Chapter Text
The Yaoyorozu clan started with the Shimura Princess marrying the very wealthy and influential Duke Yaoyorozu. Their reign would start more than a decade later with the death of the princess’ mother, the Great Queen Shimura Nana, who bestowed for her children half of her domain each. Her eldest child’s family, the Yaoyorozu, would rule upon the seaside; and her youngest’s, who should maintain the Shimura name, upon the mountains. Both sides of the divided kingdom had their advantages, one for commerce and culture and the other for agriculture and military, and so they were meant to be a helping hand to each other.
However, due to the premature and mysterious death of the Prince of the Shimura clan and his wife, Queen Nana had to reconsider her choices, and appointed her best councilor to help raise and educate her now orphan grandchild, who was to inherit all that land after her passing. She also appointed her best apprentice to rule while Shimura Tenko wasn’t old enough for it. And it went like this, with the two best knights of the Shimura kingdom in power when the Queen died.
At least until Tenko completed sixteen years old. The lords at the mountain kingdom feared the day Nana’s grandson would be crowned. His raising by the mischievous lord known as All for One brought to surface a very disturbing personality no one would imagine the little prince had in himself. With the years running by, the nobles tried many times to throw All for One out of the palace, but the councilor and knight was too powerful, and had the late Queen’s order to back him up. The only thing the nobles could do to suppress him was to support the temporary regent, Sir All Might, who had also been appointed by Her Late Majesty at a young age and grew into the most brilliant governor.
However, Prince Shimura Tenko was sixteen now. He was to assume his throne at any second and rule his voice with All for One’s words above every mountain in his reach and, if the evil knight was to succeed, above every grain of sand his aunt’s kingdom too. In a desperate measure, the lords planned a coup that would make Sir All Might king of the mountains. The knight was set to battle against his nemesis as they intended for long, and the nobleman of the senate stood up against the Prince on the very day of his coronation.
“Shimura Tenko, you are not worthy of your grandmother’s great crown!” They had said. “You were raised by evil and evil you became,” and “You are but a puppet on the master’s hand and not fit to think and act for yourself and your kingdom.”
The uproar took several noble lords and even some servants around to agree and shout. The smarter ones quivered and had their eyes widened as the Prince put his cup down on the banquet and laid back on his seat.
“It seems Master was right, and I was a fool to put faith in any of you.” Tenko tilted his head, lazy mad eyes fixed on a point above in the ceiling, disappointed. He had fought with All for One, said the lords wouldn’t betray him even at his master’s warning. He was wrong. “Very well, I won’t make that mistake ever again.”
“What are you talking about, child?” One of the lords asked in disgust, watching as the Prince raised his hand to scratch his neck, a habit he grew fond of despite his etiquette teachers’ better judgement. “Someone, come and take him away!”
“Your scheme is trash, that’s what I’m talking about.” Shimura laughed, destabilizing his objectors, his fingers digging deeper at the line between his jaw and neck, rubbing off a little skin and blood. The guards of the lords took the sight as the Prince finally going mad and advanced to arrest him, but oh they shouldn’t have. “It’s such a luck,” he stopped scratching “that I never come a party empty handed.”
The Mountain Coup was dismantled in a bloodshed. Every lord involved and their families were brutally killed by the mercenaries and knights the Prince had brought up under the radar. Yes, his Master had been very injured on his battle against the greedy All Might, but he didn’t leave without harming the other either. And alone, All Might was doomed on the mountains and was forced to flee with how damaged his body was on the duel.
Months later, the news circling on the island were that the mountain kingdom was ruled by a new King, Shigaraki Tomura, and Prince Shimura Tenko was dead. The Yaoyorozu clan was in shock, thinking that their nephew had been betrayed and killed by his master, unaware to the fact that Tenko himself had renounced the Shimura name.
War wasn’t their first response though. The seaside kingdom was peaceful and, although rich, they knew the highly military kingdom in the mountains was more than eager to battle. But war, first response or not, was still a reality. The Yaoyorozu prepared and when Shigaraki attacked, the fight was of a glorious gore. King Shigaraki, the Destroyer, was at the first battle front and there claimed the heads of every Yaoyorozu clan member as his, specially his little cousin’s, Momo, who was to get married and become Crown Princess soon after she turned sixteen herself, for no one should rule but him on that land.
Then two years of war went by. Fortunately, Shigaraki didn’t succeed in ending the Yaoyorozu clan and unifying the old Shimura territory so far, but his spies were to be feared everywhere. And with all reasons now, Todoroki Shouto ― if that was really his name ― was suspected of espionage under the Destroyer’s command.
Well, Todoroki could be a spy if ignored his aloofness, inability to be discreet, blunt-to-rude honesty and dense nature, but he surely wasn’t working for Shigaraki. If he was going to spy, that jocose scene would try to help Atlantica, the other kingdom that wanted to destroy their neighbor.
