Chapter Four: Poor Unfortunate Soul

Daisy smirked as she looked at the naïve mermaid as she turned her attention with a fake innocent smile, "My dear, sweet child. That's what I do! It's what I live for. To help unfortunate merfolk like yourself. Poor souls with no one else to turn on.", she replied as she swam towards her, which made Ashima a little uncomfortable.

With that, Daisy explained her past that she admitted to being a nasty, sly sea witch with cruel intention, but when she was exiled, she decided to mend her sins and past deeds by helping those in desperate need. Arry and Bert followed her around as she explained that using magic was easy for her and a talent that she always possessed. While presenting, she opened a daggered looking seashell wide open, which ended up glowing the same colour as the entrance but with smoke-producing. There, she used her magic to show an image of two depressed merfolk as she whispered to her eels that they were pathetic. With that, she tells a sorry tale of the mermaid wanting to be thinner while the merman wished to have a girl as she said to Ashima that she had fixed their issue.

Ashima was slowly convinced that Daisy was sincere as the poor souls cried in horror. Not long after, Gordon and Rosie arrived at the scene as Gordon gasped in shock as Rosie shook in fear while chattering her lips. There, the two swam past "The Garden of Souls" to get the some sense from Ashima. Daisy admitted that if they can't pay the price, it's in her nature to turn them into poor unfortunate souls as she explained that a deal must be met. There, she grabbed one of the seaweeds and did a shimmer towards them to intimidate them. After that, she went to Ashima as she led her to the open daggered seashell, explaining everything and even showing illustration so she could get the picture, "Now, here's the deal. I will make you a potion that will turn you into a human for three days. Got that? Three days! Now, listen carefully. Before the sun sets on the third day, you got to get that prince to love you and kiss you. Not just any kiss, a true love's kiss. If he does kiss you before the sun sets on the third day, you'll remain a human, permanently. But… if you don't, you'll be turned back into a mermaid, and… you'll belong to me!"

After that, she gave her a sinister grin as when Gordon and Rosie heard the whole thing, Gordon pleaded to Ashima to think twice, but Arry and Bert covered his mouth. There, Daisy grabbed Ashima's chin gently to get her to look at her and asked if they had a deal. With that, Ashima thought as she realised that she wouldn't be able to see her father or her sisters again if she became a human. Daisy pretended to gasp as she said that Ashima was right but assured her that having a man to love would be worth it, and she chuckled. She explained that making choices was challenging in a nasty sassy tone of voice, making Ashima feel unsure. However, Daisy hasn't finished her talking as she explained that they hadn't discussed the subject of payment as they must make a fair trade.

This made Ashima gasp as she explained that she hadn't had anything to pay, but Daisy used one of her tentacles to shut her lips as she went near her face, "Oh, I'm not asking much. Just a token, really. What I want from is…", she explained before she whispered, "Your voice."

"My voice?", Ashima asked as she placed her hand on her chest.

"You've got it, sweetcakes. No more talking, singing, zip.", Daisy replied as she acted dramatically while making hand gestures.

Ashima was confused yet upset, "But without my voice, how can I..."

Before Ashima could continue, Daisy answered while swaying her hips and battering her eyes to make her look attractive by responding, "You'll have your looks! Your pretty face! And don't underestimate the importance of body language, ha!"

With that, she climbed to the shelves to fetch some potions while explaining to Ashima that men prefer girls who don't blabber or gossip as they find it annoying and unattractive. Once she grabbed the brews, she tossed them into the daggered seashell as she even threw a tongue from an unknown sea creature while telling her that men liked it when women bit their tongue. Once everything was done, it produced smoke that lit the room. There, she began to get more aggressive as she asked Ashima to choose now, and all it takes to be a human was to give up her voice. Not long after, Daisy pulled up a scroll for Ashima to seal the deal with a fish skeleton as the pen. Ashima felt pressured to sign the scroll as Daisy, and her eels told her to do it, while Rosie and Gordon's mouths dropped in horror as they begged for her not to sign the scroll.

However, Ashima signed the scroll while looking away with the amount of stress. Once that was sealed, Daisy fetched the scroll and gave Ashima a crazy grin. After that, she investigated the daggered seashell as she began to chant, and it caused the entire room to glow murky green and white. Once she finished her chanting, two giant smoky green hands came out as Daisy instructed Ashima to sing with her eyes looking so delusional. With that, Ashima began to sing as the atmosphere grew intense with the smoky green and white light began to swirl around her. As this occurred, her voice began to glow inside her larynx.

