones and motioned for the others to follow behind him.

"I've heard of the monochromatic look, but that is just hoofing ridiculous, Violet!" the group of young Sea Nymph Consorts who were hiding behind the enormous rocks overheard Tawny remark.

Prince Yaxha rolled his eyes. "So far, this very well may be the most boring Surface Party in the history of the Sea Nymph world! I'm not even sure I know what 'monochromatic' means".

When Lady Violet suggested that the Sea Nymphs sing Gossip Songs, some of the boys couldn't keep themselves from cheering. "That's the best idea I've heard all day!" bellowed Prince Murray of Atlantis, perhaps a little too loudly.

"Ssshhh!" Yaxha shushed even more loudly. "Murray, buddy, would ya keep it down? We cannot risk having our cover blown to bits!"

"Gee, sorry" Murray whispered, hanging his head down in humiliation.

Lord Zale was not surprised to hear that Crown Princess Nerissa was apparently unfamiliar with the tradition of Gossip Songs. "I have so much compassion for Princess Nerissa. Some might think that being half-human and half-Sea Nymph gives her the best of both worlds, but sometimes I get the feeling from her that she feels like she doesn't really fit in in either world" he reflected.

Little did Zale realize that Yaxha knew all too well just how difficult it could be at times for a denizen of the quasi-utopian Sea Nymph world to have some imperfect human blood coursing through their veins. Prince Yaxha's maternal grandmother was, very much like Queen Melinda, a human-born woman who met and fell madly in love with a merman, and as a direct result of his mixed gene pool, he was born with an extraordinarily rare and one hundred percent incurable condition known as Human Mentality Syndrome. H.M.S, as it was commonly abbreviated by most Sea Nymphs and their Consorts, essentially caused a mermaid or merman to look and physically function the same as any other merperson, but to nonetheless be not the least bit mentally or emotionally superior to your average mere mortal, with all the ghastly flaws and weaknesses that that entails. For just about as long as Yaxha could remember, the MexiSean Prince had had a reputation as the least popular Consort in his kingdom, in spite of his royal title, for he could be quite selfish, rude, obnoxious, immature, and ill-mannered, everything a respectable Sea Nymph Consort was not supposed to be, and due to this, no Sea Nymph in her right mind would ever marry or even court him unless he made a sincere effort to improve himself.

"'We Sea Nymphs'?" repeated Lord Zale, following Crown Princess Mara of Mosesia's brief explanation of what Gossip Songs were. "I really wouldn't have put it that way if I were her!"

"Why not?" Prince Juan of Bohai questioned, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"I remember reading in an article in the Encyclodedia Oceanica that ever since the beginning of time, Meadow Nymphs and their Consorts have not-so-secretly felt inferior to every other race of magical beings, since they don't have any real magical abilities and the only physiological differences between them and humans is that they have four hoofed legs instead of two vaguely octopus-like appendages, have a much longer life expectancy, can run faster, and are strict herbivores. They have done their very best to compensate for what they have always perceived to be their own comparative shortcomings by, over the millennia, developing a rich and intriguing culture that places a high importance on both intellectual and physical fitness, but they are still quick to accuse Sea Nymphs and their Consorts, as well as other magical creatures, of believing ourselves to be superior to them, an allegation which of course is absolutely untrue".

Indeed, Tawny ended up being so offended by being treated as something of an outsider by the Sea Nymphs that she and Magenta left in a huff. "Ah, I feel so bad for Nerissa" sighed Zale. "I know for a fact that she would never hurt anybody's feelings on purpose, but she's still so new to our world that she would've had no way of knowing that although most Meadow Nymphs and their Consorts are quite good at putting up tough fronts, they're deeply sensitive creatures so it's best to always choose one's words extremely carefully around them. I wish with all my heart that once those two have had some time to calm down they'll realize what a wonderful friend they truly have in Nerissa".

Prince Yaxha raised an eyebrow and grinned in Lord Zale's direction. "Oh, I see. You like this Princess Nerissa, don't you?"

