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Chapter Text

Your mother always told you poems when you were younger.

Just the two of you. She would take you down to some of the lowest caves in the reef, sitting for ages reciting the same 8 tales passed orally down from generation to generation. The first time she took you there, you were far more than just scared. The swim down was dark and almost endless. But by the time you got down there and turned around, you saw how it was all worth it. Perched on a central but humble rock, the view above was decorated with the most beautiful red, pinks, oranges. Flowers and every possible type of algae. The sun reached down, losing strength on the way, creating only the suggestion of sunlight as it butted heads with the small entrance on the top of the cave. The rays that did filter through were lonely, only illuminating one soft rounded rock in the small cave. You’d sit there laid on your side and head rested gently on her lap. She’d brush her fingers through your long fiery hair as she told each poem seamlessly flowing into the next in a low comforting voice. You could remember each one, etched into your brain like lines in your palm and scales on your tail. About your dad, her husband. About the jewels of the ocean. About long-forgotten battles between fishes and seahorses. She would change the order every time, but as the first word of each tale left her lips, you immediately knew which one was next. She would always end on the same one. She would take a moment in silence, a bridge between islands, take a deep breath and say,

“This last one is a little more personal, Aesterie dear”

You would always ask her what she meant by personal, but she’d only ever respond,

“Oh the other stories are from long-forgotten Mermen, passing from families to friends to children’s ears. This one is a little closer”

Closer. It could mean 500 things in 10 different directions. Her ambiguity frustrated you, and you knew it was on purpose. But you knew not to push. You’d just sit and listen, brain frantically trying to read between the lines.

“Above all the reefs and the palace of the king,

Above all the schools and constellations of starfish

And even above the shallowest of waves

There exists another one,

A being of kindness and hatred

Of war and peace

Of love and malice

Humankind is both sides of one shell

And the one that dares above the reefs,

And the schools and the palace,

Must be both doomed and saved”

The first time you heard it you didn’t think it meant anything. Your head perked up and turned to your mother in annoyed confusion. You couldn’t believe she could end such fascinating and dreamy stories with such… nothingness? You protested uninterrupted until even your mouth turned dry. She only looked at you with a smile grazing over her lips, like she could see something you couldn’t. She responded one thing back, which you heard far too often sat by the cave.

“Oh dear, maybe when you’re older you’ll understand”.

Well, now you were older. And as you made your way to the same cave, where you had left a humble and beautiful shrine to your late mother, you were still wondering when you’d be old enough to truly understand.

—

The shrine was small. But it meant everything to you. You had collected the smoothest and shiniest pebbles from across the oceans and built them into a pyramid. Between the natural gaps, you placed the brightest shells and clams you could find. At the top of the pyramid, you placed a pearl from her necklace. The shrine was only known by yourself, Jerry and Caspian. Your father, the king of all seven seas, knowing wouldn’t be a huge problem. It wasn’t like he’d take it down or banish you from it. But this space was only known by you and your mother, and you wanted to keep it that way. Particularly with how you felt like you were the only one who understood her legacy. 

Today was the 12 anniversary of her death at the hands of a humankind being. The day also marked 12 solar rotations since your father had declared a merciless war on humankind, sinking half the ships that dared to pass over him and any he could get his hands on. He was always a strict man, but it used to come from a place of love and concern. Now it was from fear. Depression and rage. And the thought of losing one of his daughters.

You were laid by the shrine, on your usual spot on the rock, head resting on the shrine as usual, when something interrupted the light filtering from above you. Any shift in the light was obvious as the beam that came through the entrance of the cave was now only as wide as your torso. You glanced your head up mindlessly, the shimmer breaking your moment abruptly. It was in the shape of a long cylinder. It shined even brighter than the pearls on your mother’s shrine. As it hurtled through the water, it seemed hollow, but bigger at one end than the other. In fact, one end looked like it didn’t even have a hole at all. But the hole through the cylinder seemed distorted. Like looking through murky waters at night. Before it could reach its crash course into the shrine, you plucked it easily from the air.

You always had a fascination with human objects. You sat there twirling it in your hand. The way it rotated fluidly in your hand was satisfying. On closer inspection the gold was a little worn, and the distorted hollowness bulged with a crack through the middle. Whenever you saw human things you wondered what they were used for. Where were they from and how were they made. Human things were so different from things down here. But you shared two different worlds. As usual, your mind moved to your mother. You still didn’t know what her final poem meant. Her death should have scared you, and after all, you understood your father’s anger. But the last 12 rotations had brought you to a small conclusion that there was something unshakeably curious about the human world.

“Aesterie”

Caspian’s distant but panicked voice broke through your trance. You swam up through the entrance to greet him.

“Aesterie, you’re late for your father’s meeting, how did you forget?”, he said with even further panic now that he’d seen you. He scuttled over and started to pull your hand east in the vague direction of the palace with his claw.

“Oh please Caspian I’ve got loads of time”, you responded, unsure whether you actually did have the time. 

The grip and pull of his claw was less than useless, but you decided you ought to follow him anyway. You shouldn’t upset your father on a day like this. You gave one last glance back to the entrance of the cave. The shrine was now well out of sight, but you gripped the golden-rusted object behind you back in your left hand even tighter.

—

“Aesterie where could you possibly have been on a day like this”

You had to admit, your father’s frustration was kind of fair. At least from his perspective. Even despite that, reprimanding you in front of the royal guards was equally embarrassing and mortifying. As he turned his back in a pace, you caught Jerry’s eye in a restrained chuckle. Even if he was a small fish, his yellow and orange stripes stuck out like a sore thumb in the chamber. You had to let out something out your body to break the tension that was building like a mountain, and Jerry was sitting by the throne with huge childish eyes like he was the one getting shouted at. Your father turned to you in an instant, rage building on his face. You hated how perceptive he was, almost like he could sense every shift in the ocean.

“Is this funny to you?”, he started, “you know the ceremony is–”. He cut himself off, looking at you first with a questioning and then a scorn,

“Aesterie, what is that behind your back”

Your heart sank like a ship by the mercy of his storms. Half because you had been caught and half because you knew you couldn’t lie or trick your way out of it. You turned your hand towards him slowly, a sorrowful look already dawned on your down-turned face. 

“Aesterie”, he started, his rage cut in half to allow for come concern, “I told you the human realm is dangerous, you should not entertain such things”. He snatched the item from your hand and threw it to a guard, your hand and hold body jolting like he’d stabbed your hand straight through. You felt your own frustration and madness build from your stomach and rise to your chest. Your face scowled before you let out something you’d regret.

“Well I’m sorry father, it just reminded me of mother”

He turned even quicker to you now. His face showed a division of fear, betrayal and anger, like a child that had smashed an urn of ashes. His face blew up red.

“How dare you speak of your mother that way”, he spat at you, “don’t you know what I’ve done to protect you”, his tone turning to full rage again.

“Well I never asked you to–”

ENOUGH

A swipe of his trident in the space between you sent shock waves in and around the palace. Schools of fishes darted for cover as the seas groaned in movement. You tried to hold your stance, but like your face, your effort was futile and you shied away. It was ages before you plucked up the courage to meet his eye again, but you knew it was the only way he’d start talking again and you needed this to be over as soon as you could. The fishes in the closest sea cave were still shaking in hesitation to come back out.

“Aesterie, humans are nothing but evil”, he started with an anger restrained by concern, “I thought you of all would understand this”

You were dismissed by your father to get ready for tonight's ceremony to mourn your mother. You hung your head low as you left the throne room, even though most spectators to the scene were more concerned for your own well-being than cruelly gossiping about you. Nothing could change your father’s old and jaded mind, and they all knew it too. But that still wouldn’t stop you pointlessly defending yourself. His words echoed in your head, your brain mortified from the embarrassment and ears traumatised from the boom of his voice. Nothing but evil, he said. He’d repeated that line almost every day for the last 11 rotations, you thought he probably didn’t even have to think about saying it anymore. He tried over and over again to instill a fear and indignation against humans. But it didn’t matter how often or how many times he voiced his hatred, you always short-circuited back to that final poem that your mother would sing to you after a deep thoughtful breath, brushing your hair and sitting on that rock with the faint brush of sunlight. 

And you still thought there was something about humankind you were yet to learn.

Chapter Text

The ceremony to mourn your mother’s death was over, and you felt even worse than before it started. This was perhaps unsurprising, as for the last 11 rotations, you’d felt exactly the same. You solemnly swam back to your sea cave, Jerry tailing you with his far shorter fins as usual.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to shout at you, Aesterie”

He always had an empathetic and reassuring tone after you had an argument with your father, which you felt was more days than not recently. But he wasn’t annoying about it either, and you were grateful about that. It came from a genuine place of care and concern and honestly, he was probably one of the last few strings left that kept you talking to your father.

The ceremony was a bastardisation of your mother. Father used it to gather all the species of the ocean into one place to send a message. It always started with sincerity. The seashells tune was an ode to her and what she meant to so many across the seas. But father, looking on in pride each time, failed to truly understand the message. And it burned in your veins. She united the oceans and the above world with kindness, grace and understanding. And he was undoing that legacy with every waking moment in her name. Your fists ached from digging your nails into your palms even by the end of the opening song. But what followed was always worse. A pompous entrance of your father like a dictator to the main stage, the King’s Rock. He would go on for ages and ages with a rage of 1000 worlds. How your mother was taken at the hands of a selfish and unworthy human man. And how they were all evil and must never be interacted with in any capacity. He told stories of sea urchins and fishes being killed and tortured, some of which were almost certainly fabricated. You knew that some were probably true, but you still couldn’t believe that they were all evil. Not everyone in the seas was evil and you knew that, so how could everyone in the above world be like that? The fear he instilled in the audience was enough to make half of them quiver and the other want to flee and hide at the darkest pits of the ocean, which weren’t much safer. Especially not after the Great Shark Infestation, a war between your father and the shark clans after your mother’s death. He had become too heavy handed in his authority after her passing and caused a rebellion. But he’d never admit it was because of that. And that thought passing over your brain was why you could still see the nail marks etched into your palm well after the end of the ceremony. Father’s final act was to ‘unite’ the seas in a pledge of allegiance and allyship. You scoffed at the terms, as he really meant a declaration of war. Eternally, against the above world. For the last 3 rotations, ever since you had been mature enough to realise you couldn’t change him, you sang mother’s final poem in your head instead of his malicious and veiled pledge. You did so secretly, daring a glance at him from the front row with your sisters every once in a while to check he couldn’t see you. A silent rebellion against him and his fear and indiscriminate cruelty. Maybe you’d have been better with the sharks.

You perched on an isolated rock outside your lonely sea cave. Lonely, but you preferred it that way, especially after ceremony nights. Jerry swam in front of you and pouted in empathy, before snuggling next to you. You were honestly unsure whether all the other sea creatures agreed with your father’s surely misguided ideology. No one really spoke about it. But you couldn’t really blame them. For most of them, the only time they’d hear or see about humankind would be from stories your father forced onto them. The unknown worked well in his favour. 

After a moment’s reflection, you thought but maybe he was right. He didn’t tell any lies about your mother. As her bleeding body floated to the bottom of the reef, the steel spear through her chest was undeniable. And even though you hoped it was just a bad dream and a part of your imagination, it wasn’t. And you’d never really interacted with a human. You had a vague and greyed idea of what they looked like, with no idea how they sounded or acted. But you had an indescribable curiosity at their objects. So much so, you had held a definitely forbidden and illegal stash through a secret tunnel in your sea cave for the last 8 rotations. You arranged them as prettily as you could without it being too obviously a display. Just in case. You hadn't any idea what any of them were, but you liked circulating them in your hands and just gazing into them. To think that they were used for something, anything, in the above world. 

After time to mature, you realised the fascination certainly stemmed from your mother, who held a similar collection at the hatred of your father. But now such collections weren’t just discouraged, but banned.

See mother, you thought to yourself, I’m now older and I understand more. But you knew you still didn’t understand it all. The heart of the poem. There was something missing that still didn’t make sense when you retold your mother’s poem, even if you’d grown to understand so much more about the world.

—

You’d been sitting in reflection and a much needed peace for some time now, looking at the twilight of the surface. Your father hated your sea cave only being a quick swim to the surface and the border between the oxygen and water realms that he forbade anyone from breaching. He’d moved your ‘official’ residence far deeper, but you mostly came to your original cave. It still smelled like your mother, and glimmered with her memory.

You didn’t know when, it could’ve been for ages, but you realised you had been tracing a breaching line of surface. Like a tiny tuna fish at the surface, darting to catch up with its school, the line was so small but disruptive. It was after the line seemed to split in two that your consciousness came back to you. Now, creating a V-shape, like the birds in the sky you’d seen on the exceptionally rare visits to the surface. A V-shape in the boundary could only mean one thing, a ship. At this time in this place, it felt like both an intrusion and a fate. A shooting star far above. You sat pondering it, terrifying but intriguing. You saw flashes and blasts of coral colours of yellow, orange and green around the ship, and your brain gave into curiosity. You’d never seen something like this before, and if your father was so right about their evilness, how could they replicate such beautiful colours?

Your mother’s song entered your head again like it had a mind of its own.

You felt like father was only a creature of war now. You apprehensively looked behind you and Jerry perked up at your movement. Not that anyone would be behind you at this time.

Of love and malice.

You took another moment to think. Then decided this wasn’t the time for thinking. You looked up at the ship one more time contemplatively, like you could see your mother and her kindness in the faint gradual movement and echoing colours above.

“Aesterie wait where are you going”

You felt admittedly bad for Jerry. He’d done nothing but comfort you, but today you’d been almost entirely silent. And now you were swimming, already halfway directly to your father’s idea of death.

—

By the time you reached the surface, the ship was already in the distance, but it was only a short swim at your speed to catch up. You could hear the distant hum and shouts coming from the ship. You swam toward them like they were a drug. A new feeling and sensation. The prospect of something different and undiscovered. When you caught up with the ship, it was bigger than you had ever thought. The V-shape disturbance in the seam was actually a huge construction of wood that creaked and bobbed unsteadily in the waves. Despite the fragility, the people on board seemed more than comfortable. 

People. 

A group of men had gathered at the front of the ship and were peering over the edge. You were seeing humans, real humankind. You focused as hard as your eyes would allow at your distance on their faces and beings. They were all males you thought. And in fact, apart from two legs, they were almost the exact same as mermen. If inquisitiveness wasn’t at the forefront of your brain, you’d be hopelessly frustrated that father had waged war on beings just like you. You swam a little closer, hopeful and greedy for a greater glance. Even a moment could satisfy you. But as you edged closer in the shadow of darkness, their shouts seemed increasingly cruel and sportish. Like they were collectively avenging a lost trauma, but for fun. You got a little closer and were punished by the sight of the faint glimmer of a spear leaving the hand of one of the men, illuminated by the red bang of colour from above. You stopped, your blood running cold and heart in your throat. 

They were hunting dolphins. The same you’d passed distantly on the swim up. Your mind began to run. Was Father right? This was your first time seeing humans, and they were sneering at you. With such violence and malice on their faces, they had less than no care for the lives below them. Your ears started to ring and you stopped treading water, almost ready to descend again in a deep apology to your father. But then, a voice. A different tone that broke through your blockade. Deeper and passionate. A figure was moving over to the crowd of men in a swift and quick motion. Such a break from what you observed before, you started swimming tandem to the ship again. The faces of the men eroded one by one into an attention behind them at the figure. You made sure you could hear what he was about to say.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING”

And in a quieter but more assertive tone, as he had reached the group now, frantically gripping a spear out of the man with the cruelest face’s hands,

“A mermaid? No it’s not, use your eyes men”

Oh.