But again, Todoroki was an awful choice for that work. He was a warrior, mostly a soldier and, although good, not excellent with strategizing and not eager to learn as it would make him a better asset to his father’s plans, relying mainly on his gut and confidence. You’d think someone who was so dependent of his feelings to act would be more emotionally smart, but, for the little merman, no, not really. He was just very good at handling problems as they came ― a big talent for procrastinators ― and had enough brute power to do so.
However, not being top quality spy didn’t mean Todoroki was dumb enough to not notice he was being followed. He took a sharp turn into an alley, gaining some minutes before being found again by his shadow. He didn’t know when it started, but he was sure they were onto him at least since the beach. The Prince held in his breath to compose himself, convinced that his conversation with Aizawa couldn’t be listened completely thanks to the loud waves breaking at the shore.
Who would follow him? The answer came rather quickly: only one person who had seen him was both powerful and smart enough to suspect and follow him. Yaoyorozu. What did she want? Shoto wasn’t sure if he should let her do it. If she kept her eyes on him, she may find his secret and, besides Aizawa’s warning, Todoroki didn’t want to talk about it yet. Not with her. He wanted to spend time with her, as a human, her equal, sharing the same experiences. He did not want to be just her merfolk database, he wanted to be her friend.
Todoroki considered robbing a cloak from a man sitting on a street bar to cover his distinctive hair and walking away until he lost the spy. He could go then to find those maps Aizawa asked for. But then Shoto considered he didn’t know this city, didn’t know where to find the maps and had no time to spend searching without a starting point if he promised to have dinner with Yaoyorozu when it would be very suspicious if he missed it.
Looking up at the sun, Shoto figured it was something of three to four hours after the midday. He was feeling that dryness again, the one the guards commented on him being “thirsty” with weird smiles on their faces. He had no water on him. Well, Shoto had nothing on him, actually; he became human that morning just as he was reborn. Yaoyorozu gave him clothes, food, water. Maybe he could ask a peasant to help him, but he doubted it would be as easy for them to help him as it was for her. He also considered crime but discarded the idea as soon as it came. It was risky, yet he had no better choice than to come back to her. He accepted it without much fight.
It was still relatively early when Shoto returned to the palace gates. His eyes fell on the white marble walls, the towers siding a thick wood drawbridge, with its red tile roofs and clear windows, almost transparent behind intricate iron patterns and one big stained glass window that he suspected shone on the throne room with hot pinks, greens and all kinds of colors that paralleled the brightest coral reefs back home. It was a very different construction from anything he had seen back home. There, they used the natural formations, caves and reefs to mold their buildings; while humans seemed to be able to build beauty out of nothing but their imagination. Sirens were integrated with the nature, but humans were blessed with the ability to create. Shoto wasn’t like them in this aspect, even fearing that he would never be.
The guards took one look at his colorful head before letting him in with weird smiles on their faces. As he passed, he heard a snicker and a joke about hiding their canteens, and Shoto wondered if this had anything to do with the lunch earlier. He swallowed in dry, his throat uncomfortable as he remembered that maybe he had stared at Yaoyorozu too much when she was drinking from her cup. He couldn’t help it. She was every second of a creature he had never imagined that could be real. He just wanted to watch her, but maybe that was rude. He had to apologize then.
“Excuse me.” He stopped a rosy maid. She disposed him a big grin as she widened her yellow eyes to him.
“Yes, Your Grace? Are you looking for Her Highness?”
Shoto frowned. How did she know? “Yes. Do you happen to know where she is?”
Her grin tripled in size, honestly surprising Shoto. “Of course! Follow me! I’m Ashido Mina, by the way.”
“I’m Todoroki Shoto.”
“Oh, pff, I know who you are, Your Grace! You’re the hottest gossip around nowadays…” She winked to him and Shoto let his whole face narrow as he prepared himself to answer with just a “huh”.
Mina laid the pile of towels in her hands aside with another maid before taking a turn to one of the external corridors. By the open walls and arcs, Shoto figured Yaoyorozu must be in one of the royal gardens. He followed Mina closely, watching as she kept her desire to bounce to herself just as much as she kept herself silent.
“So,” she said, hands behind her back and her eyes watching him from above her shoulder. “Are you really a Prince?” Todoroki nodded. “Sweet!” She clapped her hands together. “Does that mean you’ll try to become our Crown Prince?”
Todoroki frowned, his steps a slowed down a little after that question, but Mina showed no signs of stopping, so he caught up to her.
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?!” Mina giggled. “Of course I mean to ask if you’ll try to marry Princess Yaoyorozu. She needs to get married soon and the princes from other kingdoms will arrive soon. I thought you were one of them. Aren’t you?”
