Chapter Text
do you remember the way it began as a little fluttering of wings
i’m still believing ever since that day, it grew, the hurricane in my heart
“Your Highness! Your Highness!”
A restless flutter of wings beats in the corridors of Prince Rie's summer residence. He hurries to meet the courtiers. Thin fingers cling to the frills of his shirt, pulling him along, “There, on the river! You must take a look!”
Fairies crowd the shore. The first to notice the prince bow respectfully and fly up from the pier, giving way. The swarm of excited voices fades behind Rie as he approaches the water.
There, bound in a magical net, is a young man of the mermaid people. Long black hair frames an unreadable face, and he is clearly not of this world, as if he does not care at all about the noise he himself has caused, and is sure that the current is about to dissolve the bonds and return him to the sea.
But he looks up at Rie and brightens.
“It's a mistake, please let me go,» a guilty smile soft as the touch of warm surf. “I had no bad intentions.”
“The sea people are forbidden to cross the border of the fairy kingdom.”
The severity in his own tone seems almost cruel to Rie, but it wasn’t he who established the laws and charms at the mouth of the river. With a graceful movement of his hand he points to the cord of the net tied to the pier, ordering it to rise into the air. The pleading look of the intruder is erased by something that the prince can not identify as fear or anger, they are surrounded by fairies, and one of the subjects exclaims, “The sign of the imperial family!”
Rie only catches a glimpse of the symbol on the merman's lower back. The captive silently but furiously dodges the gaze and hands of others, hits the surface of the waves with a powerful obsidian tail, causing the fairies to scatter like frightened butterflies.
“And what is the heir of the seas doing here?” the only answer is the flashes of light in the interweaving of threads, which are becoming increasingly difficult to keep from breaking. The catch is too strong for this net, but Rie is not about to let it slip away without an explanation. The moment the magic dissipates, he pushes off the pier to pick up the merman up in his arms, preventing him from falling into the water, and flies higher — so high that the fairies below suddenly become the size of sugar figures on a cake.
They scream with delight and clap their hands for their prince. The captive barely notices the applause or the smug face of the fairy. He grabs Rie's neck with force.
Rie laughs, “The view is stunning, isn’t it?” The mountains, the coast, the meadows, the forest, and the white palace shrouded in it are bathed in a golden sunset. To Rie’s surprise, the creature of the sea deeps nods, mesmerized. “Then thank me by admitting what your intentions were. And your name.”
“Junji. Let me go.”
“So you prefer to be taken away with all the ceremonies. As you wish, little fish.”
* * *
“He sank to the bottom and never showed his face.” Rie’s younger brother, Yoojung, masterfully hides his concern behind a displeasure from everyone except the eldest prince and their friend Mill. “It’s a shame you didn’t catch a more talkative mermaid.”
“But it's easy to lure him out with food. I have a feeling we won’t be able to feed him,” Mill snorts, sitting down on the couch, “but can you do some magic to him to find out the truth?”
Yoojung hesitates, and Rie shakes his head.
"It's dangerous to touch the mind of someone as powerful as you. He has magic too, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to cross the boundary."
"Or he had help."
Mill glances at Yoojung with a distrustful laugh, earning him a pinch on the cheek.
“Rie, are you sure you don’t want to tell our mother?”
“Yes. I’d like to think that I can… resolve this matter without her participation. And without the majesties of the sea. So many years of peace shouldn’t end like this, we haven’t seen a single significant prerequisite, and everything points, on the contrary, to the fact that…”
The two ungrateful listeners, without saying a word, pretend to fall asleep, their heads resting against each other.
“Just hurry up before Yoojung strangles you for turning our favorite bathhouse into a fish pond.”
Rie laughed insultedly then, but he really admits that the threat is quite fair. The bathhouse is extremely good for a jail. More like a greenhouse attached to the palace, it is separated from the garden by elaborate stained glass windows that reach up to a high glass roof, but still strives to be its continuation, drowning in greenery, magical flowers and gems that emit light.
Late at night, Rie comes to the bathhouse. The rustle of artificial waterfalls and fountains always pacifies him, although his thoughts continue to wander somewhere around the reports on the inspection of the coastal border. As before, everything was calm, but he instructed the guards to be extremely careful so as not to arouse suspicion themselves, especially in the kidnapping of the imperial offspring.
Unbuttoning his shirt and leaving it on the chair, Rie settles down on the cool steps, lowering his feet into the water. In the deepest part of the bathhouse, on the other side from him, the distance to the bottom is several of his heights, so he hopes to avoid accusations of torture by cramped conditions.
The enchanted water here is as refreshing or warm as each person desires. The trills of crickets and night birds, the subtle sounds of wind chime garlands on the ceiling weave a melody that the prince begins to sing along to.
Moths flock to him. The heir's diadem glitters on his forehead under his curly bangs, but the insects voluntarily coronate him with a living crown.
Rie hears a soft splash, closes his eyes and continues to sing.
He sighs.
“Can't sleep?”
“Where are your wings?”
“They appear when I want them to.”
“A-ah...”
Rie turns, noticing how Junji quickly looks away. Resting his head on his hands, the merman looks at the sculpture of a praying mantis in the shade of a jasmine bush and says, “I forgive you that impudent trick on the river.”
Laughter chokes the fairy so suddenly that all the moths rush away and dissolve in the semi-darkness.
