By morning, the storm had died down, Juvia had managed to drag Gray's the unconscious body  onto the sandy beach, gently laying him down in the sunlight. He felt so cold.

"He's freezing." She thought. "Dear Lord, please get him warm. Dear Lord, please let him live."

She prayed that she had made it in time. Other merpeople might have cared less about what happened to someone like Gray, but to Juvia, human or not, he didn't deserve to die. He had as much right to live as any creature under the sea. Juvia put her ear to his chest and checked for a pulse. To her great relief, his heart was still beating and she heard him take a breath. He was alive.

"Thank God." She thought.

Juvia stroked his wet hair away from his face and gently caressed his cheek. This was the closest she had ever gotten to a human. She had a million questions to ask him, but she could tell that he was in no shape to talk. Not after the dreadful nightmare he had just survived. Right now he needed to just sleep and give his body time to heal from the storm. So Juvia gave him the only thing she had to give.

"I'll sing to you." She whispered into his ear softly. "Music always helps me heal. Whether you're happy or sad, or scared and worried, a song from the heart will always give you the strength you need."

She chose to sing a special song that was adored by humans and merfolk. One that expressed deep love and compassion. A lullaby that she could recall her mother singing to her once, a long time ago.

"Lay down your head and I'll sing you a lullaby.
Back to the years of loo-li lai-lay,
And I'll sing you to sleep and I'll sing you tomorrow.
Bless you with love for the road that you go.

May you sail far to the far fields of fortune,
With diamonds and pearls at your head and your feet.
And may you need never to banish misfortune.
May you find kindness in all that you meet.

May there always be angels to watch over you,
To guide you each step of the way.
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm.
Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay."

But instead of falling asleep, Gray was roused by the most enchanting and beautiful voice he had ever heard. Slowly his eyes started to open a little and he weakly held her soft hand to his cheek. Who was this angel that was serenading him with such a pure melody?

"May you bring love and may you bring happiness.
Be loved in return to the end of your days.
Now fall off to sleep, I'm not meaning to keep you,
I'll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay.

May there always be angels to watch over you,
To guide you each step of the way.
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm.
Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay."

His vision was a little blurred, but he knew that he was in the presence of a maiden who possessed the loveliest pair of blue eyes in all the world. Such eyes and her soft singing, Gray was utterly entranced. 

"You're real." He said, dazed. "I thought you were a dream."

"You're going to be fine." Juvia assured him with a tender gaze. "Don't talk. Just rest. You've been through so much."

"What was that song?" He breathed. "Sing it again. Please."

He had never heard anything so wonderful in his entire life.

"I cannot." She said. "I must go now."

"Wait. Don't go." He pleaded weakly. "Stay."

Suddenly Gray became so desperate to keep her from leaving him, that he did something that took Juvia completely by surprise. Responding as though in a dream, the delirious prince raised his head and kissed the mermaid on her lips. It was Juvia's first kiss. Her very first kiss, and in that moment she felt something well up inside her. It was more than joy, more than happiness itself. It was love.

Panther Lily arrived on the scene and when he saw the two kissing, he thought he'd die of sheer terror.

"Oh my God! This isn't happening!" He thought in a panic. "I'm not seeing this! I'm not seeing this! Someone please tell me that I am not seeing this!"

When Gray's lips finally parted from Juvia's, he lost consciousness again. Oh how she wanted to stay by him, the thought of leaving him now felt like agony to her. But she realized that only disaster would follow if she didn't leave now because she could now hear voices coming at a distance. She didn't know what would become of her if she was seen by those other humans.

"Prince Gray!" One voice called. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

Juvia and Lily dove back into the water just as Lahar and a woman with a dry towel appeared from around the rocks. They were both greatly relieved to find the young prince alive and in one piece.

"Gray!"

"Oh Gray, thank goodness!" The woman said rushing to get to him first.

Gray came to, and sat up rubbing his head. Next thing he knew, the woman was covering his shoulders with the towel.

The woman was called Ur. She was the primary maid and housekeeper of the castle, but since the death of Gray's mother, she had also served as a maternal figure to him. Nursing him back to health whenever he was sick or hurt, giving gentle and loving words of encouragement, advice on how to be a gentleman, basically anything a mother would do for her son.

