Though he had just promised explanation, Menelaus Winslow Groat, the odd Phoque King Lighthouse keeper, seemed to take his time replying to Sophia. The young lady, however, had little patience.

"Well?" she asked.

"I'm trying to figure out where to begin," Menelaus sighed. "You asked so much."

The black seal man softly arfed. Menelaus nodded.

"Yes, I suppose I should start there," he replied to the creature. "Well, my dear, as you well know by now, I am but a humble man, living alone on this small island, trying to do my duty and keep the beacon of this lighthouse lit so that ships may safety pass by."

Sophia nodded.

"It's a lonely life. A very lonely life. But somebody has got to do it."

"Yes," Sophia replied, "somebody does."

"But being alone...it gets to you...the solitude, the lack of...companions..."

"I get it, you're a lonely man," Sophia said curtly, "go on."

"well, you see, my dear, it's important I stress my loneliness. My lonliness drove me to things that I...I don't suppose a more socialized man would do."

"Such as kidnapping me this evening?" Sophia quipped.

Menelaus gave her a dry stare but otherwise ignored the comment. "Being left alone, I found myself turning to reading whatever books I could find in this small lighthouse library left by lighthouse keepers before me. It was still an empty, lonely, existence, but reading allowed me to pass the empty solitude quicker. It was by chance, then, that I discovered a small book tucked well behind another book, out of sight...a book about transmogrification."

" 'Transmogrification'?" Sophia repeated, blinking her eyes.

"Yes, my dear. Do you know what that word means?"

Now it was Sophia that gave the dry stare. "Yes, it means changing of something in a surprising or magical manner. Why are you telling me this?"

"Well, naturally, because I realized it was the solution to my loneliness."

Sophia said nothing.

"You see, the former lighthouse keeper before me was a bit of a madman. Quite into the supernatural, the occult. He left odd vials here of potions and components...when I took over I had initially thought to throw them away as they were cluttering up space. But as I read that book on transmogrification I was glad I hadn't- those strange vials included rare ingredients that were just what I needed. I decided that my job forced me to have next to no interactions with the outside world, why, I would make my own world to interact with instead!"

He motioned with a hand to the sealmen in the room.

"Now, the only real visitors I have to my island are seals. So, naturally, those are the creatures I worked with when using dark magic to create friends."

"Wait," Sophia shook her head in disbelief, "you're saying you used a dark magic spell that you found in a random book in your library alongside random chemicals someone else left around the lighthouse to create these hideous sealmen?"

"I am."

The brown seal arfed a couple times with a whine.

"Also, Sealy Stan asks that you please don't call them hideous," added Menelaus, "Sealmen have feelings too, you know."

"Stan?"

Menelaus cleared his throat. He motioned to the black and white sealman, standing besides the lady. "I suppose introductions are in order. This is Sealy Dan..." his arm moved to the brown seal. "This is Sealy Stan..." and finally, he pointed in the direction of the black seal. "And this is Sealy Jan, but he prefers you say it more like "Yawn", being male and all."

Sophia merely looked at each sealman as introduced, not sure how to respond.

"They have helped me stave off some of that terrible loneliness, but, despite the good friends as they are, something still felt like it was missing and I couldn't put my finger on it." Menelaus looked in the direction of the window and out to Sharpy Island. "When I then heard your family had bought the island next door, I thought perhaps I would find whatever element my life was still lacking. I had thought that, perhaps, it was merely human interaction- sealmen are charming once you get to know them, but they are still, well, very sealy too."

The sealmen arfed and exuberantly nodded their heads.

"I did my best to befriend first the builders and then the interior decorators, but I found them all to be unpleasent people. Not at all what I was missing, it seemed. Even worse, they were disrespectful to the sea, to its creatures...particularly the interior designers, as you may be able to tell from the decor in your father's mansion. So many poor animals losing their lives for...what? To become a piece of ambience?" He spit on the ground in disgust. Sophia, too, was disgusted, but more because he was spitting on the ground inside. "My seal friends here, why, they were likewise incensed by the slaughter of their fellow marine family. Naturally, the only fair response to the builders and interior decorators murdering their ocean brethren was for the sealmen to murder the builders and interior decorators."

