Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If happy ever after did exist,

I would still be holding you like this.

All these fairytales are full of shit,

One more fucking love song,

I’ll be sick.

See, this, this right here, this is the reason why Yuzuki absolutely never wanted to fall in love. Ever.

Right in front of her is the woman who started this whole thing - Her Serene Majesty, the Queen Yukari - and the rather gaudy, generically attractive man who she guesses to be the woman's new King. The man who claimed to be the one who the now-Queen had been waiting for all along, the one who saved her from drowning - the man who was the reason why Yuzuki no longer had an elder brother.

Ah, Ryousuke, her elder brother, prince of the seven seas. Lost to love and loss and heartbreak, now nothing more than seafoam over the waves of the ocean. Yuzuki remembers how she had enchanted shorn-off strands of her own flaxen-yellow hair, used her own budding magic to fashion it into the dagger that would've spilled the princess' blood and returned her brother's magnificent, golden-scaled fish tail. Remembers her brother taking the blade from her hands with trembling, reverent fingers, how she had swum away then, with a spring to her motions because after that day her brother will return, that woman will be forgotten, and they would be fine. They are family and they would be all right.

Only for her heart - the one that many a gossiping mermaid had said was actually made of stone - to shatter as she saw her brother, the only family she had left, fling himself off the edge of the Princess' ship, choosing the woman's life over his own.

At that moment - as well as all the other moments that followed - Yuzuki wishes her heart actually was made out of stone. It would've made things easier.

It would be but the work of a moment for her to kill the royal family, as well as everyone else in attendance, especially when considering the spellbound look on everyone’s faces as they took her in – from her shapely, human-esque upper body, to the tentacles that were barely hidden by the constricting skirts of her gown, and the dark, sinister aura everywhere else in between.

She didn’t always have the dark mass of tentacles she now used as legs, no. Yuzuki used to have a beautiful tail – evenly-scaled and sunshine-golden-hued, like the one her brother gave up for the sake of love. A fish tail fit for nothing less than the finest of royalty, for the prince and princess of the seven seas.

But the waters no longer have a Prince. They no longer have a Princess, either.

The only thing left is her, Yuzuki, Queen of the Ocean Deep, the most fearsome and forbidding being from here to either of the Poles, a master of dark magic, the fallen Ryousuke’s little sister, and everyone else’s greatest nightmare.

“Your...Majesty,” Queen Yukari breaths, haltingly, her hands gripping the arms of her throne so tightly the knuckles have grown white. Does she see the resemblance? Yuzuki fervently hopes she does. “You must be...Queen Yuzuki.”

“What a nice little party you’ve gotten here, Your Highness.” Yuzuki smiles, with a serenity as cutting as the blade should’ve been against Princess Yukari’s heart. “Royalty, nobility, the gentry – oh, how cute! Even the swine, too!”

As she says this she fixes her insensitively innocent look the direction of the other throne – this Maeno-something who took the love that was meant to be her brother’s and acquired it for himself. He is worse than swine and worse than the unknown and what Yuzuki wants to do, what she really wants to do, is to skin him alive and slice him into fish food as he screamed for the mercy she would never give him, the mercy he never gave the mute blond who loved a Princess more than life itself. But she cannot do it – not with the white magic mistresses at his side, stealing glances at Yuzuki and whispering to themselves.

Not with the magical shield the man hides under like a coward, the only reason why, when he had smiled as he had watched Ryousuke fizz out into seafoam, he had been able to dodge as she barreled forth to wring his neck.

“Y’know what, with everyone all here like this, it’s almost like I’m the only one who didn’t get an invite.” Yuzuki says, her voice velvet-smooth and just as entrancing as the ‘Lorelei’ myth the humans had made off of the beautiful voice they hear at midnight, the one they don’t know belongs to her. “But you wouldn’t do that on purpose, won’t you, my dearest Queen? You wouldn’t just forget about me, would you?”

She knows that the Queen is shivering in her beautiful shoes right now, and she revels in the fact that she was the one who brought that fear to her doorstep. Yuzuki smiles, razor-sharp and deadly, and on her tentacles slithers step by step to the cradle in its spot of honor in the ballroom.

“Aw, don’t be so mean,” Yuzuki pouts, pulling the pout she’d seen her own brother give the Princess before, when he’d want to convince her to not eat fish or not wear shoes. It’s a stab to the new Queen’s heart, a vague sort of pain that eats her from the inside out, one she cannot for the life of her imagine why it persists. “I’m just gonna give the kid a gift. Would be impolite of me to visit the celebration of the Prince’s birth and not give him a gift, right? Prince – what’s-his-name, again?”

“It is Prince Hirotaka Wakamatsu,” the King smiles back at her, his smile just as innocuous and just as cutting. Oh, how she’d just love to rip that smile off his pretty face. “Of the Houses of Miyako, and Maeno.”

“Okay, Waka, whatever.” Yuzuki shrugs off. She would never claim to understand the humans’ propensity for long names. What was so important about them? Technically she was Yuzuki of the house Seo, sure, but most of the time she had just been called ‘Queen’ and it was fine, why’d they have to have all the fuss?

“The old hags were right,” Yuzuki says, still beaming, as the white magic mistresses had to physically restrain one of their own from barreling forward to, she guesses, stab her in the eye with one of their puny little magic sticks. How quaint. It wouldn’t work, though. “The Prince would indeed grow up to be strong and brave and intelligent, the most handsome one in all the lands, loved by all who knew him.” She says, still smiling, always smiling, people were most scared of her when she was happy and she knows that, always uses that to her advantage. “But.”

“On his sixteenth birthday, he will dive into the deepest depths of the ocean,” Just like what her brother had done, what now seemed like forever ago, “He will lose all his breaths, drown, and die.”

The Queen stands up, cradles the cursed babe into her arms, looking at the dark witch with tears in her eyes. Yuzuki cackles, as the King spurs his men into action, telling his men to take her down, with their pithy swords, as if those could do anything against her –

Yuzuki, Queen of spells and darkness and her brother’s revenge, who had simply snapped her hands and...disappeared, in the spaces between one human blink and another.

Masayuki misses a lot of things, but right now, what he misses the most is his little brother.

At barely four years, he was simply too young to remember in full the day when Hirotaka was taken away, but he does remember crying. He remembers their mother, may she rest in heavenly peace, how she had bundled them both under her embrace and said that she would take care of them for as long as she lived.

Well, guess that explained why he was now a servant in his own home, then.

Masayuki wishes his brother was faring better than he was.

Now, technically, Masayuki was supposed to be heir to the throne, not that he’s actively thinking of being King or whatever, but he was the firstborn and he was supposed to be King. But the current King – Hirotaka’s father, his late Mother’s second husband – had decreed, shortly after the good Queen’s death, that no man who was not his own blood would ever rise to the throne, and had stripped Masayuki of his royal title. He should be thankful that he still allowed Masayuki to live in the royal wing, Maeno had told him, many times over, he should be groveling at his feet for this honor he’s allowing him.