He must have been their leader, King, or something of the sort. The man moved effortlessly out of the crowd and back onto the main body of the ship, now out of sight. Curiosity had turned to dread and fear, and now it was desire. Some man understood at least a fraction of the sanctity of life below the sea. And you had to know more. To learn more. Your whole body moved in a snap fluidity to the worn hull of the ship like it was being magnetically dragged.

You studied the structure of the ship, before an almost-silent voice interrupted you.

“Aesterie, what are you doing”

It was Jerry, and he looked almost distraught in concern. But he knew you far too well to think he was going to stop you now. Your collection of human objects at your cave was physical evidence of that, and this was the biggest experience of all. You gave him an understanding and empathetic smirk before moving. Your subconsciousness, and the half of you that was your father, was entirely on his side. You jumped silently in a curve into a ledge on the side of the ship. You’d locked it with your eyes a few moments prior, and it seemed shaped like the hull of the ship. Like a far smaller and reduced ship in itself. For a moment, getting comfortable and used to the feeling of the varnished wood, you felt this could even be a smaller boat they used for excursions away from the main ship. It was fascinating to run your fingers along, but you weren’t there to break a piece of the human-altered wood off and take it back to your cave. There was something overtaking your body, attracting you to the main deck with a curiosity you hadn’t felt before. Like you could be looking at the other side of that shell you still hadn’t figured out. And on the small boat, you could peer directly onto it.

The man was now in full view, striding up the deck. You only really knew it was him because of the spear still in his hand, holding it firmly but not with any amount of possession. The deck was lively beyond perception. Men playing objects and instruments that created the most ruckus of noises, with other men dancing and moving along the ship. Some were arguing, others drinking out of chunky and heavy cups with handles, some of which you recognised from your collection, splashing a yellowish fluid on each other in a careless laughter. A couple of the men huddled around a complicated larger object, which suddenly boomed, sending a larger spear into the air which exploded in the brightest colours you’d ever seen. Your eyes squinted at the light in surprise, a little intimidated initially, but then realising this was the source of the colours you’d seen from the sea. To be honest, you were overwhelmed… but with a tinge of joy. There was so much going on and so much new. If even half of this fell to the sea, you’d have to spend days organising it. But in a strange moment, like your eyes following the line in the surface unconsciously from your sea cave, your eyes quickly stopped caring for all the trinkets and items. Instead, they locked onto the man carrying the spear.

He was tall and well-built with broad shoulders. Most of the mermen below the sea were far better shaped than the men of the surface world as a general rule, to much pride of your father, but that was not the case for him. He was wearing worn brown boots, uncharacteristically paired with dark smarter trousers. You guessed that they were eroded and marked from the seemingly arduous manual labour that human men had to engage with on a ship. It seemed unnecessarily complicated, ropes and latches everywhere with seemingly no order, but controlling such a huge instrument must have taken immense strength for them. He wore a white shirt half-buttoned down, part mesh and part frills. The collar sat on his shoulders beautifully and you even started to think that maybe, there was a beauty of men that you hadn’t seen in anything in the sea. Your eyes made their way to his face, which turned around giving you a clear glance, but only for a blink. He had the most perfect face. Contours, lines and bones worked in a synergy of construction. His lips were full and glimmered in the light, his top lip curving to make a heart by his cupid’s bow. Fitting. His freckles decorated his whole face, concentrated on his nose and under his eyes, fading all the way out to his ears. His eyes were a dark brown dream, dazzling in the occasional light of the explosions and guarded by thick eyelashes. Even with your moment’s look into them you thought you could lose yourself in them forever, in a completely different realm. His hair was positively thick and blonde, swaying in waves like the seas you just left. It reached the top of his shoulders, some lazily allowed to be free and some tucked distinctly behind his ears. It wasn’t long before you caught yourself staring at him doing the smallest things. Gathering rope, reading books and other instruments, some of which were familiar and some weren’t. He was different to the other men in an indescribable way. But that way was already impacting your whole being. Like something had shifted and you weren’t even yourself anymore.

He got a little closer, moving to tie some rope around a pole. Or at least that’s what you thought. He swung from one side of the ship to yours using the ropes of the masts as gears so fluidly you thought he could even not be a human but an air-born creature. He landed promptly by your face and you cowered back in fear of being seen. A formal looking man in shorter brown hair approached him from the stairs. His voice seemed a strange intersection of authority and begging.

“Prince Felix, I must ask that you don’t do that do I need to remind you what your mother would do if she knew you were swinging around a ship in these waters”

Prince?

“Oh nonsense Sungho”, he replied, sure of himself in that same deep but not unkind tone, “I’ve been manning ships my entire life”

He now moved across the deck to seemingly repeat the same motion he’d done before, but now where the men were still huddled, spearless. You thought he seemed to be doing an awful lot of work to be the Prince of this ship. But at the same time the glint in his eye and his eager skips made it seem like he was enjoying it. You thought human legs seemed so light and flimsy, but looking at your own drying tail made you realise that in the above world, you were less than useless. But then again, legs would only make you flail in the ocean.

“Well maybe the fact that it is 29 March waters may jog your memory, sire?”

Prince Felix gave a derivative eye roll. Before responding that he didn’t believe in the rumours and the old sailor’s tales. And that they’d be just fine, as usual.

“Sire you can’t keep having such a nonchalant attitude to the unpredictability of the ocean”, Sungho now pleaded, even leaning over to the Prince.

“I just can’t explain it Sungho”, he interrupted, looking contemplatively out to the horizon with one foot braced on the railing. From that angle, you could see almost half of him, completely unobstructed by railing. The wind brushed in his hair and he looked out lovingly, as if he knew the seas like you did, before continuing,

“There’s something out there that just… calls to me”

Looking at him with a little too much adoration, you dug in your memory for any possible memory of what 29th or March could mean. From any engravings on a cup, or faded writing on a scroll. But nothing. You shared a base language, but entirely different worlds. Being almost able to understand him, but not fully, ate at you like a parasite.

Your frustration and focus was broken by surprise. An animal had spotted you and was bounding towards you. It looked nothing like a human and you were fairly sure it couldn’t communicate with them, so you weren’t too afraid. Mainly endeared and intrigued, as the fluffy and furry 4-legged dark brown animal licked at your hand and pawed at your arm between the railing for even more attention. It seemed warm-hearted and the feeling mostly tickled more than anything. It seemed to grin right into your eyes like you were a lost friend it’d reunited with.

“Brownie!”

The Prince’s voice broke through your ears and you dipped below deck-level as he strode over and collected, what you now knew, was a male dog. He reprimanded him playfully for getting too close to the edge, and you revelled in the tone of his concerned but joyful voice, thinking you could lay in it. Wrap your arms around it and never have to be worried about anything in the world ever again.

You were sitting with your arms folded, head resting at an angle just on the ledge of the deck, watching the Prince make himself busy, but occasionally finding time to join in in games and songs that most of the other ship men occupied their time with. You were honestly pushing your luck, as it would’ve only taken a particular angle and an eagle eye to see you at the corner of the deck. But your consciousness was well away and you didn’t care. You watched his hair dance in the wind and his eyes in the moonlight and thought of nothing else. You broke out of your trance for a moment to reiterate a conclusion to yourself, how could father think he was evil?

A rumble gently glided across the skies. And then two in succession. You were still in a daze, but you sensed Sungho in the corner of your eye turn to the clouds behind him. His face was one of pre-emptive concern, but not fear. He gripped tightly onto a large rolled-up scroll, which after another, now ear-shattering rumble, was long lost to the winds and the seas. You broke your gaze to look in the direction that Sungho now quivered at, even drawing the attention of the Prince. 

A storm.

Immediately and out of nowhere, thick and deadly. The thunder was almost visible and it moved with an almost life-like malice. Like it had a mind and a vengeance. Like the men spearhunting dolphins, but so much worse. Humankind was pawns in a game, bugs to be squished, by a storm like this.

Your heart hit your stomach like a dead bird falling from the sky. Your eyes moved across the seas which were picking up at an uncontrollable rate, violently smashing and shaking the already aged hull. The ceremony. 29th and March. How could you have been so foolish. 

You glanced to the Prince one last time, wanting to capture him in your memory forever like a locket, before diving back to the sea. Jerry was nowhere to be seen. The storm was now well overhead, and the men on the ship were running circles round the deck tying things down and taking different positions. You scanned the ship in fear as best you could from your position, as if you had created an inseparable bond with it in the short period you were on it.

There was a final event of the ceremony that father handled in private. It was unspoken but even the deepest jellyfish and bacteria could feel it ricocheting throughout their full bodies when it happened. At the same exact time every solar rotation.

—

First was the yells. Not initially in fear, but it didn’t take long. Orders, and countless of them. To do this and that and any number of things you had no idea what they were. There were so many you were almost convinced that a small crew couldn’t handle them all. And the ship started to look that way. It swayed dangerously from side to side, pushed around by the waves like 2 bullies and a child. The once large and majestic ship started to seem fragile, and you realised how reliant it was on the seas as a safety net. And now that net was tangled and ripping at the seams. You flailed in agitation. There was nothing you could do. You wouldn’t reach your father in time, and even if you got past the guards at a time like this… well. 

Of all voices, Felix’s boomed well above. In actuality, you weren’t far from the ship and kept a safe distance, although you couldn’t exactly remember following it. He shouted orders to everyone on the ship, but was still doing most of the work. In a hurried jump and swing, he almost teleported to the wheel, dragging it hopelessly against the high crashing fury of the waves. His sincerity in itself would’ve almost given you hope, if the next wave didn’t slam the ship directly into a group of rock, killing it outright.

The ship bobbed in the water like a hunted animal making its last twitches. But the movements were still jolting and violent, and the men started to pile onto the smaller ship where you had been sitting not even that long ago. You scanned and prayed for the sight of a white shirt and soaked blonde locks. But the Prince must’ve insisted that it was his ship, and he was last to depart. You waited, bobbing in the water yourself, with an impatience so strong you almost considered swimming over and screaming at him at least 3 times. The men, then Sungho. He held out a hand for the Prince who now arose from wreckage of wood and steel. It had only crashed moments ago, but between the beating and cruel rain and the wrath of the waves, planks of wood were already flying off at different jagged and sharp angles, creating a razor cliff. 

A pause in his footsteps. And a decided and determined turn of his head, before he began to run back. You couldn’t hear the yells of Sungho over your own snarl of exasperation. Lightning crashed within sight into the sea, sending another wave that tortured the ship with a dying plea of mercy. He had no time left. His dedication to his life and his men had rendered him alone. You inched closer, now on the other side of the rocks from where the ship had crashed, swaying in the waves which were peppered with wood, fabric and copious broken objects already. You were dangerously close to being seen now, and if Caspian saw you here you knew he’d have a panic attack and then a heart attack and then probably resurrect himself to shout at you. But you had some level of confidence that they were all so panicked and distracted they wouldn’t see you. The level wasn’t high but it was good enough.

Both masts had collapsed before you finally saw him trudging across the broken deck, brown fluff ball in his arms. Your stomach turned from a pang of relief to an overwhelming fear and distress again. He’d gone back for Brownie. He stumbled at the edge of the deck and steadied himself, fluff ball in arms, his face fearful but tail wagging. Sungho pleaded like a beggar for the Prince to reach out his hand. The Prince raised his distraught and rain-attacked face before a flash.

—

The sound blasted through the men’s ears and yours too. You shrouded your face from the bright and painful light injected instantly into your sight, but you looked back as quickly as you could. The flames were already high. And growing. Lightning had struck the ship. And now flames danced around the deck and the sad remnants of the masts in a mock, dancing on the dead grave of a human-build. The shock had sent your ears ringing, but it was far more violent for the men. Wood flew off like bullets in every direction and Sungho fell back hopelessly. The smaller boat was now detaching itself from its position next to the main ship, despite the endless screams and efforts of the men to defy the anger of nature. Right now, the only hatred, war and malice you could think of was the sea.

You shifted your eyes faster than any of the lightning to the ship, then back to the men, then back to the ship again. Felix. He was still staggering on the deck. In no control of his legs and his whole being at the whim of the ghostly winds. You snapped your tail before you were sure your brain had even seen him.

—

You didn’t care. Something within you possessed your mind. Caspian could reprimand you until your death. Jerry could moan at you until your hair turned grey and your scales started to fade. Hell, your father could banish you or worse. You didn’t care about anything. Your conscious reasoning had long left your head, and you darted toward the ship dodging through the rubble sinking in the ocean. The atom of your brain left was entirely locked onto finding the Prince. It was almost like your father knew, the waves still stirring a current that took some considerable effort to move against. Like a final drag and a demand to be uninvolved in humankind. But that last call was long past. You could hear your mother’s song ringing in your ears. The kindness of humanity was her legacy and you wouldn’t let it die in a misguided and jaded attempt at destruction.

You didn’t even have to resurface to see him. A body with a clinging white shirt and angelic golden locks plunged in front of you. Either he’d been flung far off the ship or you’d caught up to him at a speed you didn’t think you’d be able to reach. You moved to carry him in a delicate but firm hold, not much different from how he carried Brownie, who you thought had been thrown onto Sungho in a dying effort, but between the rain and the flash, you couldn’t be sure. You looked down onto his face for any signs of life. His eyes were closed but mouth open, breathing in faint whispers that you thought humans were unlikely to sense. His face was even more beautiful up close. He had an innocence in his visage that was indescribable, his skin perfect and features round and complete. You shook your head to focus on the reality. You could look at him later. His life, and so much more, was at the mercy of your arms right now. You began to swim in a desperate drag of the most powerful tail beats you could muster. You kept his face just above the surface, and edged in the general direction of the closest land.

Chapter Text

Dawn was peaking above the horizon before you reached land. You hadn’t realised how far the closest island was, but you reasoned that father wouldn’t have built his palace within touching distance of humans. The swim had been arduous at the start, but the further you swam from the wreck and the greater time passed, the more the seas began to cool. It was just a matter of keeping his face well above water. There were a couple occasions where it was impossible with the current, and a couple more where you flat out forgot humans needed oxygen. You apologised to him each time but you knew he couldn’t hear you. He was still stone cold out and hadn’t moved a muscle since the lightning strike.Your body ached. Mostly your arms from keeping such a built man afloat and above you. The waters were now calm, but it seemed like a ridicule. Like throwing rocks and hiding hands. 

For the first time ever, the sight of land was a relief. It ignited some forgotten and deep-stored energy in you and you made it to a humble and quiet cove in no time. On further inspection, it was only a stones throw away from the castle on the island, up some jagged stone stairs and across a crumbling coast path. But you had no choice. It wouldn’t be a long retreat even if you were found and you just needed to get him onto some sand.

You soon made it to shallow waters, looking around in attentive fear that anyone was close by hiding in a cave or behind a rock. There was no one, thank god. You hauled his body along the sand so he was well out of reach of the tides, and laid beside him. He was intensely beautiful. The sun captured and illuminated his best features in a way you didn’t think was possible. His wet lips shimmered in the light and his freckles lit up like little stars themselves. The rise of the sun meant Caspian would probably be looking for you, calling round near your cave to see if anyone had seen you, and Jerry would be avoiding him at all costs. It wouldn’t be some time until he sensitively informed your father that you couldn’t be found. He was mostly on your side even though his allegiance was technically with your father and not you at all. You thought you’d make up some excuse as normal and it’d be shit, but not irregular. Good enough for you.