"Yes, I do indeed!" Zale admitted, blushing. "She's the kindest, bravest, strongest, cleverest, and most interesting Sea Nymph that I have ever met".

"But I guess a much more important question, my friend, is do you think she likes you back?"

Chapter Twenty-Five:

The Crown Princess of Pacifica was still so deeply lost in thought that she was barely paying any attention to Crown Princess Nerita of MexiSea's Gossip Song, but Nerita's elder brother Prince Yaxha, on the other fluke, listened with bated breath as his sweet kid sister sang "My poor brother can't get a mate, So to foam alone might be his fate! Last week when I found him eating a dead fish, he told me it tasted better than any kelp dish!"

A collective gasp emitted from the lips of each and every Sea Nymph and Consort within earshot, save for Yaxha, for it was simply unheard of for a mermaid or merman to even consider, under any circumstances, consuming the flesh of a fellow sentient sea creature. "Dudes, relax!" called out Prince Yaxha. "The fish was already dead from being stabbed with a fish hook when I came across it near the surface, so I figured, what's the harm in trying to understand for myself why the humans go to so much trouble to murder our friends and neighbors in order to fill their stomachs with their corpses?"

"So, how'd it taste?" Prince Colvert of Timoria queried, suddenly overcome by morbid curiosity.

"It was truthfully the most delicious thing that I had ever eaten, so tender, so juicy, and a billion times more flavorful than anything else under the sea. You really should all try it some time!"

"No thanks, I think I'll pass on that" stated Lord Zale firmly.

"Same here" Prince Toru of Japonia agreed.

"I'm not sure if I am up to singing a Gossip Song of my own tonight" divulged Crown Princess Nerissa after all eyes turned to her in the aftermath of Princess Nerita's concise yet thoroughly disturbing ditty.

"C'mon, Rissie, you can do it!" Lady Violet egged the Keeper of her Kingdom's Enchanted Royal Aquamarine on.

"No, really, I would rather not!" persisted Nerissa. "Why don't you sing one right now, Vi? It was your idea to sing Gossip Songs in the first place, after all!"

"Me? Oh no, dahling, a Sea Nymph is supposed to express her innermost thoughts in her Gossip Song, and you know good and well, Rissie, that I'm really not one for thinking, but you must have so much on your mind and in your heart that I'm sure you could keep us up all night singing if you wanted to!"

"Nerissa, Nerissa, Nerissa!" every other mermaid at the Surface Party chanted.

Princess Nerissa threw her hands up in defeat. "Okay, okay, I guess I can at least give it the old Sea Nymph try". She then took a deep breath of the salty sea air, forgetting for a moment that she actually had gills and not lungs, and cleared her throat. "Life can be so confusing sometimes," she began tentatively, her voice no louder than a whisper. Violet flashed her an encouraging thumbs-up sign. "Gosh, now, I can't think of a good rhyme!" Crown Princess Nerissa half-sang, half-said.

"Go on, dahling, you were doing just fine" asserted Violet.

"Violet, I will if you must insist" Nerissa resumed singing. "One moment you're an ordinary girl, the next you're a creature that isn't supposed to exist. One moment you only have eyes for your longtime crush, the next you're getting swept off your flukes by somebody wonderful, magical and new. I'm going back and forth between two very different boys, what's a half-mermaid to do?"

Lord Zale didn't quite know what to make of the revelation that he was not the only young man who competed for the precious key to Princess Nerissa's beautiful heart. Of course he realized that he shouldn't really be surprised that a Sea Nymph with as much love to give as Nerissa clearly did felt drawn to some other lucky male, and he fully understood how she had a tendency to compartmentalize her double life, so it was not unlike her to forget about her "longtime crush" who lived in the same world that she had spent most of her life in altogether just because she's now rapidly developing feelings for "somebody wonderful, magical, and new" in a whole new world that she's only beginning to understand. "From this moment on, I will try to do everything in my power to be worthy of her love, and I shall always put her happiness before mine, even if that means learning to be content at not being the only special gentleman in a Crown Princess's life". Since he was not in the mood to be teased by Prince Yaxha and the others about his inhumanly selfless love for the Princess of Pacifica, Zale dived back down into the ocean and returned to his comfortable room at the Aqua Magica Inn.

