The phone camera turns on to show Casey in his room again, with stacks of books on the bed behind him. His hands are back to normal, but the fins on his ears remain along with the colored spots on his face. His nose and teeth, too, remain altered, and his normally-black hair has lightened a bit and gained slight greenish tint. “Entry five, day seven. Height: 5'. Weight: 100 pounds. I've shrunk again, but only a little bit compared to last time. Maybe I'm close to the height I'll be once... well, once I'm a full-blown Hyleft. No real way to know until it happens, though.

“I decided to gather some books from here to take with me so that I can maybe share some info from Earth with the Water Realm—mainly encyclopedias, history books, things like that. Just for a taste of it. One thing that may be an issue going forward, though is Hyleft hands... their—well, soon it'll be 'our', skin—sometimes excretes this weird slime like a frog or something. It's bad enough that Hyleft don't usually use paper to write on since their slime would damage the ink. Thankfully, lamination is a thing, and one of my foster parents works at a place with a laminating machine. Or whatever it's called. I'm just glad I got the permission to do this with these books.”

He holds up one of them. “This one is something I used to have read to me at night when I was really small; I don't know why, but I feel like I can't leave it behind even though I'm way too old for bedtime stories. I read it to myself last night and... well, it felt nice. Nostalgic. Maybe bringing it along will help me keep a piece of Earth with me in a way, so that I don't feel like everything was really lost to me. Or maybe I can read it to Kala some time; she seems like the type that might enjoy it.

“Speaking of which, I'm getting used to being around Tele's family. Kala is really cute and always wants me to play with her, Tele is really friendly, and Mona... well, she's still amazingly nice. I still can't believe she bought that instrument for me yesterday. She said she'd teach me how to play it soon—maybe even in time for the festival coming up. Oh! And she made some traditional Hyleft food for dinner that night before I found myself back here; it's basically all fish, but I always liked seafood anyway. She's a really great cook, too, and let me have as much as I liked.”

Casey sighs, then shrugs. “I think... I think I might want to take Mona up on her offer to let me stay with her and her family once I'm a Hyleft. I might even stay there overnight tonight. Just to get used to it, you know? I'm feeling less and less nervous about the whole thing... it'll still be hard to say goodbye to everyone here, but I think I'll be okay with it. End of entry five.”

---

“Entry six, day eight,” Casey says as the video begins. He is inside the house cave in Beryl Ravine with the musical instrument nearby. Appearance-wise, he is still mostly human, but his hands have shifted back to Hyleft form, and his posture is slightly different as well. There is also more green to his hair in addition to the Hyleft features on his head and face. He is also wearing new clothes—a strange sort of black tank top with the back open, baggy brown shorts that tie into the tank top, and a loosely-wrapped short scarf-like blue cloth around his shoulders. “Height: 4'11”, weight 90 lbs. Mo—er, Mona...” The Hyleft in question can be heard softly chuckling at that; Casey blushes slightly before smiling nervously and continuing. “...Mona says that this is about the height I would normally be at my age if I had been born a Hyleft, so this is probably as short as I'll shrink. Just in case of more changes, though, Mona gave me some of Tele's old clothes; They're not exactly meant for humans, so the fit was a bit of work, but other than that I kind of like them.

“I spent last night here. I had trouble getting to sleep at first—for obvious reasons—but I eventually got used to it. Hyleft furniture is pretty soft and uses leaves and stuff in its construction, so it was really comfortable bed-wise. Still a lot different than a mattress, but it's not so bad. It wasn't nearly as cold as I thought it might be, either. The walls of this cave really manage to retain warmth well in spite of all the water.

“Anyway,” Casey says, walking over to the instrument, “I figured it would be a great day to learn how to play the Water Bells...”

Mona joins him and waves to the camera before pointing at the panes of glass. “This instrument can only be played using water magic. The bells are the glass part; the shorter ones play higher notes, the longer ones play lower notes. But each one has a large range. You play the notes by pressing a finger to the glass and using water magic to cause water to run up and down the glass, making it vibrate.”

Mona casually causes water to flow over the largest pane of glass before pressing onto it with her finger. The result is a shimmering, wine-glass-like sound at a low pitch. “Put your finger further down the glass, and you shift even lower.” She does so, sliding her finger downwards while keeping the water moving. The sound continues the entire time she is touching the glass, but drops in pitch with her finger. “The shimmering of the sound becomes more prominent the faster the water runs over the glass, which also increases the loudness.”

“Sounds... difficult.”

“YOU CAN DO IT, CASEY!” Kaya shouts from nearby, “Play it, play it! I wanna hear you play it!”

Tele's voice can be heard in response as Casey and Mona both laugh at the enthusiastic girl. “I don't think sis will take no for an answer...”

“Alright... let's see...” Casey closes his eyes and calls up water, making it flow over the glass panes. He has some initial difficulty; the notes sometimes waver or cut off due to the water not flowing correctly, or consistently, but gradually he begins to play 'hot crossed buns' to begin with before moving on to trying out other notes. After a few minutes, however, he jerks straight in surprise, causing the water to fall back to the ground; all of a sudden, a lime green finned tail blooms out from behind him, and his legs change slightly as well. “Yow! That scared the heck outta me...”

Kala scampers over and giggles at the new appendage; Mona places her hands on Casey's shoulders and smiles at him. “You did well for your first time. Why don't we take a break from magic use so you can keep doing these videos a little longer? There are still a few days before the festival. You have time to learn.”

“Mom's right,” Tele nods, “You learn faster than me, at least.”

“Thanks, everyone...” Casey says with a blush. “Uh... well, I guess I'm gonna have to figure out how to work this tail, since I'll have it for the rest of my life soon. End of entry six!”

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Read and review, and once again be sure to check out the comic this is based on here: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challen.....itle_no=276882