You gave a gentle shake to his arm. No response. You were leant over his torso with your forearms on the sand either side of him. You got a little closer praying for a response. You gave him another shake, this time with a slight panic. Still nothing. You gave a defeated sigh. It had been an entire night and you were starting to get worried. You probably could’ve been worried some time ago but your brain was preoccupied with survival. And now you got here, your brain had properly gauged the situation. He was barely breathing, and had been since you’d found him.

There was only one thing left in your quiver. And you were told to never use it. But at this point, what was really off limits? You’d already saved a human being and periodically been on one of their ships. You doubt you could be punished more even if you used it. So you gave a sigh, pointlessly asking your father for forgiveness in your head, and started to sing.

You started as quietly as you could whilst still making an effect, still nervous of a potential human presence at any point. But as you began to panic more and the song built, you were soon at full voice. You weren’t supposed to know about this as some strange power you had over humans, but you’d heard one too many conversations between palace walls and behind doors. You always had an idea that it could affect humans in some way, and young female mermaids were always told to use it in the disastrous scenario that they came in contact with a human, but none of you knew what it would do. That was until after your mother died, and you became far more isolated. And isolated in your father’s kingdom meant becoming sneaky. After probing Caspian about it for longer than you could remember, he finally blurted it out. The singing voice of female mermaids could either entrance or resurrect human men. Either bring them back from unconsciousness or dangle them from your finger tips for a short time. The power marked the relationship between your two worlds, and was half the reason why humans were apprehensive of mermaids in the first place. He’d made you promise never to use it or tell anyone, but at this point you weren’t thinking about that, and you were just hoping he wasn’t more than just unconscious…

After the first 8 notes, you sensed a shift in his face. A flick or something. But you tried to ignore it, pushing the thought to the back of your mind that it could well have been your imagination. But as your voice rounded top notes, his eyelids began to flutter far more visibility now. Thank god it was just unconsciousness. Your heart leapt in relief that your efforts hadn’t been for nothing and this man you already had so much curious adoration for was still living. You continued for a couple more notes to round off the song entirely. His eyelashes guarded much of his eyes so you doubted he could see much of you, especially after having been out of it for so long. But after a moment, you thought he was looking directly into your eyes. His vision probably blurry, but there was a focus in them nonetheless. You became a little nervous at the look, but you were still almost positive he couldn’t be too cognizant of what was happening so you didn’t mind. That was until a heavier, more purposeful and certain breath left his lips, followed by the attempt of a word.

“Are you–...”

His chest heaved in the effort. Fuck, he’d seen you. Your heart started to race and your mouth immediately turned dry. You shouldn’t have been so ambitious. You should have seen his eyes open and immediately retreated back to the waters, and it was from your own stupid infatuation that you hadn’t. Now you were on his land, and could easily be ambushed. You grasped at your chest in fear, as if physically touching your heart would calm you down, and started to back off of him. You had to crawl pathetically back to the tide before anything else could happen. But before you had even moved your tail, you felt his left hand loosely lock around your wrist. Your eyes widened at the feeling, turning to his face instantly. The lock wasn’t hard, and you could’ve easily broken free with a swift movement, but his face was… pleading?

“Stay…”

The end of the word was more of an exhale than a realised sound, as he seemed to put all the effort into the start of it. You sat, bewildered. If anyone had told you you’d be on a beach with a nearly dead human who was telling you to stay for support of all things you’d have probably told them to get lost. You didn’t want to leave him and felt like you couldn’t when he would’ve been so alone and fragile. But time was moving on and the sun was almost high in the sky, staring at you with a heat of admonishment, reminding you that you’d already stretched the time you had. At this point, Caspian would have almost certainly told your father you were nowhere to be seen. But the Prince’s fingers, as defeated as his grasp was, felt assured.

SIGHTING, BY THE COVE

Voices from the trail above the cliff.

QUICK MEN

A rally of guards followed each other with torches and guns in holsters. A few with spears, the sight of which launched a pang into your chest. They’d clearly seen something at the edge of the cove and were making their way down towards the stairs. Huge dogs followed them barking like they were hunting for something. Now was the time to go. You moved your left arm quickly backwards but your right arm slightly slower – an apology that you had to go. But his grip was practically nonexistent and the movement was easy. Thankfully the retreat to the sea was quicker than you had feared, and you reached past shallow waters, your tail flicking into action, before the men were even halfway down the stairs. But in a final poor and definitely forbidden decision, you decided to emerge from the water, hiding behind the tallest rock you could find just off the coast. Just to make sure.

The first dog that got to him was a brown fluff ball that you prayed was Brownie. You couldn’t have been 100% sure he’d made it onto the boat with Sungho, but as you saw him bound up to Felix and encompass his face in one huge lick, you were fairly sure it was him. You allowed yourself a moment of comfort at the sight, despite the fact you were still technically risking being caught. After Brownie’s first lick, his tail lost all energy, and he began to paw at the Prince’s face with his head turned down. The men soon joined the beach and knelt down to identify the prince. They emphatically waved torches in his face to check he was alive, which you thought was probably less than useless and could’ve even been dangerous. You gave them an eye roll but stopped yourself halfway, telling your own brain that you refused to believe you were already so protective over him. A few of the men shouted to each other that “the Prince had been found”, and immediately moved to take him to a “physician”. The largest of the men carried him over his shoulder, much to Brownie’s protest who jumped up still wanting to lick his delicate face. He seemed responsive but still so weak. But you knew he’d make it. His reflexes had come back pretty soon and that was the best of signs. But he was out of your hands now. As you looked on at the humans carrying him back up the stairs, unaware of what had just unfolded, you just begged for his safety and health. And for maybe in the uncertain and changeable future, for you to become part of his world.

Chapter Text

Sitting at home had never felt so mind numbing. And infuriating. You felt like you could feel the rock under you jabbing into your scales. You checked several times to see if you were bleeding. Even the water around you felt… confining. But you were really just impatient. Impatient to see him again in any capacity, and had been for the last 21 days.

You hadn’t dared going back to the surface since. A little because you’d definitely be stretching your luck at that point. You’d been shocked enough that you weren’t dragged to the palace by the sea guards, or even reprimanded by your father. No one knew and it was a complete miracle. But also because a nervousness sat in your stomach whenever you looked to the surface, the light periodically filtering from above. You had no idea if you’d ever see him again, even if you did return. What was the likelihood that he’d ever go back to that tiny cove anyways. Or that you’d be there at the same time, without being caught. Or even that he was… recovered. You shook your head at the horrid thought. He’d be just fine. And even if you did see each other, you were a mermaid and he was a human. You were taught from your births by your elders and leaders to fear and hate each other from your hearts and your guts. And even if, for the final time, he liked you even a little… would he really remember you?

You looked down the reef. You could see so much from your humble sea cave. Everyone had returned to their usual activities after the ceremony, but there was still much debris littering the seabed. The day you swam back it looked as if a whole new floor had been blanketed over the sand with the amount of sharp wood and rubble that had sunk. There were still fishes collecting them up to dump them in a trench. If not for a merciless killing spree, you had no idea why your father would knowingly create such an inconvenience for all his subjects. And as you sat at a royal council meeting a few days ago, zoning out and daydreaming about blonde angel hair and freckles, even he showed frustration at his own consequences. This happened every time and he never seemed to learn the real impacts of his incensed anger, or the danger and destruction he created from it. And this time, you felt it even more. When you were a young child, you would keep your mouth painfully shut, and go and sulk alone. Once you got a little older, you started to talk back under hush tones. But now, you felt words couldn’t get anyone anywhere. 

But a curiosity still ate at you, despite all of that as you looked to the surface once more. Despite the hopelessness of it all and the hopelessness of what could even be. The light still seemed welcoming, like an open-turned hand, but nevertheless unknown. You now knew full well that your father could not be turned,

so maybe you would have to turn without him. 

After all this time, you finally thought you started to understand mother’s poem, that you had become old enough finally. But in reality, that understanding itself was an enigma. If you were right, it was a man with a heart of sunshine and gold living far above you. A man who probably feared you and forgot about you. But…

He had to be your answer. To the poem and to something else that existed within you and etched at you everyday. You could feel it from your finger tips to your scales, and in every fibre. Something indescribable.

…

And so, without further thought, you took a deep and decided breath, that you had been building your entire life, and started to swim.

—

Finding the same cove again was astonishingly easy, like retracing a path you’d taken since birth. You didn’t know how you did it, but your tail just took you there without another thought. Raising your head above the surface, castle in the distance, felt… freeing. And final. But also the scariest thing you’d ever done. This wasn’t just a one time thing anymore, and certainly wasn’t a blip. This was you falling into a wholly different world. A world you had no idea about, that could chew you up and spit you out. You were ripping the fate that had been decided for you up entirely. But very few of these thoughts circulated your brain for very long. It was all because of him.

You reached the cove fairly quickly. The sun was high in the sky and beaming into the sea, making it sparkle in its final moments before it collided and crashed into the peaking rocks above the shore. Finding the same rock you’d peered over not that long ago felt like the call of an old friend. As you reached it you ran your fingertips over the edges, slowly pressing your hands into the crevices to push yourself onto it whilst peering all around you for any slight suggestions of life. You peered over the top of the rock and saw no one at the cove, to your luck. Sitting sprawled across the top, you felt like you could wait your entire life just there, looking at his life from a distance, just to see him once more.

“Aesterie”

A sorrowful voice interrupted your trance. Jerry looked at you from behind with a look you knew all too well.

“You know you shouldn’t be here Aesterie, what would your father say”

You had to accept that it stung a little. You gave him a sigh and looked to the distant castle to remind yourself.

“I know what he’d say Jerry”, you started, “and that’s why I’m here”

He opened his mouth to argue with you, but stopped halfway. He gave you a small knowing look and you shared a moment of silent understanding together.

“Just please be careful… for me”

You smiled in relief that he understood. Well, understood a little at least. You promised him you’d be safe and wouldn’t do anything rash. But realising you were sitting within reaching distance of the human world, you didn’t really know what rash meant anymore.

“You never knew who might…”, he continued, eyes darting around him, “... might be around… and will take any excuse to get at you”

His main concern seemed to be the seas behind you, which confused you slightly. You were already well aware and prepared for human dangers, but were there ones from your own kind too? You thought the worst case scenario was someone seeing you in the shadows and word getting back to your father, but was there really something worse?

“I feel like I’ve been seeing…”, but he shook his head and couldn’t finish the sentence. 

Whatever it was, you trusted Jerry. And anyways, all of your fathers seas had your back. You thought surely there was no one from the sea that was going to put you in any real danger for getting this close to humans. They’d have to dare to come this close themselves. 

You were back staring at the castle longingly before long, unconscious of how much time had passed, or the fact Jerry had long left you to ponder. You were basically there, but it still felt like a world out of reach. You still wanted to get closer, to see what really happened there. To see and touch so many of the things you had to keep locked away and hidden. But maybe your greed would never be satisfied anyway. 

A small rustle of grass echoed in your ears, which you passed off as just another brush of wind. You couldn’t believe how cold it was, and wondered how humans could deal with it and be so controlled by it all the time. But at the same time, you had to admit it felt liberating. The rustle grew louder and more consistent and your eyes made their way to the noise, searching for something in the distance. Your blurry vision could only see two figures. One far taller than the other. They seemed to be floating across the grass going no particular direction, and it wasn’t until it looked like they were edging closer to the cove that you considered ducking behind the rock. They seemed to be bounding around each other happily and you were almost entertained by their frivolity. Until they reached the old stone steps of the cove, and you realised it was a blonde Prince and a fluffy brown dog.

—

Your first feeling was regret. That you had come here at all. You started to look at yourself with pure confusion and disgust. What did you really think was going to happen? That he was going to immediately recognise you and take you bridal-style in his arms? A human and a mermaid as a couple? He bounded down the stairs with Brownie to the cove, a brown sphere in hand that he seemed to be teasing the dog with. You felt a little like you should just slide away back home, but he was here now. He was here and you made it. Despite your reflection and hesitation, you had to follow this through.

What following through looked like however, you didn't quite know. You cursed yourself in your head for not planning this better. At least what you'd say to him if you actually saw him. For now, you were just hidden behind the rock, stealing glances at them in the in-between moments like you’d immediately die if he caught you looking. Your heart pounded and your knuckles were pale with gripping onto the rock for security, but your brain was elsewhere. His hair flowed and danced in the wind that was all too cold for you. His smile lit up every time Brownie retrieved the ball from the long powerful throws the Prince launched into the air, all the way to the other side of the cove. He would give Brownie a generous hug every time he came back, and praised him in a high voice that made you almost physically swoon. You had let your guard down again.

Your nervousness grew slightly however, at every movement of them. They seemed to edge closer and closer to the sea, like it was entrancing them and they didn’t know it. Soon they were in shallow waters, and Felix had rolled up his beige trousers to better play with Brownie. He was wearing basically the same outfit you had first seen him in and you discarded the idea that humans had rotating clothes as a myth. He looked so angelic and handsome in the fitted shirt you thought you might fall off the rock in a daze. After three more throws in the shallow waters, he sat down, arms behind him, looking wistfully to the sea, which was just reaching his bare sanded feet. He was saying something to Brownie, who seemed to whine and rest on his lap for some time. You thought it must be something sad but couldn’t tell what exactly. You tried to focus on his words again, but were interrupted by the sight of Brownie, ears perked up and looking straight in your direction. You stayed still as stone, hoping he’d just seen a bird behind you or something, or that your lack of movement or breathing would make him think he was just imagining things. But a tilt of his head and his slow trot in the direction of your rock sent your heart to your stomach.

You couldn’t do anything. With the way Brownie started to bound towards your rock, tongue flying in the wind, you would have no time to slide away unnoticed. Not to mention you were taken by complete surprise by it all and your limbs had made the excellent decision to seize up in fear, locked like ice. Your heart pounded so hard you could hear it in your ears, just over the noise of Felix begging Brownie to come back, that there were no other friends of his in the ocean. But hiding behind the rock was only a short term gain. He had soon appeared at the side of the rock, paddling to get to you, and was playfully pawing at your face on top of you before you could even tell him to leave you alone. You thought you had to do something quick. Maybe if you got him off you fast enough the Prince would just think it was a crab or something and he wouldn’t get too close. On your back, you moved your arms up the rock away from him, needing and desperately trying to get into a more stable position so you could lift him off with your arms. Even in this dire situation, you couldn’t hate him and his adorable bright face. And he certainly didn’t hate you, as with every movement he climbed higher with you, licking your face now with large swings of his tongue and a beaming smile. Your hand slipped on an ocean-touched mound of the rock for a moment, but you retained your grip. This strategy was getting you nowhere, and you quickly saw how you’d climbed a whole tail-length away from your original position. You looked behind you to check how much time and distance you had before you had to stop and reverse, and before Felix would get to you.

But you were all out of time and space. Your luck had finally run out, and the Prince was staring dead at you, trousers rolled-up and wet, mouth agape.

— 

You froze again. You stared right back at him for way too long, before covering your face and uselessly ducking down. As if he couldn’t still see you. Though with no face to lick, and at the behest of the Prince’s more stern words, Brownie sat obediently next to your head, tail still wagging and occasionally pawing at the air. After way too long, you foolishly looked up. Your childlike thinking had kicked in and you’d deluded yourself into believing that there was a possibility that he’d just leave. Without a second thought, question or breath. 

But no.

He was now closer. Too close.

