Chapter Text
In the deep caverns of the sea, the Demon King of Salvation resides. He is a merfolk as cold-blooded as they come, the stories say, with blood on his hands. Nobody likes his presence in their waters, but not even the King of the Sea has managed to drive him off.
“State your business,” states the young lionfish mer guarding the entrance.
“I need the witch’s help,” Princess Lee Seolhwa of the Sea answers—because although his presence is not welcomed, merfolk gladly seek the Demon King of Salvation’s services when it is convenient for them. “Tell your master the youngest princess is here to see him; that should catch his interest.”
“How do we know you are telling the truth?” the other guard, a young scorpionfish mer, asks with an eyebrow raised. “For all we know, your daddy is on his way and you plan to poison our master, Poisoner Seolhwa.”
“I didn’t bring my poisons to show my good faith, but even if I had somehow hidden them, I’m sure your venomous spines would be quicker and deadlier than me.”
The children share a look and show the princess inside; the scorpionfish mer goes ahead of them to herald their arrival, disappearing through the darkness on account of the coloration of his scales. The caverns are darker than Lee Seolhwa expected, even with all the tales surrounding the witch and his apprentices, and her white fins become the one bright spot all their way down to the witch’s true lair.
Finally, they swim toward a great archway, and Lee Seolhwa hesitates.
“Come in,” a voice inside needles in amusement. “We mustn't lurk in doorways—it's rude. One might question your upbringing, princess.”
With one forceful swish of her tail, Lee Seolhwa crosses the threshold, her guard close behind.
The cave she enters is lit by neon plants in neon bottles arranged on shelves and cabinets, as well as the glowing cauldron in the center. There are slabs of stone in haphazard piles and a small nook riddled with cushions. The mer she’s come all this way to see lounges on a rock formation resembling a throne, while the scorpionfish child looms by his side.
“Demon King of Salvation,” she forces herself to say, hating to defer to him as any kind of royalty, “I’m in love with someone—a human. I need to know if there is anything you can do for me.”
The demon witch’s black and red tentacles beckon them closer as a wicked smile appears on his face. Lee Seolhwa feels one venomous spine from the lionfish mer’s tail ghost over her back, and is forced to obey him.
“Of course, I can help you. That's what I do—I help unfortunate merfolk like yourself, poor souls with no one else to turn to.” He rises from his throne and shooes the kid away from her with delicately placed tentacles. “The king will never entertain your romance, princess, so the only way to get what you want is to become a human yourself.”
Her eyes roam over the neon bottles once more, wondering which ingredients were collected in their waters and which ones belong to trenches deeper than the witch’s caverns or even beyond her father’s kingdom. At a glance, she cannot recognize more than a handful, but without carefully examining them, it is impossible to tell for sure. Not many merfolk survive venturing out of the territory, but if anyone is skilled and ruthless enough to do it, it is the Demon King of Salvation.
“I will make you a potion that will turn you into a human for one week,” he continues carelessly, still swimming around the cauldron. “Before the sun sets on the seventh day, you have to get your human to fall in love with you. That is, he's got to give you a kiss—the kiss of true love. If he does before the sun sets on the seventh day, you'll remain human, permanently; if he doesn't, you turn back into a mermaid—and you'll belong to me.”
Lee Seolhwa’s eyes flicker back towards him as she hears the muffled cry of Jang Hayoung, whom she hadn’t known had followed her, begging her to turn back. However, Hayoung-ie is nowhere to be seen, and she has lost sight of the scorpionfish mer in between the witch’s many tentacles.
“What does that mean?” she asks, but her question is met with silence. “If I become human, I'll never see my father, grandmother, or sisters again.”
The Demon King of Salvation’s tentacles freeze in place for a moment, stopping the rearrangement of his collection. The current drops a few degrees in temperature as he turns around maliciously.
“And how is the great Lee Boksoon doing? That ahjumma wasn’t able to swim in a straight line, last I heard. Isn’t she a little too senile to still oversee the military?”
“Speak formally,” she orders.
“That reminds me,” he adds, good-naturedly once again, breezing past her demand as if she had never uttered it, “we haven't discussed the subject of payment yet. You can't get something for nothing, you know?”
“What do you want? I’m not giving you any of my poisons.”
He waves her concern away. “What I want from you… is your voice.” A tentacle darts forward between them, almost brushing her skin, and grabs a small item from the shelf behind her. Lee Seolhwa’s voice rises in surprise at what the tentacle reveals.
“A shell?”
“I have to store your voice somewhere.” An impish smile slowly makes its way on his face. “Aren’t you relieved I’m not asking for a poison or your father’s trident—or even your grandmother’s head on a stick?”
She sneers. “I wouldn’t have given you any of those.”