One day Masayuki would finally get to wring the old man’s neck, but the man is still Hirotaka’s father and still deserves, at the very least, a modicum of Masayuki’s respect.

Anyway, enough about that. Right now, Masayuki is wearing naught more than tattered rags – he’d really never understood why his royal stepfather ever felt the need to give him worse clothing than that of their lowliest servants, but oh well, it’s better than working without a stitch on his body – and tending to the sprawling gardens, humming an uncertain tune as he works.

For some reason, the sound of his voice tends to bring a lot of animals trailing his footsteps – too much animals, really, ending up to his looking more like a beast tamer rather than a lowly royal gardener – and he’s too lost in his work, the made-up words of his working songs, and the persistent noises of the animals at his heels – to even register the existence of the newcomer before him.

“I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Guh –” Masayuki blurts out, turning around to see the source of the voice, brandishing his garden tools as weapons, only to drop them as he sees, well.

A vision of beauty so finely crafted they might as well could’ve come from the hands of Aphrodite herself. The human (man? woman? frankly Masayuki couldn’t care less) in front of him is a graceful one, hopping off their gallant steed in a blink of an eye, smiling at Masayuki with ruby red lips. It’s a smile Masayuki had last seen such a long time ago – of fondness and longing and love, always love, a smile that would be given to someone precious.

Someone wanted.

“Who are you.” Masayuki hears himself say, admirably deadpan, despite the fact that his heart’s in his throat and he can’t see much of the world around them or the animals that might’ve been squabbling at his feet, only sees the person who was handsome and beautiful and everything else in between as they favor him with emerald eyes and a ruby-lipped smile.

“One who would be yours, if you’d allow it.” the other says, almost cheekily, as they take one of Masayuki’s hands to bestow their favor upon, and Masayuki can’t help wondering if those lips would feel as velvet-smooth as they look –

- only for the moment to be shattered as Maeno calls him back inside, fuming from ear to ear as he looks at the amorous display. The regal figure with the dark hair had sighed, put Masayuki’s hand down, smiled at him, and watched him as he left, instead.

Masayuki doesn’t know this, but just a few moments earlier Maeno’s Magic Mirror had declared the fairest of the land not to be him, but a maiden with skin white as snow, blood-red lips, and ebony tresses. The Princess of the North. As if that weren’t enough, the one next in line wasn’t even him, but this little brat – Masayuki himself! Despite the fact that, immediately after his wife’s death, he had never let the brat wearing anything more than the barest of rags, the mirror still had caught on to the strong curve of his jaw, the warmth of his eyes, the deep baritone of his voice.

Oh, in matters of beauty Maeno would not settle for being second-best, and would not settle for being third-best more so. He would have to take the brat out of the equation, and he knows exactly how he would do it.

“Run, Your Highness.” murmurs the huntsman, as they’re halfway through the forest, for the ‘quest’ that the King Maeno had sent them on. He’s got a hand limply hanging on to his dagger, looking like all the world for one who’d stab the other man in the back, if need be, despite his intentions being the exact opposite. “Please go, now.”

“I don’t get you, Nozaki,” the Prince Masayuki murmurs back, confused. He really doesn’t know, then, and this stings Umetarou’s heart, a little. Poor prince. “We’re supposed to be hunting for this beast together, aren’t we? Whyever would I leave you behind?”

“Because there never really was a beast in the first place,” Umetarou confesses. “All there is are the machinations of your stepfather, Maeno, who instructed me to kill you, and bring your heart to him in a box.”

“...”

“...”

“...well, you don’t waste words, do you, Nozaki.”

“Apologies for my directness, Your Majesty, but time is of the essence.” Umetarou says, pushing the prince further and further along the winding forest path. “There’s a house in a clearing up ahead, cloaked in white magic. It’s a small house, but somewhat cozy, and I think it would be safe enough for you to dwell in, for now at least.”

“My stepfather the King consorts with mistresses of white magic, Nozaki.” Masayuki quips, raising an eyebrow. “If he’s really out to kill me – which I think he so obviously wants to do, by the way – how could I be sure that I’d be safe in a house of white magic which could very well belong to them?”

“It is because the white magic of this house isn’t of their make, but rather, mine.”

“You, Nozaki, a mage? Well, color me surprised.”

“You’ll do well to remember, Your Majesty, that some things are better off unknown.” Umetarou says, with the barest of smiles. “Off with you, now, my Prince.”

“Nozaki, you don’t have to do that. I’m not a Prince anymore, remember?”

“That is true. But aside from you and your brother the Prince Hirotaka, I consider no one else to be worthy of the throne. Including that man who calls himself King.”

“Be careful with your words over there, Nozaki. I would very much prefer it if you kept your head intact.”

“I would have to say the same of you, my Prince.” the huntsman says. “Now go.”

The Prince nods, once, and flees, his sword at his side. His royal mother had been nothing but good to Nozaki, when he was but a child. In fact the only reason why he’d stayed on even after the tyrant King’s rule was because of his loyalty to the queen, and by extension, to her sons.

With the Prince out of the picture, running off to the safety of Umetarou's hideaway, the huntsman now feels a little bit of the nerves sap out of his too tightly-wound body. Just a little bit, mind. Because, to be completely honest, at least one of the things he had told the Prince was a lie.

Because there really was a Beast.

And here Umetarou is, all alone, smack dab in the middle of the Beast's hunting grounds.

Well, Umetarou thinks, arming his bow once more, if I get lucky at least one of these wild animals has a heart that could possibly pass as human.

"Okay, Chiyo," Yuzuki groans, watching as the young woman sharpens her knives, "I know you love the guy, but there's gotta be a sense of self-preservation in ya', I swear."

"I heard the townspeople talking about Nozaki-kun, Yuzuki." Chiyo says, hissing as one of the blades barely misses her fingertip. "He's off to help the Prince catch the Beast. He needs my help."

"Hm. Well then, say you actually get to find where the princey guy and your huntsman sweetheart are, Chiyo dear, how can you be of help to him, if I may ask?"

"Well, other than the fact that it's my family who's been prophesied to be the one who'd give birth to the one who'd 'bring the Beast to his knees'?"

"Aside from silly stories. Prophesies are nothing more than shit that people make up to make themselves feel better." Yuzuki snapped, and Chiyo can't help but flinch. Of course Yuzuki would know. It was prophesied, after all, that the generation her and her brother had belonged to would be the one who'd bring forth a new era of solidarity between the royals on land and the royals of the water. But Ryousuke had died many years ago, and Yuzuki - who'd lived for longer than Chiyo could dare imagine, who'd lost both her fish tail and her pure heart to her brother's demise - had all but sworn off love, all kinds of love.

At least she had, however, until Chiyo had come along and just had been so friendly and nice, despite the fact that Yuzuki was the one who cursed the youngest Prince, despite the fact that she was the reason why Chiyo's family could no longer depend on the clearing behind their property for water, because Yuzuki had been staying there all along. Despite all this Chiyo still met her with a smile and listened to her rambling stories with concern and sometimes braided her long golden hair, and Yuzuki can't help but love her like the sister she never had anyway, can't help but open her heart to the cute little girl with her oversized ribbons and fervent belief in things like true love and family prophesies.

