It was just past noon; Curia finally stretched and started to climb out of the giant clam shell she’d been laying inside for the last few hours.  She walked over to the nearby rock where her stuff was and pulled on her star-spangled shorts, followed by her bustier and boots.  She slipped her earrings and tiara back on, and finally clipped her lasso to her hip.

She was just about to become airborne and fly away when she heard a splash from the ocean nearby and turned to look.  Rising out of the water, maybe fifteen feet away from where she stood, was a beautiful mermaid with light-green skin and long flowing blonde hair.

“Wonder Woman,” the mermaid sang out as she bobbed up and down on the crest of the tide.  “What are you doing all the way out here?”

“How do you…who are you?” Curia asked, looking surprised.  

“My name is…Sirena,” the mermaid replied.  “I swim in these waters all the time.  And of course I know who YOU are, everyone knows who Wonder Woman is!”

Curia smiled.  “I was just sunning myself for a bit, this is a perfect spot for that.  You’re the first mermaid I’ve ever seen away from Atlantis – is that where you’re from?”

“Oh goodness no.  There are many mermaids such as I that swim in these waters, and none of us have ever seen the lights of Atlantis.”  She bobbed a bit closer to where Curia was standing, awestruck.

“I…I was really just about to fly off, I’ve been away from civilization for hours now, but it was really nice to meet you, Sirena.”

“Oh now, you can’t leave yet,” Sirena bubbled.  “You haven’t heard my song yet – I wrote it just for you.”

The last, flattering words froze Curia where she hovered, just above the ground.  “Just for me?” she beamed incredulously.

“Of course.  You ARE Wonder Woman – you can’t tell me nobody’s ever written a song for you before.”  Sirena moved imperceptibly closer, never taking her eyes off of the buxom brunette beauty.

“No…never!” Curia exclaimed.  “I suppose it would be very rude of me if I didn’t stay and listen then I think!”

Sirena smiled and nodded, as she moved closer, almost to the shore, her tail the only part of her still in the water.  She opened her mouth and out came the most beautiful voice, in a clear, ancient Gaelic accent, these words:

Adrift on the ebbing tide, half asleep, just alive,
Fading away and so comfortably numb.
The arms of an ocean girl, the whisper of soundless words,
Your name upon her tongue, your name upon her tongue.

She rolls with the dancing waves, sinuous slide and sway,
Child of the water, that sense can't deny.
Necklace of shells and bone, she moves with the undertow,
The sea is in her eyes, the sea is in her eyes.

The sweetest voice pure and clear, no sense of pain or fear,
Kiss to remember or kiss to forget.
Drawn by the siren sound, spiralling slowly down,
Into the chilling depths, into the chilling depths.

The beautiful song held Curia’s complete attention; she barely noticed that Sirena had moved closer still to her, and she didn’t notice that Sirena’s appearance was changing either – her mermaid tail was disappearing, replaced by a pair of human legs.  Her eyes gazed deep into Sirena’s as the song held her in its thrall.

Sirena finished the three verses and took a pause.  “Was that not beautiful, Wonder Woman?” she whispered, now just a couple of feet from the powerful superheroine.  She reached her hand out and brushed it through Curia’s brown hair.

“Yes…beautiful,” Curia mumbled.  Somewhere deep down, thanks to her Amazonian training, she realized something was wrong.  She glanced down and noticed Sirena’s changed appearance, and suddenly shook her head, hovering backwards several feet.  “What’s going on here – you’re no mermaid,” she shrieked as her right hand instinctively went to her hip.

“I can be,” Sirena chuckled, staying in place as she watched the bewildered heroine back away.  “I can take many forms, you see.  “My name’s not quite Sirena – just Siren.”

“Siren!” Curia gasped.  “I’ve heard of you before!  What evil are you up to, what dark sorcery?”  Her magic lasso was in her hand now, coiled and twirling.

“I’ll never tell you,” Siren winked.  “It will just have to be my little secret, Wonder Woman.”

“Funny thing, I have a way of making people tell me their secrets,” Curia asserted.  Her lasso was now overhead as she prepared to send it towards the mysterious sea witch.

“Ah yes, that magic rope of yours,” Siren admitted, as she watched Curia closely.  The moment that the heroine’s wrist moved forward to send the lasso towards her, Siren started her song again – only this time in a different key.  Just as the coiled rope was about to move, it stopped, and hovered over Curia’s head for a few moments before suddenly dropping, the coils wrapping themselves around Wonder Woman’s legs.