Palm out-turned and mouth still agape.

His other hand rested on the very rock you were laid shaking on. The out-turned hand seemed like a generous and forgiving gesture, but you could sense a hesitancy in it. You looked at it through your fingers in disbelief and it actually seemed to be shaking slightly. Like he’d be told by his elder he must overcome his fear of the strange creature. When he spoke, it was like a blast to your ears.

“Hey, it’s ok”

As if it was ever ok. As if the last 21 days, or any time since your mother’s passing had been ok. You almost huffed and mentally lectured him on the danger you had stupidly put yourself in for a human. He must have sensed your discomfort and flinching, as his next sentence was lighter and more sensitive, despite an unignorable concerned face at your tail in front you.

“Hey, I promise.”

He was promising?

“You’re clearly a friend of Brownie so you’re a friend of mine too, isn’t that right Brownie?”

He turned to the dog which was now within arms-reach and gave him a pat, the dog responding with a half giddy jump at the hand. Well at least he agreed. Enthusiastically at that.

You weren’t quite sure what happened but by the time you turned back, his face had turned to stone. Agape again but his plump lips were now a little closer, all the expression moving to his eyes. Which looked… concerned? Worried? Questioning? You had a moment of frustration that you couldn’t pin down his visage, but realised that it was probably a chaotic combination of them all swirling around in his brain. A length of silence passed between you, and it was long enough for you to self-reflect. That he really wasn’t dangerous. And he was really this kind and empathetic to everyone. And that your face was now in clear view of his.

Wait.

It must’ve happened when you turned to look at Brownie leaping up. Your hands were laid on the rock and not clawing to cover your face anymore. You stared at each other for another impossible amount of time. You thought 6 waves passed but you couldn’t be sure. There was no point recovering your face, you thought. It would’ve been just as futile and embarrassing as the first time you did so. 

But his expression softened, curiosity taking over. His brow soon unknotted and his eyes turned wide. There wasn't a warmth in his gaze, but there was something starting, like a match lit in the far end of a cave. He tilted his head before speaking.

“And you’re the girl”

—

The first thought in your brain was derision. Well done Aesterie, you’ve achieved your goal on your first fucking visit to the surface and now what? Should we call your father to arrange the wedding? But your self-loathing had to be put on hold. He was looking at you more kindly, as if you didn’t have a huge blue-green tail flapping, now in dying breaths from a lack of water behind you. Your own visage began to clear slightly. A string of air somehow made it through your lungs, past your throat and to the tip of your tongue.

“Yes”

You almost slapped your hand to your face in shock that you’d responded to him. It was only one word but you had spoken it. To a human at that. To the human you’d been thinking about for 21 fucking days. And to your surprise, which shouldn’t have been surprise as you were now engaged in conversation, he responded.

“I’ve been looking for you every day”, he started slowly but rambled on, face a little frustrated that his mouth couldn’t keep up, “coming to the cove with the stupid hope of…”

The smile that fluttered over his face put the sun to shame. It was only for an instant, as his face was still mostly an intersection of shock and curiosity at this being that had washed up on a rock. His hands etched up the rock as the smile took over his face, and he placed them only a few inches from yours. You studied them briefly, and how soft and shining they seemed in comparison to yours. Although that could just be a feature of humans, you thought, they were cute nevertheless. As he spoke to you more, his voice became far less jarring and screeching to your ears, and you began to appreciate its deep tone and hum. The way you were already enchanted by it you thought he must have been a merman in his past life.

“My name is–”

But that trance, like so many of yours before, was interrupted. 

By humans.

—

Your eyes scrambled to the cliffs in fear. The only human voice you wanted to ever hear was his, and not because you already loved its tone, but because any other voice meant immediate danger and being on the other end of a man’s spear. 

Two men on the north cliff.

They were just far enough away to not make out individuals, but close enough to you for you to see they were soldiers. With guns. You and the Prince immediately looked at each other, faces wide like you’d already been caught.

“I have to go”, you said in a hurried instant, already moving away. But you felt a familiar grip around your wrist before you could shift more than an arms length.

“Wait”, he said, almost contemplatively as he stared at the far end of the cliff behind you. You almost cursed at him for wasting your time as you sat in silence, every moment going to waste. 

But he was right to stop you. After more commotion and shouting, the figures were right at the edge of the cliff. And two more had arrived at the cliff end behind you.

Guns ready. 

Silence engulfed you both. You thought for a moment, looking into his huge doe eyes, that this was your punishment. But not your father’s punishment for interacting with humans, your mother’s. This was the malice she spoke about, the war and the hatred. You had been saved for a moment in his gaze and his out-turned kindness, and now your doom was due. Your chest tightened so hard you grasped at it, as it felt like your ribcage was regurgitating your heart through your throat.

You could just make out the shouts of the men,

LIFE IN SEA

PREPARE TO FIRE ON MOVEMENT AND MOVE IN

With the way the cove was curved, turning back to the sea would mean being shot at in shallow waters. You had been completely boxed in. You should have seen this coming. Men were unknown to you, and that meant their cunning evilness too.

PREPARE THE BOAT FROM THE REAR FOR PURSUIT

The original two men were now bolting towards the stone steps. Your eyes started spinning around you and your mind followed. There were men behind you, and soon to be more in a boat. You had been exiled from home. There were men making for the stairs, and even if you fled to land, that would be useless. They’d thought about everything. Every angle. Every microcosm. And it was a mastermind of cruelty. Your mind plunged into a depth. What would they do to you if they caught you? Torture you for information? Outright kill you as revenge to your father? They’d only have to dump your body in the middle of the sea afterwards and you’d eventually be found. But before you could consider another possibility, a physical sensation was being awoken.

You turned to Felix. He was shaking your hands and looking at you earnestly, but with a conviction and certainty that made you inherently trust every word. Even despite the fact you didn’t hear the first few as you were still drawing your mind out the chasm of fear. He was the only thing not wanting to kill.

“--orders after the shipwreck that any ocean life must be identified and killed”

You caught the gist of it. Humans being violent and cunningly so. You were going over the words in your brain again and again. Hoping that you’d land on a way out. Or something, anything. You became completely internally focused. The voices were more and louder, but it wasn’t those that broke you from your focus. It was the touch of a human on your tail. You jumped and opened your eyes, letting out a little squeal before silencing yourself at the sight. 

He was carrying you. 

In his arms. With a desperation and a decisiveness to get you out of these waters. His face was dedicated, and you would’ve thanked him at least once if you weren’t more concerned that a human, a man at that, was holding your tail. His touch was sensitive but that didn’t matter; if your father saw you now, you didn’t know who he’d kill first. Thankfully, your brain clocked back into the immediacy of your situation. The men were already near the stairs. They yelled at you to halt, and you were both fearful of their closeness and relieved by their tone, which suggested that they hadn't figured out your identity. Or his identity at least. You didn’t know how much more time you had before it was painfully obvious you had a tail and not two useless fleshy stumps. 

He finally made it to the shore, and could now sprint faster. His legs had been wading through the water at such a slow pace you considered leaping out of his arms and just flailing to shore. But the look on his face told you something else. And the intensity in his lower body. There was a desperation in his whole being. That he really wanted to get you out of this. And would do anything to stop you falling into the hands of them. He ran south towards the castle. You had a thought to protest his certainty, and your life entirely dependent on his arms. He was taking you to your almost certain death and at a pace at that. But his words blocked your thoughts.

“If we can get to the south stairs we’ve got a clear shot to the castle”, he breathed, “any guards on the way I should be able to just run past”

You took in his words in a frantic moment and realised how ridiculous they were. 

“And as I was saying, my name’s Felix”, he finished in a deep whisper, like all of this was just in your imagination and wasn’t really happening.

Well, you thought, you already fucking knew that. Your face scrunched up, and you almost yelled back at him.

“RUN??? You really think you can run past all guards back– “

A high and blasting whistle silenced your voice as he gazed hopefully to the cliffs above.

“Zelda”, he said, under his breath as a brown-spotted white animal appeared along the cliffs, galloping parallel. The whistle had got her attention, and the utterance of her name was more in relief. Whatever she was, she was outpacing the trailing guards with a ridicule that was almost laughable. It was then that you noticed Brownie, keeping up with Felix’s determined sprint to the southern stairs, and with a determined look himself, head down. The way Zelda and Brownie were moving you would’ve thought the Prince could telepathically tell them all the details of the situation. 

Despite their dedication, which you were more than grateful for, it was still ridiculous. And you were terrified. You began to shake in his arms, and even his comforting grip couldn’t stop you. Why did he believe this would work out? In what world was this going to end up remotely well for either of you? A fugitive on the run puts themself in so much more danger.

“But how are you even going to get me to the castle with, well I don’t know, my huge fucking tail”

You had reached Zelda, who met you with a friendly but hurried neigh halfway down the stairs. He placed you on top of her and your words finally sank in, his eyes widening halfway between fear and panic. After a moment, you saw him physically shake his thoughts off and move to Zelda’s saddle, unclipping a pocket in haste. You thought he was maybe still a little… apprehensive of your tail. It was as strange to him as legs were to you, that you honestly still weren’t used to. He took out some long black cloth, ripping it mercilessly into shreds in front of you on the ground. If you weren’t fearing for your life, and the closing-in guards still yelling at you to stop “in the name of the queen”, you would’ve probably fallen off of Zelda at the sight of his arms. His shirt rolled up to his shoulders, ripping the fabric made his veins pop and forefarms flex. Even his biceps groaned to burst out of his fitted shirt.

After some time, probably too much, he began to wrap your tail in the fabric.

“This’ll just have to do”, he said, shaking his head, almost in apology. Maybe he did care for your tail, even if it was still a little weird to him. He wrapped it delicately, flinching at any twitch it made in response.

He gave a final glance to the north. The guards were shouting but still just about far enough away. The guards in the boat had now arrived and were visible from your peripheral but now far below, and the gun-ready guards at the cliff's edge were only dots in the horizon. Men, so threatening, now specks. But your whole body trembled. In terror. You were being chased. By human men. With steel guns. And spears. That had killed your mother and ended the lives of so many others of your kind. An ancestral fear kicked in and filled your chest as you put your face in your hands. And not only that, you were being taken into the shark’s den. To the society of men, and their lair, the castle. Where those who lived to kill you resided. Where those who killed your mother, lived. You began to pant frantically as Zelda took off in a bolt, your whole body bobbing in the gallop like being caught in a sea storm. You were basically laid in his arms again, shrouded and shamefully hidden tail flying in the wind on the right of Zelda, your head cradled in his left elbow. You let out a small squeal, face still in hands. This was it. Your assured end. You’d gone to death’s door and been greeted with it. Now this was, certainly, your doom.

And your mother had warned you. You’d just been too blind to see it.

“Shh, its going to be ok”

You yelled back at him, the fear manifesting and booming through your lungs. It was not going to be ok. It wasn’t at the cove and it certainly wasn’t now. How could he be that stupid. Did he not know you were a fucking mermaid.

“I won’t let anyone lay a finger on you, I promise”

Another promise which he said in a more certain and slightly louder tone. It was mostly comforting, but an air of it suggested he was telling you. Not comforting you. You looked to his face through the gaps in your fingers in complete and absolute fear. Like a child in a shark's mouth looking at their parent.

“Please help me”

The phrase left your lips out of sheer instinct. Maybe. Just maybe. He was the only thing in this whole world that might, just might, keep your life safe. And he held it completely in his hands. He looked down at you with an assured face. More certain than in the shallow waters.

“I will protect you with everything I have”

And he led you along the path towards the castle.

Chapter Text

A painting of 3 fish, strung up on the wall.

Shelves made of wood, housing copious different shaped things.

An opening of light behind you.

You tried to recount everything in the room you’d been dumped in, but this was the 5th time, and there wasn’t anything else. You even considered trying to get up and go over to the shelves on the other side of the room to inspect all the different items.

He left you in a side room that joined onto his own. You’d only seen his room in passing, but this one looked derelict in comparison. The main feature of the room was a tub in the middle, called a “bath”, which he had placed you in, fetched some water, and soon left. He had business to attend to and needed to show his face to not raise suspicion about a highly reported and fast life form at the cove. You were more than grateful that he had somehow gotten you past the guards, the gates, and even some of the workers at the castle. You also had absolutely no idea how he’d managed to calm you down. Not even your own father could do that. And you were grateful for his hospitality, despite the fact that your fins slipped and flipped out the tub so much you decided to just leave them hanging out.

He’d been gone for quite some time now, and your counting games were old. You wished you were counting for boredom, but you were counting to keep your mind distracted. When he shut the door to his room the first time, you noted that you could hear a gentle click and would be immediately alerted if someone entered. But there were no guards or barriers between anyone… entering his room and the room you were in right now. And with him god knows anywhere in the castle, you were a sitting duck. Or mermaid. You physically shook your head at the thought that you were already this reliant on a man. Oh if your father could see you now.

You decided you needed to move. Somewhere, anywhere. Each moment increased exponentially in anxious intensity, accompanied with a weight bearing down on your chest. For some reason your brain believed that every moment he wasn’t here it was more and more likely some cruel sailor would walk in and find you. And do who knows what. You hoped just shifting your limbs would push that thought a little further to the back of your mind. You shifted in the restrictive tub, your tail flailing side to side in discomfort and protest. You gave it a reprimanding look like it was a child with a mind of its own. You slowly lifted yourself out of the shallow water onto your hands, heading for the wooden shelves. For a moment you thought it was so useless having wooden shelves, but then you realised they wouldn’t rot and you were out of water, in the human world. Well done, you got yourself here. You positioned yourself balancing on the curve of the tub nearest the door. Maybe it was more risky, but with the size of yourself compared to the room, anyone entering would see you immediately regardless of where you were. You began to reach for a sponge-looking object on the middle shelf as you heard that slight click you forced yourself to memorise. Your hand flinched in fear immediately, but your body knew better than to move or god-forbid, fall.

“Working collaboratively with our neighbours is the best way to go about this Sungho, I don’t understand what she doesn’t understand about that”

The voices were muffled but still fully intelligible. After all, the door wasn’t exactly thick, and you could make out gaps all around it. Light sneaked through them in a threat. 

“I know Sire, but please you have to realise you almost lost your life at sea”

A moment of silence swept over the room next door. It seemed like a conversation just between the Prince and Sungho, as the door had shut some time ago.

“You can't just be gallivanting across the seas in this condition”, he continued expressively.

“The sea gods have it in for us… we need to be more cautious than ever and that’s why your mother doubled the coastal guards as you well know”

He seemed to be lecturing the Prince now. But conversely the Prince was probably giving him an uninterested and tired look. You’d both become more than frustrated having to flee and pass at least 8 sets of guards to get into the first gates of the city. You knew for certain if you weren’t rescued by a Prince you’d probably be strung up by now like the fish on the painting on the wall opposite you.

“There’s no need for this Sungho… it just makes people more tense and divides us… she doesn’t even know…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, but you felt a little defended, so there was at least that. Even if his voice almost faded away completely as he became quieter near the end. He probably didn’t even want Sungho to hear the last part. There was a moment of indiscernible silence where you had no clue what either of them were doing.

“You have a lot of orders and paperwork to be getting to, I’ll leave you to think about it”

Nothing else was said between them as the door clicked twice more. You thought that they’d probably reached an impasse and the room filled to the roofs with tension. You took a moment to feel a little bad for him. He had all this space in the castle and all this power as a Prince, but his own aide was talking him down. He’d be shut down at any opportunity, and if your assumptions were right, he didn’t even feel confident enough to speak his own mind in the privacy of his room. Well, you thought to yourself, maybe humans and sea creatures weren’t so different afterall.

