Bunnies4ever2: thanks! and the next chapter it is! ^^

By the way, I am starting on a new story, this time on Fire Emblem: Awakening (credit to Tailor of Our Hearts who suggested the game, and yes, this story is in response to your request!) the title is Recto Verso so.. drop by when you feel like it? ^^ hope to see you there!

In the past, the Seeress—or at least a potential Seeress—could be determined at the moment of birth, or more accurately the moment when the merbaby cried for the first time. All past Seeresses possessed an almost-magical voice that could stun everyone who heard the voice—in the past, it proved to be much useful to ensure the vision would be delivered without interruption.

Through this way, Reine was considered as a potential Seeress when she was born since her cry did stun everyone who came to witness the birth of the twin princesses. According to the account of those present, Reine's cry was—unlike typical merbabies—melodious although still ear-piercing. Not many could describe her voice back then, but they agreed that her cry made the room still until the warmth of her mother's skin finally seeped into her body and she calmed down.

When Gwen's power was awakened, the court was visibly shocked. Reine still retained her magical voice while Gwen, quiet as she was, never demonstrated any of that effect despite having an equally lovely voice herself. One of the wise counsellors in the court thus theorized that having dwelled in the same womb, the spirit of the Seeress reached out to Reine, although to a smaller extent, which led her to inherit the Seeress' Voice despite not being the Seeress herself. As for Gwen, her voice did develop the stunning effect that was akin to the original Seeress' Voice, but it was not equal to that of Reine if the latter chose to unleash its full power. However, such instances had never occurred since Reine was not aware of the potential of her own voice.

Gwen saw the flower, the white petals slowly blooming and glowing as if it had absorbed the moonlight in its wholeness. She could see a chain of events unravelling through the flower; as usual, they were blurred and as she went further away into the future, it would be even more unclear and hazy—but she could sense the gist of it still.

When her vision reverted back into the present, Gwen saw Allen's blue eyes staring right into hers.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked worriedly.

"Hm?"

"Your eyes…"

Suddenly, Viserys burst into the room and slammed his body against Allen, hard enough to knock him off to the wall, "Mistress!"

There was a brief period of silence as Allen was regaining his balance, rubbing his arm that banged against the wall. "See? Told you." He chuckled.

"Mistress, I hope he did not hurt you."

"Quite the opposite, actually." Gwen replied. "He defended me."

Viserys turned his body towards Allen, eyeing him very carefully before his muzzle split open a little. "I am sorry, sir."

"Nah, you're doing your job." Allen said, smiling.

Viserys glanced at Gwen who gave him the signal to wait outside of the chamber, which he followed faithfully. Alone again with the human prince, Gwen decided to speak, "Thank you for being… very good-natured about it."

"No problem."

Gwen made a small nod before she turned away from him. Somehow beginning to understand her, Allen took it as his cue to leave the chamber himself—only to realize that it was the first time he spent his time alone with a lady in a chamber. Allen, who was more used to be at the centre of the crowd of ladies, smiled to himself:

Not as half-bad as I'd thought…

After passing through thick bushes of weeds and corals, the small party finally saw the wide green expanse of sea ground which, surprisingly, Neil found to be very alike with a grass field except for some floating creatures that after closer inspection turned out to be jellyfishes.

"I almost forgot this field is also called the Jellyfish Field." Reine murmured.

The jellyfishes were almost translucent, and it took Neil some moments to adjust his eyes so that he could differentiate the creatures from the water surrounding them.

Just as Neil was admiring the view before him, the water that he 'inhaled' filled his lungs abruptly and he immediately choked on the saline water. Seeing that, Reine quickly grabbed some haleweed in Neil's bag and helped him to take it. "Geez! You should remember taking this haleweed! This is your life!"

After ingesting the haleweed and the cool sensation came back in his lungs, Neil took a deep breath and felt normal again. "…Thanks."

"No problem." Reine replied, "Any case, tonight will be full moon. We should camp here."

They swam around with Reine swimming backstroke style (minus the arms). After some moments, Reine stopped and said, "The moon should be visible around this area."

Neil looked around and found a huge boulder. "Will there place do?" he asked.

Reine turned towards where he was pointing at and grinned, "Yeah! It should hide us well from jellyfishes!"

"I will gather weeds with Neil!" Viv suddenly declared.

Reine turned to the pink dolphin and stared at her for some moments before finally shrugging and said, "Sure, whatever. I'll clear up the place. Just don't get lost."

Viv did one energetic spinning before she tugged at Neil's white shirt and pulled him away. "H-Hey! Hold on!"

The pink dolphin ignoring his protests until they were out from Reine's earshot and only then Viv released the poor guy. "Tomorrow's Reine's birthday!" She suddenly said.

"Eh?"

"Yep! We should give her something!"

"We?"

"Yep!" Viv replied almost immediately before started to swim in circles around Neil. "Weeee~"

"Why should I do it?"

The pink dolphin stopped abruptly in front of Neil and glared at him, "Why? Becauuuuuse Reine is the bestest mermaid ever in the whole wide Atlantica!"

"I barely know her."