“Great Hera!” Curia screamed in shock.  “What have you done to my lasso?”

Siren strode towards the stunned heroine, taking the end of the rope from her grip as the coils tightened themselves around her legs.  “You asked me what dark sorcery I was up to – now you know.  My songs can’t just entrance people, they can enchant objects as well.  As I’ve just done to your pretty yellow rope.”

“You can’t hold me like this forever,” Curia responded.  “And only my legs are restrained – my arms are free, and in a moment you’re going to find out what kind of power I have in them!”

But before Curia could make a move towards Siren, the villainess yanked the end of the lasso hard, sending Curia into a spin, much like she would do if she wanted to change her own appearance.  As Curia was spinning, the lasso came loose from here and into Sirena’s hands, until it had completely come away from Curia’s legs.  

Finally she stopped spinning and came to a stop, and dizzy, she fell to the ground.  Holding the lasso, Siren backed up into the water again, becoming a mermaid once more.

“My lasso!” Curia shouted.  “I am going to get you for this!” And she leapt to her feet – or tried to.  Instead she flopped back to the ground, the only result of her movement to get her closer to the water.  She looked down at her legs to find that they weren’t legs anymore.  Where her legs had been, now there was a tail, red with white stripes just as her boots had been.  She looked down at her chest to see that her bustier had disappeared as well; all that was left was a golden “W” pasty covering each of her nipples.  Her brown hair, shoulder length before, now cascaded down over her chest, almost reaching her waist.  Her star spangled briefs were still there – but now resembled a skirt, stretched tightly around her hips.

“What’s the matter, Wonder Fish?” Siren cackled, as she bobbed farther away, tucking the lasso securely away and out of sight as she did.

“What have you DONE to me?” Curia screamed.  She leaped into the air in an attempt to take flight after the sea witch, but only made it a couple of feet into the air before falling into the edge of the water.  “I can’t fly!”

“You want so badly to be with the King of the Sea, so it seems only appropriate to turn you into a mermaid – and mermaids can’t fly, silly.”

“What do you know of me and Arthur?” Curia gasped, pushing herself back onto the shore.

“I was here.  I watched it all.  You really thought there would be no consequences to your whorish behavior? Or did you just think nobody would ever know?”

“Nobody was ever supposed to find out,” Curia muttered.  “If I had any idea-”

“He is the King of the Sea, and you’re not from the sea.  It should have been pretty obvious.”

“Okay so I’ve learned my lesson or whatever, will you just change me back now?”

“Not gonna happen.  You’re going to be spending quite some time like that, until you can truly appreciate what it’s like to live as a mermaid.  Don’t worry, it’s not permanent – I’d like to think I’m that powerful of a witch but I’m not.”

“I am Wonder Woman! You can’t do this to me!” Curia reached up to tap her earpiece communicator.  “Wonder Woman to Justice League, I need some help here!”  There was no response, not even static; it was as if her communicator was dead.

“Your friends can’t help you.  You’re a mermaid now, so you might wanna start getting used to it,” Siren declared.  She turned and quickly swam away, leaving Curia alone on the shore of the atoll.  The heroine’s face dropped into her hands as she began to sob.

“What have I done, how could this have happened to me?” she lamented.  She looked up into the sky, the perfectly blue sky that was completely empty except for the hot sun.  The sun that was starting to dry out her mermaid body very quickly.

“So…hot,” Curia groaned, as she started to slide back into the water again.  Once her entire body, save her head, was immersed, she let out a contented sigh.  “That feels so much better!”

Curia looked out towards the ocean, away from the atoll.  It suddenly looked so huge, so impossibly big to her.  The gravity of what had been done to her started to sink in.  She couldn’t fly, she couldn’t run, all she could do was swim.  She had no idea where to go or how long it might take her to get anywhere, but her inner resolve was still there.  She knew she would gain nothing by staying where she was; she had to find a way to reverse what had happened to her.  She had to find Arthur, or Mera, or someone who could help her.

With a shrug, Curia slipped completely into the water, and started to swim away from the atoll.  She somehow found it effortless, both swimming and breathing under the water, so she joined the rest of the fish and other sea creatures, swimming out to sea, but unlike them, completely unsure of what she was supposed to do…