An unexpected click came from your own door, and reality hit you right in the middle of the forehead. You were somehow still miraculously balanced on the edge of the tub, arm still half-reached out. You were impressed your body had become so still, but this wasn’t the most ideal position to be in to say the least. The Prince twisted the doorknob to signal his entrance but paused out of politeness. Though that politeness was futile, as it just gave you more time to overthink and panic, and by the time the door was open, you were falling off the end of the tub toward the shelves.

You clamped your eyes shut, waiting for imminent impact and assured embarrassment after, as you laid shamefully on a human’s floor unable to get up. But your eyes opened early in shock, as warm muscular arms caught your rocketing torso.

“Woah there we don’t want you hurting yourself and the room”

He said it so casually it pissed you off a little. He’d only had to take one step to catch you in both of his arms and lift you back into the tub.

“Thanks”, you said, in embarrassment as your tail was displaced and unconsciously flicked towards him, almost taking him out in one swipe

“Oh my god I’m so sorry”, you said quickly. But he said it was fine and shut the door behind him.

Maybe you were stuck in one place. And moving anywhere else would mean throwing yourself into the jaws of humans to be chewed up and spat out. And when you returned home, maybe you’d be completely banished and exiled from your father’s court for the rest of your life. But at least now, in this room, there was a fraction of comfort and safety. 

—

“Was there something you were looking at up here?”, he said, jumping up and walking over to the shelves.

You’d been talking about the tub and whether you were comfortable until now. He was sincere and earnest and you didn’t know whether to respond in that way. It should’ve been fucking obvious since the cove that you weren’t comfortable. You were a fish out of water. But every time you turned to him, he looked into your eyes with genuine care. Eyes that you’d not seen since your mother, and a frown that it’d be difficult for even you to refuse. You just gave him a forced smile each time. 

“Yeah I mean I was just curious”, you replied, closing your arms and lying about your fascination with human things, “... we don’t have stuff like that back home”

You didn’t know why you were acting high and mighty. This was the perfect time to get all your questions answered. But you didn’t want to be that vulnerable yet. You’d spent your whole adult life hiding your interest, you weren’t about to ease up that easily to a stranger. Even if he was so inviting. Anyways, you thought to yourself, didn’t he have Princely duties to be getting on with that aren’t entertaining a trapped mermaid. None of that must have crossed his mind as he mindlessly looked up and down the shelves.

“Well some of this stuff is really boring”, he contemplated out loud. You highly doubted that but it probably was boring to him

“This is cool actually”, he said, plucking a glass ornament off the top shelf and blowing a little dust off of it. He bounded back over to you in a childish excitement that made your heart warm.

“It’s made of crystal glass forged in the caves further inland”, he twirled the item resembling a seahorse in his hand, “there’s only this one in circulation”

Your hands jumped at the opportunity to touch it a little too eagerly, but he handed it over enthusiastically with a smile. It was so much shinier and clearer than anything you had in your sea cave. You rotated it in the light that shone in from behind you and it lit up, yellows and greens dancing around in the glass.

“You have caves too”, you said, finally breaking focus to look at him and his returned warm gaze.

“Yeah they’re not full of water though”

“Go figure”

He laughed, and you were a little unsure whether he hadn’t detected your sarcasm or just chose to ignore it. He seemed to take joy in watching you fawn over the seemingly meaningless items he plucked off the shelves. After a moment of silence between you, he jumped up to retrieve more things. Some were from the ocean and some weren’t, but only a few of them you recognised. Crusted sponges, shells from the sea and trinkets from his past. Some were old from when he was a child but they still glimmered in gold. So many of them had contraptions or opened to show smaller things that popped with colour. He placed some of them delicately in your hand and you held them like a newborn. If you’d been less obsessed with all this new information, that you tried your best to recite and retain, you may have noticed the way he looked at you. With a shine in his eye and a bright smile drawn over his face.

You felt like you sat there for no time at all, but you’d been talking to him about at least 12 useless dusty things. So really, a considerable amount of time must have really passed. He went to place the last time back on the shelf and you repositioned yourself with your arms, your tail getting a little sore – another sign of the time. Your tail gave a flicker of life but only an inch. Like it was a dead animal making its last twitches. He turned around to identify the noise, but his face turned entirely neutral at the sight. Or maybe you sensed an uneasiness in the top half of his face. As he returned to his stool beside you, you spoke quietly.

“It’s not as scary as you think you know”

He stopped completely still, mouth a little agape and now looking directly at your tail, which was definitely out of place. He inhaled sharply and twitched his head with an expression you’d never seen anyone pull before. Maybe it was what humans did when they were dead terrified but didn’t want to tell anyone.

“No”, he denied, “its just new to me”. He was a little quieter now, and you thought you could sense a tinge of embarrassment in his eyes.

But to your surprise, it didn’t take long before he tilted his head, a curiosity starting in his eyes. You tried to keep your tail as still as possible in the restrictive tub, like training a pet, and that look slowly took over his whole face. He was really so beautiful, unlike anything you’d ever seen before. Your mind was entirely encompassed by your vision of him like you’d left your body and weren’t in any danger anymore. Like the only thing that existed was his swept back golden locks and his shining freckle-marked cheeks. You could barely believe your own words as they left your lips.

“You can touch it if you want”

You did mean it though. The idea of a man touching your tail was insane, and it’d been drilled into you since birth. That your tail was your superpower and no man could take that away or even dream to compete with the power that it held. Even your mother had said much of this. But he was different. His gaze held a different feel from that of men. He had already shared so much about his own world to you. He wasn’t about cruelty and conquering, he was warmth and comfort. Love and acceptance. Despite that, he did look more than a little apprehensive, his attention flicking to your face almost in confusion. You gave him a sympathetic grin and reached for his hand, taking it to gently guide it across the darker blue scales further up the tail. His hand held no resistance, but a small amount of hesitation, which was vanquished after a couple strokes as he leaned into the movement. You turned to his face, which was filling in adoration and fascination. But there was a little redness that filled his cheeks too, and warmed his ears. He seemed half transfixed on the scales, but also distracted by your hand, which cupped his own gently. You weren’t sure whether to change your hold or something, as he tucked his hair behind his left ear and swallowed. His hand shifted a little in your hand to get more comfortable,  but without any hesitancy to your tail or your grip. If anything, it was relaxing into your touch. You hated yourself for noticing such small things about him, you could basically see the atoms shift on his skin. 

As you turned back to his hand you were distracted from your self-loathing. A glimmer in your line of sight that almost blinded you, there was something strapped to his wrist. You couldn’t believe you hadn’t noticed it before, but it shone with every movement of his hand like it was bursting with its own light source. You paused and raised his hand closer to your face, turning to him after a giggle left his lips.

“What’s this”, you said casually

“Ah”, he said, still chuckling into his other hand with a little more confidence, “its a bracelet, people just wear them as accessories”

You took a closer look as he brought it closer, moving his wrist in between your faces which were now turned entirely to each other’s. 

“I actually got it from my mother who got it from her father”

You could see his face over his wrist look at it with a look of long-lasting love. Like the bracelet could tell 1000 stories about the Prince and he could do the same back. For a moment a thought flew through your mind that you wished he’d turn that gaze to you. You blinked the thought away as an outrageous and intrusive thought, but by the time you’d stopped, he’d lowered his wrist slightly, face in full view.

And looking right at you, now only a few inches away.

His eyes were a deep brown oasis as they stared into yours, and you lost any thought of what you were doing instantly. His brow was slightly furrowed and you just wanted to hold him. A few stands of gold fell over his face lazily, but his cheeks were full and lips shimmered in the weak light. They were bright red, plump and shaped like a heart. His voice echoed in the background of your ears.

“Its something I keep with me all the time”

He was speaking slower and quieter, and you were confused why before realising. You thought your faces were inching closer together. It was sort of too slow to tell, but comparing it to how you were before there was definitely a difference. Your face was full of innocence as it stared back and revelled in his gaze. You felt a breath of his graze over your nose, before you both blinked and it was broken. The whole picture. He shook his head and flinched back a little. Consciousness hit you like a truck, and you just sat there silently. How much time had passed? You tried to recite the last few moments in your brain but it was all a blur. All you knew was it was long enough to reposition your body over the tub towards him, where you still leant despite your flinching in response to his head shake.

Silence glazed over the room. The sound was an echo of the early conversation between him and Sungho. But this time it was caused by a close look. One that you lost yourself in, not one of disagreement. A different type of intensity. You shifted off the ledge and positioned yourself back in the ridiculously sized tub with a small splash of water.

“Here”, he said, fiddling with his wrist and shaking his head once again with his eyes shut tight, “take this”

His soft contoured hand held the bracelet in a pretty clump. 

“I can’t take this from you”, you said quietly, not wanting to meet his eyes again from fear of a repeat.

“Don’t be silly”, he said, a smile making an appearance to light his face again, as he reached for your wrist with a delicate but decided touch. Sure but considerate seemed to be his entire approach since the cove, and you couldn’t deny it filled something in your heart.

“But I have nothing to give you”, you said rubbing the chain for its peculiar feel

He denied your protest instantly in another cute head shake, “you’ve–...”

But he didn’t carry on. His face fell again as it looked into yours, although this time neither of you were edging closer. He gave a smile restrained by a tightness in his cheeks and looked down. The silence was back, but you were too concerned with his mix of emotions and confusing actions to be embarrassed in it. He looked like he wanted to say something but was banned from doing it. For a moment you wanted him to just come out with it, but you soon reflected on how that would be throwing yourself into yet another unknown. You just sat in silence with him. After a longer time, his voice broke the veil.

“We should get you back tonight”

“Right”, you responded decidedly, needing to refocus on the actual reason you were here. He got up and strode across the room.

“The guards have a rotation that I snuck out of the council meeting, so we should be able to dodge between them if we leave in the darkness of night, maybe with a cloak or two”, he said the last part tilting his head with an unfortunate look plastered over his face.

“Though there’s a lot more since the shipwreck. Doubled. So it's a 50/50 chance we’ll get chased at some point”

He looked at the light filtering in from behind you, almost for a response for when it would turn dark. His curiosity and his sneakiness toward the council. He was scarily like you.

You looked to your tail, feeling like you couldn’t look at him.

“Sorry”, the word leaving your lips in a hoarse breath, meant but mortified. His face turned to yours, and you could only see his empathetic expression through your peripheral.

“Hey”, he said, getting closer so you’d have to focus on his face, “it’s not your fault I know it’s not”

“No but it is my father’s”, you responded, frustrated at your own futility in stopping his violence.

The Prince hesitated, and you couldn’t blame him. His life was almost taken because of him, and you realised this was the first time you’d mentioned you were a mermaid princess. You stared at your tail, head hanging low. If he left you and slammed the door, you wouldn’t blame him at all. In fact, a part of you prayed for it. He waited a moment and you thought you heard a sigh before he continued.

“Well”, he perked up happily, surprising you enough to reach his gaze again, “Princess…”

He said that with a care and respect that melted you. With a warmth that smothered his voice. Without any sense of mocking or jibing.

“I guess neither of us are our parents”

He tilted his head and your brow unknotted at the sight. You grinned at each other in confidence.

“Ok, sounds like a plan”, you responded, fixing a determined look ahead of you, staring at nothing and mentally preparing for the powerless night ahead. You’d told yourself you had to be at least a little stronger than this morning.

He gave you a smile and a giggle, tilting his head again. You were glad to see that look hadn’t left his face forever. 

—

The cloak he wrapped your tail in was larger and more comfortable. “Velvet”. But being out of salt water this long, your tail didn’t care if it was made of gold and he rolled it out with a smile to shatter 1000 hearts. It groaned and flinched for the sea like it had been stranded in the desert this whole time. Though he was more confident this time, apologising with each wrap. He’d moved from fearful apprehension to heartfelt appreciation and it hadn’t taken him much time at all. He wrapped himself in a dark encompassing cloak himself, his face barely visible from the hood as he swept you in his arms, adjusting for the best grip.

“You wait here Brownie, I promise we’ll be fine without you”, he reassured

You gave Brownie a final ruffle in Felix’s arms as he jumped up and nuzzled your fist, eventually sitting obediently in the doorway and whining from being left out.

“Ok, here we go”, the Prince said, looking straight through the door.

“Right”

Brownie’s head tilted and he gave another whine as the door closed behind you.

—

The way out of the castle was easy enough. It only took the Prince moving in the shadows and pausing to look behind corners to get you to the stables. Afterall, it was the middle of the night, and no one was awake in the castle anyways. Felix greeted Zelda with a whispered but kind and warm tone, and you wondered how even in this situation, he could be so lovely. Like he never cared for his own safety at all, and only others. Zelda neighed at you in greeting.

Zelda started like lightning, and all of a sudden everything got more serious. You flew through the town and the lower houses in a flash, thankfully passing no guards. He had timed this perfectly, though even if there were guards, you wondered if they’d even be able to keep you in their sight for more than a moment. You were soon past the last gates, where you had to pass some guards. You scrunched your face up and hoped for the best, your fate in the hands of a man and the speed he could reach.

“Don’t worry”, he said. Again. 

“I won’t let anything happen to you. I promised remember?”

You did remember. And you kind of wish you didn’t. It’d been the only positive thing circulating your mind all day. That he had you. And the way you felt about it. Because if you thought about it for too long, you’d look to his face. Now determined and focused, but still beautiful and angelic. And you’d realise how you were already feeling way too many things about him.

Zelda bust through the archway to the sound of panicked and shouting guards. You were long in the distance of the castle, becoming increasingly miniscule like a dot in the distance, before they could even find a horse to chase after you. Two figures in dark cloaks leaving the castle at this time would almost certainly cause enough suspicion to warrant a chase, or at least that’s what the Prince thought. Particularly at a time like this with the scars of the shipwreck so fresh on the skin of humankind. 

But the cove was soon in sight, and it looked like nothing could stop you.

“We’re almost there, just hang in there”

Zelda hugged the cliff line and you gazed longingly at the glistening sea in the moonlight. Your tail almost flew off Zelda at the sight of it. Soon you’d be back home. Back in control. It wasn’t long now.

But at the same time… it wasn’t long now. You’d have to think of an incredible backstory and range of excuses for Caspian and your father, supposing Jerry hadn’t gotten scared and already told them. Back into the shark’s den, but this time, the one that you knew all too well.

Zelda halted immediately as the Prince pulled her to a stop by the steps down to the cove, which were now silenced in the dark. You thanked Zelda for not making too much of a fuss over you, but your gratitude was cut short.

By the distant sight of torches. Armour and swords. Steel.

HALT

But the Prince had no intention of doing that. He gripped you in his arms as if giving you up would mean giving up himself. And ran. Bolting down the steps 2 and 3 at a time, you were honestly a little scared for your life. But not as scared as when you looked behind you, and saw 2 figures getting increasingly closer and closer. They soon reached the stairs. You bolted your eyes shut, unable to look even if you wanted. The sounds of the soldier’s demands fought hand-in-hand combat with the clatter of the Prince’s shoes on the cold stone steps. He was so selfless, and this was all for you. Nothing in the ocean had shown you this much dedication, and he was a fucking human. The people who were dangerous and scary. Ridiculous. 