Because of this Yuzuki takes the time to warn her, always, that not all loves are true and not all prophesies are meant to be fulfilled. But the other girl always deteminedly presses through with everything, from spending time with Nozaki to practicing her knifework, and Yuzuki comforts herself with the fact that, at the very least, if worse comes to worse, she is confident she can bestow a nasty curse upon whoever it is who may be responsible for her first friend's - her only friend's - physical or emotional hurts.

"Just," Yuzuki sighs, resignedly, moving closer so she can reach out and muss her friend's hair. "Be careful out there, okay? I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

"Don't worry about me, Yuzuki, I know how to take care of myself." Chiyo says, leaning down so she can bump her forehead against that of her friend's. With Yuzuki being Queen of the Seas she really should be used to the fact that her friend's body temperature runs lower than a normal human's, but still. It's a bit jarring. In a nice way. "I should say the same for you. Maybe you should stay somewhere else, for now? My parents are still scared of you, and...well, it's not that I'm saying they'd look for you, but they might, they might see you, and I want to be here when they do." So I could at least stop them from killing you, that would be so annoying, and I wouldn't want to hear you complain that they messed up your shell bikini with a spear tip.

"Will do. Maybe I'll go further upsteam - nothing much there, just a lotta trees and some cattle." Yuzuki says. "Since there aren't any people around, maybe I could work on my singing, too?"

"I'd love to hear your new songs when I get back."

"And I'd love to hear about how you'll finally get that hunter guy to fall head-over-heels from you, when you get back." Yuzuki says, chuckling at her friend's beet-red cheeks. "Off with you now, you've got a damsel you've got to save, right?"

Okay, so maybe going further upstream isn't such a good idea.

The day had started off normal enough, at least it had for a day when she didn't have Chiyo around for company. She had tried to ease out the tangles from her hair - and had failed, of course, how the hell does Chiyo do it, she'll never know for sure - had some seaweed for lunch, practiced her swimming, made bubbles underwater, and, when she was completely, utterly bored, decided to practice her singing.

Someone had dropped something in the middle of her last chorus, and it's all she could do to not grab the offender by the hands and drown them outright. Yuzuki hates being spied on, and she hates being spied on while she's relaxing even more so - but Chiyo had said that killing people who'd seen her was not a good thing and the thing that had changed in Yuzuki, Queen as she may be, in the past few years is that, more than anything else, she cared about what Chiyo thinks about her. So she doesn't kill the man in front of her.

A shame, though, because five minutes into staring at him, she thinks it would've been better if she had. Killed him, she means.

The man is vaguely familiar. Brown hair, handsome face, strong shoulders, and bright blue eyes. They're an enchanting shade of blue, somewhere in between the sky overhead and the sea she lives in, and she can't bring it in herself to look away. He has soft, petal-pink lips, opening and closing like a rather adorable fish would, and eventually, he stutters out:

"L-Lorelei!?"

Oh, crap.

It's a fan.

Chapter Text

Mikoto, firstborn Prince of the house Mikoshiba, is seven feet tall with red furry limbs and too-sharp teeth and right now, staring down at the huntsman he’d caught dissecting an animal on his property, he thinks he really should’ve thought of wearing a shirt earlier.

“What did you think you were doing,” he growls, majestically, partly in annoyance and partly to conceal the fact that underneath all this fur his cheeks are warming up like Indian summers because holy crap this guy saw me shirtless. Never mind that right now, Mikoto’s a cursed beast with more pressing matters on his mind than fur-covered nudity. “Trespassing, and poaching, on my land?”

“I was not poaching on your land,” the accursed huntsman says, coolly, reaching for the hat that had dropped from his head when the Beast abruptly tackled him to the ground. True to form, the Beast had been every bit the imposing figure and Umetarou might have wanted to cry a single manly tear because of said tackling. He has no clue why the Beast chose to not hold him down and/or obliterate him after, though.

Little did Umetarou know, the reason why Mikoto – the beast – had stood up was because he knew that straddling one’s intruding guest-ish person was kinda not really good manners, and honestly, the reason why the beast had immediately decided to adopt a majestic pose was indeed to cover up his awkwardness over the whole situation.

“The boar was my prey, which I had my eyes on ever since I saw it running off, outside your gates. However, the boar gave chase before I could shoot at it, hence running after and eventually ending up killing it here. I hadn’t really noticed that I’d gone past your gates until you arrived.”

And what a welcome Umetarou had the pleasure of receiving.

This whole quest was tedious.

Well, at the very least, Prince Masayuki had made his escape, and Umetarou now had a replacement heart he could pass off as the Prince’s. Who knew that boar hearts could pass off as really convincing human ones? Seeing as that blasted Maeno once mistook ducklings for chicks and could never seem to get the difference between his left and his right, Umetarou thinks it’d be enough to work off of, for sure.

First things first, though, he has to bring this bleeding box to that annoying royal, and quickly make his escape from the palace walls. Now that the only traces left of his royal patron – Queen Yuzuki’s sons, the Princes Masayuki and Hirotaka – had hidden off in Umetarou’s cottage, or were in the hands of noble white magic-user Miyamae (Umetarou’s former teacher, who he admires greatly), respectively, there was no reason for him to persist living in that kingdom.

The eldest daughter of the Sakura family, though. She was a friend. Umetarou thinks he would have to say farewell to her, first.

Well, before all that, though. Whatever should Umetarou do about this Beast?

“T-that’s not an excuse!” Well, in fact, it kind of was. Mikoto knows it’s his fault for not closing the gates after sweeping the dust bunnies out of his grounds. But to be completely honest Mikoto also has no clue what he’s supposed to be doing here. Wasn’t a beast supposed to wreak havoc over the townspeople or something? If he’s gonna follow the script, he has to go do stuff like throw this guy in a dungeon, right? Then go off walking regally into the sunset, going about pillaging the kingdom down the mountain, the one sharing borders with the kingdom Mikoto should’ve been ruling over if only that curse didn’t get in the way?

“Off to the dungeons with you!”

The huntsman looks at him with confused eyes and for that one tiny pinprick of a second, Mikoto almost puts the poor guy back down so he can fall down on his furry knees to grovel at the huntsman’s feet, but then.

Then.

Mikoto feels a searing pain pass through his body, and ends up dropping the huntsman anyway. As it turns out, he’s gotten an injury on the, well, the lower half of his body...ouch. He braces himself on a nearby tree, grunting – it’s all he can do to not just fall to his knees and regret everything.

After all, it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to roll around in the grass in this state, what with the fact that he’s wearing white trousers today and it is absolute hell to get grass stains out of those. The blood was already gonna be a pain; Mikoto doesn’t want to give himself any more grief.

On the other hand, Chiyo’s pumping her fist in exuberance as her knife plunges cleanly into the back portion of the Beast’s trousers. Yes, yes, hell yes! Take that, everyone who’d ever taken the prophecy of the Sakura family for granted. With that, Chiyo curls her hands over her mouth and shouts, “NOZAKI-KUN!”

