Chapter Text
An eerily melodic song wafts through the trees, drawing a curious young prince away from the rest of the royal hunting party.
“I’ll catch up with you in a bit!” he calls to his attendant, not giving them a second to respond before steering his horse into a deeper part of the wood.
“Huh…?! Prince Tsukasa, where are you going?!” they clamor from somewhere behind him, but he’s already gone.
The tune grows in both volume and clarity, and he realizes it actually sounds quite familiar, like a nursery rhyme from childhood... Tsukasa can just make out the tone of the singer’s voice, gentle and soft, each word urging him closer like a comforting lullaby… Except the lyrics are all wrong.
“Help me, literally anyone at this point / This is the absolute worst / I am so embarrassed / I’m stuck, somebody come help me / Help me / Help me!”
It didn’t even rhyme , and yet he’s somehow compelled forward, unable to turn away even if he wanted to. But how could he, when there was a damsel so obviously in distress?! Being a prince as noble as he, handling situations like these might as well be written in the job description.
Tsukasa slows his mount to a trot as the forest thins, revealing a moonlit clearing that hosts a small lake. The source of the song is a young woman half submerged in the water, seemingly in no apparent danger other than the one she sings of. A trap, perhaps?! No, the sloping terrain around the lake would put her at a disadvantage, and there had been no signs of an ambush his tactical experience had caught on the way here… But even if it is, he’d never lost in a battle of wits or blades yet.
“HEY!” he calls to the woman from a safe distance. “CAN YOU NOT SWIM?”
The tune stops abruptly, and her gaze swings in his direction. “What…?” she responds, puzzled.
“I SAID ,” he repeats, dismounting from his horse with a single, elegant swing of the leg. “CAN YOU NOT SWIM?”
“No, I heard you,” the woman amends. “Just… argh, get over here, will you? I’m not drowning , I can’t get out !”
“Never fear, my lady!” he assuages, abandoning his misgivings and heading toward the water’s edge at a tasteful jog. “For I, Prince Tsu—“
“Oh, gods above—of all people…!” she exclaims, interrupting his oft-rehearsed heroic monologue! She seems to have recognized him upon approach, and is now glowering with disdain. “This is just my luck…”
“Eh?! Weren’t you the one begging for rescue just a moment ago?” Tsukasa responds, taken aback. “I’d think you’d be happy to see your crown prince come to your aid!” Upon closer inspection, he has to wonder if she’s from this kingdom at all, given the strange way her tangled hair is decorated with pearls and shells.
“Not if I knew he’d be talking the whole time…” she grumbles, and the prince throws up his hands.
“Alright then! If my presence is such a bother, I guess I’ll just leave you to your… non-drowning, unspecifically perilous fate…!” He turns on a heel, not needing to walk more than a few steps before a begrudging groan of defeat halts him.
“Wait, just wait a second… I’m sorry , alright, my liege? I’m… kind of desperate,” the woman concedes.
“Aha, now that’s more like it!” Tsukasa declares, thumping his chest in triumph. “Now, how can this noble hero help you this fine evening, damsel in distress?”
“Okay, don’t call me that,” she immediately protests. “My name is Nene . And… ergh… the problem is this .”
She shifts to the side as a large fish tail rises out of the water behind her, the sea green fins catching the moonlight in shimmering waves.
“ EGADS ! A lake monster, set to drag you into the deep…!” the prince exclaims, immediately drawing his sword from its jewel-encrusted scabbard. “You should’ve said so earlier! Never fear, I shall dispatch the beast wi—“
“ No! It’s mine , you absolute—“ Nene strangles whatever obscenities might have followed from her throat, heaving another gravelly sigh and sinking a bit deeper into the lake.
“I… ₜ ᵤᵣ ₙₑ ₔ ₘ ᵧ ₛₑₗ բ ᵢ ₙₜₒₐₘₑ ᵣ ₘₐ ᵢₔ ,” she mumbles.
“…Come again?”
“I turned myself into a mermaid ,” she repeats louder, her face flushed and eyes fixed downward. “And I’ve been stuck in this tiny mud hole for two days trying to figure out how to turn back, or, or find help… Though, as you can probably tell, it hasn’t worked out so far.”
Tsukasa lowers his sword, an unmistakeable look of befuddlement on his princely visage. “You’re a… magician, then? A mermaid magician? I didn’t even know that was something you could do, ” he manages, brain close to combusting. “Wait, why did you do it? Is it permanent, can you… breathe? Where did your legs—“
“I’m a witch ,” Nene corrects, flicking her tail across the pond’s surface in agitation. “And I don’t appreciate you wasting my time here with questions—Can you help me, or not?”
“Of course I can!” he replies, shifting into tactician mode on a dime. “I’ll summon my entourage, they can’t be too far off—We’d have to tow you back to the castle with the venison, but I’m sure one of the scholars, or even my sister could have answers for this predicament.”
The mermaid shakes her head. “I… can’t go to the castle. I can’t even go back into town— No one can see me like this, or I’ll lose whatever shred of dignity I have left.”
“Come now, that can’t be true!” Tsukasa assures her. “I certainly don’t think lesser of you for it, and, well, I’m considered to be a fairly important person around here, if you weren’t aware.”
“That’s assuming I value your opinion,” Nene retorts, and he gasps in dramatized offense. Tailfin slumping back under the water, her expression turns dejected. “No, I’m a failure of a witch and a disgrace to my coven—The best thing would be to just… dump me out into the harbor so I can go live with the fish.”
“Eh?! That’s too tragic!” the prince exclaims. “Would you at least find community with the other mermaids…?”
“They’re a highly territorial culture—An outsider like me would be killed on the spot.”
“Then I veto that plan! We’ll figure something else out for you,” Tsukasa declares. “How about some real food, to start? If you’ve been here for two days, you must be starving .”
“…Why go to the trouble?” the witch mumbles, though it wasn’t enough to disguise the flash of hunger in her eyes.
The prince pauses for a moment, searching for how to word his answer. He isn’t given long before a new voice cuts through the trees, this one familiar in an entirely different way.
“Prince Tsukasaaa…? Prince Tsukasaaa, it’s getting late…!”
“Ah, one of my guards, no doubt. She can relay the situation to Mizuki, and we’ll—Hey!”
Turning back, he’s too late to notice Nene plunging underneath the surface, spattering a hopefully-unintentional burst of water across his nicest hunting vest. She truly was serious about not being seen, then—But that was no matter. Tsukasa would simply have to adjust his plan once more.
Doing his best to shake the water out of the fine leather, he jogs back up the hill to meet the voice halfway. Spotting her first, he takes the opportunity to set the scene. “Lady Hoshino, there you are! I’ve been looking for you all everywhere !”
The knight whips around, and her expression morphs from relieved to incredulous. “ You’ve been looking for—Nevermind,” she sighs, knowing by now it’s best not to get the prince started. “It’s good to find you safe, Your Highness. Captain Akiyama and the others planned to meet back on the main path once someone found you, so we should get going.”
“Indeed, we should!” Tsukasa assents, and they fall into step heading back the way they’d come. Looking over his shoulder at the lake one last time, he swore he could see the smallest flicker of green breach the surface for just a moment.
“I shall return, on my honor as crown prince of the Tenma line…” he affirms under his breath, not nearly quietly enough to prevent the woman walking next to him from giving him the hardest side-eye of her life.