So, I guess it starts with me, standing outside Paradise's gates admiring how mighty they are. The blueprint I had definitely was not to scale because they were way taller in person.

I should first explain what Paradise is. It's where the best of the best live: the most powerful, the most clever, the most beautiful. If you are lucky and you work hard enough, you can be invited in to stay. But that rarely happens. I just wanted a quick little visit to explore and grab some goods but clearly that did not work out.

Anyways, I shifted into my half-human/ half-fish form. I think humans call this a mermaid? I swam over to the very far side of the gate, hoping my friend, Azra, was doing a good job of flirting and distracting the guard that was supposed to be on duty. Well, it turns out, that specific guard was married and Azra did a terrible job of keeping him occupied because I was caught swimming up the wall. The guard quickly threw a seaweed rope that wrapped itself around my tail and yanked me down to the sea bed.

Basically, I ended up in a jail. They forced me to shift back into my lion fish form and told me to wait for my punishment. The chief of guards came to me and said, "Since you don't value the concept of Paradise and everything it stands for, you are being sent to land to gain a new perspective. You are banished at once to serve your penance on land. Don't come back until a human has fallen in love with you."

They released me from the jail, and I swam off thinking, "Why in the world am I supposed to make a human fall in love with me??? Don't they realize how easy that's gonna be?" As you can see, my human form is far above the average human, so there was no real challenge. As I was swimming around in my thoughts, I spied a net sweeping the surface of the water. I thought there was no way it was going to be this easy. I swam up close to the surface of the water, got tangled in the fisherman's net and when he yanked me from the water, his face immediately lit up. He tossed me in his basket and took me home. Once home, he dug a well and placed me into it, and I just had to wait for my opportunity to make him love me.

The first day he was gone, I shifted into a human and cleaned the house. If I was going to have to live there, it was going to be clean. When he arrived home, he gave credit to his neighbor which I did not like. After another day of cleaning he got suspicious, and tricked me into thinking he had left the house. I have never been tricked before so I immediately knew he was special... except for the part where he tossed my scales into the fire, prohibiting me from ever going back to my fish form. But besides that, I liked him! All I had to do was make him love me and then hopefully one of the more powerful Peris could give me my fish form back! Except the Padishah discovered me, sent for me, and decided that I was to be his bride. I simply could not be his bride because that would mean life on land, forever. For the first task, the Padishah demanded the fisherman build a huge palace made of gold, rubies, and diamonds. I had to figure something out and when my fisherman told me the demand, I told him to return to the spot where he found me and to ask for a cushion. In this spot, a powerful Peri rose up and gave him the cushion. He dropped the cushion in the spot where the Padishah wanted his palace and poof, a palace was built.

The Padishah was relentless, requesting impossible task after task for my poor fisherman. He wanted a priceless palace, so my fisherman dropped a cushion into the ocean and a palace appeared. Next he demanded a bridge of crystal to be built. My fisherman simply dropped a bolster into the ocean and a magnificent bridge appeared. The Padishah demanded the fisherman prepare a feast to feed everyone in the village, plus have leftovers! I sent my fisherman back to the Peri and had him ask for a coffee-mill. When he arrived back home, he turned the mill and plates of food came falling out. On the day of the feast, there was an excessive amount of food to go around, which only frustrated the Padishah even more. His requests became more and more difficult for my fisherman. His final two requests were these: he had to produce a mule from a chicken egg and an infant not older than a day that could walk and talk. Again and again I sent my fisherman to the Peri and each time the Padishah was bewildered by his accomplishments.

And somewhere along the way, I started to care for my fisherman even though I already knew he loved me. I foolishly helped the man and ended up falling in love with him.

But, fast forward eight months and we live here in this cottage by the sea. I think I understand why this was my penance: Paradise is special, valuable, and you have to work for it.

So, I guess you could say I found my own Paradise.