“I’m gonna drop you round the left corner and run across the short beach”, he said, panting but trying not to let it show, “I should hopefully lose them in the cover of the night”

You had no idea the punishment his mother would give for colluding with a mermaid, but you imagined it was at least similar to yours. Especially with how hostile your worlds were to each other. And how Sungho spoke of the Queen’s demands earlier… you didn’t want to think about what would happen if he was caught. The context you had learned didn’t make the fear of the unknown one bit easier.

You finally reached the cove. You dared to glance back at the soldiers, who were trepidly making their way down the darkened stairs. They seemed pathetic in comparison to him. He waded knee-deep in the high tides to ease you into the water, and he didn’t seem to care about being wet, but you basically jumped in out of his arms. He gave a cute squeal in surprise that you would have laughed at if it weren’t for the circumstances. You immediately turned back to him, noticing his floating cloak and dark trousers. Wait. 

“Wait”, you realised, “you can’t go back in those clothes”, you followed, panicked as the thought developed in your brain, “what if someone sees the water and questions you”

“It doesn’t matter”, he replied almost instinctively, like the whole thing wasn’t a damning accident.

“But–”

“I couldn’t just let you go”, he said with a more certain tone that silenced your concern. You looked up to his face, which showed both a hope and a loss. He’d returned you safely, but he looked like he didn’t want to leave either.

“Thank you so much for all of this”, you started after taking in the look that was plastered over his face. You didn’t really know how to properly thank him 

“You have saved my life and shown me the kindness of humanity”

You wanted to say so much more. But now wasn’t the time. You had to get back… but you felt it too. You wanted to never leave. Bitter-sweet didn’t even begin to describe it. Like being wrenched from your home to return to normality and safety. But your brain soon kicked in. What could even come of it anyways. It was a useless and futile endeavour. A mermaid and a human, it wasn’t fated. You had to leave without a longing, even if it ripped at your heart. The last day had shown you what your dream was in reality. A bath tub. You had to turn without regret. To leave what wasn’t destined. 

“Wait”, he said, touching your wrist as you turned away, “please… I don’t even know your name”

The soft and slightly damp fingers touched your skin and something within you exploded at the sound of his careful voice. Like you were already something so precious to him. Fuck it. Fuck it all. The laws of nature and fate would have to fucking deal with it.

Without another thought, you turned back to him. Your tail did you one last favour and propelled you up and you placed your hands on his shoulders, making him just above eye level. With your forearms resting on his built chest, your faces were only inches away.

“My name is Aesterie, Prince Felix”

He took a breath before responding.

“Will I ever see you again, Princess Aesterie?”

You looked down, as if to consider. But the reality part of your brain kicked the logic part of your brain in one fell swoop. You knew the truth of the matter. You’d spent 21 days contemplating it after your moment’s interaction at the shipwreck and the cove. And now you actually knew the guy. It was so hopeless for you, 

And you lived for it. 

You chuckled a little and looked up with a tilted head to give your response. The soldiers' voices faded as your eyes met. And his face was closer. You could see every detail of how he looked at you, even in this light, and it told you everything that he was thinking too. Fuck it, right? After one more heart beat, 

His lips kissed yours.

His kiss felt meaningful in a way you’d never be able to describe. Like you’d both certainly get caught and executed immediately on returning home and this was your last fling and rebellion against your parents. His lips were warm and inviting but his tongue strokes were passionate. Like he was dead without it.

As you broke apart from the sounds of the guards, you already wished it was longer. A part of you just wished he’d turn around and drown the guards so you could have even just one more moment before the end of it all. But the voices rose again, and you saw the fear-striking sight of the torches round the corner of the cove. You had to go. And you had to go several moments ago.

“I promise I will be back, meet me here after two more sunsets, at dusk”, you whispered to him, your faces still close and noses swanning together.

“I promise I will be here”, he said, gently tucking some hair behind your ear. A stupid effort as it would soon be floating directionless in the ocean, but the affectionate gesture almost made you collapse.

“I’ll never leave you”

“I will come back to you”

The words felt like pledges cast in blood and iron. They felt like they couldn’t even be broken by fate itself. No force in any world would be strong enough.

You shared one last kiss in a spark of a moment before retreating to the ocean. You swam with some haste to get into deeper and safer waters, but immediately reared your head to check he was safe. You could see barely anything and your heart sank for a moment, but then the distant flap of a cape and gallop of a horse, illuminated in the full moon, gave you all you needed to know. You felt warm again, like nothing could ever extinguish your flame.

As you swam back to your cave, there was one thought in your brain. Felix. For you, it didn’t matter who said what or did what. You had found home. And it was with a man in a whole different world from yours. And you’d give up everything you had to be with him.

Chapter Text

It was the following morning.

And actually, you’d never felt happier.

“Oh Jerry you should’ve seen him”

You’d been pacing your sea cave in excitement and giddiness the entire morning, and even the butter-wouldn’t-melt Jerry looked at you like you were crazy and started to give sarcastic yawns.

“The way he smiled at me, the tone of his voice, the way he treated everyone around him, UGH”

You flopped over a small rock at the other side of your sea cave in exhaustion. 2 sunrises couldn’t pass quicker. To be reunited and see his face again. Be held in his warm arms and talk about everything and nothing at once. To be able to just sit with him and stare into his eyes. To see your sunshine again.

“Aesterie, he’s literally a human”

“Oh who cares Jerry”, you said, turning to face him like it was the most obvious thing ever.

“I love him”

He initially gave you a look of confusion and frustration. And you couldn’t really blame him, it was insane. But looking at your smile and lit-up face, his own face eased into empathy mixed with despair. You were clearly serious about this, and he wanted nothing more than for you to be happy. But you were still so delusional about the reality of it all. That didn’t matter to you in your own transfixed head, but it did to him. He didn’t want his friend misguided down a path towards certain death.

“Oh Aesterie, what are we going to do about you”

You gave him a smile back from across the cave, shrugging your shoulders and shutting your eyes to remember how his dark eyes shone in the sunlight.

“Aesterie, is it?”

The voice was deep and scratchy, and it seemed to come from an omnipotent voice above the cave like it was being broadcast across the oceans. Your head perked up instantly and Jerry fled to your side. If someone found your cave you’d almost certainly be in trouble. Word getting out to the seas about your little collection would create an uneasy buzz across the ocean that would make life way too exhausting, nevermind if your father found out.

“Hello”, you inquired, loud but apprehensive.

Two large barracudas rounded the corner to one of the holes in the top of the cave. Their grins reached their eyes in a way that made you want to look away and hide, and you thought Jerry did exactly that. They were of similar size, and shimmered in a dull grey. The scariest thing was their teeth and their eyes. The jagged mouths reminded you of the burning mountain of shipwreck that had almost killed an entire crew in the storm, and you had to physically shake the thought from your brain. And the eyes. Pitch black, but when they shifted to the side and the light caught them, an evil and piercing yellow. You couldn’t have been more thankful it was morning and not night.

“What do you want”, you asked, feeling for Jerry to reassure him. You generally weren’t scared of any sea life unless it was the sharks, and they wouldn’t dare come around these parts. Harassing or intimidating the daughter of Poseidon was basically a death wish. Or you’d be exiled if you were lucky. 

“We couldn’t help overhear your little adorable conversation about your most beloved”

They took their time to annunciate every word, sniggering at each other like you weren’t even there. Your heart sank. You didn’t care about being the but of some barracuda's joke, but outsiders had heard you. Shit. You should’ve been more careful. You looked down at them through your brow in silence, trying to stop your face from twitching and baring your teeth.

“Oh don’t worry, Princess, we won’t tell anyone”, one said, like it was rehearsed, “we just… wanted to engage you in an offer”

In the break in between they bolted into the cave in one snap, surrounding you either side. You saw that flicker of chartreuse in their eyes and swallowed. You reminded yourself they couldn’t do anything to you up here. Regardless of how wide they barred their fangs.

“I’m sure you have nothing to offer me of any worth”, you said, looking the one on the right up and down in a lower tone. You shifted Jerry further round your back as they got closer.

“Well I don’t know”, the other one perked up, like they were working in tandem to verbally ambush you, “being with him forever seems pretty ideal, no?”

Your face dropped. Why were they playing with you like this. It had to be a sick joke just to get more information out of you and trade it with bad actors. To create a stir and a lack of confidence in the King. But you couldn’t think of anything. You just froze up. What could you even respond that wouldn’t admit wrong doing? Saying anything around this would be unforgivable.

“A mermaid and a man is… a doomed fate”, you lied through your teeth, remembering how your father had twisted your mother’s words and swallowing deeply afterwards.

They gave a grin to each other, seeing right through your cover. Rage built in your chest, and flew out of you. You were now growling a guttural snarl that you didn’t even know you had in you, showing your own fangs. 

“Now Princess we don’t want to offend or create trouble”, their apology was more infuriating than saying nothing. The way they slurred Princess made you feel like common street trash.

“But it’s not doomed if you have legs”

… 

The words came from the other barracuda on the left, who snuck up to your ear to whisper it. He said it like it was just a regular and normal thing to say. You jumped instinctively and they cackled in response. You stood head down embarrassed, but arm still firmly behind you for Jerry. It didn’t matter anyways, as they had had their fun and you could see they were almost done. You had felt the cave had become duller since they’d entered, sinister like your cave was no longer near the surface, but in the deepest trenches. You could handle the embarrassment if this cruel nightmare was almost over.

They cackled as they swam up to where they entered, but the slightly larger one lagged behind. He tried his best to stop laughing for a moment but almost couldn’t, and frustration started to take over again. He finally slurred something before darting out of sight.

“Just think about it, huh? You know where to find us”

You did know where to find them. The shipwreck graveyard. Where you would be basically risking your life by going there anyways. The last part of Poseidon’s realm before the shark clans. One wrong flick of your tail and you’d be on the wrong side of a war. A pawn in a game and a gambling piece. You felt for Jerry, who was still there thankfully. But now it wasn’t him that was shaking anymore.

—

“They’re just playing on your emotions Aesterie, that’s what they do”

“I know Jerry they think with nothing but selfishness and lies”

You’d been called to your father’s palace under some vague pretences and decided to make your way there immediately. You didn't want to keep him waiting on a normal day, but particularly not when you were unsure about how many of your… activities had made it back to him, even if you hoped it was none. You knew sucking up to him would only half save you, but better than nothing. 

It was also the day. The day you’d see him again. The thought alone forced a smile onto your face. You had to get this done quickly so you could sneak off later unsuspected.

The graveyard was the deepest part of the ocean that your father still technically had some administration over. But it was really only in name, and everyone knew it. Setting up among the shipwrecks was partially genius, as they knew your father had no interest in that area and intended to just use it as a dumping ground. But it made them sneaky, slipping in between shadows and round wide hulls. The whole bed was run by the Sea Witch and her barracudas, ensnaring innocent looking fish and draining them of life. There were even cases of abductions or creatures getting a little too close at night, or so you’d be warned. The barracuda's speed was unmatched and you appreciated that now after seeing it in action. To be honest, you kind of didn’t know how they’d managed to get so high up undetected. 

If worse came to worse, you thought you could maybe distract your father with their sighting and shift the conversation. You still had no real plan on how to confront him if he knew even the smallest thing. 

“The Sea Witch is dangerous, did you hear about the time she abducted three mermen?”

“I know, Jerry”

“Or what about the time she indoctrinated a whole school of tuna”

“Jerry…”

“I think the scariest thing is what we don’t know about her, it just gives me the jitters”, he concluded, shivering as he said it.

You stopped swimming to get his attention, hands on your hips like you were his mother. He swam a fair distance in front of you before noticing, and darted back almost in fear like the barracudas were back. 

“I’m not doing a deal with the fucking Sea Witch”, you started in a list, “I’m not following those barracudas to my death, and I’m certainly not going to that crummy graveyard, is that enough for you?”

He forced a smile and you grabbed onto his cheeks, “listen to me, you’re here anyway and I’ve got to look after you, and I’ve got Caspian and my sisters” 

“I wouldn’t just get up and leave”

You thought his face might have eased up if you weren’t squishing it into an oblong oval.

“Besides”, you said, starting to swim again, “I don’t need legs to see him”

It was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Jerry looked satisfied at the logic and you gave him a grin as you reared over the reef towards the shining gates in the near distance. You didn’t need legs to see him, but what after that? You’d seen it in Jerry’s face too, and if you’d given yourself a long look in the mirror 20 days ago, you would’ve seen it on your own. You’d said fuck it at the shore that night. In fact you both had. But what did that really mean. You thought at the time you’d just have to find out, but no matter the amount of scenarios you ran in your head, none of them made any sense. Seeing him again as a shameful secret every now and then for what? Your father to eventually catch on from your absence and he marry a pretty human girl? You shook the thought from your head. You had made a dedication to each other that night, but at the same time, it was completely within the realm of possibility. Smack bang in the middle of it. You looked down at the shimmering and swimming gold chain on your left hand. You’d be lying to yourself if the thought of legs didn’t wave over your mind in the swim down to the palace. It was outrageous and completely unknown, not to mention risking everything. Your tail, that he’d found so much joy and interest in. The thing that your mother always said was your superpower. Maybe you were slipping too far into the dream, the love and the kindness. But you weren’t your mother and you certainly weren’t your father. The thought had passed your brain but fled into the night before you could destroy it on the spot. There was much to think about that you didn’t want to.

“What do you think he wants, Aesterie?”. Jerry’s question broke you from the deep argument within yourself.

“I don’t know, Jerry, I don’t know”.

You creaked the sanctum doors open with the back of your hand.

—

The room was quiet and dull, like your sea cave a few mornings ago. Uncharacteristic didn’t even cut it. Your father’s sanctum was usually bustling with guards and royalty, distinguished banners and a healthy view of the coral bed. But it was silent. No guard in sight, not even by the doors. You even had to strain your eyes to see your father sprawled over his throne at the other end of the room in solace. His face was turned down without light. You closed the door behind you sensitively like he was asleep and you didn’t want to wake him, but you didn’t move any further in.

“Aesterie”

The voice filled the room but was quiet. It was probably the acoustics of the room with no one in it. He didn’t move at all. You shifted your hand behind your back, begging Jerry to leave with a frantic swipe of your fingers. He just looked empathetically back at you and stayed behind you. This was easily scarier than the barracudas, for the both of you.

“Yes father”

“I’m going to give you one chance to defend yourself”

He was immediately direct. Painfully so. He already had you in a corner 2 sentences in. This was a nightmare. There was no sneaking round your words and sucking up to him now, not when you could barely make out his silhouette among the pitch black shadow that filled the far end of the sanctum. You could play this two ways: pretend you didn’t know what he was talking about or immediately beg for forgiveness. You didn't know how much he knew and it was smart on his behalf. Fuck, you thought to yourself, you should’ve thought more about this and how you’d approach him. But the silence of the room had a rushing effect. This wasn’t the time to think, especially if you were innocent. You had to say something now.

“Defend myself about what father”

It was stupid. You were stupid. You almost face-palmed yourself right there at the door, and you thought you could even sense Jerry look at you in hopelessness. You managed to convince yourself that it wasn’t that bad and maybe he’d tell you which of the 100 rules you’d broken and you’d go from there. Ignoring… the others.

He got up from his throne now, which also even seemed faded and old. He carefully made his way to the centre of the room, trident in hand.

“I don’t like reports about my daughters from unknown sources”

You wanted to respond to him but he already cut you off. Afterall, what could you have even said. You felt him edging closer. Oh it was far far worse than the snap movements of the barracudas. Jerry shook a little next to you but the room was still quiet enough for you to feel him it in the ripples of the water.