"I KNEW it wasn't rip tides!" Sophia clapped her hands together, excited that her suspicions had been correct. But then the reality of the fact that she was sitting in a room with deliberate killers quickly sunk in. "How horrible, killing so many hard-working-"

"-Yes, yes, spare me, my dear." Menelaus waved his hand dismissively at the young lady. "So there was still that feeling of lacking. Obivously those horrible employees of your father did not fill the void in my life. But then...then you and your family arrived. And I now, now I know exactly what I was lacking." He locked eyes with Sophia. Instantly she felt her skin crawl.

"W-What's that...?" she asked, not wanting to know but feeling obligated to inquire.

"Female companionship," the man replied as an eeire smile crossed his face. "What I feel in your presence is exactly what I was missing. It's refreshing. You're refreshing. So lovely...so charming...so-"

"-out of the question," finished Sophia shaking her head.

"Come now, my dear, you are a single woman, and I am a single man. What is so wrong with us being together?"

"For starters," Sophia replied, "I don't know you. At all. And what little I do know I don't particularly like."

"Bah, my dear," Menelaus chuckled, "don't be so quick to judge. I've just shared plenty with you about myself. I'm lonely! I know how to transform seals into sealmen! I operate a lighthouse! This is the perfect amount of information to start a relationship on. Sure, I may not be from a well-to-do family but you can see I'm quite industrious, driven, passionate..."

"...murderous..." added Sophia.

"Well, yes, but as they say, you can't make an omlette without breaking some eggs." Menelaus again stared out at the mansion across the way. "Surely you don't believe your father's teddy bear empire was built without some tragedies."

"You don't know the first thing about me," Sophia continued, "so why would you think we'd make a good pair?"

"I know you're lovely," replied Menelaus, "and I know you're not crazy."

"Because you've been concealing the sealmen so that I look crazy to everyone else!"

"The course of true love never did run smooth," the lighthouse keeper shrugged. "That's why I had my sealmen save you from your family and their terrible plans and bring you here, with me, where you'll be safe."

"You expect me to be wooed by the fact that you made me appear insane to my family, while you the whole time knew better?"

"I did know better," Menelaus shrugged.

"This is ludicrous, I demand you take me back to Sharpy Island this instant and explain to my family what has been going on!" Sophia stamped her foot as she rose to her feet. "A woman has been murdered because of all this! Everyone thinks I did it!"

"Again, accept my apologies," said Menelaus, "a murder in this case was never my intention."

"In this case," repeated Sophia, clearly irritated.

"Sealy Dan says he got startled by the cook's suddenly apperance and reacted without thinking."

"And what exactly was Sealy Dan doing in the house in the first place? Defecating in the hallway so that I could once more be blamed for that?"

Suddenly, as if on cue, there was the sound of a baby's cry. It made Sophia's eyes grow wide. Menelaus waved a hand.

"Sealy Dan, go rock him," he said to his standing sealman who waddled off with an arf. The lighthouse keeper's gaze returned to Sophia.

"Why, my dear," Menalus continued, almost with a chill to his tone, "I am not as foolish as you imagine. I knew you would probably have hesistations about being in a relationship with me. That's why I had to send Sealy Dan to get collateral and, unfortunately, he was startled in the process..."

Sophia shook her head. "No, you mean to say..."

Sealy Dan, now cradling the crying baby Horace in his flippers, waddled back over to the table.

The grin on Menelaus's face grew. "If you don't want anything terrible to befall this innocent child, I would suggest you reconsider your feelings towards me. I realize you may not be this babe's biggest fan, but surely a nice girl like you knows better than to wish harm on a defenseless infant."

Sophia shot a death glare at Menelaus.

"You fiend," was all she could think to say.