Umetarou gets the message, takes off at a sprint - forgetting both his fallen hat and daggers, everything but some wooden box with (suspicious) red stains and really weird engravings. Chiyo’s heart does a little cartwheel when he clutches onto the edges of her red travelling-cloak as they run, but her mind curses how he didn’t just reach for her hand instead. “Thanks for the help, Sakura.”

“Don’t mention it, Nozaki-kun,” Chiyo says, applauding the fact that she had managed to blush half as much as she usually did, whenever Nozaki would be grateful to her. They’ve managed to go some ways away from the beast’s domain by now, or at least she thinks they have – the tree-lined paths all look the same to her, to be honest; Chiyo’s always been more of a fighter than a navigator. “I’ve got this. I’ve got you.”

“You’ve always got my back, Sakura. For that, I couldn’t be grateful enough.” Nozaki says, tugging lightly at the hem of Chiyo’s cloak, startling her to a stop. His averted gaze and warm cheeks are reason enough for Chiyo to disregard her fine-tuned hunting instincts that scream at her to save the convo for later and just keep running, just so she can commit the shy look on the face of her One True Love. Whoever said that only princesses could have those was totally wrong, anyway. “But it did get me to thinking...why do you always offer your aid to someone like me?”

I love you. That’s her answer, had always been her answer, ever since she met the Royal Huntsman when he helped her pick apples off the highest branches by carrying her in his arms. Just three little words. It took her a damned year to get to this point, and she sure as hell is gonna say them.

“I...well,” Chiyo trails off, before scrunching her eyes up, her nails pressed up in her palms, almost hard enough to draw blood, and finally saying:

“I love...love spending time with you, Nozaki-kun!”

Crap.

Not again! She always keeps tacking on unnecessary words onto her lines, when all she should’ve done in the first place was say ‘Love you’ and just freaking stop talking. Why does she never get a goddamned break?

Nozaki’s eyes soften, though, and he smiles this freaking lovely smile at her, and she can’t help but wonder if he would still smile at her like that, even if the words she ended up saying had been the ones she really had meant to say in the first place. “Thank you, Sakura. I love spending time with you, as well. In fact –”

Chiyo never does get to know the end of that sentence, though, because she looks behind Nozaki and sees a flash of red limping towards them. The Beast! Crap. “Nozaki-kun!” she shrieks, pushing the man behind her, pressing one of her knives in his hands. “Run!”

“But Sakura –”

“I can handle myself, Nozaki-kun,” And, despite his being the Royal Huntsman, Chiyo knows that, between the two of them, she’s the one best suited to engage in combat, seeing as Nozaki left the kingdom days ago and only heaven knows what happened to his supplies. Or to his companion, Prince Masayuki, for that matter. “Now go!”

Umetarou looks at her, just looks at her, from the battle-ready stance of her feet to the sheer determination of her eyes. Sakura always had pride in her family’s prophecy – that one of their kin would be the one to put the Beast to his knees, and if Umetarou knew her at all he knows that the only way he could stop her from doing this would be...well, there wouldn’t be any way he could stop her from doing this, that’s how determined she was when it came to beast-slaying.

Well, actually there was one way – Chiyo would actually run away with him, away from this Beast, away from her goddamned destiny, if and only if Nozaki took her face in his hands right now and kissed her. But it’s not as if Nozaki would know about that. So he nods at her, swallowing a lump in his throat, making a mental toast the bravery of his friend, and runs off. Maybe he’ll begin writing an ode to her imminent victory, when he gets back home.

“You took my prisoner.” Mikoto sneers, catching up with the girl, taking in the sight of her – the blood-red travelling-cloak with snatches of bright hair escaping from its clutches, the unwavering blue steel gaze of her eyes, the grim set of her petal-pink lips, the knives glinting coldly at the tips of her elegant fingers. She is a study of dichotomies and to be completely honest, Mikoto’s interest in her right now is more than his allotted interest for people in general. Much to his dismay, especially considering how this young woman seems to want to kill him. Why does he just have the worst tastes ever. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because Nozaki-kun is too good to just be anyone’s prisoner,” Chiyo snaps back, arranging herself into another defensive position, just a hair away from driving these knives into the Beast’s body to just be done with it, so she can go immediately to the part that goes after the one where the hero slays the beast, the one where she got the love of her life. Oh, their wedding would be the talk of the town. “Especially when the one taking him hostage is someone like you.”

“Wh-what’s that supposed to mean, shrimp?”

“It means exactly what it says,” Chiyo says, sweetly, if only for the fact that, right now, she is anything but the sweet girl that people tend to say she looks like, a hunter out on a mission.

Mikoto thinks that it really is unfair that he finds himself thinking the no-nonsense way the girl is looking at him right now, without a stitch of fear in her bones whatsoever, is, well, really freaking hot.

First the curse, now this, why does he just have to have the worst luck with women ever.

Before he can dwell on this thought further, or before she gets to drive a knife in his skull, however, they find themselves no longer being the only ones in the clearing.

Wolves. There they are, their sharp-fanged mouths almost grinning at the prospect of two sizable hunks of potential meat, petite and human the one may be, nipping at their feet at all directions. Suddenly both girl and beast are in the middle of the approaching pack, their backs barely touching.

The girl’s the one who speaks up first, raising one of her blades in greeting, not to the beast within her arms’ reach, but to the wolves surveying her with hungry eyes. “Hm. Truce?”

“Truce,” the Beast says, baring his sharp fangs, the faintest hints of a grin tugging at the furthest corners of his mouth.

Oh, this was gonna be so much fun.

When he was very little, Waka used to read the fairy stories that Miyamae would try to hide from him. Seeing as Waka had always been very tall for a child, and very quiet for a gangly-limbed boy, this had been easier than it sounds.

His favorite had been the tales about Lorelei, the beautiful golden-haired siren of the seas, the woman with a voice of an angel, the looks of a goddess, and the elegance of a million princesses put together. She always sung by the shoreline and brought nothing but serenity and relaxation to all who heard her, and Waka has no idea why Miyamae had ever thought that this would not be a story fit for his ears.

Don’t go near the ocean, Waka, Miyamae would always tell him, almost each and every day, ever since Waka was old enough to recall. Don’t ever go near the seashore, and do not, under any circumstances, go into the water.

Ever since he grew older and larger and gained variety in his chores, ever since he spent more and more time away from Miyamae’s well-meaning but all-too-watchful and stifling eyes, this has been an instruction that Waka has learned to disregard, bit by careful bit. Well, the first one was, in any case – Waka never really knew how to swim, due to very obvious restrictions. Driven by equal parts childish fascination from the Lorelei tales and genuine longing for the relaxing, calming properties of the rolling waters themselves, he found himself frequenting the seashore more and more each day.

There really was nothing out of the ordinary about this, nothing at all to write home to Miyamae about, whether literally or figuratively. Or at least, there was nothing until this one day, when Waka had been sent out to pick berries for jam – when he’d heard someone singing.