“And I don’t like to believe them either”

You looked up at his face which was stone cold. You only held eye contact as a last-ditched effort at your facade of innocence. Breaking it would almost certainly mean guilt. As if it wasn’t obvious enough already. He gave a twirl of his hand and a time circle appeared in his palm.

Oh that was it.

It was faded, like the last memory of a dying merman, but it was clear enough. There you were, in someone’s memory, carrying him amid fire and rubble. Him, crumpled up in your arms as you beat your tail in despair through the water. You wish you could say you didn’t remember it. You detached eye contact, and the very motion itself stung. Like you had put down a shield and he stabbed right into your heart. What the fuck were you meant to do now. He was right in front of you, lauding over you. You just made tight fists in a desperate attempt to rid as many nerves as you could.

“A man was drowning I had to save him”, you found yourself saying, in disbelief of your own mouth.

“You broke the rules”, like he was reciting the law to a common criminal

“But that was the last time father, I prom–”

You blurted it hurriedly like it’d stop his chain of thoughts joining together, and dared to look him back in the eye. But he wasn’t that foolish.

DON’T LIE TO ME.

In one swift but elongated movement, he swung his trident across the other side of the room, decimating the walls in a semi-circle of flames. You hadn’t seen him use its real power since mother died. And as you clamped your eyes shut, nails shaking as they dug into your fists either side of you, that was the only image in your brain. His trident striking in undirected rage into the surface as schools and schools fled the scene. You thought you could hear the ancient groan of the palace. He turned his back and moved back to the centre of the room. You both just stood there for ages. There was nothing to say. It was only after he’d moved so far back, so you couldn’t sense him, that you dared to open one eye. But as soon as it was open, things got so much worse, and you wished you hadn’t.

You sensed a glint. It was shallow and muffled, but you both saw it. 

A reflection, a glimmer.

He bolted round, an emotion plastering his face that almost looked like fear. Whatever it was, it unnerved you and made you want to flee right out the doors. Swim to somewhere far away where they’d never even heard of King Poseidon. His eyes looked down from your face, as if retracing the bouncing and refraction of light. The fear on his face was now haunting.

“Your wrist, Aesterie”

Your shaking stopped. Which was kind of unbelievable given how much more scared you were now. He spat the words like vermin. You’d been fully found out. Entirely. And there was no running from your own truth. You touched the bracelet with your other hand and it burned. Like doing it in your father’s presence made it into tiny steel spears linked together in a chain of betrayal and violence. The room was frozen. Nothing moved in it, and even around it. You had no idea how long you were like that for. But both of you knew there was now nothing to say from either of you. He turned his back again, unable to look.

“This is not only the biggest betrayal of my trust Aesterie, but a dangerous venture of contact”

Contact, like it was so bad. You wanted to tell him about Felix and how he was so different from anything he’d told you about humans. How he had the kindness you’d only seen in mother. How he was comforting and protective by nature. How he went back for Brownie at the risk of his own life. Hell, it was a better idea than nothing, and you were already so far gone. 

But as you parsed your lips in a ridiculous last resort, he gave a silencing sigh.

“Guards.”

A dozen mermen transformed out of the shadows, spears in hand. You were almost certain they weren’t there at the start, and it would’ve been so much worse if they were listening the entire time. But your shame only had a moment to collect itself, as you looked around yourself. Slowly and then panicked, as they crept closer to you. No.

“No father please”

“Arrest my daughter”

Your mind went completely silent.

—

The gushing of water was all you heard and all you thought of.

In fact you didn’t know if it was water or blood in your ears, but right now it didn’t matter.

You were swimming. Bolting through the ocean. 

Up.

Up anywhere.

It seemed too surreal. Like you weren’t in your body and you were watching someone else flee from their own father for crimes committed against the sea.

Your whole being was in total flight. 

You had no time to consider what would happen if a miracle came true and you reached the surface. It was even more ridiculous and unanswered than your dream of a future with the Prince. A mermaid banned from the ocean, destined for a life of hiding in tubs. But your body wasn’t thinking about that. And neither was any part of your mind. It was thinking about the certain fate below you. Shackled. Your tail groaned and ached in each beat, but the sympathy you had for it a few days ago was long gone. Especially as you turned your final corner on your memorised journey.

You could make out the sight of the surface.

Your face turned desperate and panicked. You hadn’t allowed your face to show emotion in a complete lock of focus, but now it was too close to ignore. And the rock of your mind shifted a couple degrees to let light in. The idea of reaching the surface. Back to comfort and safety, and now, the only safety you had in any realm of the world. Back to him. Who soon today, would be waiting for you, open arms, on that same cove.

You extended your arm as far as your bones would allow, your whole body now groaning as you swam in a powerful rhythm. The bracelet shined more and more powerful like a beacon of hope and sanctity the closer you came to unfiltered light. But the beacon was only a sign, a suggestion of a possible future. An idea in the mind. It wasn’t a talisman.

As soon as your fingers left the realm, you could sense the refreshing winds. But it warred in complete contrast to a sting and a slash of your tail.

And then dragging. The forces of at least 6 arms crawled all over you like an omnipotent infection. You struggled but it was pathetic. They grabbed your fins and your tail first. You tried to beat their hands with a snap of your tail, but it was useless. There were too many of them.  Next you tried thrashing them off with your arms, but they quickly restrained them too. A flurry of guards threatened their spears at your fins, torso and neck, clouding your vision and shrouding it in darkness. 

Your hand soon died back into the sea as Jerry’s words echoed in your mind.

Oh Aesterie, what are we going to do about you. 

And you were powerless.

Chapter Text

There was one time when you were younger, where you saw something you shouldn’t have.

You couldn’t have been very old. Maybe 6 solar rotations. And you were joking with Jerry returning from classes. It was a rough day but there was always something to joke about as you caught each other’s eye mid-lesson. But the smile was soon wiped off your face.

You walked into the room with a shift of your door. It was silent and for the first time you wished it wasn’t. Your father and your mother were stood at the far end of your room in the palace by your dresser. You first noticed the long wavy red hair you’d inherited from your mother, curled over one of her shoulders. But your eyes soon moved to their faces. You stayed by the doorway, within a boundary that allowed you to believe you weren’t there. That you were just watching through a falsified time circle.

Mixes of guilt, shock and horror. Embarrassment, devastation and betrayal. It was almost impossible to figure out what either of them thought, like mixing all the colours in the ocean together and having to re-identify them all. And their faces weren’t moving either. They were frozen, overcome by emotion. After long enough, you had to search for other clues. And with their faces, you couldn’t move a single fingernail in the room.

An object held by your father, and for a long moment you thought it could have been his. But their hands were joined. As your eyes moved across that bridge, your mother’s fingers seemed to touch it with an anxiety. With a longing, like it was already completely out of her hands. A severance that she couldn’t let go. It wasn’t long before their faces turned to you. You could have breathed too loudly, or shifted your feet a little, you didn’t know. All you knew was father was hiding that object behind his back now, voice booming like you would later learn all too well. Mother was a faded face, the backwriting of a palimpsest.

It took you 8 more rotations to find that item again. You didn’t even think about that day very frequently, although granted a little more after her death. But when you laid your hands on a lost object behind a drawer in her room, it was like your body had been ripped from its reality back to that moment. You turned the item carefully in your hand.

An iron navigating compass.

—

They’re trying to make nothing exist down there, you repeated to yourself. 

“There”. Not here, as you refused to identify as chained by bars.

“Tried”.

And they could try. But they had no idea of your resilience. Sure, they’d learned about your scandalous affair. And much to your embarrassment, as it wasn’t just your father who knew now. The whole seas probably thought you were deluded. They tried to rip time and space from you. But they didn’t realise how you’d got there in the first place. The power you had held. The conviction in your every moment. And your unshakeable belief. Every day, one ray of sunshine managed to scrape the bottom of the cage. A final and distant reach. And if your hand was between the bars, held far enough out to answer that reach with your own, the light rewarded you with a flicker. Only for a moment, of gold and brightness. A reminder that something above did still exist, and it was just how you remembered. 

You repeated that line every time the faint scratch of light lingered on your bracelet between the bars. Once a day. Your silent rebellion. 

But a silent rebellion was a rebellion without voice.

And you had seen 19 sunlight scratches on that bracelet.

—

You’d been kept in a cage. 19 sunsets and sunrises. And as if that wasn’t enough, chains on your wrists. Large steel clamps that burned and scarred your skin at even the slightest movements. The chains heavy, you could barely pick you arms up. Most days, you sat there arms open on either side of you, forcibly vulnerable for anyone who saw you. Though the cage was at the bottom of the reef, under a cliff edge, so no one was coming unless it was intentional. Poorly intentioned. In a last ditched effort, there had been no clamps or maiming of your tail. Most convicts of your crimes would’ve gotten that or worse. There were only minor cuts to your tail and you were grateful. Looking into your father’s eyes at that point, you thought he probably saw his late wife’s hazel eyes, and fiery hair, and decided against such violence. Apart from the flicker of the bracelet, it was the only thing keeping you alive. From strangling or crushing yourself with those chains. It was a theoretical freedom.

The main feeling encompassing your mind wasn’t hope. Or even despair.

Guilt.

You were 19 sunsets late. To him. Your promise was broken, and your whole being was shaken by it. You repeated it in your head every day, not because you wanted to. 

“I will come back to you”

It was too fresh of a memory, and made too fresh of a wound. If you thought too hard of it, you’d think that you didn’t even know you would ever see him again in the future, nevermind your long-gone betrayal. You tried not to have days like that. They made you think the minimal mercy your father spared was futile.

Once or twice, you thought maybe he wouldn’t forget about you. Maybe he’d understand. You were of two different worlds, a scandal for the ages at least, downright confusing otherwise. You needed each other like the elements of the earth, but you both knew it would be… difficult. But also, you were mermaid and man. Maybe this would convince him that sea creatures were just alluring sirens of lies, like he’d always been told. The other side to the shell.

And to that extent, you didn’t know why you reached out your arm again. There was no reason that was sound and logical, particularly on your worst days. But it was something more primal in you. An instinct. A flicker of hope that persisted as an inextinguishable flame in your soul, not your brain, just like the light and the golden shimmer that lit it.

—

You woke to the cold on the 20th day. It was how you’d woken every day since being imprisoned down there. The night had taken time to reach the depths, and once it did it was persistent. It found a home in your bones, creaking and cracking each of them until you awoke. You were in your usual position. On the cold slippery floor, back to the steel bars. You hugged your tail through the night, as it was the only way not to get a serious health complication from the cold. It was all on purpose. To break you down, to draw out an apology and a confession. To sell your life to your father’s goals and games. But you’d rather not have a life at all. 

20 days. Would anyone wade this out? Keep any hope? Even if they were of the same species. Honestly, it didn’t really matter.  It was too far gone now, you were living off a concept. A notion and a dream that he might still think of you like you thought of him. Remembered the small things, the way his hair floated and danced in the sea breeze. The kindness in his cheeks and how they warmed in embarrassment. His entirely selfless soul. Just maybe he did. 

“Aesterie”

The boom of your father’s voice. You opened your eyes, but not expecting to see him. You rarely saw him actually face to face these days. Especially after the first 7, when you’d basically spat in his face, refusing any of his demands or conditions. For the last 3 days he’d come with the same condition. You both knew the conditions. The staples. 

“Do you wish to work with me”

It meant too many things. It meant conspiring with his misguided violence against humans. It meant never going to the surface again. It meant giving up your identity. It meant forgetting your love. And well, maybe you would never get to the surface again this way. Maybe you’d lose yourself to madness, and he’d never forgive you. And perhaps father would be even more relentless, in his freshly invigorated persecution. But they were all hypotheticals. Just as potentially as ridiculous as ever getting out of these chains, the hope that burned so weakly within you. You pictured your mother’s sinking corpse, overcome with a human steel spear.

“No father, I do not”

As clear as your creaking lips could make out. His presence left for another day.

—

The only thing close to you down there was the silence. But it was overwhelming. Like it was living itself and entirely flattening you for every waking moment. Though you knew it was on purpose. Father had orchestrated this exact punishment to break your psyche. For similar crimes, the protocol would just be detainment and exiling. But father couldn’t let go of his daughter that easily, but that made the punishment excruciatingly worse. You knew at the same time that he wouldn’t truly leave you alone. But the undetectable presence of the guards gave the silence an anxiety-inducing edge. You were never alone, and even the overwhelming silence was a facade. So it surprised you when you heard a scuttle and a movement from round the corner of the cliff. You saw a face before hearing anything.

Caspian.

He looked in mourning, and deeply sorrowful. Maybe he was shocked to see you in the state you were in, chained up like you were feral and dangerous to society. He’d never seen you like this, and you knew it hurt his heart even if his face wasn’t for that. You only looked at him through your peripherals, and after a moment just stared silently at the floor again.

Caspian had been the one to expose you. It was his memories in the time circle your father had generated. But as you stared at the cold rock and remembered his distraught face, you entertained the thought that the memory had been stolen. Father had the privilege of extracting any memory of sea life, though he rarely used it against anyone’s will. Regardless, damage was done. You were too exhausted of emotion and life to give anyone the benefit of the doubt right now. You left your head hung.

“Aesterie”

The word left him in almost a whisper, like he was trying not to disturb you. Like he knew you were angry at him. There was something in it of contrition, but also of hopelessness. Maybe his memories were extracted. You pondered the thought for a little longer in the silence that Caspian made way for. All this time, he was all you’d known. He’d been there from the very start, and despite his allegiances to your father, he never went running. He had a strong word and respect for your father, but a desire to see you flourish too. To support you in practically anything you did. Those memories of childhood flurried around your head, and made you speak.

“Leave me alone”

It was croaky and offensive, but it was words. It was the engagement of a conversation and it was as much as your memory of Caspian and the flicker of hope you had left could bargain with your hollow soul. All you felt for the last few days was the cold sting of the cuffs.

“Aesterie”, he repeated, surprised. You left the moment with unresponsiveness, as he seemed to panic at actually getting a reply. Like he was bigging himself up for something he hoped he could avoid the whole time. After too long of a pause, he realised that he’d have to continue.

“I come with news”

He paused again, like he didn’t even want to do what he was doing. Like he didn't want to be there. You thought for a moment he even looked around for guards. Honestly, you just wanted him to spit it out. This drawn out conversation would be fruitless and you were wasting energy you didn’t have on it. You would’ve shook him and told him to either get on with it or leave, but either was impossible. Behind those bars, it was the visitor’s discretion how long an interaction lasted.

“Listen the guards are on a break, I convinced them I had confidential information to give you from the King”

He moved right to the bars to say this, doing so in a quick and forced whisper, you could feel his eyes looking to the surroundings of the cliff. Your ears perked up.

Was this really something? After all this time, could there be a real and material hope?

He took another sigh and a long pause. In that moment, your hope died again. He really didn’t want to do this, and the way things were going, you started to convince yourself it would all be meaningless anyways. Nothing could break those chains, and the chains had broken your hope.

“We have to make this quick, they’ll get back soon but”

Yet another pause. Frustration took the hold of you and you decided to meet his gaze. Under strings of red tangled hair, you thought he must just be able to make out your hazel eyes. They pierced right through him and you could see it in his whole being. He swallowed with an assured air brushing over his face.

“Aesterie”

“I remember you from when you were only a baby. From when you grabbed at the bubbles above you and your mother wouldn’t let anyone see you without her presence in the room. She had endless sleepless nights with you, you know that?”

