Eric didn't feel any different when he woke. His feelings were the same as when he when to sleep. He had always considered himself the opposite of a morning person but it seemed that he had meet his match as Ariana out slept him. He was determined to be there when she woke up but was informed by Dale "Are you prepared to wait till the afternoon?"

So Eric walked. He wasn't sure where, his vague intention was that he would try and find a flower stand to surprise her when she eventually emerged.

Finally a flower stall was spotted and he headed towards it.

The sight of Valida stopped him. He passed her by with a polite smile but suddenly he stopped as he felt a desperate need to look back and see her again. Suddenly everything about her was beautiful. Granted, she had been beautiful before the enchantment but it was never the kind of beauty that impressed Eric. Valida was a kind of harsh and scary beautiful. She was almost opposite of Ariana with her sharp features to Ariana's gentle and deadly straight black hair to Ariana's silvery curls. But there was something about this woman that made all thoughts of Ariana out of Eric's mind.

Still he thought of Ariana and went towards the flower stand. Despite his wishes he couldn't stop looking at her. He had a nagging feeling that he something to do at the flower stand but was struggling to remember. 'Flowers for Ariana' he thought to himself but couldn't remember why he would want to do such a thing. Instantly he became a nervous freak as he tried to think of the best way to approach her. Anything he would say must sound pathetic to a woman like her. His palms were sweaty, his breathing was funny. He remembered having these feelings quite recently but he couldn't remember why. 'Sure Ariana was beautiful, smart, funny and kind but she was nothing compared to this woman.'

He had to talk to her. He felt like his life would never be complete until he talked to her. So, nervously he walked over, constantly stopping, almost changing his mind but always determinedly continuing.

Ariana watched this while hidden behind a nearby stall. She watched as he finally talked to her. It was rather shocking to see such a scary woman pretend to be innocent and flirty. It was hard to recognise her. Maybe she had doubted the power of the spell because she had taken extra care in her appearance. Leaving behind the black leather she had instead opted for a simple dress, a little low cut for Ariana's liking. Her expression was the thing that had really changed. She almost looked kind, and rather nervous at the attention from a prince.

Some people had amazing acting skills.

So it was done. Ariana decided that she couldn't watch any more. She turned and sadly tried to figure out what to do next. She hadn't completed her task so could never return to the sea. And now there was no place for her here. Still, at least she had friends here. And somewhere to sleep. But could she stay in the same place as the man she loved and the woman she had set him up with?

Not having anything else to do, she went to see Sibra. "I want to sew a dress," she informed her.

Sibra laughed in her face. "So far you've only managed a pair of oddly sized gloves."

Ariana neglected to mention that those gloves had saved countless human lives from accidental touches of death.

"Can you teach me?" she said, hoping that she would stop laughing.

She did thankfully. "It will take a lot of work. No more slacking off."

"I'm counting on it."

…

People in the palace saw a rather strange sight that day; Bernard racing through the palace yelling "no! no! no!" at the top of his lungs. This went on for most of the afternoon until he finally found Eric.

"What you think you're doing?" he yelled at his friend "have you lost your mind?"

Eric didn't even seem to mind his friend craziness. He said playing with his food, staring happily off into the distance.

Bernard hated being ignored. Doing the only logical thing he could think of, he picked up Eric's plate and poured its contents onto Eric's head. It finally got his attention. Once again he yelled "What do you think you're doing?"

"With regards too?" Eric yelled back, still trying to get as much food of himself as possible.

"This new woman you've been seen with. Now I consider myself a supportive friend, when you were crazy over Ariana, I accepted it. And not just because the people loved her so much. And if the people love her than they love you and the King would have seen this and thought you were the best choice of King leaving me as your second in command and-"

"Is there a point to this story?" Eric interrupted.

"How can you do this? Your feelings couldn't possibly have changed that fast. So please explain to me how this whole thing is just a joke for some ridiculous purpose."

A shaking of the head was not what Bernard wanted to see. "I can't do that" Eric told him "I love Valida."

Slapping him seemed to be the only possible solution. Luckily Bernard held back. It was hard to say the least. At times he grew very close. He remembered his mother telling him to count to ten if he ever grew angry. Bernard counted to twenty. Then thirty.

"So" he finally said, through clenched teeth "tell me about this, Valida."

He instantly regretted asking. Eric rambled on about every little aspect about her and Bernard zoned out. All the while he planned any way that he could think of to make his friend see sense. From the small bits he did hear, this Valida didn't sound too great. But what was obvious was that Eric was smitten. Obviously listening to Eric was getting him nowhere.

"Eric can you just wait one moment" he interrupted and walked off. He had no intention of coming back.

"How long do you think this one will last?" he asked Eliza who was also looking concerned.

"Going by how quickly he has moved on from Ariana my guess would be no more than a week." She didn't look convinced. "There is something wrong here. Didn't you see him with Ariana? There is no way that was just a phase. Something is very wrong."

