Caylender's A/N: So I'm safely relocated across the country, and I swear I'm not enrolled in witness protection... *ahem* So Captain is a slave driver, which is why this was written in a timely fashion. Curse you Captainbartholomew!
Chapter 5: I Want The Good Times Back Part II (Stephanie Interlude)
At one point in her life, Stephanie was truly happy. She had everything a merperson (or really anyone really) could want. She was a princess, training to be the queen of the Seven Seas. She was also in love with a handsome merman, Hunter. In Stephanie's heart of hearts, when Shawn Michaels introduced her to Hunter she knew this merman and her were destined to have legends written about them. So, Stephanie divided her time between Hunter and aiding her people.
Stephanie loved helping the less fortunate people; she volunteered large portions of her time to working with the poor communities to try to make her future kingdom the best it could ever be. She only wished she could do more for the poor, unfortunate souls because she knew some were in pain and others were in need, but it seemed she didn't have enough time in her day to complete so many strenuous tasks and assist her people.
One day, some idle chatter from one of her hands maidens caught her attention. Normally, the women who attended to her talked only of dreamy mermen and charming dolphins; however, that day their gossip was different. They discussed how an age old manatee had drifted into the court to seek an audience with Stephanie's father.
Stephanie was immediately intrigued by this news. If the manatee that had appeared was the right one and if legends could be taken as credible sources, there was one manatee who possessed the ability to wield the ever-allusive power of magic. Stephanie would only be able to help more of her citizens if she could use magic. She would be the best queen and help all the merpeople in the kingdom.
The young princess rushed down to the Royal Court just in time to see the manatee turning to leave. What she assumed was luck was on her side, and the princess caught up to the old sea creature before she departed from the kingdom.
After hearing Stephanie's passionate plea for magic, the manatee could only sigh and face the young princess with milky white eyes. She told Stephanie, "I believe in your good intentions; however, magic is dangerous, and even though one might think they have good intentions, sometimes a spell might have great consequences. Magic always has a price. Nothing is ever free."
Stephanie reiterated that she only wanted to be a better queen because her people deserved the best.
The manatee pulled off the lovely green amulet she wore around her neck and gently placed it around Stephanie's throat. "This amulet will is the source of my power," the manatee explained. "I am quite ready to be without magic. I can feel it in my bones; I am quite ready to die."
The manatee sighed in relief as though a weight was lifted from her, and the manatee shifted before Stephanie's eyes. She almost seemed to turn into a mermaid for a brief moment until she reverted back to a wrinkled, grizzled manatee. The manatee warned Stephanie to stay away from the dark magic before she swam off, feeling peace for the first time in so many centuries.
Stephanie was very aware of the weight the amulet carried, and as she summoned her spell book for the first time and she read through some of the almost-evil spells of transformation, she understood what she wrought upon herself. She vowed to herself to only use white magic.
As Stephanie's magic powers grew, she would occasionally feel the temptation to try some of the more dangerous, dark spells, not because she was evil but because it seemed like the best way to test out her ability. However regardless of how tempting it was, she refrained.
That is until Hunter's best friend, Shawn Michaels, came to her with an unusual request. The spell he requested was a particularly nasty one. In fact, it was the only spell that didn't have a reversal unless the caster was shrewd enough to cast limitations to accompany the spell. Stephanie denied Shawn. She expected that to be the end of the conversation, so she was caught unprepared when Shawn insulted her.
The merman yelled, "Just let me have this! No, I demand you give me this, you worthless excuse for a mermaid! You're not a real sorceress, you're just some little mermaid parading around to be one!"
Stephanie was proud; it was her biggest flaw. "Fine, I'll do it… under one condition!"
"Name your price," Shawn answered.
"When I turn you human, you never return to the sea… ever. No walking on the beach. No sailing out on the ocean. None of that. You can never come back here, do you hear me? Oh, and one other thing, you never speak word of this to Hunter."
Stephanie was a smart mermaid. She knew despite the fact she had Hunter's full devotion (or what she interpreted as his devotion), there would always be a part of Hunter that would always value Shawn as his closest and dearest friend. Stephanie wouldn't say she was jealous of their close bond, but could one really blame her if she was? This was the only way to ensure she was the only merperson in Hunter's life.
When Shawn questioned her on her condition, Stephanie responded, "Because every magic spell has a price and you must barter something. You will barter away your friendship with Hunter and home if you want to walk on land that desperately."
When Stephanie performed the transformation spell on Shawn, she felt a rush of exhilaration fill her unlike anything she had ever felt before. She could get used to the power. Her satisfaction was squashed when she returned home to find that her father had been poisoned and died. Her sorrow was enough to make her want to brush aside the incredible rush of dark magic and her underlying desire to to cast another dark spell. She hoped to forget her stint with dark magic.
However her hopes were crushed when Hunter found out what she did for Shawn. With his newly acquired power of being king, he banished her to live in exile in the Wastelands, never to return to Atlantis until she could reverse the spell she had cast on Shawn.
Oh, the irony. He asked her to do the impossible, to find a way to reverse an irreversible spell. Stephanie felt the last shreds of her composure dissipate.
Before she left Atlantis, Stephanie cursed Hunter giving into her desire to use black magic once again. She use a particularly nasty curse in order to tarnish his handsome face, in order to make it as hideous as she thought his heart had become.
Yes, she was the reason Shawn was on the Surface, but Hunter should have known he lost his best friend long ago.
So Stephanie settled into her new home, utterly alone and miserable.
As the years passed, her bitterness only grew exponentially. The only glimpses of the Underwater Kingdom she received were the various merpeople who sought her magical expertise in order to cut deals with the Sea Witch.
Stephanie wasn't sure why she made deals with the merpeople. Maybe it was residual desire to aid the less fortunate from before her foray with dark magic. Or maybe she just wanted to hold horrible stipulations over the heads of whomever made the deal.
For instance, the two blonde hooligans with the Surface World's kazoos were forced to surrender their own magic in order to join the Surface World. Ziggler the Dolphin had to reject his family and his heritage. Maybe the best example of fine print was the stipulation that Zayn had to betray Owens. But her favorite had to be when she convinced Enzo to give up his voice in order to save his best friend Big Cass...Shutting up that merman was a special pleasure of hers.
The merpeople would always come and ask her for help, but to many she had become that of legend. Only few dared to seek her out, but when they came, she cut deals and used spells to grant their wishes of becoming human.
Stephanie never stopped trying to find a reversal to the transformation spell she used on Shawn. Continuously using the dark magic for the requests and experimenting with spells tainted her; it sunk into her skin and dwelled in her heart. And that was the cruelest part of her life; no matter how much she hated Hunter for how he shunned her, she couldn't deny that she longed for his love and acceptance.