“Because I am guilty of breaking the rules. This is not what I wanted.”
“Was it scary?” Rie grins.
“It was beauteous. I’m not that easy to scare,” Junji shrugs.
“And I thought I’d die of fear when I was learning to fly and my mentor made me jump off a cliff.”
“Oh… I’m sorry.”
Somehow, that’s also a little funny. Rie smiles. The mixture of complete confusion and at the same time peace from the presence of a stranger in such a personal place for him feels like a dream.
“So what did the magnanimous, fearless little fish want here?”
“I’m not a fish.” That's a serious statement. “Can I say... not now?”
“Won't your family declare you missing?”
“They know me. The water will tell them that I’m someone's guest.”
“Not a captive?”
“The food here is too good for captivity.”
It's hard to tell if it's just Rie's fatigue that's creeping up on him, or if Junji is genuinely amusing.
“I get it, you really wanted to try the delicacies from the surface.” His trouser legs cling to his ankles as he stands up and grabs a cushion from the chair to sit right in front of the merman, who's about to swim away. “Millie said you liked the game. What's your favorite fruit?”
The mumbled sounds are like “I don't know”. The Prince of Fairies snaps his fingers, summoning a crystal vase of fragrant fruit. He hands slices of oranges, apples, a pear, and a whole peach.
“Be careful, there's a pit there...” No, he's not scared by how easily Junji cracks it. Not a single memory of the crunch of bones in the teeth of sea monsters. “It's poisonous.”
“Your Highness decided to poison a guest?!” Junji theatrically shudders with his whole body, as if he were drowning.
“Nothing will happen from one!” A wave of splashes from under Rie's palm and laughter, the merman dodges, diving briefly. “You know, peach trees are very fragile. They can die, breaking under the weight of their own fruit.”
“This is sad.”
“But that won't happen in my garden.”
Junji pushes wet strands of hair away from his eyes. He's suddenly very close, Rie notices the azure scales near his eyelids, the thin chain on his broad chest, how drops flow down his fin-adorned arms on the edge of the bath–
“You sing beautifully.”
These words are so quiet that Rie is ready to believe that he is imagining things in the noise of the water.
“Thank you,” he sees Junji torn between the desire to remain serious and to smile. Rie quickly reaches for the vase. He offers a strawberry, and Junji bites the berry right from Rie's fingers.
“Tasty,” he nods contentedly, but then looks through him with a silent question.
“Glad to hear,” Rie realizes that his wings are fluttering. They look like the wings of a dragonfly with silver veins, impossible not to notice in the gloom. Junji probably thought that Rie was going to withdraw, because they appear when he wants them to. Better to agree than to find out why not. “Yes. I have to go.”
“Thank you for letting me stay. Good night.”
He disappears into the depths noiselessly, leaving only flickers to tremble on the fading water ripples.
“Good night.”
* * *
“Did you speak to our captive yesterday?”
“Of course.”
After breakfast, Rie and Yoojung sort through the morning mail. The white stone gazebo is hidden in the depths of the garden, a perfect place for secluded work. A place from which the stained glass windows of the bathhouse are completely invisible.
“And did you find out what he needs in our domain?”
“…not yet.”
“I see. Then what were you talking about?”
About peaches.
“Be tranquil, I am not letting down my guard. I will find out the truth in the most diplomatic way.”
“In a diplomatic bath for two,” Yoojung does not look up from the letter.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“In a bath if necessary,” Rie waves his hands dramatically with his sweetest smile, “do not doubt me.”
“You are the last person I doubt, brother,” Yoojung grimaces as if he’d bitten a lemon, but catches Rie’s papers, blown away by the wind, and returns them to his lap.
When the heat of the day recedes, the fairies gather among the hills. The moon flowers, barely awake, watch as they hang magic lanterns in the air, spread fabrics on the soft grass, carry treats to the first notes of the harp and flute. Under a clear sky with pale stars, a kaleidoscope of conversations, the clink of glasses, the flickering of skirts and wings, jokes and songs swirls. The princes are constantly called to dance. While Yoojung skillfully captures everyone’s attention, Rie pretends to be extremely engrossed in tasting strawberry wine.
What would Junji say if he were here among them? “Boredom will force him to confess,” Rie muses, as if he himself does not sitting on the sidelines of the festivities, contrary to the usual. He watches the dancers (ribbons and sleeves fluttering, a burst of laughter can be heard from the crowd as Yoojung seems to be running away from Mill, who is eager to give him kisses) and wonders if he is doing the right thing, or he is making a terrible mistake in putting them all in danger. The winged people and the sea people have hurt each other in the past. They had invented a common language, but began to write it down differently. If Rie has taken on too much, thinking he can read it all correctly while keeping it from the queen… It is The Queen of Fairies, not the prince, who foretells the future in her songs; when Rie was very young, she sang him an enigmatic melody and told him that when he was older and heard it again, he would understand his destiny.
All he understands now is that the musicians are moving on to slow, sentimental pieces. In his current mood, Rie would rather skip this part of the evening.
He is not a seer yet, but something tells him that he should not go where he is going when he intends to avoid trying to touch his soul. Most likely, this something is his wings, which Rie is unable to hide, only to wrap them up along his back on the steps of the palace.
Be that as it may, he does not know his fate — but he knows his duty.