The fairy’s entire body burned scarlet and she buried her head in her hands. With her head in her hands, she kept fidgeting and shaking. Draco could hear a small sound muffled behind her hands. She was giggling uncontrollably into her tiny hands. At least she wasn't mad at him any longer.
“I’m sorry about the last time we met. I didn’t mean to insult you. I only meant…”
The fairy put her fragile arm up to stop him from speaking. “I know what you meant. I was outside the door and heard you talking after I left your room. Don’t worry, I’m not upset. I finally understand what you meant when we spoke. Thank you for being so kind to me.”
“No flirting!” Alana gave a playfully sarcastic remark as she shifted her eyes between the fairy and Draco. “Anyway, how do you know this fairy, Draco?”
“Draco!” The fairy glanced between Draco and Alana and something in her eyes made Draco realize she'd heard the name before and it meant something important to her. She covered her surprise by adding with mixed demand and query in her tone, “I thought your name was Thomas?”
Draco explained the meeting he just had with the Sapphire and the fairy seemed elated while she gazed wide-eyed at Draco. He then turned to Alana and explained that he had been able to see fairies since he attacked the Kraken and how he met this particular fairy. She was understandably disappointed that he never told her.
“I’m sorry, Alana. I just neglected to tell you because I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
“I forgive you, but don’t keep secrets from me anymore. Got it?”
The fairy remained on Draco’s shoulder as he walked up to the barrier and then flew over to a nearby rooftop and settled down. The door of the building the fairy landed on opened to reveal a disheveled Eri carrying a large, empty bag, “I’m in so much trouble. I’ll never be able to get this done by myself.” After shutting his door, he turned and spotted Alana and Draco, “Thomas! How’ve ya been, lad?”
“Great, Eri. I’m leaving the barrier for the first time today. I can’t wait to get into the ocean again. Oh, and it’s not Thomas, it’s Draco. I said I wanted to change my name after becoming a merman, and now the Sapphire saw to it. It gave me my new name today.”
“Interestin’. Sounds fearsome. I know this sounds selfish, but could ya help me today, lad? I need to get this bag filled with seasilk for a special client. He needs the suit by tomorrow, but I’m fresh out. Could ya help me?”
Draco searched Alana’s face, and then decided for the both of them, “Sure, we’ll help. We were planning on playing with Tiger, so perhaps he could join us as well. The more help we have, the better off we’ll be.”
SILVER MERMAN
Eri, Draco, and Alana stepped through the barrier as one. Draco could feel his entire body growing hot. He felt warmth rush through his body that reminded him of when he used to rest in his mother's arms as a child. As his body grew hotter, silver light burst forth from deep inside him and illuminated his entire body. He could feel his feet and legs vanish, instantly replaced by the lower fish body and dolphin tail he had expected. His heart pounded, rushing faster than the waves of water that crashed against his body. Small, undetectable slits appeared in his neck. With astonishment he realized he now had gills. He looked around to see the others, but couldn’t see anything through the silver glow. When the light began to dim and he could finally see he was confused to find that Alana and Eri were staring at him with a mixture of shock and terror.
When the light subsided Draco blurted out in fear, “What’s wrong? Why are you staring?” Bubbles erupted from his mouth as he screamed and no sound came out, but he could tell the others had understood.
Both Alana and Eri had been struck speechless. Their mouths opened and closed like a goldfish staring out of its tank, but no communication was made. Scared of what he might see, Draco glanced down and gasped. His body wasn’t blue like theirs. He had the body shape of an Atlantian merman and the same long ears as theirs, but the similarities stopped there. His lower body was glowing a regal and sparkling silver. His hair and eyes were still the same as they had been since his confrontation with the Kraken, hair silver and eyes enchanted. His chest and abdominal area were covered in a silver mesh armor, an armor of scales. His dorsal fin protruded from just below the nape of his neck and flowed all the way down to the small of his back. It almost resembled a samurai sword, curved ever so slightly and only protruding a few inches from his body. His lower arms were covered in silver scales that traveled down to his hands where his palms were left exposed. The scales continued down the back of his hands, taking on the shape of a triangle, coming to a point as they reached the first knuckle on his middle finger. The scale design on his hands reminded him of silver gauntlets.