Shoto blinked. His breathing was hard as he walked and talked at the same time. It had never been like this, but maybe it was normal for humans. He gulped, and instead of taking a deep breath, what his brain needed to calm down was to ask: “She’ll get married soon?”
“Hm, yeah.” Mina scratched her nape, looking ahead. “She needs to get married to become Crown Princess and stabilize the kingdom. There is, umm, competition for the throne.”
His mouth twitched. Wasn’t Yaoyorozu an only child? What competition was Mina talking about? And why should she get married so fast? It annoyed him to the core. Not knowing things, of course, not the fact that she was getting married to some nobody prince that came out of nowhere.
“What competition?”
Mina turned towards him, her smile completely gone as she leaned in and pointed her finger to his chest, and he kept to himself his distaste. He wasn’t a fan of being close.
“I’ve said too much already, Todoroki.” Her tongue popped inside her mouth. “Information is a very valuable thing. Don’t be bite more than you can chew, yes? Now,” Her smile returned, her tone bubbly and chatty again ― as if her black and yellow eyes hadn’t bored themselves inside him a second ago ― while she walked behind him and put her hands on his shoulder to push him ahead. “Just go ahead and you’ll find Her Highness soon enough. Good luck, lover boy!”
Lover? Todoroki gulped. Her odd choice of words made him unable to dig further into his previous question. His head was light and hot, his magic destabilized for the first time since he was just a kid. Shoto coughed and wanted to cool himself down, but as he reached to his ice power, he felt there was something off. It was still there, but he had to make more effort to use it than before. Maybe it was because he was under the hot sun, however his hand ran without a second thought to touch his new blue eye. His mother was a sea witch, her whole clan had grey eyes. Shoto didn’t anymore.
He licked his lips. They were so dry. Everything up there was dry. He wasn’t sure if he liked it anymore.
“Ah, Todoroki-san, there you are!”
Yaoyorozu. His eyes got accommodated to the light and to her, melting his panic for the time being. Sitting by a little pond build in a white rock, surrounded by the beautiful greens and hot colors of flowers, Yaoyorozu was a calming sight with one of her hands touching the surface of the clear water. Dragonflies came to that same pond to drink, unafraid of her, just as the little animals and bugs were across the big garden that showed no shame in front of the Princess. She must come here a lot.
It suited her in a different way that the sea suited her. Here, with her big dress pooling from her hips to her feet with pink waves and her hair carefully brushed and tied up with sweet ribbons, her bangs still falling beside her elegant face, Yaoyorozu was the most beautiful Princess he ever saw, with everything she was born to be. But, as soon as her ship sailed, Yaoyorozu wore pants, her hair free, bouffant sleeves for her shirt, high boots and a smile; and she was his Yaoyorozu, the one he liked to think he knew.
It’s a weird form of familiarity. He didn’t know her favorite food, her favorite poet, who was her best friend, yet he was sure he knew her somehow. Standing close to her gentle smile at him, Shoto was struck with embarrassment for all the times he watched her without her knowing. Thinking about it now, he shouldn’t have done it, he should have let her go and not think about her at all anymore. His younger self was really stupid and had no set of boundaries, and he could indeed say he had gotten better at that. So, would she blame him? For the years in silence? Or would she send him away? Hate him? Shoto never wanted to be the reason why Yaoyorozu’s kind heart held hate within.
He must not let her know then. She can’t know he knew her before; she can’t know what he used to be. It’s impossible, he knows, she would never hate him out of something as immovable as his species. But if she knows his father plans on destroying her kingdom slowly out of pure hatred, there’s no way she, as a Princess, would treat him the same way.
To protect her from his father, Shoto was more than willing to serve as an advisor, if she ever wanted to listen to him. He knew how Enji planned to attack their ships and destroy their commerce, weakening their economy before he used the Trident to send them a tsunami to wipe them from existence. If she let him, he would teach her sailors how to fight against sirens, which routes to take to avoid them. Yes, he could help her as a human, he just needed her trust. That was step one.
“Yaoyorozu,” he greeted and walked to stand beside her, his eyes following the swift movements of her fingers on the waterline. “Did you send someone to spy on me today?”
Her hand froze. Yet, in the next second, she kept on moving, as if nothing happened.
“Why do you say that, Todoroki-san?”
Her bangs didn’t hide her face from this side. He could see her unpreoccupied brows, the smooth bridge of her nose, pink cheeks as she looked down to the water. Yaoyorozu was a formidable liar when it came to business. He wondered if she’d lie so well on other aspects too.
“Because I noticed them. It took me a while, but I did,” he answered, albeit it was a rhetorical question. “I don’t blame you. I just wonder what made you distrust me.”
