teamBLAZE: welcome back! I'm glad to have you here! and thanks for notifying me about the typos, I'll be on lookout for them!

Bunnies4ever2: yeay! I'll be glad if you want to read the fic and leave a review there as well ^^ although you haven't played the game (which you should, it's quite enjoyable), I don't think you will have difficulties in following the story per se so don't worry! :)

The nights under the sea were darker, and obviously colder for humans' untrained senses. There was no fire, but there were glowing sea creatures that often travelled in colonies in the wild, providing arbitrary light in the waters.

However, in merfolk settlements, especially those that would be considered as the middle to upper class, usually the family would tame these creatures—the species would be either to the family head's personal preference or an ancient convention following the certain family's tradition of which species to choose—to be their light in the night time.

The Royal Family made their choice on a species of glowing squids. The humans would call it, in layman terms, the firefly squids. They were undiscovered, much less known distant cousins to the species that human scientists in our age today would classify as Watasenia scintillans, who lived in shallower waters than this certain cousin employed by the Royal Family to be their light. Each person in the palace would be assigned to one, two or even three squids to help them navigate their way in the palace. King Troanes had five to be his chaperone, while the princesses generally had two for each.

The palace assigned one squid to each of the guests and it had initially terrified Alicia who, in her whole existence, had never dreamed of having a squid being her companion in night time. However, after Leighlee's assurance (the two princesses had clearly grown rather fond of each other), Alicia tried to adapt to this new companion of hers and even mustered enough of her teenage curiosity to conduct a night adventure in the underwater palace.

The nameless squid followed her faithfully, staying next to her and giving just enough illumination for the human to be aware of her immediate surrounding so that she wouldn't stumble upon a boulder. Alicia thought she swam aimlessly, not knowing that the current was guiding her. This lost daughter of sea and shore slowly approached an unfamiliar, rarely visited area of the palace compound where no glowing squids could be seen in sight. Alicia looked around; the place was creepy but somehow she didn't feel as scared as she thought she would be. Something in this palace reminded her of home, for indeed a part of her had come from this very same palace without her knowledge.

"Help…"

Alicia turned around, but no one was there. There was, however, something resembling a cave nearby and when she went nearer, the voice getting louder.

"Help…"

Now THIS is scary! She thought before swimming back as fast as she could towards the palace without really paying attention to where she was heading until she bumped into something—or to be more precise, someone.

"Allen?!"

"What happened to you?" Allen asked, "Can't sleep?"

"I… I…"

"Calm down, Alicia…" Allen said, "Why don't we walk together? Er… swim, I mean."

Not knowing what to say, Alicia simply nodded and the two siblings swam side by side. After a while, they passed by the Throne Room, which strangely was left open. Similar to how Alicia was drawn to the strange place earlier, both siblings felt a strange attraction towards the Throne Room. Allen led the way, opening the door slightly bigger and slid inside. It was empty, of course, but there was something that caught his attention.

The trident.

Allen and Alicia swam towards the trident and we wouldn't know what drew Allen to extend his hand—might it be his curiosity or the blood of Triton in him—and touched the golden regalia, causing it to glow in reaction to the Blood of Triton that flowed inside his veins even when he didn't know it.

Allen took back his hand in surprise, and the trident stopped glowing. Seeing that, Allen touched the trident again, this time more softly and the trident glowed again.

"How strange…" he murmured.

Alicia tried the same thing, and she achieved the same result as her brother. "Why does it glow?" she asked.

"I see you are not yet aware of who you are."

Allen and Alicia turned abruptly towards the source of the voice and finally the Seeress emerged from the shadow and let her presence to be known.

"What do you mean?" Allen asked, his heart skipping a beat and chill ran down his spine as he heard her voice.

"What do I mean?" Gwen asked back. "I mean exactly what I said."

"Can you stop being so… so… ambiguous?"

Gwen sighed heavily. "The role of the Seeress is not so much to reveal the truth than to guide the people to the truth itself."

"Then guide us! Enlighten us!" Alicia implored. "What did you mean by your words?!"

"Ignorant, impatient human." Gwen replied coldly as she frowned disapprovingly towards Alicia. "If you want my guidance so badly, leave this room at once and retire to your chambers and regard this encounter as the child of your fantastical imagination."

Struck by the harshness of her words, Alicia was rendered speechless. Allen, seeing no point in forcing Gwen to speak—and not having the willingness to in the first place—led Alicia away from the Throne Room without saying anything to the mermaid.

Allen thought he had left her alone behind. But Gwen knew, the Seeress always knew, that she was not.

"So… we just take it?"

"I guess so."

Neil, Reine and Viv swam closer to the flower and Neil was the first one to attempt to pluck the flower from the ground while it was still in its fully bloomed state.