“Is this what the Sapphire meant when he said the name Draco would suit my new powers?” Although Draco mouthed the words, he noticed that nothing continued to spout from his mouth except bubbles. Then he remembered, merfolk speak to each other with telepathy in the water; but it looked like his words were transmitted to the others, for their speechless state had ended.
“I’m not sure,” Alana moved her lips, but again only bubbles came out. “It is strange. You do sort of look like a powerful dragon king. Perhaps that’s the real reason it named you Draco? I got the feeling he didn’t name you Draco because you were the Ice Diamond’s keeper like he said. You do look a little creepy, or should I say fearsome. If I was a stranger, I certainly would be afraid of you because you don’t resemble any known merman.” Fearful that she may have offended Draco, Alana added swiftly, “But you also look really, really cool.”
Eri voiced his own opinion while stuttering from shock. “I-I-I th-think ya l-look k-kind of r-regal.” Eri smacked himself across the face and took a deep breath. “That I do, lad. Ya look like a king if ere I saw one. Somethin’ outta legend even. Shall we start?”
As they swam toward the seasilk garden, Draco fell behind, contemplating his strange appearance. It didn’t make any sense. How could he look so different from everyone else? Was it because he was a human? No, that couldn't be the reason. The other merfolk were once human too. Maybe because he was a sorcerer? That also couldn't be right because Alana was a sorceress too and her mermaid form hadn't changed in the slightest. He thought about many possibilities, but when he came up with nothing he decided he would need to ask the Sapphire to get more information. Lost in thought, Draco fell so far behind that he almost lost sight of the others. Swimming at lightning speed to keep from getting lost, he heard a strong and angry growl. Turning to the source of the noise, Thomas saw a monstrous shark charging. As it approached, it opened his mouth, prepared to strike.
“Tiger,” Draco screamed as he held out his hand in self-defense. Not wanting to hurt Tiger, he concentrated hard on a defensive attack. The water currents altered course the instant the thought occurred to him and as Tiger continued to advance, his body flowed with the currents passing harmlessly by Draco’s side. Tiger’s jaws slammed shut violently on nothing but water and he turned around for a second attack.
“STOP, TIGER!” A loud echoing command rose from the depths. Alana was swimming towards Tiger, worry etched into every line of her face. “Tiger, that’s Thomas. Don’t hurt him.”
“Thomas?” Tiger had been shocked into a standstill, floating slightly higher like an underwater buoy as he studied the strange merman in front of him. He swam slowly up to Draco and circled, eying him with curiosity, taking in the scent.
“It can’t be,” he concluded.
“It’s me, Tiger. Don’t you recognize my voice?” Tiger flinched and swam backward slightly at hearing Draco’s voice.
“I’m so sorry, Thomas. When I saw a silver merman chasing after my Mistress, I panicked. I thought she was in trouble. Also, I expected you to be a Sapphire merman like the others.”
“You and I both, Tiger.” Draco announced, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “And by the way, my new name is Draco. It’s the name the Sapphire gave me.�
� Draco wondered how many times he would have to explain his new name to people. He was getting tired of it already and he'd only done it a few times.
“Well, Draco. Is there anything I can do for you, as an apology for nearly taking off your head? Come to think of it, why didn’t I take off your head? I know I was aiming straight for you, so how did I miss?”
“You sound disappointed that you missed,” Draco teased. “These stories are all interesting and will have to wait. Can you help us gather seasilk for Eri? After that we can play together and I will tell you about all that has happened since we last met.”