That there was someone in here in the first place had been the first point of interest. Miyamae had said that their closest neighbor had been some ten, twenty miles away, and Waka thinks that he hadn’t been talking about people back then, but rather, the kind flock of deer that seem to have taken a liking to Waka, for some reason. Anyway.

Whoever this is, their singing voice sounds like that of an absolute angel, every bit the calm, lulling voice that Waka swears up and down he hears every night in his dreams, and right now he doesn’t really care who this stranger on the other side of the tree-lined forest could be, because he thinks it’s really weird to dream about someone without even knowing them and right now he just really wants to at least know this person’s name. So he swallows once, braces himself, and just takes a step forward, only to lock eyes with –

– with –

– just the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, quite probably the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen, anywhere, with her hair of sunshine gold and eyes bright as stars, what little of her skin that peeks out of the water pale as porcelain, her eyelashes long and curled, her lips a striking blood red against the rest of her. She’s gorgeous and spectacular and every other complimentary word put all together, and between that and her lovely voice there’s only one way Waka’s going to take this, really.

“L-Lorelei!?”

Of course. Because who else could it be? The signs were all present and accounted for, after all – golden hair, goddess-worthy looks, a singing voice like all the angels from heaven and then some. There’s really no one else she could be.

“Nah, boy, that’s not it.” Yuzuki says, chuckling, ignorant of the fact that the boy’s so starstruck by her, that to him, even her hitching laughter sounds like the finest of music. “Name’s Yuzuki,” she finds herself blurting out, before snapping her mouth shut because. She’s not supposed to say her name? She’s kind of a wanted criminal? And that’s not even counting the fact that a heck of a lot of summoning spells centered around knowing a being’s name?

But when the boy smiles at her, beatifically, as if she’d given him some rare present, she feels some weird funny feeling fluffing up her heart, and she thinks she did the right thing. She chalks this up to the seaweed buffet she’d munched on earlier; she should’ve tried her luck with the seafood instead, after all, her brother was the vegan, not her.

“It-it’s nice to meet you, Miss Yuzuki,” Waka says, trying - and failing - to not look at the swell of, um. Yuzuki’s rather, well, sizable chest, gently caressed by the softly stirring waters. In his defense, it’s a rather entrancing sight, and he’s a growing boy.

Yuzuki notices this, though. Yuzuki notices everything. She smirks, hoists herself up, and stretches out her curves, for effect, making sure to keep her squiggly octopus-giant-squid-medley-ish tail out of sight. Or at the very least, behind this really damned convenient rock.

“Like what you see, boy?” Yuzuki says, breezily, cocking an eyebrow. It’s a rhetorical question, seeing as the boy’s pants are now tighter than they had been when she first offered him the courtesy of a once-over – well, in some places, at least – and normally Yuzuki doesn’t do rhetorics. But for some reason, she has a great, pressing need to see this rather cute guy blush beet red to the tips of his ears. “Is that a dagger in your pants, or are you just too happy to see me?”

There we go. The guy flushes a brilliant shade of red, redder than the brightest of Chiyo’s ribbons. This guy is exceeding all of Yuzuki’s expectations. In more ways than one.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Waka says, huffing and puffing, strategically placing the basket of berries in front of him. This does nothing but make Yuzuki laugh harder. Her laugh is so beautiful that Waka almost forgets being annoyed at her. Well, almost being the key word here. “Stop laughing at me!”

She still laughs anyway, so Waka harrumphs, sits himself down on a fallen log, places the basket gently over his lap, and scrunches his eyes shut. Tries to think of other things. Walking in on Miyamae in the bath, for one – now that’s one for the brain bleach. Senselessly slain animals. The time when he wet the bed when he was little and the bluebirds who usually bid him ‘good morning’ laughed at him. The excruciatingly horrible singing of the rider on the white horse, the one that Miyamae would tell him to hide under the table whenever they pass by. The thing he read about black widow spiders who eat their husbands after the wedding night.

“Is it working?” he hears the woman say, almost teasingly, and for some reason she sounds closer to him than he’d expected.

It might, Yuzuki-san, if you’re not being so freaking distracting. He’s so out of it that he’s about to blurt these words out, about to open his eyes to tell her so, but then –

Her eyes really do look like liquid gold, up close.

And wait what is she pressing against him and if so holy mother how on earth could those ever be real? What? How? Why!?

Waka scrunches his eyes shut, shakes his head, and doesn’t open his eyes until he hears the woman’s laughter commence,now sounding further away from him as she ought to. Cracking one eye carefully first, then the other, he’s greeted with the graceless and not-at-all tempting view of her half-draped on the rock, pounding on it with her fists, like many a drunken lad at a tavern lost in his laughter.

Okay, guess that’s the problem settled with, now. Waka puts the basket by his side, crosses his arms in an attempt to look totally cool and in charge – well, his arms are the most muscular part of him, after all. He looks down at the laughing female, and says, in his most authoritative (least squeaky) voice, “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Ah, nothing much,” Yuzuki says, noncommittally, shrugging. Her golden hair is long and loose and does a good deal of covering up her torso, which is a good thing because Waka doesn’t think he’d want to have to see her br– wait, is that an honest-to-goodness shell brassiere? How does that even work? Yuzuki either doesn’t notice that Waka’s still semi-ogling her chest, or just really doesn’t care, because she just keeps on saying really vague stuff Waka can’t get his head around. “I’m not from here, I’m just taking a little trip. Staying here and there, basically. Going places.”

“D-do you need a place to stay while you’re here, then?” Waka hears himself say. Oh God why is he even thinking about saying this. On one hand, this girl kinda gives him the creeps, and what with the whole tight-pants incident he apparently can’t seem to control himself around her. But she’s still a lady, and a traveler, and it would be the pinnacle of rudeness for Waka to just not make the offer. “You can stay with us, if you want to?”

 The woman raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Nah, I think I’ll pass. ‘M not really one for strangers, yanno. Who knows what you’re really up to. I don’t even know your name.” Never mind that she’d just given him her name earlier, or that crushing this mortal man into bitty little pieces is as easy to her as flicking her pinky finger.

“My name’s Waka,” he says, gleefully disregarding the fact that he’s not one for strangers either – not when this woman, brash and rude as she may be, is still the very voice that he dreams about, and if they’ve met in dreams before surely they’re not really that estranged, are they? “And, well, we have a spare room. My guardian – Miyamae, my uncle, has his own room, and I sleep in the attic, but there’s another room on the ground floor that you can stay in, for the while?”

Miyamae, Yuzuki thinks, tasting the name on her tongue. For some reason, that sounds oddly familiar. Even more of a reason to not take him up on his offer. Well. If the fact that she doesn’t exactlyhave legs isn’t reason enough.

“Trust me, boy.” Yuzuki grins, her teeth reminding Waka very much of a shark facing its prey, “I’m not the kind of girl you’d wanna bring home to mama.”

“Are you the dwarf who lives here?”

Bang!