Sadly, this new phase did not last s shortly as they had hoped. The next few days Bernard had to watch as Eric spent all of his time either with Valida or talking about how much he missed Valida. Eventually Bernard made it a regular occurrence to mime hanging himself whenever Eric began his ramblings, much to Eliza's amusement. Eric never cared, no matter what Bernard did. His only emotion was shown with that goofy smile he sported for her.

All the while Eliza continued her claim of magic and as the days passed, it made a lot more sense to Bernard.

After a week he knew that he would have to do what he swore he would never do. Go into the palace library. To say the least, Bernard wasn't exactly what you would call an intellectual.

It took him a while to find it. He never ventured to that part of the castle. After the initial shock of all the books in one place, he managed to settle down and study.

A lot of what he learned make sense. And they all pointed to one solution. Ariana had to be the key to breaking any love charm. Full of new hope he ran to find her. She looked different to when he last saw her. She had lost the sparkle that she had once possessed. That spark that had made people instantly like her. Her skin looked paler, her hair droopier and she looked generally exhausted. He figured that it must be due to the defeat of losing Eric. It was, partially but it was also due to how long she had been away from the ocean. She had been forced to wear only long sleeved gowns and watch how her skirts swayed to hide her ever increasing number of scales. He was right about the exhausted part, everything was getting harder for her. Her feet were in agony, probably over use after never using them before.

He ignored all this "so how have you been?" he asked as he tried to break the tension.

She was still very confused as to why he was here. She shrugged and answered "pretty good."

He saw right through her lies. "I am just as mad at him as you are. Feel free to vent."

She just shrugged again. "Why would I be mad at him?"

He tried a different tactic. "So what exactly have you been doing?"

"I spend most of my time here," she said as she gestured around Sibra's store "she's teaching me to sew."

He looked disgusted. "But she's scary."

Ariana quickly shushed him. "She can hear everything," she whispered.

He was quickly silenced. "Will she hurt me?" he whispered.

"I think you're ok. She hates getting up. You're lucky that she's getting old and complains about aches and pains."

"Thank you old age."

A creak from the next room made both of them freeze in fear as they stared anxiously at the door, praying that she wouldn't come and yell at them. It seemed they were clear. "You cant really be happy with this. Working voluntarily for a woman who scares you. Are you still living at the tavern?" She nodded sadly. "You can't be happy with that," he said.

She shrugged "the people are good to me."

"So why are you still here. You still think there is a chance for the two of you and you want to work it out. Lucky for you, I have the solution. He has obviously been cursed."

He couldn't read her expression. Mainly because she was trying to hide her panic at how he was catching on. "Why would you think such a thing?"

"Trust me. I know Eric. You haven't had to be around him this past fortnight. At first he talked about nothing other than you and than suddenly it's all about Valida. I grew up with him and he never gets crazy over anyone the way he has recently. Once is acceptable because look at you. You're are the kind of girl who most guy's would go crazy over. But Valida? I guess she is pretty but she still terrifies me. People wouldn't go crazy over her because they're too scared to approach her. But Eric doesn't care about anything mean she does. He thinks it's adorable when ever she is rude or pushy or violent. And he gets violent if anyone dares say anything bad about her. That is not who he is. He doesn't care about anyone else anymore and is completely not himself."

She listened politely but he could see that he wasn't making an impact. "I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do."

He couldn't believe it. "You're really not going to do anything? You're going to sit by and watch the man you love be cursed to love someone else." She didn't bother to lie and tell him that she didn't love him. It was blatantly obvious by this point.

"Trust me it's for the best" she tried to say but he wouldn't let her finish.

"You know, I thought Valida was the worst possible thing for Eric but if you're going to just let this happen, then I guess I was wrong." With these words he stormed out.

Ariana slumped across the table, unable to hold back tears any longer. Sibra stormed in saying "would you mind keeping your personal issues outside of my store? I have ever so kindly offered to help you and I ask in return that you keep the noise down."

Ariana muttered an apology as she turned away, trying to hide her tears. Sibra still saw them and was unsure of what to do about it. She stopped yelling at least. Coming over to the table, she decided against saying anything comforting and instead looked at Ariana's poorly sewn sections of dress.

"This isn't terrible I suppose" she said, hoping it to be comforting. Ironically it was. This woman barley said anything and if she did it was criticism. This obviously hurt her and she quickly said "but you can't sew straight and it's fraying already." With that she quickly retreated back to the other room, muttering that all the emotion was making her feel nauseous.

So Ariana continued with her work, as she had been doing all week. She kept a strict timetable, rise early, work all day, go to bed early and repeat. Clay quickly tired of this and tried many times to force her into coming out. This is not an exaggeration. On one occasion he tried tying her up and carrying her out. Luckily Charlene interfered and there was minimal injury.

Meanwhile things weren't going so well at the palace either, namely due to Eric announcing his engagement.