Once a Nympth

Glaucus entered his chambers to await the transmutation. The King always enjoyed his cozy front row seat that his room allowed because he had made sure it was constructed for his viewing pleasure. He found solace in overseeing each process, knowing another Nereid would soon be hatched from his colonies' eggs, ensuring his reign would continue.

There was another reason Glaucus wanted to stay close during a transmutation, and she was ready to begin. The anticipation of Scylla's arrival always excited Glaucus in a way no other had been able. The sight of her left him awestruck.

Scylla was as breathtaking now, as when he met her as a forest nymph, despite her new form. When she was first approached by the sea god generations ago, she rejected him. He thought his form was hideous, so Glaucus sought the help of a sea witch named Circe. But instead of helping Glaucus, she fell in love with him and turned Scylla into a monster. Through it all, Glaucus loved her, no matter what obstacles came between them or what form she took. Scylla was his light, his reason for all he had done and was about to do. She was his motivation to succeed and his one and only true comfort under the sea. But the ordeal did make Glaucus angry at the sea witch and he grew to hate witchcraft all together. When he tried punishing Circe, it created a war between him and Nereus, the original King and father of the Nereids. A war that Glaucus had won. Though before her death, Circe placed her own curse on Glaucus and his new colony preventing them from having offspring. Luckily Scylla still held all her powers, so they were able to figure out the transmutation process to bring forth new mermaids and keep the colony growing.

Scylla stirred. Clay and dirt fluttered, making the ocean floor disappear into a cloudy haze. She slithered heavily out of her cave. He could only see her tentacles which stretched out towards the middle of the chamber where Tily Lutey hovered, whose capture was decades overdue. That woman had always been trouble. Glaucus knew she had a witch's help. He'd lost many Wrens over the years investigating the occultist's involvement with the hosts. Perhaps that was why his Wrens were so hasty with her, so sloppy. He was still trying to decide an appropriate punishment.

Though none of that mattered here, the host was ready. Next to Tily floated an egg the size of a pearl. So delicate, yet so very, very powerful. It held within it the ability to mutate into a mermaid, grown only from Scylla's powers, for she was the one and only original sea nymph left in the world. But they were his and hers alone, their children, only Glaucus fertilized the eggs given to Scylla. Mostly all the colonies' eggs were stored in the Incubation Centre, awaiting transmutation.

Many couples in their colony tried for mer offspring, but they always failed. If a mermaid egg was left to develop on its own, it would simply hatch into a seahorse, or a salamander, or a sunfish. Any fish, really, would hatch from a mermaid egg, regardless of which male fertilized it, unless it was transmutated by Scylla and a human host. After all, mermaids were magical creatures, they needed magic to be born, and Scylla was the ultimate enchantress.

All twelve of Scylla's red tentacles ripped off the leafy wrapping that protected the host's spirit, kept it grounded to Earth. She slowly dragged it towards her grisly serpentine ruby redhead, her four eyes fixated on her meal. Emerging completely from the stirred up muck, her dragon scaled body was as crimson as her face. She opened her huge snake-like jaw and revealed three rows of razor-sharp teeth, though they were strictly for defense, she didn't need them to consume her host. She opened her mouth and it stretched to match the size of the host. Her tongued guided it down and she swallowed Tily whole and sent her into the depths of her gullet.

Though the human body would spend days inside her stomach being digested, Scylla already felt the host's spirit detaching. With a simple thought, it peeled away like a loose layer of skin and oozed out of Scylla's mouth. She sniffed it up quickly through her nostrils, then back into her throat and up into her mouth. It tasted salty as she coated it in her saliva. In one quick motion, she spit it out onto the mermaid egg. The human's spirit, coated with her DNA, wrapped around the egg like a cocoon.

Her work was finished; the first phase of the transmutation was complete. Scylla looked up towards Glaucus, met his gaze. She growled gutturally, snorted at him in what he perceived as a loving gesture, telepathically sent him the details of the next host in line for the Lutey curse.

Jonas Lutey. Age 14. Last known whereabouts, San Fransico California. With his image ingrained into Glaucus's mind, Scylla slithered back into her cave, satisfied.

A Wren entered the chamber to collect the cocooned egg and take it to a private incubation room where it would stay safe and warm until it hatched into a mermaid.

Glaucus was satisfied as well but worried. There had been fewer and fewer hosts coming from the surface over the years, with too many getting help from humans and witches, learning how to avoid his Wrens. The surface was overpopulated, it wasn't as easy to find an unsuspecting victim, and he lost many Wrens to the surface's new hazards. What made matters worse was he only had a handful of cursed families left on the surface, this last host only proved how difficult they were becoming to obtain. At least the curse made the humans more susceptible to the Wrens magic, and easier to find. If it weren't for the surface witches, he'd have several handfuls of transmutations a year, like when the colony first began, instead of only a few.

Glaucus needed more Wrens. His most successful Wren, Aoide, was working on transforming one now. Still, even if Liriope was ready in a fortnight, he would only have seven. Seven Wrens to collect his lover's meals and keep the colony sustained. If anything made him nervous, it was that. Though he had seventy-five merfolk in his colony, he only had twelve under the age of sixteen, and only five of those were female, including this new recruit. A Wren's charms won't work on a mermaid too young, and he needed them to become deadly hunters. He needed them to want to kill for him. It was the only way.

This won't do he thought; perhaps it's time for a change. He chuckled at his own brilliance while he swam through his window and down into Scylla's cave where he held her and whispered his plans in her ear.