After agreeing to come along, the trio headed toward the garden to help Eri, who was already picking seasilk, clueless to what had just transpired. Gathering seasilk proved to be an easier task than Draco had expected. Draco could have done it in seconds with his magic, but he chose to do it by hand. Magic was a useful tool, but Draco knew that if you relied too much on taking the easy route you would forget the value of hard work and grow lazy.
“Alana.” Draco called. Alana turned toward Draco and he couldn’t resist laughing. She was a beautiful woman normally, but there was a new level of cuteness engulfing her with bits of seaweed on her face and all over her hands. “Is that a new make-up you’re trying?”
Alana jolted forward for the assault. “Yes, you want to try it too?” She launched her assault; laying her hands on Draco’s face and rubbing excessively. Eri and Tiger stood back, howling with laughter and cheering Alana on. Alana and Draco were rolling around in the water, trying to paint each other’s faces.
While rolling around, Draco tried to escape Alana’s next assault of mud without paying attention to where he was going. In his disoriented state, he swam directly toward the ocean floor and hit it hard with a splat. Luckily the ground was soft, leaving no damage except to Draco’s pride. He popped his head out of the mud with a slopping noise.
Dropping the mud in her hand, Alana was at Draco’s side in a flash and began wiping the dirt and seaweed off his face, trying, but failing to hide her smirk. “Are you okay? You’ll be happy to know that brown and green are definitely not your colors. Besides, you no longer need make-up. You’re wearing enough blush already.”
“Ha, ha, ha.”
Despite his embarrassment, he couldn’t help smiling at the mixed humor and concern on Alana’s face. The sight of Eri and Tiger rolling over and over themselves in the water with laughter seemed to lessen his embarrassment and the situation became much for funny for him as well.
“Seems like I need to learn to swim all over again. Hey, Alana, I have an idea. Let’s train while we work.”
“What do you mean? Use magic to pick up the seasilk?”
“No, that’s a pointless use of magic. I was thinking we could practice spreading magical power throughout our entire bodies like the Sapphire said. We can’t keep using just our arms to cast magic. Trust me, it hurts when you use too much.”
Remembering the scene of Draco’s arm shattering, Alana shuddered and hastily agreed.
At first, they had no idea how to focus their magical power, but through trial and error, they discovered that it wasn't a physical thing like stretching a muscle but a mental phenomenon. They needed to learn to focus their mind and pull on their consciousness, stretching it through their enter bodies like it was a rubber band. Instead of concentrating all of their power into a single spot, they needed to envision the magic circulating through their bodies along the strings of consciousness they'd envisioned and feel it circulate through them as if it were blood.
After finishing the task of gathering seasilk, they escorted Eri back to the barrier and then left to play with Tiger. The entire time, continuing their attempt to spread magic throughout their bodies. By the end of the day, they had made what they considered little progress, but what in actuality was a great leap forward. They were now able to feel their magical power inside both of their arms, hands, legs, and feet, or tail fins, depending on which form they were in, though the feeling was sporadic and quickly faded.
When they swam through the barrier, the fairy that Draco met that morning flew off of Eri’s roof and back onto Draco’s shoulder. She had not moved from the roof since that morning as if she had been waiting specifically for Draco's return.
“It seems she’s taken a liking to you,” Alana smiled slyly, “I’m jealous.”
“Hello again, cutie. You know, I wish you had a name I could call you by.” Draco smiled down at the fairy and she blushed her full body blush again.
“What would you like it to be?” The fairy asked in a shy and innocent voice.
Momentarily forgetting what the fairy had told him a month ago, Draco thought hard about a name for her. Then it hit him. He’d already called her this name multiple times and she seemed to like it. “Well now, how about Cutie? Would you mind if I just kept calling you Cutie? I think it suits you.”
“Cutie is a nice name, Master.” Cutie replied and bowed.
“Master?” Draco stopped dead in his tracks. He felt as though he had just been tricked. “What do you mean Master?”
“I told you, Master,” Cutie spoke calmly and bowed again. “Fairies don’t have names until they are given a name by their sorcerer master. You are now mine. I belong to you from this day forth. I will serve you to the best of my ability.”