"You just adore making my pulse race, don't you?" Ur said. "Oh look at you, you're soaking wet. Whatever am I going to do with you?"

"Huh...Wha..." He mumbled, looking around for the last person he saw before he blacked out again. "Where...Where did she go?"

"Where did who go dear?" Ur asked.

"There was a girl Ur. She saved me. She pulled me right out of the surf and she was singing...She...She had the most beautiful voice, and the most beautiful eyes."

"You took a terrible tumble my boy." Lahar said, dismissing what the prince saw as a merely a near death hallucination. "A trick of the mind or an old memory. Your mother perhaps, singing a lullaby over your cradle."

Gray ignored Lahar. He stood up rather fast and tried to look harder for the maiden who had rescued him. But she was no where in sight. It was as if she had vanished into thin air.

"Gray don't move so quickly." Ur said with concern. "You might faint."

"Who was she?" Gray kept asking himself. "Where did she come from? I just have to find her."

"You have to rest Gray." Ur said. "After that Godforsaken storm, the last thing you need to be doing right now is moving around in a haste."

"She's right milord." Lahar agreed. "Come, let us take you back to the castle. You need to recover from this properly."

"With a hot bath and bed rest." Ur added.

Gray wanted to protest but he was far too weak to do so. He had no choice but to let his servants lead him over a dune hill and to the castle where he lived.

"I'll find her." He declared, leaning on Lahar for support. "I'll find her and thank her for saving my life."

"It would appear that you've hit your head quite hard Gray." Lahar said skeptically. "Or you've swallowed too much sea water."

"I know what I saw Lahar. I didn't imagine her. She was real." Gray insisted.

"Yes, of course she was." Lahar said, humoring him. "As real as a mermaid on the rocks."

Speaking of which, from her perch, Juvia watched her beloved prince disappear into a world where she was not allowed. It made her sad. She wanted to follow him into the world of air and trees, of sand and grass. A world of humans.

"I don't want him to go." She sighed longingly. "But at least he's okay now."

"He kissed you." Panther Lily spoke nervously. "He kissed you! How could you let him kiss you?! Do you have any idea what you've done girl?!"

Because she had been given her first kiss by Gray, now Juvia would love him forever. This was bad. This was very, very bad. Once a mermaid falls in love there's no way of falling out of it.

"Gajeel is going to annihilate me!" Lily panicked. "Can you imagine the massive amount of anger that merman will unleash when he finds out about this? It'll be floods and wind all over again! I still get flashbacks from the time I was washed ashore in Trinidad during the typhoon of 1743!"

But Juvia wasn't listening to him. Her mind was still on Gray.

"I wonder if I'll ever see him again."

"Absolutely not!" Lily told her. "After this, I don't think you should ever go up to the surface again! And we're never going to talk about this again! We are just going to go back home and forget this whole thing ever happened! What Gajeel doesn't know, won't hurt him."

"Forget? Forget him?" Juvia seemed aghast at the idea. "Oh Lily I don't think I can. I don't want to."

"You have to. For my sake, as well as your own, forget him. Forget that he ever kissed you, forget that you ever laid eyes on him."

"That's impossible. The minute our lips touched, my heart became bonded to him."

"You must try to break that bond."

"Can that happen?"

"If you really try, then yes I believe you can."

"But what if I can't?"

"You have to. If you don't you'll never be happy again. Also your brother will kill me. You don't want that to happen, do you? You know how he gets when he loses his temper."

Of course Juvia knew the sea cat's words made perfect sense. Her brother wouldn't even accept friendship with a human let alone love, and she must have been crazy to think that she could have anything with the human prince. The two were from completely different worlds. She couldn't move in his world without legs and Gray would die if he ever came down into her world. It would be best for everyone if she heeded Panther Lily's advice and pretended that she and Gray had never met. Unfortunately, matters of the heart was never that simple.

After this chapter we're switching gears for awhile. So far you've seen how Natsu, Lucy, Gray, and Juvia's story starts out, now you're going to see how Erza, Jellal, and Wendy's story begins.