Chapter Twenty-Six:

The Surface Party winded down around the stroke of midnight. Crown Princess Nerissa was unable to suppress her yawns as she exhaustedly hobbled into her elegant four-poster bed in the Aqua Magica Inn's Royal Suite. The half-mermaid's titian-haired head had barely hit her sea-sponge pillow before she fell sound asleep, although it didn't end up being a very relaxing night's sleep by any means. Throughout the night she was harassed by nightmare after nightmare. In one particularly startling dream, she was happily dancing with Lord Zale in the grand ballroom at the Royal Palace back in Pacifica when, much to her shock, his face and body slowly morphed into that of Adam Fonda, the ballroom changed into the much less grandiose setting of Nerissa's high school gymnasium decorated for a dance, and the Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica's own form shifted from a drop-dead gorgeous mermaid Princess to an ordinary 15-year-old human girl with frizzy brown hair pulled up into a messy up-do and purple wire-framed glasses which noticeably clashed with her seafoam green prom dress, which she was positive had to have been fashioned out of the cheapest synthetic fabric imaginable and purchased off of a clearance rack at a big box store. Staring at her from across the room with a look of pure contempt on her pretty face was Teagan Wakefield, the most popular, richest, and arguably best-dressed girl in Princess Nerissa's class and the best swimmer on the Sunshine Valley High girls' swim team, or at least she used to be until Lady Violet joined the team recently and stole Teagan's thunder in the process. "Hey, Adam, what's a hot guy like you doing with a loser like Noreen as your date anyway?" she taunted in a sing-song voice.

Before she had a chance to correct Teagan about her name, the Crown Princess of Pacifica was woken up by the first soft blue light of dawn breaking over the shallow, crystal-clear waters, just as she had been on the first morning of her eventful vacation. Not wanting to go back to sleep after being mercifully awakened from her nightmares, Nerissa threw on a simple pale pink strapless sea-nylon bandeau top and quietly crept out of the suite, tip-fluked into the lobby of the Aqua Magica Inn, and swam outside for some fresh water and solitude.

There is no doubt in my mind that there will have to come a time when I will be forced to choose once and for all who I truly care more about, Adam or Zale she mused while swim-pacing back and forth. At the moment, I'm definitely leaning toward Zale, but who knows how long it'll be before I see him again after this trip? And, sadly, this love triangle might be the least of my problems right now! Even though I haven't known Tawny and Magenta for very long, I still considered them to be my friends, and I just hate to have any of my friends upset with me. She vowed that should she ever see the centaurette and the fairy again, she would go out of her way to apologize for offending them.

Chapter Twenty-Seven:

Lord Zale didn't have a much more restful night of sleep than the object of his affection did, as since his hotel room was right across the hallway from a conference room which had been rented out for a wild all-night private party, the young Sea Nymph Consort was kept awake by the ear-splittingly noisy music which was played by the Sea Swingers, a jazz orchestra who were quite famous all over the Sea Nymph World. Merfolk did not usually get headaches, but by daybreak poor Zale's head was pounding so hard that it felt as if somebody had cut his head open while he was still conscious, removed his brain, and replaced it with a clamshell gong that went off loudly once every second. He swam out into a courtyard in front of the Aqua Magica Inn, for he figured that some fresh water would do him a world of good.

Much to his surprise, Lord Zale swam straight into Crown Princess Nerissa. He eyed the Keeper of the Enchanted Royal Aquamarine of Pacifica with concern. The heavy bags under her normally bright blue-green eyes suggested that, like him, she perhaps couldn't get much in the way of sleep last night. "Did the Sea-Swingers keep you up at night too?" he asked.

