Ocean Promise

As Faydow walked along the beach, kicking shells into the surf, a flash of gold caught his hazel eye. The elf stopped, and turned toward the ocean with a confused mind.
"Hello?"
He didn't expect to get an answer, but he did.
"Help, please! I'm stuck!"
Faydow looked helplessly at the horizon.
"Where are you?"
Another flash of green-gold surfaced, and Faydow removed his outer clothing and jewelry.

Now in his underwear, the elf ran into the ocean, and cast a spell of seeing underwater on his eyes. He plunged into the neck-deep water, and soon found a mermaid, the color of a tarnished copper sun, tangled in a fish net. Please sang a woman's voice in his head, (obviously the mermaid's) Get a knife and cut the net open. Faydow nodded, and swam to shore. He searched through his belongings and was underwater again, a dagger in each hand. Once at the site of the mermaid's trap, he sliced and hacked at the ropes, alternating breaths of air from the surface, until a hole big enough for the mermaid to pass through was made.

Both elf and mermaid swam to the surface, and Faydow inquired,
"What is your name?"
The mermaid smiled and bowed.
"I am called Melnaman, kind elf. Thank you."
"And I am Faydow."
The elf bowed also, his wet spider web hair a second net.
"I promise you, Faydow, anything your heart desires, for you have saved my life."
Faydow blushed slightly, and his eyes sparkled as he whispered excitedly.
"Then may I have you?"
Melnaman blushed also.
"Well, I'm afraid not. I am half fish! I cannot live on land."
Faydow frowned in disappointment.
"But you promised me..."
"I'm sorry, Faydow. The only way you'll have me is if I am dead and hung as a trophy on your wall."
A sickening thought took over Faydow, and suddenly he plunged the two daggers into Melnaman. She cried out, and was dead in an instant. Faydow carried her ashore, his face wrought in madness.

Faydow now keeps Melnaman on his living room wall, with a plaque underneath her that reads:
Melnaman: Breaker of Promises