Now, Masayuki knew he said he was gonna keep this frying pan close, just in case he ever sees any of the King’s guard or other suspicious characters passing by, but he didn’t really think he was gonna need it this soon. He’s just stepped out of the front door, for crying out loud.

For such a big guy, for some reason, Nozaki keeps an absurdly small house. It’s barely large enough for Masayuki to comfortably move around in, but only barely. He had to push three beds together so he could lie down somehow...

“...ouch.” the person on the ground groans. Oh, right, they were still there.

Why were they here, in the first place? Nozaki had promised that this house would be cloaked from chimney to fireplace in only the best white magic he could conjure up. If he were to assume that Nozaki really was as great in the magic department as Masayuki inferred he was, then it all only boils down to two choices - either this being’s an even more powerful white witch, or, judging from the majestic epaulettes, another case of royalty on the run.

“Who are you?” Masayuki says, carefully, deliberately, his face scrunched up as if he’d just swallowed something sour. “And what are you doing here?”

“Yu, of the house Kashima.” Ah, definitely royalty, then - Kashima, their prosperous and fantastically wealthy neighbor to the north. What reason might there be, for a child of such esteemed lineage to end up in the middle of nowhere? From the look on the Kashima person’s face, Masayuki’s soon to find out. “Word had come to our kingdom that there are those who wish vehemently for my demise. I was instructed to seek refuge and advice in the dwarf-dwelling at the edges of the clearing where only the pure-hearted could walk unscathed, so here I am.”

“Here you are, indeed.” Masayuki says, dryly. “I’m afraid the master of the house is out, however, and only heaven knows when he shall grant us the honor of his audience.” Nozaki was, after all, still the Royal Huntsman - whether he liked it or not, he still had to answer to the whims of King Maeno. One of which involved the murder of Masayuki himself - which Nozaki obviously didn’t do, how would he explain his way out of that?

Well, maybe Nozaki would say Masayuki had been eaten by the Beast or something. Masayuki doesn’t really think he’d care.

“Going back to what I said, are you the dwarf who lives here?” Yu says, and says it so sweetly and innocently that Masayuki almost hits Yu across the crown with the frying pan again. Only for Yu to block his parries by sticking out elbows, giving him a dashing, debonair smile. “I mean no offense. I was going to say that for a dwarf, you are spectacularly attractive.”

“Flattery gets you nowhere, Your Highness.” But it does get Masayuki off the newcomer, facing carefully away from Yu’s direction so Yu doesn’t see the pinkish tint of his cheeks. “I know of no dwarfs who live here, and I myself am but an ordinary mortal man.”

“A rather fine specimen of one, however.” Yu says, giving him a wink that would’ve brought him at his wits’ end, swooning like a damned handmaid, had he not held on to the nearby doorframe for support. Now that he looks at Yu, Masayuki gathers that they’re quite the fine specimen as well, and that with that dark hair and piercing eyes Yu does look vaguely familiar. “Anyway, guess I’ve no choice but to stay and wait for the master’s return. If that’s all right with you, of course.”

“Of course,” Masayuki says, absently rubbing at the business end of his frying pan with the hem of his shirt. (Thus allowing Yu a rather covert look at his surprisingly toned abdominals.) “You can tie your horse to that tree. Scrape the mud off your boots before you enter, and please, make yourself comfortable, Your Majesty.”

“It’s just ‘Yu’, please.” The other says, dusting the grass stains off a white coat that Masayuki’s already regretting dirtying up. Damn, laundry’s gonna be a pain, he can feel it now. “And may I know the name of my new housemate?”

“Masayuki.” He’s about to tack on his house and title out of habit, but thinks better of it – after all, Maeno had spent years telling him that he wasn’t wanted in the royal line. Had spent years telling him he was nobody. Masayuki figures that in his situation, stuck with a runaway royal in the middle of nowhere, his stepfather wanting to kill him for some reason, being ‘nobody’ would be his best defense.

“Just Masayuki?”

“Well, we can’t all be royalty, can we.”

“You have a point there.”

“Naturally.” Masayuki says, smirking, “I usually do. Now tend to your horse, please? The master left us a pot of stew cooking on the stove, and I’d hate it if we’d have to let it go cold.”

Chapter Text

Princess Yu, of the house Kashima, had always been the pretty one.

And that’s putting it lightly. That she’d have good looks was obvious – what with her mother being the fairest Princess in the land and her father being the most charming of all other known Prince Charmings – but that she’d be outrageously gorgeous was what set her apart. This was predetermined before her birth, or at least it was according to the story her mother always told her, as a child. She had been doing her embroidery and had pricked her finger, watching the blood drip against the pristine white fabric, on a starless snowy winter night.

I was looking down, watching my red blood sink into the pure white threads of the fabric before me, as the night grew darker around me, her mother would say, Yu on her lap, warm hands brushing the younger girl’s hair. And you know what I first thought of?

Um. That you should light the lamps and get a first aid kit?

No, Yu, my darling child, her mother would say, chuckling, which Yu had thought weird because wasn’t that what one was supposed to do when one was injured in the dark? No, sweetheart. What happened was that I saw the black and the white and the red, and I looked down at my pregnant stomach and thought of you.

The queen had wished for a daughter with skin pale as snow, lips red as blood, and hair dark as the fathomless night. And so there she was – Yu, the Beloved, the Blessed, the Beautiful, always beautiful, forever beautiful, even when she was eight years old and hacked off all her braids with a pair of darning scissors because parading around in fluffy gowns with ribbons in her hair just didn’t feel right. Her mother didn’t even bat an eyelash – only called the royal hairdresser to even out the ends and said that she was beautiful, always and forever would be beautiful, no matter how long or short her hair would be.

When she spent the rest of her time wearing her cousins’ suits and the coats her father once wore in her youth, that didn’t change anything, either. They’d just called her ‘handsome’ instead of ‘beautiful’ instead. Never mind that Yu did all her tutors proud and turned in her work on time, that she knew all the kingdom rules and policies by heart and at the tender age of seventeen knew exactly how she wanted to run their kingdom, her home – because she was still a princess, still the most beautiful one in the land, and she was eventually going to be married off to some prince or another, in the end.

It sounds so unbelievably petty when said out loud, but for once – for once, Yu wishes that people would look at her and see her parents’ legacy in more than the perfect wave of her hair or the fine angles of her jaw. That she’d be the ruler they’d be proud of having, way more than just another showpiece smiling pretty on someone else’s arm. Sure, her mum was having the time of her life with her job as Queen, but it just wasn’t the life Yu wanted for herself. Hence, when the first of the marriage proposals arrived, Yu had taken her horse and ventured to the kingdom south of theirs, as a reprieve to herself. And that’s where she met this man – this man whose name she now learns, apparently, to be ‘Masayuki’.

What a noble name, for one who claims to be ‘no one important’.

Now, here’s the thing about Yu – she’d always been one for the sweet words, herself. Whether it be the part of her that bears her father’s charm or the part of her that bears her mother’s grace, the point is that she always takes the extra mile to remind the ones around her that they are beautiful, in all their own different ways and forms. After all the praise they lavish on her in the first place, she thinks it’s only best that she return the favor, right? But...