"Don't do that," someone said; her voice alone enough to stun Neil. Neil looked up and as he'd thought, he saw his mother: a lady who had inherited Neil with her golden hair and eyes resembling the flesh of grapefruit.

"Mom…?" Neil called in confusion, "But… you were… you are dead!"

"Don't you want to stay with me longer?" she asked.

"I…"

Meanwhile Reine and Viv, who saw nothing, were wondering whom was Neil talking to. More importantly, Reine realized their time was running out and so Reine reached out for the flower herself. Just when she was about to touch the flower, a vision appeared before her.

"Reine…"

Reine looked up and saw a figure that she had never met alive but saw often enough in paintings to recognize her. She had deep purple hair and tail—making the colour of her hair and tail closest to Leighton, but in terms of her face, Gwen (and thus herself) would be the closest imitation.

"Are you my… mother?"

"Yes…" the vision said, "Do not pluck that flower if you wish to speak to me longer."

"Why?"

Reine had often imagined how would her mother looked like in person—having known her only through painting and stories that invariable portrayed her as an exceedingly beautiful and kind-hearted princess who passed on too early and too unexpected that it threw the Court in a long period of mourning.

"The flower sustains me," she said. "Do not pluck the flower."

Reine hesitated for a moment. But this Flower of Illusions… she thought, Yes! Right! This is the Flower of Illusions!

"You are not my mother!" Reine declared. "You are simply an illusion!"

With that, Reine swiftly grabbed the flower and plucked it from the ground and surely enough, the vision disappeared the moment the flower was fully separated from the ground.

Reine took a deep breath and glanced aside to look at Neil who was breathing heavily. "Had a vision, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yeah." Neil replied. "Of my dead mother."

Reine smiled wryly, "Well, turns out we're not so different, after all." She said, "I often wondered how my mother looked like since I never got to see her personally, but an illusion would be a lousy substitute."

"…I guess so…"

Neil looked at the flower, now cupped in Reine's hands. The petals still glowed as if reflecting the moonlight.

"So… this is that Flower of Illusions."

"We have to be quick." Reine said, "Let's go back."

By swimming full speed, they managed to reach the palace in due time and handed the flower over to the King. "Very well, I shall release one of you." He said, "The youngest one."

Reine and Neil delivered the King's word to both Allen and Alicia and as expected, Alicia was not satisfied with the decision.

"Why me?!"

"Duh, obviously because you're the most fragile one." Reine retorted. "Can you be more… sensible?"

"I am NOT fragile!"

"Comparatively so, unless you show me you can beat either of them in arm wrestling."

"Well, can you?!"

"Alicia, don't." Neil immediately said, recalling how Reine had wrestled a shark.

"Why are you taking her side?!" Alicia whined.

"I am not taking any sides."

"You are clearly taking her side!"

Reine rolled her eyes. "Look, if you are not being cooperative, I'll just drag you to the surface and left you on a rock or anything like that. You're most welcome to come back, but without haleweed you're probably gonna die soon in water." She said, "Do you prefer that kind of unceremonious goodbye or be more cooperative and arrange your leaving with us?"

Alicia pouted. "Fine! Who wants to stay in a haunted palace, anyway?!"

Finally—after persistent questioning on her part and finally some buttering up from both Allen and Neil—Reine managed to procure interesting information from Alicia's claim of this palace being 'haunted'. Following her guide, that night, Reine made a trip to find that mysterious voice. This was indeed the less travelled section of the palace ground, she was never really sure why. As for her, she had never set her tail on this section simply because she had never needed to.

After swimming around for a while, finally she found the cave Alicia told her and she waited there for a moment.

"Help…"

Her heart skipped a beat when she heard the voice, but she quickly steeled herself and said. "Here goes nothing."

Reine swam towards the cave and much to her surprise, she found a solitary cell inside. There was only one merman being locked up inside that cell. He had dark blue—but not of the same shade as Gwen's—tail and long white messy hair with uneven length. His body seemed to be so frail that she could see the wrinkled skin pressed against the bones in his upper body while his supposedly translucent fins were dull from lack of proper care.

His blue eyes gazed pleadingly at her. "Help me…"

"Who are you?" Reine asked, holding back her breath.

There was a moment of silence between them before the merman took a deep breath and replied:

"I am Triton…"

Triton is still alive!

Is this another illusion from the Flower, or is it... a beginning to a ruthless reality?

Stay tuned for the next chapter!

Thanks for reading! Please rate and review! ^^

A/N: If any of you are wondering why the heck Triton is still alive, no spoilers alert, I'd say that seeing that Triton is son of Poseidon (both mythology-wise and Disney-wise) and Amphitrite (in myths) and Athena (in Disney), that makes him AT LEAST a demigod, so expect some pretty long life, yeah?

Any more reason? I'm afraid you gotta need to wait for that :)