While singing, Daisy kept egging her to continue as the pair of giant hands reached towards her. This freaked Ashima out, yet she continued until one of the hands went into her mouth and took her voice away. Ashima was shocked as she covered her mouth. With that, Ashima's voice still echoed as it was sucked into Daisy's seashell necklace as it turned out that her seashell necklace was magical. Satisfied that she captured her voice, she began to laugh maniacally as the atmosphere changed to normal, but now the daggered seashell glowed in a bright yellow with smoke coming out as it zapped to Ashima.

As Gordon gritted his teeth in horror, Rosie looked away while witnessing the transformation. Ashima was stuck in an amber bubble, and the magic began to occur upon her. Her fins began to split into two as she felt a tremendous amount of pain, but she couldn't scream, yet it was quick. Her fins then changed into pair of legs as she gained a flowing skirt that matched her former fin colour. Once the transformation was completed, Ashima was now officially a human. Still, the problem was, with her being a human, she couldn't breathe underwater, and she struggled to swim while feeling like suffocating.

With her trying to survive, Gordon grabbed Rosie's dorsal fin as she raced to the rescue, and she supported her best friend to get up to the surface. There, she and Ashima ascended to the surface as fast as they could while Daisy still laughed her way, feeling proud that she achieved her plan and that she was one step ahead to reach something she desired for years, and she knew that Ashima was the perfect target to lure.

…

A splash of water was made as Ashima rose from the sea to take a breath of the fresh salt air as the sun was still growing. Once she gained enough oxygen, Rosie and Gordon aided her to shore nearby as Ashima swam there, even though she was still struggling as she had achieved a pair of legs from Daisy. When they finally arrived onshore, Rosie and Gordon felt exhausted from assisting Ashima. They didn't know that they came onshore near a castle where none other than Prince Thomas resided. While Ashima was trying to gain a sense of awareness, Prince Thomas and his canine friend were nearby as the young attempted to play the flute in a tune that mysterious saviour sang to him.

Every attempt he made was all in vain as he sighed in frustration, "That voice. I can't get it out of my head. I've looked everywhere, Max, but… where could she be?"

As Ashima regained her awareness, she moved her hair as she looked down and noticed something both unusual and extraordinary. Her once fins were replaced with a skirt and a pair of human legs there. When she lifted one of her legs, her mouth dropped in awe until she smiled while wiggling her digit of toes. Just as she looked at her new pair of legs in awe, she heard a familiar voice calling, "Well, look at what the catfish dragged in! Look at you!"

There, flew Salty as he landed next to her on the rock. Salty noticed something was different about Ashima but couldn't get his featherhead out. He scratched his head, trying to figure it out as he said, "Don't tell me! Wait, I got it! It's your hairdo! You've been using the dinglehopper, right?"

Knowing that her voice was taken, Ashima beamed as she shook her head multiple times, "No?", Salty gasped in surprise as he went back to thinking before he got another idea, "Well, let me see… umm… you got your makeup done?"

Ashima blew her hair while biting her lip, trying to figure out a way to get Salty to notice that she received a human pair of legs. There, after thinking for a couple of seconds, she grinned as she shook and waved her leg up and down while Salty was still stumped as he had no clue. As Salty was trying to figure it out, Gordon groaned in annoyance, giving the scatterbrained seagull a narrow glare as he rested his claw until he had enough and yelled, "She got legs, you idiot! She traded her voice to the sea witch, and now she has legs! My gosh!"

This made Salty's eyes wide until he acted as he knew it all along, "Heh, I knew that.", he lied as he shrugged his feather wings.

With that, Ashima attempted to get on her feet to stand as she wobbled like jelly, "Ashima has been turned into a human.", Rosie explained as she began to stutter, "S-she's got to make the prince f-fall in love with her, and he's got to ki- he's got to kiss her!"

"And she's got only three days!", Gordon cried as Ashima tripped and fell into the water, causing the water to splash on the worrisome, grumpy crab.