...but, for some reason, when she had raised the young man’s hand to her lips back then, saying that she would very much desire to be his – it had felt new. Different. A far cry from the innocent flirtations she’d used to exchange with people, before. A different kind of animal from the odes that people would write for her beauty or grace or whatever other aspect of hers they’d deem worthy to write about.

And it was definitely surprising, because, well. Despite the fact that Masayuki had stared at her, wordlessly, wide-eyed, just like everyone else who had first laid eyes at her (typical reaction to anyone faced with the Fairest of Them All, apparently), he had not fallen to her feet. Or spontaneously recited any odes. No. He had instead stood his ground and tried to ask her who she was. If Yu hadn’t interjected with that line he probably would’ve said something along the lines of ‘what the hell are you doing on our property’. If that other guy (Masayuki’s boss, probably?) hadn’t gotten in the way Yu has the feeling he probably would’ve gotten on her case about trespassing and the fact that just because she might be royalty somewhere doesn’t mean she can just go off prancing into other people’s castle grounds on a whim, please, this is the reason why royal people make appointments, for crying out loud.

There was also the thing about how he had reacted when he realized that she was a girl.

Because Yu was never one to clarify about her actually being the Kashima princess – not when, in this world, that was the only thing that changed everything about how the world at large chose to deal with her. Instead of being someone’s confidant, bosom friend, or worthy opponent – she was someone’s future wife, the king’s daughter, or someone who ‘somehow managed to spar competently’. And let’s not even talk about how she wasn’t allowed to go on her dad’s naval escapades, just because ‘a girl onboard is bad luck’, or whatever. Her gender changed everything.

But when she’d told him those words at dinner, fully expecting something like anger or pity or (at the very worst) misguided lust, Masayuki had looked at her, just looked at her, like he would look at anybody or anything worth his interest, and had just shrugged, saying “This changes nothing.”

“What?”

“So you’re a girl. Big deal. What am I supposed to do, throw you out? You’re running from something too.” Just like I am, he thinks, but doesn’t say. “The fact that you’re still here means that Nozaki would’ve probably wanted you here, too, so as long as you’ve got that guy’s vote backing you up I pretty much don’t care about anything.”

Somewhere within the deepest depths of her soul Yu feels something nearing jealousy for this ‘Nozaki’ person, if only because Masayuki seems to hold him in such high regard, trusting strangers on his words alone. “Oh.”

“Well – we’re still splitting the chores, though,” Masayuki says, offhandedly, his teeth worrying at a rather rangy part of the meat. “Don’t think you’re allowed a way out just by virtue of being you, Kashima.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me by name, Masa-chan? It’s Yu. Yu-u. It’s really not that hard.”

“Masa-ch-!” If looks could kill, Yu would’ve probably been long gone by now. Which is exactly why she wants to call him that, always. Call it true love or call it idiocy, the point is that for some reason Masayuki’s enraged face feels like victory. “Well then. If you’ll call me however you want then I’ll call you whatever I want, as well. So you’re still gonna be Kashima.”

“Peh,” Yu exclaims, sipping at her soup forlornly.

“Stop making faces and just finish your dinner, for crying out loud.”

===

“You,” Mikoto says, inbetween pants, his head trying earnestly to look her direction as he lay on the ground, “You are amazing, young miss.” Just. Wow.

The young miss – Chiyo, he’d learned, Chiyo of the bright eyes and ribbons in her hair – just beams. The huntress is all sugar-spun sweetness save for the bloodstained knives dangling limply off her fingers, save for the fact that of the many wolf carcasses at their feet most of those were her kills (Mikoto, for all his being a Beast, mostly roared around a lot and bit at those who would try to get too close to her) and that she was the same person who sunk a dagger into Mikoto’s butt, earlier.

Ouch, that still hurt. The blood had probably encrusted by now, and let’s not even talk about the grass stains. Mikoto mentally swears never to wear white again. Even if it does look hella cool against the red fur.

“You’re not too shabby yourself,” the huntress says, kindly, and she’s probably not doing this on purpose but she blinks, and Mikoto sees it as if it were in slow motion – how the cool purple of her eyes stands out against lashes as fair as her hair, how her lips purse slightly as she takes a deep breath, totally unselfconscious of how damned beautiful she is being right now.

Mikoto remembers a thing his parents, may they rest in peace, once told him before. Son, when you see your one true love, it becomes as if Time itself would stop so you could look at them. Is this it? Crap, this is totally it.

Now if only Chiyo could forget, at least for a little while, that the reason why she came here in the first place was because she really wanted to kill him.

“ – wait a sec, are you bleeding?” Chiyo says. She’s not shrieking, not exactly, not when Mikoto’s so loopy and out of it and freaking in first love that her voice sounds like music to him, but she’s pretty damned close. “Did they get you anywhere – oh.”

“Well, none of them got me anywhere,” the Beast states, dry as sand on the seashore, “You did, however.” He says this last part with equal parts genuine shock and intrigued interest. The knife is somewhere behind him, leaving a trail of blood in its wake, but Mikoto’s still not sure if this is what he means to refer to, or something else entirely. “Never had someone land a hit on me before. That the first one who does so is a beautiful lady like yourself is but a bonus.”

Chiyo’s cheeks go pink at that and Mikoto feels his face heat up like a furnace, in response. Damn, did the curse also say that Mikoto was cursed to embarrass himself with his words, too? That witch really did have it out for him, didn’t she?

“Yup, you’re definitely losing blood,” Chiyo says, matter-of-factly, taking one of the Beast’s meaty arms and slinging it over her shoulder, as if it was no trouble at all. As if Mikoto wasn’t as heavy as he was. As if she was born to do this. And a small, insistent part of Mikoto – the one that just realized that she was quite probably his goddamned fabled One True Love – says that she is born to do this, she must be, in the same way Mikoto feels that he was born to fall for the huntress, in turn. “Hold on to me, please. Let’s get you back home.”

“Bluh,” Mikoto says, all too ungracefully, and it makes her laugh. God, her laugh. It’s so beautiful. If ever Mikoto gets graced with her presence for a prolonged amount of time, he swears he’s gonna do his best to make sure she does that more often. “My house is well, over there,” he says vaguely, pointing in the direction that he’s pretty sure his house is in. He can feel Chiyo nod briskly against his arm, trudging off in the direction he’d said. “Thanks a lot, miss.”

“It’s Chiyo, please. After a life-and-death situation and putting a knife in you, I think giving you my name is the least I can do.” the girl says, the barest hint of mischief in her tone. “And your name is?”

“Mikoto, dearest lady.” Mikoto grunts, admiring how his voice still manages to not betray him and sound debonair smooth even as he can feel the blood make it way out of his body. Granted, he was still a Beast and it takes way more than a simple dagger to end him, no matter how well-aimed said dagger may be, but let’s just say that for once Mikoto wishes he didn’t live in the well-worn cottage all by himself.

