A/N: I got distracted again. Anyway, this is an idea I've had since discovering Nereus is 6,000+ years old.

Nereus' eyes used to be blue.

Nobody quite knew what to think of that, not even Nereus. He didn't recall having blue eyes, so perhaps it was a mistake in the records. Perhaps a scribe wanting to liven up details of their prince.

After a few months of research, Will made a tentative guess: Lemurian magic.

Lemurian magic had a price. Nobody knew the extent because nobody used it to extreme lengths. A dabble here for beauty, a dabble there for strength. Always giving, yet always taking from somewhere else.

A bit of strength for beauty. Maybe some of your beauty to be strong. Nothing much, and few really saw the cost before the end of their lives.

The aging spell was rather ironic. Taking from one's life force to extend it. Never a way to live forever, but thousands of years was pretty close.

See, Lemurians lived as long as the average person. Nereus, at some point in his decades of missing memories, had performed an ancient spell to lengthen his life in his search for his sister and, in later years, following the Nekton family.

For the life of him, though, Nereus couldn't remember what spell could have taken his eye color. But, perhaps, they'd always been gray.

The Nektons soon forgot the topic of Lemurian magic and its price. Nereus would be around for generations to come and no Lemurian spellcasters still lived. There were more immediate, present things in the ancient city to study, so there was no reason to research Lemurian magic.

Right?

They were wrong. If the Nektons had looked a little further, they would have found an extreme danger right in their own small crew.

Maybe, in the end, it wouldn't have made a difference. It wasn't like they'd had an alternative, anyway, but maybe… just maybe, they could have done something different.

Maybe they would have worried when Ant's eyes started to fade.

A/N: I've got five chapters, and it'll be a chapter a day!