Chapter Text
“Mom.” Shouto called, entering the Queen’s chamber after his mother stopped talking alone. Rei, Queen of the Seven Seas stood frozen as her youngest son approached. She was shivering, even if her magic prevented her from suffering from cold. “Mom?”
It wasn’t Shouto calling her, no. Her baby Shouto would never bear such a cruel eye, such manner that screamed her greatest fears. She wouldn’t let him be like that. Never. She couldn’t. So, Rei grabbed that thing trying to possess Shouto and threw him over the hot waters coming from the small geyser the Queen had in her bedchambers, made with her husband’s magic. That would free her boy from this burden, yes.
But when his scream hit her, guttural and suffering, hurt, crying, Rei understood her awful, awful, awful mistake.
“Shouto!” She shouted, pulling her son closer. “Mom is so sorry, so, so sorry!” His eye was developing an ugly burn bubble, hot and threatening to his left eye. The Queen was quick to activate her ice magic ― the reason why her husband chose her to be his queen ― and covered her son’s eye with it so she could alleviate his pain. Only her child screamed louder, more terrified than ever, kicking and pulling under his mother tight grip.
“Mom, stop it!” He cried. “DAD! DADDY, HELP!”
“No, Shouto” Rei’s panic at the idea of Enji coming their way made her hold Shouto closer. “Don’t call him, please! Mom will help you…”
“DAD!”
Royal Sea Guards opened the doors to the Queen’s Chambers, and to them followed Todoroki Enji. The horror in his eyes as he saw his Queen harming his rightful heir flamed his fire magic as he slammed his trident on the floor and separated mother and child. Rei fell on the floor, immediately creeping away from her husband as he stepped closer. Only the King stopped to crawl the Prince in his arms. Shouto was crying still, trembling while over his eye an ice burn mark settled. Enji wanted to make his child stop crying, to make him stronger, but he couldn’t. Not now.
“Guards!” He yelled instead, and both Shouto and Rei quivered under his powerful voice. “Take the Queen to my chambers and don’t let her out.”
And so they did. The Queen was still punching the doors when Enji took Shouto to see the imperial doctors, her protests and claims to see her son furthering his tears. The pain ― no matter how bad it had been ― was over, but his confusion persisted.
“Stop crying.” Enji growled with his son on his arms. “It’s not even hurting anymore. Don’t be weak.”
Shouto was only six years old, but he already knew better than to not listen to his father’s demands. The little Prince sat away from his father, cleaning his face from his tears and avoiding touching his new scar, afraid he could tear off his own skin. And when the doctors said there wasn’t anything they could do to remove the mark, only covering it with a seaweed eyepatch, and the King started shouting loud enough for the abyssal fish to hear, Shouto didn’t stay much longer.
He swam away, not minding his path or destination. He couldn’t understand why his own mother would do that to him. She always loved him the most, and after his father started training him to be the Crown Prince, distancing him from his older siblings, she loved him even more in their place. It wasn’t that she hated him now, so I must’ve been something he did. What was it? He didn’t know! Had he done something she didn’t like? Was he a bad kid? Why?
Shouto rubbed his eyes with his arm, shooing away new tears that fought against the current as he flapped his tail stronger, swimming the fastest a young siren could. That, yes, until he hit something, someone. A girl. He held her by her armpits since she seemed to be unconscious. Not a siren girl. This thing had two weird limbs coming out from her hips, those involved by a strange jellyfish-like clothing that descended almost until the end of the said limbs.
“Hey” He struggled to say, keeping his throat full of cries still. When she didn’t answer, just a little air bubble coming out of her lips, he shook her, displeased. “Wake up and swim! I’m not going to hold you forever!”
“Princess!” A voice from above the waterline startled Shouto, but he made sure to hold the tailless girl tighter before he swam closer and emerged to hear better. “We need to find her!”
“If she’s underwater” Another sailor said. Both of them had limbs that looked just like the ones the girl had! Shouto never saw any creature like that. “She won’t make it! We have to get her to the surface now!”
He looked at the girl in his hands. Maybe they were looking for her. And if that was true then… Shouto’s eyes were as wide as ever while he pushed the girl up and put her head above the water. She still didn’t respond anyway, so the boy laid her over his chest, huffing his breath loud as he swam on his back towards the beach. This close to the shore, with more sand than sea under him, Shouto still crawled a few meters before he dropped the girl on the floor, pushing her so he could wake her up.
“Wake up, lady” He asked, pushing her belly and feeling it too rigid. Was there something blocking her breath? The Prince looked around and found himself a sharp rock that he used to tear apart her clothing, finding another harder piece covering her stomach. He had to use more strength over this one, but eventually found the ribbons at her back that had it closed and cut them with his rock. She started breathing again, coughing before her eyes fluttered and fought to stay open.
“You’re awake!” Shouto breathed with difficulty, being away long enough from the water made his skin and scales twitch in discomfort. “Your friends will help you.”
“You-” The little girl reached for him with her tiny arms, but he was already rushing back to the sea, so naïve in not even trying to hide his tail that was just as foreign to her as her legs were to him. “Who-”
He left so early, dehydrated to a dangerous extent to sea creatures, but the Yaoyorozu Princess was sure she, in her almost drowned and dead dreams, saw the boy who saved her. Half human, half fish. White and red scales like Koi fish and a single grey eye visible. For years she searched for the merfolk but was discredited. Still, she believed and never doubted on his existence.
While in the ocean, not much later, the youngest prince of the Seven Seas would regret ever coming to see his mother, ever screaming, ever calling for his father, ever being so weak. But he didn’t regret saving the tailless girl.