Damn, does this mean that poor little Chiyo would have to do stuff like cut away his clothes and deal with his blood? Perish the thought!

“Stop looking like that.”

“Looking like what?”

“Like I’m about to kill you,” That’s not what he was thinking at all! But still that’s what Chiyo says, dryly, catching Mikoto by the hip as he almost trips over a rock. After all this mayhem, if Mikoto were to meet his untimely demise by way of him tripping, his brains spilling out onto the grassy ground – the irony would only be too much to bear. “I’m not, okay. I said we’d have a truce, and I stand by my word. And even if you are the Beast and all, I am not the kind of person who’d kick someone when they’re down.”

“Thanks,” Mikoto says, tension abated a bit, but only a bit. Because she didn’t imply she wasn’t gonna kill him ever. What she implied was that she wasn’t gonna kill him now, and while it is a small relief, Mikoto’s come to learn that when it comes to her, he tends to dream big. Why is she so dead-set at killing him, then?

It’s only when Chiyo fixes him with a thoughtful look that he realizes that he’d just blurted that out. Out loud. Oh wow, Mikoto, how smooth and freaking debonair of you.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Chiyo says, making Mikoto lean against the wall so she can open the door to his cozy cottage. “You’re a beast. Aren’t you...yanno, one of those monsters that goes off on murder sprees, or something?”

So that’s what she thinks? And yet...and yet she’s still helping me. Not scared of me, even. This girl really is something else and Mikoto doesn’t think he wants her to go just yet.
Doesn’t want her to go ever, if he’s gonna be all honest to himself.

“What an absurd stereotype. One that, I must insist, does not apply to me.”

“Oh?”

“What use would I have for murder sprees, anyway? Would mess up my hair.” Mikoto says, sniffing like any of the other noble ladies back home, and Chiyo stifles a little giggle. “Seriously, though. Chiyo-san, just in case it wasn’t obvious enough – I’m an introvert. A homebody. Hell, if I wasn’t crown prince and all I would’ve never gotten out of my room, ever.” He remembers the one time he did get out of his room, when he answered the door that one stormy evening – and though it has been nearly ten years to that day, his blood still runs cold. He shivers. “Maybe I should never have gone out, stuff would’ve been better that way.”

Chiyo’s just gotten back from taking the pot of water Mikoto had been boiling earlier – just their luck he had been preparing for a spot of tea. “Wait, did I just hear that right – you’re a prince?”

“Yeah, I am – what did you think, I was just born this way or something?”

“Um, maybe? I mean, our family has this prophecy,” Chiyo says, strangely very much at ease tending to the cuts of the guy she’s supposed to kill. If her mind weren’t too busy worrying about first aid techniques and infections, she would’ve found it weird that, at this moment, she finds it very hard to think any other emotion towards this beast writhing and wincing in front of her, other than sheer, genuine concern. “It’s been handed down from generation to generation, for as long as any of us has cared to remember – that a Beast shall make his home somewhere near our home, and only one of our family could ever defeat him and bring peace to the land. Not the exact words, of course, but you get the picture.”

“And it was just my luck that the ‘good’ fairy dropped me along here, huh,” Mikoto says, in a tone of voice that implies his not being a lucky guy at all, in light of recent events. “Mages, I swear. Always say they’ve thought only of your best interests at heart, but when you’re not a pretty little royal anymore – poof! – there you go, you’re neighbors with a whole bunch of destined beast-slayers now, have fun!”

“So...you don’t go pillaging towns, then? Massacring townspeople? Eating their children or something?”

“Hell no.” Mikoto lets out through gritted fangs, willing himself not to just howl as Chiyo tends to his wounds. He instead tries to center himself, focuses on the fact that her hands are just so warm. “Why would I wanna go to other towns? I don’t even wanna go out of my house to hunt for food, most days. And there is no way I’m gonna eat people – I’m one too, after all, it’s just not obvious – especially children, I mean, I had younger siblings back in the kingdom, after all.” His eyes glimmer faintly with tears, which he scrubs at fiercely with a shirtsleeve, wishing she doesn’t notice. “Damn, I miss those kids.”

“It sure sounds like you’re not good at being a beast, Mikoto-san.”

“Believe me, Chiyo-san, if not acting like a beast meant that I wouldn’t be a beast anymore, I wouldn’t probably have gotten past the first few seconds ‘til I became human again.” Mikoto snorts. “If all beasts have to go murdering and stuff then please, count me out. I’d rather tend to my rose garden.”

“You have a rose garden.” Chiyo says, deadpan, stopping in the middle of a stitch. Damn, the wound was so intense it needed stitches? Mikoto knows he should be annoyed at the girl in front of him for injuring him so – should be angry, even – but for some reason he thinks he should compliment her on this achievement.

“You have any problem with that, Chiyo-san.”

“No, actually. It’s just –” Chiyo trails off, making vague hand gestures across the length of Mikoto’s too-large body. “– how? I mean, let’s not even talk about the difference in sizes, but don’t your...well, claws and other beast-y stuff get in the way?”

Mikoto can’t help but smile at her honest curiosity. He brandishes one of his paws lazily, carelessly, as if they weren’t the same bloodstained ones that skewered a rampaging wolf just a few moments ago. “These things always give me hell to use, but trust me when I say they’re the best hedge clippers I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Chiyo laughs, just laughs, endlessly and without a trace of self-consciousness, her eyes shining, her cheeks stained pink. Mikoto doesn’t think it could be possible for him to be even more in love than he already is.

===

Yuzuki said she was gonna leave pronto – can’t take her chances, what with that vaguely familiar Miyamae person apparently somewhere nearby – but for some reason, she can’t.

It’s not that she physically can’t; her lungs are still supernaturally strong that she can swim across the world without stopping, her arms are still strong enough to strangle a Great White if ever she chose to have one for dinner, and she still has enough magic to curse a hundred thousand princesses and then some. It’s just that she thinks of leaving, and when she thinks of leaving, for once in her life, she thinks of what she’ll be leaving behind.

She’s never really had to worry about leaving stuff behind, before. Well, after Ryousuke, at least. And while after Ryousuke there was Chiyo, now Chiyo’s off on her own adventure herself, saving the Nozaki in distress, and after that big lug finally sees her for the catch she is they’d get married and have kids and then where would Yuzuki be? Chiyo doesn’t know this – shouldn’t know this – but that’s actually the reason why she agreed to leave in the first place.

But this time, though. This time. It’s different. Yuzuki’s never had someone who was just hers before.

Or maybe referring to the boy as ‘hers’ was a misnomer. Anyway.

The point is that this guy – this Waka – goes to meet her everyday, bringing her stuff like food and cloaks (the second of which she’d disregarded ever since, because it’s not as if the cold ever bothered her, being a mermaid and all?), despite the fact that she talks very little and tells him about herself even less, sometimes even forgets his presence. He’s still there, by her side, like some eagerly persistent puppy for some reason, the most contented of smiles on his annoying face whenever he hears her sing.

And for some reason, she can’t find it in herself to leave him.

What is the matter with her?