Yaoyorozu was quiet for long, her fingertips drowned inside the pond as she lifted her head and looked ahead, calculating.
“Yes, if you really are from another island, then you really couldn’t know.” Her shoulders bobbed up and down as she breathed in and out, taking her hand away from the water, her eyes on his and telling him he was still a potential enemy. “Could you lend me your handkerchief?”
Shoto looked down to his jacket, his hand patting the chest pockets for what she asked for. In the inside pocket he found what was probably the handkerchief she mentioned, a small square of cloth with the royal family’s coat of arms embroidered on it. He offered it to her, and she took it to dry her wet hand. He wasn’t sure if he should take it back, but Yaoyorozu held it in her hand, close to her heart, and it warmed his insides again.
“I suppose it’s not news at all for him, so I will tell you, Todoroki-san.”
“Him”? She got up from her seat and Todoroki blinked long before following her pace out of the garden. They took the same corridor Mina used to bring him here, so Shoto took the liberty to walk by Yaoyorozu’s side. Her eyes grew cold as she stared ahead, sharp and serious. Her glare, even if not directed torwards him, made him straighten his posture, getting ready for her command.
“I am spying you because I think you may be a spy yourself, for my cousin, the tyrant of the Mountains, Shigaraki Tomura.” Staring at her without pause, Todoroki was able to catch her eyeing him in a flash, looking for a suspicious reaction. “We are at war. None of this information is new to him, so it would be useless to a spy. And,” Yaoyorozu hid a confident smirk “You can’t run away either, I won’t let you.”
“Oh?” Todorokis heart tightened.
“You are trapped in my operation, Todoroki-san” She’s proud. His eyebrows went up, just as the corners of his eyes. Pride is not a sin on her. “In my parents’ absence, I am the Regent, and it’s my responsibility to protect this kingdom from all threats. Unfortunately, until I learn who you really are, Todoroki, you will be considered a threat.”
Shoto pressed his lips to a thin line. “Who I really am?”
“I know you’re not telling me the whole truth.”
“Huh,” he mumbled. It was fair. Still, he wasn’t planning on giving his identity to her so easily either. Another thought came to his mind and Todoroki leaned to watch her face. “And where are your parents?”
Yaoyorozu laughed. A cute giggle that almost made him stop on his tracks just to listen more attentively and deal with whatever mess it made to his chest. “You would like to know, wouldn’t you, mister spy?”
“I would.” He smiled, breathing out like it was a laugh to accompany hers. “But I understand your silence. And your laugh is more than enough of a consolation prize.”
He didn’t understand yet why his honesty made her blush, but Shoto noted her flush, the pride that bloomed in his chest when her body answered like this. And all it took was him to not bottle up and tell her what she caused on him. He’d absolutely do it more often in the future.
They fell into a comfortable silence. Well, Shoto thought it was comfortable, but he judged most silences as such. This one with Yaoyorozu was a particularly comfortable one though. Her presence by his side, even if two people could still stand between them, focused all his senses on her ― the way she walked on the dark rock floor, her pace he tried to keep; the color of her dress, the fading blush on her cheeks to match ― and the overwhelming anxiety of his problematic life was secondary at best.
Yet, it didn’t last.
“How long are you planning on staying, Todoroki-san?”
“I don’t know,” he answered before considering the consequences of his words. He could spot how Yaoyorozu’s attention picked up. Maybe because she was curious about him, maybe because she still deemed him dangerous. “I don’t think I have anywhere else to go.”
“Won’t you go back to your family?”
Shoto tightened his jaw, his hands forming fists. No, he wouldn’t. He didn’t say it out loud, but he let it clear that he wasn’t even thinking of coming back home. She didn’t know he had run away. It had only been a morning and one afternoon, but it was getting hard to define what Yaoyorozu should know about him and what he couldn’t tell.
They fell into silence again. This one less comfortable than the last one. He had no idea on what to say, but they both just kept walking on and on from one corridor to the other, as unable to part as to speak. Or maybe that was just him because as soon as they reached the footing of a long staircase, at the very first step, Yaoyorozu turned towards him so fast that Shoto jumped behind.
“Yaoyorozu?”
“We should go our separate ways now,” she explained a little too fast, avoiding his eyes ever since she mentioned his family fifteen minutes ago. “I’ll get changed for dinner; you should do the same. Ask any of the maids to lead you back to your chambers.”
Todoroki nodded. Her decision seemed more sensible than his of walking in silence until dinner came. She excelled in this kind of things, a perfect fit for a regent.
“Alright. I will see you at dinner, Yaoyorozu.”
He bowed, his hands glued to his sides, with his eyes closed. When he opened them, she had curtsied to him as well, with so much more grace. Todoroki gulped down his dry throat. Damn, he was thirsty.