SPELLBOUND
Melody was beginning to worry. She had lost the crowd of people, but was currently trying to hide from some Priests who had been called out to search by the Church. "Damn it, " she whined. "this is my vacation... why do I have to hide like a rat?"
Suddenly, a loud scream had arosen from the fishing pond. "That sounded like Pad!" She began to panic, and ran as fast as her dainty legs would take her into the forest. She saw Eddie and Gilbert lying unconscious, and she had arrived just in time to see Pad's head sink into the water. Her blood went cold. No-! She began to panic. She grabbed hold of her hat's rim and dove into the water after Pad.
Please don't let him be dead, please don't let him be dead, she was thinking as she held her breath and swam under traps and torrents of coral. The seaweed brushed across her face, and tiny fish slapped her sides with their fins, making her feel very uncomfortable. She gazed around, her blue eyes reflecting the rippling waves, and ears peeled for the slightest fwoop, a sound that would confirm whether or not Pad was being whisked by any time soon.
She was running low on air, her face beginning to match the ocean's colour. Just a little more, Melody... she thought. I can smell that bastard from here.
Her eyes widened in panic as a Shark zoomed towards her to take a chunk of her head. She performed what would later be known to herself as the 'Melody Farklight-style Barrell Roll' and narrowly dodged certain death. She wanted to blast the overgrown mackerel with Thundarna, but she realized that she had to say the spell out loud, which probably wasn't such a good idea right now. The shark looped around for a second try, but Melody was having none of it. She did, however, smack the shark in the nose with her Eterna rod, causing it to become disoriented, and swim away, as it no longer wanted Kentucky Fried Mage.
Stupid shark, she thought to herself. nobody can outclass Melody Farklight! If Hartmann, Terra, and the cabal couldn't, no stupid shark can! An image of Pad came into her drowning mind. She surely was done for now; with no oxygen to sustain her, she closed her eyes and collapsed to the sea floor with the thought. The ocean, the ocean... outclassed Melody... not... Pad...
Suddenly, Melody thrusted herself upward, taking a gasp of air. She coughed up the remaining water from her lungs. She looked around at a lovely golden room with glass walls. "I... I'm alive." she wondered. "I have to be. There's no way I'd get into heaven."
A Stingray merman approached her. "Ah, so you're awake, land woman."
Melody whipped her head around. "What the hell are you?!"
"Very polite of you." The stingray man said sarcastically. "I am Sting III, the steward of this castle."
"Yeah, and...?"
"And you are a trespasser!" Sting III proclaimed. "You are lucky that we haven't fried you on a grill."
"Are you serious?" Melody said. "I'm not a trespasser! I'm looking for a certain moron who was yanked down here."
"Oh, you mean the black-haired fellow with the gun."
"Aha! So he is here!" Melody leaped up. "Where is he?"
"That is none of your concern."
"Are you deaf? I just said that I was looking for him!" Melody cried, angrily. "Of course he's my concern!"
"Is he your husband?"
Melody began to blush. "No! No! Absolutely not! I wouldn't want him as one, either! He is just too stupid and obnoxious, and he snores-uhh, he stinks! Stinks! Not snores!" Her face was red as blood.
"Quite." Sting III said, walking towards the door. "Look, the high council is currently deciding your fates. Enjoy life as it is right now in this room, as for now you are safe. Ah, and I do reccommend you eat the shrimp. It is awfully delicious."
With that, he closed the door behind him.
"I hate fish people..." Melody remarked, as she pushed the shrimp away from her and lied back on the mattress. "They think they're soooo smart! Them and Ixitxichitls... damn, they're the worst. They use magic."
She began to think of Pad, and worry. As a result, for the meantime, she blocked his face out of her mind. Out of sight, out of mind. No worries.