Draco had been completely taken in by Cutie. He hadn’t thought that a cute and innocent little thing like her could be a cunning little vixen as well.
“Wait. If you wanted to attach yourself to me, then why wait until today? And why me?”
“I had been waiting for a long time to meet you. I felt your power arise the day you electrocuted Captain Orion and have been following you around since then. The problem was that you couldn’t see me and when you did, it was only faint traces of light. It wasn’t until you fought the Kraken that you could see and communicate with me. I went to your room that very night because I wanted you to be my master, but because of what happened, I never got the chance to ask you about it.”
“I’m so sorry that I was rude to you. You know, I really didn’t mean to be. But why me in particular?” Draco took Cutie off his shoulder and held her up to his face because it was more comfortable than craning his neck to talk to her.
“I needed you to be my master because you are the only one who can be my master.” Cutie seemed confused by the inquiry, like the answer should have been common knowledge to Draco, but she answered dutifully. “Fairies are born with a specific magical scent. We have to find a sorcerer who matches our scent and that is the only sorcerer that we are allowed to become a servant to. Without a sorcerer to serve, our race is dying. We try to stay close to the Sapphire to feed off of its magical energy, but it isn’t the same thing as having a master. That is why we are gradually dying out.”
“You are dying because you can’t serve?” Draco’s head was spinning with confusion. The more he learned about magic the more questions it created.
“Yes. You see, the sorcerers’ magical powers created us and we cannot live without that power. It is like our food source. Once bound to a sorcerer we live solely for that sorcerer and our lives are tied to theirs. If our master dies, so do we. After the sorcerer race vanished, so did all of the fairies except for those who kept close to the magical gems. We have always lived by feeding off of the magical energy of our sorcerer masters and cannot survive off any other food source. Without our master's magic, we die.
“The only fairies left in existence are those who were not yet bound to a sorcerer master when the sorcerer race disappeared, that and were close enough to the Gems of Power to feed off of their energy. We are a race of set numbers and it is nearly impossible for us to expand our numbers. You can have children any time you wish, but we fairies can’t. We can only have one child which can only happen at a time when our lives are close to ending, and only if we are bound to a master. Without a master we can’t reproduce since we need to borrow our master’s magical power to become
fertile. That's why we are dying out.
“We fairies are supposed to all have a specific master that we serve. We are born with a specific magical scent that we must search out and cling to. You are mine.”
“That’s interesting, Cutie. So does that mean that Alana has a fairy servant as well?”
“No,” Cutie shook her head apologetically at Alana. “At least not in this city. You see, there are only about one thousand fairies left in the world. Most of us don’t have any master and may never because the scent we are born with has died, belongs to someone who hasn’t discovered their magical abilities, or hasn’t come into existence yet. I am bound to you and only you, meaning that when you die, Master, so will I. I have no other master, but you. The other fairies will continue to feed off of the magical gems in each city, and eventually die since they don’t have a source of magic they can feed off of and call their own. Sharing the magical power of the gems between us may sustain us, but it makes us weak. It is like a medicine that holds death at bay, but it still creeps closer with each passing day.”
“That’s a sad fate. Is there any way for us to change it?” This time it was Alana who spoke up. She had been listening very intently to the conversation and felt pity and compassion for the beautiful little creature now nestled in Draco’s hand.
“I’m sorry, Alana, but no. It has always been like this. My life is bound entirely to Master’s, and should he die I will follow him immediately to the grave. It isn’t something I regret. My life has been long. I have been waiting for millions of years for Master to come. Life has been long and I don’t mind death. You see, a person with a particular magical scent only arrives once every thousand years. It didn’t matter how many people showed up over the millennia with my scent. I wasn’t able to bind myself to any of them until one of them learned to use magic. I had to wait until someone with my scent was born inside or came to this city because I couldn’t sustain my life outside this barrier.”
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