By The Sea And The Land

Chapter Ten - The Sea Witch And A Pair Of Legs

      Lys looked up to the dark skies, filled with millions, if not trillions of stars, painting the dark skies with its magnificent glittering lights.

      Lys had seen it before when he doing his coming to age trip a few days ago, but the beauty still making him speechless, and he just stared at the skies, doesn't realizing that someone watching him in the shade, while the snake curling its body to their feet lovingly, and Lys head snapped around to them when he heard them talking.

      "Are you just going to staring at the stars or are we going to do our business?" they asked with a bored voice.

      Lys staring at the human that didn't looked at Lys direction and began to petting the snake on her feet, assuming that they was a female from its voice because their face is shaded in its long hooded coat, and asked, "Are you the Sea Witch?"

      The woman nodded, "Its not my name—whatever you called me, but yes, I can fulfil your wish with a sufficient payment," she looked at Lys and added, "Son of the Mer-King of the West, the rebellious and insolent Prince with the most beautiful voice I've ever know, and one of the five grandchildren of my former friends." Lys have been silent when she said that, doesn't know if he should take it as a praise or insult, when she continue, turning her eyes to the snake she's currently holding, "What do you wish from me?"

      "I... I want to... I want to make the human I love, loves me back." Lys said that slowly but his voice is full with determination. "I don't want him to loves me blindly, I want him to really fallen in love with me, with my own hands. But I need help, and apparently, you are the only one that have the ability to help me."

      The Sea Witch nodded, and said, "A mermaid ask me the same things years ago, but she asked me differently than you. She failed, unfortunately." The Sea Witch whispering something to the snake and letting go of it as its crawled smoothly to the small house that surrounded by the trees that Lys just noticed and coming back not long afterwards with an empty bottle and a small vial that filled with bluish liquid on its tail, and she ask him after taking the bottles from the snake, "Will you still do it, despite the price, the hardship, the pain, and the possibility of failures that can took your life, and if you succeed, you will never be able to coming back to your family on the sea, and will die as a human, when you still have a long way for you to go, just to make the man loves you?"

      Lys listening silently, thinking about his family. His annoying sisters, his somewhat strict father, his loving grandmother, and his people, the Mer-people, how he will be missing them, and then he think about the human Prince. He love his hair, his eyes, his nose, his lips, his... everything. He didn't know his personality, or anything, really, but he trust his intuition, that the Prince is a good man, and he finally making his decision.

      "I do. I truly love him, even though I've only see him once, and if I will need to face the pain or whatever you said before and losing my life, and since I don't know who to ask for help beside you, I'm willing to do it. For the only one I'd ever love, the human Prince named Kevin."

      The Sea Witch nodded again, walked to where Lys is, close enough for Lys to see her face, and he think that she actually looks pretty with the many wrinkles around her black irises eyes that looks like the starry skies and showed him the empty bottle and the small vial with the liquid inside to him.

      "Then I will tell you how to do it. You have to drink the blue liquid after you reached the coast where the human lives. This will change several things from your appearance right now. That's including your tail, you will need a pair of legs to walking on the land that you will get after you drink this potion, but I have to tell you that you will feel the pain like a thousand needle piercing your new feet whenever you walk, but you will be the best dancer they ever seen, and you will also lose your ability to breath underwater and your resistance to several poison like the Mer-people have, meaning you will became the same as the normal humans. Do you understand?" Lys raising his eyebrows but he nodded.