Suddenly, Viv turned all puppy-eyed on him—as if it were possible—and begged him earnestly, "Pleeeeeease?" she asked, "There's just this much you can do with flippers and fins…"

Viv bore her eyes into Neil, giving her best dolphin face to the human. Neil, having an innate love for animals, found himself unable to resist the pleading look on the dolphin's face.

Why am I so weak towards animals? He groaned inwardly. "Fine."

Hearing him, Viv leaped in joy and pecked his cheek. "You're the bestest human ever!"

"So… what do you want to give her?"

"Umm… I don't know." The dolphin replied innocently. "Accessories?"

"Doesn't she have a lot of them back in the palace?" Neil asked back, "Is she even the type who will wear accessories in the first place?"

"Well~ she kinda have to…?" Viv trailed off hesitantly. "You see, even if she doesn't like it, the handmaidens would just force it on her. You won't believe how long she would complain after each party that I swear—"

"Simple accessories." Neil interjected quickly, while wondering how could two talkative individuals could stick by each other with their ears intact. He began to look around and found a peculiar kind of seaweed with small pinkish flowers growing on it.

An idea popped out in his mind. He had seen Allen braiding Alicia's long hair often enough to remember the steps—and the flowered weeds seemed to grow abundantly in that area that he should not have to worry about running out of materials.

A kind angelfish had told them that they should wait until past midnight if they were to pluck the flower on its fully-bloomed state—plucking it before would lead the flower to wilt in matter of hours. Armed with that information, the party decided to catch some sleep before the prescribed time. Neil, however, had something else to do.

Although he claimed that he did it out of Viv's relentless pleading, it was easy to see that he was sincere in making the gift for the princess he barely knew. He had his reasons: there was little doubt that Reine had helped him out a lot in the short time span they had spent together and he hated the feeling of being indebted to someone else. While Viv was floating around while sleeping in her own way and Reine was already lying down on the ground with her arms as her pillow—and looked perfectly comfortable with that—Neil was just starting in his handicraft session.

He carefully twined the weed in a way that would 'trap' the flower amidst the weed so that it would stay still.

"This goes here… and this goes there…"

Braiding the weeds was much easier than he had thought and before long, he had managed to make a line long enough to be a perimeter of a woman's head, with the pink flower lined up neatly at the middle of the line.

"Now how should I join this…?"

"What are you making?"

Neil jolted back in surprise and found Reine was peering over his shoulder. "Dammit! I thought you were a ghost!"

Reine grinned, "There are a lot of them in the sea—ghosts, I mean—because lost souls love seas."

"Can you not…?!"

"Any case, what's that?" Reine asked, pointing at the almost-finished circlet of flowered seaweed.

It was then it occurred to Neil. Since Reine had found out about it, might as well did in on her head directly. "I don't know whether it's already past midnight or not, but Viv asked me to get you a birthday present—so here it is."

"Is that a… whip? Kinda short, isn't it?"

"Goddamit, is that the kind of imagination floating in your head?"

Reine tilted her head in confusion as Neil took a deep breath and composed himself, "It's supposed to be a circlet, but I'll have to tie it around your head to make sure it fits."

"Oh, okay…"

Taking another deep breath, Neil swam towards Reine and gently placed the braided circlet around her head and tied the two ends together at the back of her head. Somehow, he made it just nicely—neither to small nor too big for the princess. Once it was done, Reine took it off her head and took a good look at this. "So… yeah, happy birthday—don't think too much about it because it's because of your dolphin."

Reine laughed, "Yeah, she has a peculiar way to get things done her way, doesn't she?" she said, "but, seriously, thanks—you gotta teach me how to make this someday."

This gave Neil an opportunity to study Reine further in his eyes. Alicia, like many of her age, loved accessories—especially those made out of precious stones. Since Alicia was the only teenage princess he got to know, Neil had though Reine—not much older than the former—was made from the same, if not similar material. But here she was, before his eyes, excited over a simple circlet that only took him about two, three hours to make. He watched as she put the circlet back on her head, push it down a little bit to make sure it wouldn't fall off, and she grinned at him.

Honestly speaking, it suited her—the circlet. The flower was of the same shade with her hair, while the green weed was as dark as the usual seaweed. Somehow, it felt as if those weeds were meant to be crafted into this circlet, and that she was meant to be the one wearing it just like now.

"…sure."

"Um… guys, I don't want to disrupt the sweet moment—"

The mermaid and the human abruptly turned their head and saw Viv was looking over the boulder, "—but look!"

Neil and Reine swam to where Viv was and saw where she was looking at. The moonlight glowed on a specific spot and from that distance Neil could see something on the ground, but he wasn't sure what since his eyes didn't work very well underwater. Reine, however, could see the scenery perfectly.

Nourished by the moonlight, the petals slowly opened up and bloomed into perfection.

The Flower of Illusions was right before their eyes.

The flower is ready to be plucked!

But will things be reaaaally this easy? :P

Stay tuned to find out!

Thanks for reading! Please rate and review! (and yes, this is no formalities... I use the reviews to see whether I'm going on the right track or whether I've done this sequel/adaptation justice... so reviews would be very very welcomed!) ^^