A golden contract the size of her arm materializes in front of her. The writing on it is small but legible. On the bottom of the page, there’s an empty line for her to sign; a simple golden quill appears just as her eyes land on it. The Demon King of Salvation’s eyes reflect the golden light of the scroll, but the rest of his face has turned perfectly business-like.
“So we have a deal then?”
The princess figures out the control of her legs faster than Kim Dokja expects and rapidly swims away from his lair with the help of her fish friend and the king’s crab advisor, Aileen Makerfield. Her new lungs won’t start working until she takes her first breath of air, so she’s in no danger from drowning on the way to the surface.
“I didn’t know ahjussi could turn merfolk into humans,” Shin Yoosung gushes, leaving her position on the entry archway of his potions room.
“Hyung can do anything. He is that powerful,” Lee Gilyoung nods, collecting and putting back the bottles that the princess’ friends knocked down in their desperation to reach her.
Kim Dokja laughs. “Don’t worry, Yoosung-ah. Before today, I didn’t know I could do it either.” The kids choke and splutter at his words, so he adds, “I figured transmogrification magic is transmogrification magic. I’ve done that for clients before. Remember when you begged me to transform you into a bird, Gilyoung-ah?”
Lee Gilyoung scrunches his nose as he turns green around the gills. “It was disorienting. At least in the sea, you know what’s up and what’s down. I don’t understand what Yoosung likes about those creatures.” Skillfully, he dodges the giant pearl she throws his way. “Hyung! She attacked me!”
“If something comes at you in the sky, you can see it. You can go in any direction. If you try to swim away from here, you’ll be shark food long before you get to the next kingdom. Not even ahjussi can just swim wherever, whenever he wants… I’m sorry about the pearl,” she adds. Kim Dokja pats her head in reward, even if she only said it because he was glaring at her.
“I’m sorry too, hyung!”
He uses his other hand to pat his head too. Soon, they seem happy enough to return to their hovering, arranging and rearranging his belongings fastidiously, placing back the pearl in its padded resting place, so Kim Dokja hands each a long scroll on mollusks. Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung will never be proper witches if they cannot differentiate between mollusks grown in the midnight and the abyssal zones, and he tells them this repeatedly. His apprentices settle on each side of his reading nook without protest but with a long-suffering sigh. The sight is so pitiful that Kim Dokja uses his tentacles to snatch the scrolls away.
“Do you want to see what Princess Lee Seolhwa is doing?”
He tosses a blue pearl, a yellow flower, and a strand of the princess’ hair into the cauldron, bubbling at once. The kids rush over to his side as one single, big bubble floats away from its peers and hovers just above the cauldron. Slowly, the murky water inside it clears to show Lee Seolhwa kicking at the water with the help of her friends to move toward land.
“She moves so weird,” Lee Gilyoung laughs.
“She has legs now,” Shin Yoosung reminds him. “Of course, she moves weird. Can humans even swim?”
“They can,” Kim Dokja confirms with a smirk, “but they do it differently. Imagine swimming with two thin tails that only bend one way. Maybe next time you disobey me, I’ll turn you into humans.”
Shin Yoosung pales, and Lee Gilyoung gaps at his words. It’s a little funny. He snickers and watches their faces fill with relief.
“Why did you want her voice, ahjussi? You could have asked for something more… useful. Are you embarrassed about your voice?”
“You shouldn’t worry about your voice. The voice isn’t everything, hyung!”
Kim Dokja’s eyes twitch and narrow. While he knows his voice isn’t beautiful enough to drown entire ships, he likes to think it’s decent enough to make a sailor look longingly over the plank. If he ever were to sink a ship, anyway, all he would need is his magic, which no one can take away.
“It’s romantic,” he answers at last. Making himself comfortable on his throne-like chair, leaning back with a closed hand under his chin, he watches the princess stumble her way onto land. “A mer princess in love with a human navigator, or maybe even a pirate—those are star-crossed lovers if I’ve ever seen them. Lee Seolhwa is beautiful, and any human that catches her eye is probably handsome too. There’s no further conflict, is it? But without her voice… now, there’s the story. She can have it back once I’m entertained.”
“Do you know who’s the princess’ lover, ahjussi?” Kim Dokja understands why she asks this. Usually, he’s more thorough with his clients. Their desperation is typically so significant that they are willing to suffer his prodding and curiosity for the chance of brokering a deal. But with Lee Seolhwa, if he had asked too many questions, he would only have scared her away; and this was one client he would rather not lose.
He shakes his head in a negative, but then bites his tongue when a very handsome human man clad in fine black clothes runs around the rock formations on the shore, led by a dog that barrels the princess into the sand.
Of all the handsome humans in the world…
“I think I might actually know Lee Seolhwa’s paramour.”