"The what?" answered Nerissa, smiling weakly.

Zale chuckled in spite of himself. "All right, never mind that" he said. "Nerissa, are you OK?"

"I'm fine" the Princess of Pacifica replied, looking down at her flukes and refusing to meet Lord Zale's kind eyes.

Zale gently cupped Princess Nerissa's chin with his soft yet firm hand. "Are you sure, love?" he pressed.

"I'm just tired, that's all" reassured Nerissa with a slight shrug of her pale shoulders.

"Me too" Lord Zale accorded, and then he leaned in and lightly kissed the Crown Princess of Pacifica's sweet cotton candy pink lips, despite the nagging feeling in the back of his mind and deep down in his heart that some time possibly very soon the lips of the Sea Nymph whom he had quickly grown to love more than anyone or anything else under the sea might brush against those of another young man. I cannot be jealous! he told himself silently after their kiss had ended. My dear Mama always told me that jealousy is an unpleasant human emotion that no self-respecting Consort to the Sea Nymphs should ever succumb to, no matter what the circumstances may be! After all, anyone worthy of a piece of my beloved Nerissa's heart should surely be worthy of my respect, right?

Chapter Twenty-Eight:

Unfortunately, the Crown Princess of Pacifica never got the chance to apologize to Tawny and Magenta, since all of the centaurs and centaurettes ended up leaving the Magical Creatures' Convention early due to some unexpected emergency in their home realm, and the fairies, for some reason known only to them, chose to leave along with them. The final two days of the convention seemed to float right by to Princess Nerissa, an exhausting blur of swimming races in the open ocean and delicious feasts of crispy fried kelp and luscious seaberry coffee cake in the Aqua Magica Inn's five-sea-star restaurant which culminated in a formal ball. The Keeper of Pacifica's Enchanted Royal Aquamarine, Lady Violet, and Lady Coral spent precisely three and a half hours getting themselves ready for the dance. While Violet, whose skin had changed back to its natural ivory tone earlier that afternoon, slipped into a one-shouldered blouse made out of the petals of lavender sea-blossoms and a matching sea-satin tail sash, and Coral pulled an elegantly understated, pale yellow, one-piece dress on over her head, Nerissa rummaged through her shell-case, searching for something that she deemed suitable to wear as Lord Zale held her in his strong arms while they whirled and twirled around the dance floor for what will most likely be the last time for quite a while. Sighing deeply, she finally settled on a green form-fitting woven seaweed top and silver sea-tulle miniskirt. "Ooh, Rissie, you'll match Lord Zale's tail!" Lady Violet bellowed.

The ballroom of the Inn was a very magnificent room indeed which happened to be at least three times the size of the one back at the Pacifican Royal Palace and that boasted solid Atlantean sea-gold walls that were so shiny that they perfectly reflected the soft pastels and warm jewel tones of the dancing Sea Nymphs' devastatingly glamorous evening ensembles and the rich rainbow of colors of their partners' muscular fishtails. As the Sea Swingers played one romantic slow jazz tune after another, Crown Princess Nerissa and Zale gazed into each other's eyes while they gracefully sea-waltzed, Adam Fonda was the furthest thing from the young half-mermaid's mind. At roughly around midnight, Lord Zale pulled away from the Pacifican Princess. "I've had a positively wonderful time tonight, sweet Princess, but I am afraid that I really must be going right about now".

Nerissa's face fell. "Why?"

"A Sea-Shuttle to the South Pacific Consort Academy leaves in a few minutes. I'm sorry, Nerissa, but if I don't hurry, I could miss it!"

"Zale, wait!" Princess Nerissa called after him, but in a flash he was gone.

Will Nerissa's heart remain faithful to Lord Zale even when he is thousands of miles away, or will sparks fly between her and Adam?

Will Vanessa find out what her best friend has been hiding from her any time soon?

What new adventures await Nerissa and her friends back in Sunshine Valley?