There, Gordon began to have a massive panic attack as he was still in the state of horror that Ashima had pair of legs and began to wonder what her father would think. He acted with such drama and nonsense as he declared marching and swimming back to the palace to inform King Shankar about everything. When Ashima heard that after removing the seaweed from her hair and fixing her skirt, she turned her head and gasped silently in horror as she immediately scooped up the angry and paranoid blue crab. There, she shook her head with pleading dark brown eyes as Gordon pointed his claw at her, telling her not to shake her head.

However, Gordon began to think as he still believed that they could go back to Daisy and reverse the deal to gain her voice and her fins so that she could live her life as a mermaid again. He begged her with that suggestion, but Ashima responded with a pair of sad puppy eyes with a slight frown. She didn't want to be a mermaid, and she didn't want to be stuck to have a miserable life under the sea, and she just wanted to be a human and be with Prince Thomas. When Gordon's plead failed, he sighed in defeat as he reluctantly agreed to help her find her true love. Ashima gasped and smiled with glee as she pecked Gordon's cheek, which made him huff and blush. When Ashima placed him back on the rock, he began to realise that he was slowly yet surely becoming softer towards her, which made him sigh and frown, "Oh, the indignity."

Before they could help her, they spotted a sheepdog sprinting towards them while barking his head off. This startled everyone as Rosie cried and dove back into the water as Salty flew off while Gordon hopped into the skirt pocket from Ashima to take cover. Ashima recognised the dog as she began to freak out, not knowing what the dog would do next. With that, she attempted to run away from the dog and hide behind a giant boulder, but the dog was faster as she began to run around in a circle before she climbed up, but only for the dog to climb up and lick her face happily.

Just before she received more puppy kisses, she heard a familiar voice calling out, "Max! Max!"

However, Max didn't go after his owner as he kept looking at Ashima, wagging his tail and barking. The dog remembered Ashima from the birthday event, although she had legs instead of mermaid fins. He tried to communicate with his owner to recognise his face, but he didn't get the memo as he thought he was stubborn until he spotted a pretty girl sitting upon a boulder. This caught his eyes as he approached the stranger. When Ashima spotted the young man, she realised that it was Prince Thomas as she began to fix up her hair to try to impress him.

Once Prince Thomas got close, he saw her face, and an image popped into his mind as her gorgeous face matched the description of the girl who saved him from a terrible shipwreck. However, he didn't want to rush as he began to apologise for Max's hyper behaviour, "I'm sorry if this knucklehead scared you. He's harmless, really.", he explained before once again, the face of hers looked familiar as he commented, "You… you… seem very familiar… to me. Have we met?"

Ashima responded quickly with a vigorous nodding and a big smile, "I knew it!", Prince Thomas gasped in astonishment while Max barked happily, "You're the one… you're the one I've been looking for! What's your name?"

However, when Ashima attempted to speak by telling him her name, but she held her throat in the realisation that she couldn't talk as she lost her voice from Daisy, "What's wrong?", Prince Thomas asked with a significant amount of concern, "What is it? You can't speak?"

There, Ashima shook her head sadly as she gave him a slight frown. This made Prince Thomas doubt himself that she was the one to rescue him as he spoke somberly, "Oh, then you couldn't be the one that I'm thinking."

This made both Ashima and Max frown in frustration as Ashima attempted to do a pantomime with her arms and hands to explain everything from rescuing him from the storm to trading her voice to the sea witch to gain legs. However, Prince Thomas raised his eyebrow with confusion as he tried to guess everything that Ashima was trying to tell, but all his answers were wrong. This made Ashima more upset as when she tried to explain more by body language; she accidentally leaned at the edge of the boulder too close as she lost her balance and fell. Luckily, Prince Thomas caught her in time as the two stared at each other's eyes in awe and wonder.

Prince Thomas felt like his heart was about to come out of his chest. Yet, he tried to brush those feelings off as he then looked at her worryingly, "Gee, you must have really been through something. Don't worry, I'll help you.", he explained as he placed her down to the sandy floor to led her back to his castle while encouraging her to walk, "Come on, come on. You got this. You'll be okay."

As this occurred, Ashima blushed in a light shade of red before smiling from ear to ear as she looked back at Rosie and Salty. Salty gave her a thumbs-up despite having no opposable thumb as Rosie nodded and wished her luck. Ashima waved at them before she headed to his castle with such excitement while Gordon, who was still in her pocket, felt a great dread as he knew that this wouldn't be so easy as it seemed.