His words struck your heart deep. The last thing you wanted to think about down here was your mother. How her memory had played a role in so much of this. Her words distorted and her image blurry, maybe she’d been used in vain by both you and your father. And now here you were. Locked up at the hands of him. You almost crawled into a ball at the mention of her, like she was in the silence that bore down on you every day. 

“And I’ve seen you grow from a baby, mind wandering off to colourful places in the reef, to an adolescent with a fascination for unknown things. Now that I think about it, you were always the same. Our Aesterie, always guided by curiosity always in need of protection, as your father would say”

And that protection now amounted to chains and cages. Your blood ran cold at the mention of his name. You thought it was at least foolish if not aggravating for Caspian to mention his name so casually when he’d started with such remorse and empathy. You could feel the weight of the chains almost get heavier. He continued, face still decidedly strong and confident.

“But I’ve never seen you like this Aesterie”

The words felt like daggers. And isolated, they felt like shaming and disgust. Like you had fallen from a position that you’d never been in. That you had let your father, no, the whole seas down with your stupid and mindless affairs. That you’d really gone insane and deserved this. But his face told a different story. He didn’t shake his head, but just angled it to the right and looked deep into your almost hidden eyes. To be honest, he was lucky they were still meeting his own. It was only the look on his face that kept you from disengaging, running back into the trap of the silence of the depths.

“I’ve never seen you so… impassioned, so interested, so engaged so… happy”

“Even with all your collection of human things, this was different… like a release”

Your mind didn’t even hiccup at Caspian’s knowledge of what you had in your cave. It was futile anyways, as only death could be a further punishment for you if someone did find out. And your mind was focused on those last words, different like a release.

“You know, in those early nights, your mother used to stress so badly. She watched over you every waking moment, but in many ways your father was still more protective of his precious one. She knew that one day you would have to leave the nest. And that one day, your father would be entirely destroyed by it. But you would need to do it to live, Aesterie. Carrying the words and love of your parents with you.”

You were now fully meeting his gaze. You couldn’t believe he was telling you this right now, on the ledge of a forgotten cliff.

“And since I can’t seek your mother’s advice anymore”, he started, a little too casually to be comfortable, but you brushed it off, “I spoke with Jerry”

Your face immediately froze, like lightning struck through your chest. Fuck… Jerry. Your memory tried to reach back to when you’d last seen him, but the chilling effect of the cage had done its effect. After too long, you realised it must have been the meeting with your father. You were too quick to flee from the guards, he must have been there too. Your brows furrowed and eyes widened, begging for a response from Caspian that you couldn’t verbalise.

“He’s fine”, he responded loudly and reassuringly, like you needed the volume to truly be at ease, “but we have something for you”

Your heart sank. The desolateness of hope the cliff had on you meant any vague statement immediately felt like a cruel jibe of punishment.

Another sigh. He shook his head but broke his gaze, looking at your tail.

“The words of your mother strike through the oceans still. They will never forget her, regardless of what happens after her…”

You could feel Caspian making a larger point so you shoved aside the fact that this was the first time you’d really heard someone even implicitly criticise the King’s wars.

“It is time to fly the nest, Aesterie. We know it too, but you know it more than anyone can even begin to think of”

A clatter danced across the rocks, echoing deeply into the reef. For that moment, the silence was utterly destroyed, though the sound was a little jarring in itself. You feared the perception of sea life, or god forbid guards, at the interruption of chaos. Until you saw the source of it.

Keys. 

Steel and huge, like they’d been crafted in the Earlier Days.

You couldn’t believe your eyes. You blinked heavily and purposefully several times. Fuck. It was real. You looked to Caspian in disbelief that verged on calling him a cruel and villainous liar. You must have shared 4 glances with him between the keys and his face, which kept the same distant smile each time. He was watching a difficult but necessary fate unfold before him.

“It’s time, Aesterie”

His face reached a resolution as he moved to unlock the cuffs. As they unclamped, they almost screamed in death, plummeting to the rock floor with no life source to suck from. Your wrists were scarred a deep red as you took time to look over what you thought you’d never see again. 

Though, your left wrist was adorned with a cleansingness and a light that fought valiantly against that pain and trauma. Felix’s bracelet, now dangling comfortably over your scars.

“I know you have a lot to do”, he started again, allowing you a moment or two to properly mentally recover.

You could feel your heart build itself back up again. And your mind reconnect its pathways. Your bones creak back into motion. You knew now about his hesitancy, and his long-winded explanation. This was not easy for him, for several reasons. It wasn’t only his job and position on council. But the idea of you entering an undefined world. About your mother’s legacy, among a myriad of twisted messaging and forced justifications. It needed to be right and at the right time. He wasn’t even certain of it himself, but you looked back at him with a confidence you hoped could shatter that feeling. He and Jerry had decided to take this leap. This punt at bringing you back from hell, to restore something in you. 

It was with him, the one you’d felt destined to despite everything.

“Well Caspian, there’s only one problem left”

He looked back at you surprised. He probably hadn’t expected you to speak at all, and you started with a clear and self-assured voice as if the chains had actually been breaking your whole body this whole time.

“How could I ever leave you two”. You smiled at him with a heartfelt thanks. 

“Aesterie, you can’t get rid of us”, he taunted, clearly happy to see you restored again, “we’ll be visiting trust that”

You gave each other a nod, before breaking into a tight hug. He’d done all of this for you. Broken God only knows how many rules, forgone his life-long leader, and took a complete shot in the dark. A hope like the faint glimmer that existed within you days ago. But now, that hope was actually burning and alive. You felt like you were almost in a dream.

“Thank you Caspian, this has meant more than the world to me”

He told you to get going, almost like he was tired of your words and wanted to see you actually do what he knew you had in you. You rounded the other side of the cage but he stopped you again, face in a life-long contemplation. Seeing the cage from this angle was unreal, like you were living a completely different life that the other Aesterie could never live.

“Oh and Aesterie”

You looked up, wanting every word of advice he had,

“I see her good in you”

You gave him a small smile and a knowing glance. It didn’t need a response. Only he really knew what it was all like. Your mother and your birth. Her death and your father’s transition. And now… this. You saw in his eyes how much toll everything had taken on him, building on top of each other so, at times, he could barely see the end goal. But he had seen something he needed to do, in part for a current friend and in part for an old one. After knowing he saw your appreciation, you cracked your tail. Now free, it felt fresh but completely alien. It would probably take you a moment to properly get used to things again.

As you tore through the depths, Caspian’s words echoed through your mind. You’d been building up to something uncertain to you, but now it was as clear as the sky. And it clearly wasn’t just you who could see that.

It would be more than difficult. Built entirely in risk and uncertainty, with a hope of something that could never come. But you knew that and had long accepted it. You had to put much on the line to actually fly the nest.

To the Sea Witch’s graveyard you swam.

Chapter Text

You’d never been this far down before, and still you hadn’t reached the graveyard. Even your curiosity in human things hadn’t brought you this far down. The coral seemed to slowly die, the colours fading to greys and shades of black, the life withering away so they seemed to be dragged in the current rather than dance in it. The light at these depths was almost non-existent. Even getting close to the graveyard was well advised against, and no one did from fear. You were probably in the same area that birthed all those stories about sea creatures being snatched up and taken as life sources. And the worst thing was the further you swam, the more eyes you sensed around you. Although you didn’t really see any, there was a growing pressure of being watched and being seen, as your course towards the Sea Witch’s domain became more clear.

After losing all sense of time on the way down, not half because of the lack of light, you rounded above the lowest cliffs to see the sign of the graveyard. An ancient shipwreck. 

As a child, you’d been warned and reminded of the graveyard. About what it looked like, the black market activities that happened there, and signals of where it was. Passing them and seeing the shipwreck with your own eyes felt like re-entering that nightmare. You first peered over the cliff to see the wreck, looking for any signs of trouble or disruption. But you were met with silence. The graveyard was scattered with human parts and objects all over, circling the main wreck like in cultish prayer. Parts of wheels and masts scoured into the sand, drift wood littering the floor like a carpet. But in all of that, no life. Or at least that which you could see. In reality, you knew there was life all around you. You had sensed it ever since getting deep enough where the light started to become a suggestion. And the fact you couldn’t see even the tiniest of fish in the vast plain sent your heart racing.

You knew where you had to go. You knew what the barracudas had meant, where they resided and who they obeyed. In fact, as you looked at it only a quick swim away, you remembered the tablet your teacher had used when you were a child. The picture of the hull of the main shipwreck, and the jarring hole in the side, the wooden slats looking like teeth. 

The home of the Sea Witch.

It all was so real now, you started to have doubts. Everything you’d learned until now, even when your mother was alive, warned you against exactly this. And you were going straight into the Witch’s den. You wouldn’t even be just another mermaid to these people, you’d be Poseidon’s daughter. Not a title that you’d be able to shield yourself with at these depths, but a violent and dangerous mark. Your screams would do next to nothing.

You could blame no one but yourself. It was your own tail that had bolted yourself down here, past the edge’s of your father’s kingdom and where any benevolent life lived. All of a sudden, Caspian’s voice rang in your brain.

He was right. You were the only one of your father’s kingdom who had come down here willingly in several rotations, maybe even ever. There was a reason for that, but there was a reason you were here too. You gave a futile deep breath and a dry swallow, looking at the wreck from under your brow, and started to swim.

—

The wreck itself certainly wasn’t on your curriculum. You passed the hole in the hull, the slats seeming like they could close and impale you with 100 knives at any moment. But only after your scamper at the entrance did you see the interior of the lair. Rows and rows of shelves going endlessly high, building up to a hole in the top of the ship. The furthest shelves were mere dots to you, but the ones further down showed corked bottles with potions of greens, blues and reds. Some were used and others weren’t, shoved to the far back of the shelves and forgotten. The shelves ran all the way round the room so it no longer seemed like the shape of a ship anymore. The only other thing in the room was a cauldron in the middle. Pitch black, it was chipped and scratched in countless places and looked ancient and weathered itself.

You didn’t get to take in the sight and the fear of the endless shelves distilled into you before a bright colour caught your eye on the right side. You thought it was just yellow potions. 4 of them. But you looked at it for a moment longer and realised they were too bright. And unbottled. It seemed to glow in the darkness of the back of the shelf. 

And then they blinked, showing their teeth. Crooked fangs gleaming at you like you’d fallen for their trick. A voice interrupted your moment together.

“Oh Aesterie, how good it is for you to grace us with your presence”

—

You only had one memory of Aunt Unakite, and to even call it a memory was probably a stretch at that. You looked around the room, hopelessly trying to cover every angle to see where the voice originated from before you saw a dark purple tentacle emerge from the shadows above you, followed by a torso with white hair and 7 other tentacles, curling and snapping like agitated eels. The memory was coming back to you. Screaming and shouting. You were only just born, still in your cot. The faint vision of arms and tails swinging at each other. More voices entering your ears as they came in the room. The sudden boom of your father. You were soon in your mother’s arms afterwards and she was distraught. Patting your head in desperation it even sort of hurt.

The tentacles and long but quick hands unraveled like a nightmare relived, as she continued to speak.

“Now what would I do if my dear brother found out that one of his dearest was down here with little old me?”

She lamented over each word like you were suddenly living in her stream of consciousness. But it was really a mock of disdain. Of both your father and what you represented to her. You thought if she carried on like this she’d far too easily control the direction of the interaction. You were in her camp and she already had all the power. You were there for a reason and you couldn’t let that die immediately.

“Father has no interest in me anymore, Aunty”

Your father had told you never to mention that name again. Some time after your memory. And now you were slurring it back at her. The word stung at her like an arrow. Her attention shifted in surprise to you and you could see the corner of her mouth quiver in a snarl, and heard another snarl from the barracudas. They were still hidden among the shelves but you could sense they were closer now, their eyes wider. You’d broken her act but only for a moment.

“Oh my Aesterie what could you have done”, she growled in a taunt, the barracudas beginning to cackle.

“I have done–”

“Oh shut up”, she retorted, slinging an almost empty red bottle at you with a tentacle. It hit the wall behind you as a signal to do as she said. You were grateful it was only a sign and she’d shown you this much mercy already, as if she’d intended to hit you, you would’ve been a sitting duck.

“I know why you’re here, Flotsam and Jetsam tell me everything, don’t you boys”

She wandered away with her back turned at the remark, wafting a finger to stroke the barracudas with an extended finger. They curled up and smirked at her touch, and more than anything it was jarring to see them so controlled and obedient.

You went silent. You didn’t expect her to catch you off guard like this, twice. You froze up, limbs going stiff in both anxiety of any movement in the wreck and anticipation of what she could say. You knew it’d be a fight down here, but you didn’t expect the mental one. It was 2-1 and she had you in her grasp. You were at the subject of her whim, your life made or broken by whether she could be bothered to serve one of her hated brother’s vermin. Like asking a shark to let go of your head in its mouth.

“So you want legs… HAH, I never thought I’d see one of Poseidon’s daughters want to undo themselves so easily”. You were almost grateful she activated something in you so you could respond, instead of floating there like a rock.

“You and I both know you don’t really need to know the reason”, you retorted, raising one of your eyebrows at her.

And you were right. She didn’t do what she did for reasons and justifications, just outcomes. She dealt in sea life and magic on the market. All she cared for was what she was getting out of it and how much she would have to spend on it. And this was something new and particularly unique.

“You’re right”, she purred, as if you had placed the thought in her brain first, but you knew full well she would’ve thought this over ever since you met Floatsam and Jetsam at the sea cave. Or even since her disappearance, sometime after your memory.

“And what could I ask more but to be the one to drag my dear brother’s own precious one away from him, forever”. She lightly clawed at your chin with her fingernails on the last word and you used everything in your core to stop from flinching. You couldn’t make any sudden movements or mistakes, god-forbid signs of weakness. The warning about the graveyard were tales, this was the real thing, and it seemed more sinister and unpredictable.

“But answer me this deary”, she continued, embracing your jibing use of names, disarming you with complete ease, “why should I grant the wishes of a PRINCESS OF POSEIDON”

She slapped your face away and turned her back again, Floatsam and Jetsam sneering at you right to your face. Your head now turned to the side, you could feel the anger build in your chest, constricting it and any logic you had left at the same time as she giggled and drifted to the back of the ship. You had to think fast. You had to make this 2-2, an even playing field again.

“Well you said it yourself”, you started, somehow channelling that disrespect into a trap, “King Poseidon’s daughter”

She turned her face half towards you in a derisive chuckle, like you were lauding the title over her for no good reason except power that had no hold down here.

“What makes you think that he isn’t coming for you now”

“Or that he wouldn’t come for you, if word travelled back to him that I was being imprisoned here”

“You of all people know Aunty, that word travels fast on the black market”

Her smile fell to a completely straight line, but she looked mindlessly into the distance, not taking you entirely seriously.

“You know child”, her tone was more serious now and you were taking that as a small win, “I have eyes all around these oceans, in parts you wouldn’t even dream of”

“You and your father’s little quarrels”

“But it’s not about that is it Unakite”, you snapped, thinking on your feet and honestly impressed with your own speed, “it’s about the traces I leave, in word or in body”

An eyebrow of her raised slowly, being dragged up like in a mechanical action in her face. It was  in questioning and agitation. That you had actually turned this around to corner her, when you didn’t even really know what you were saying yourself. But it grew into something else and she suddenly seemed involved in the inquiry. 

“Well little Aesterie, no one ever told me you were such a story teller”

You weren’t sure of anything that had left your lips, and honestly you just hoped your words all strung along in a way that made sense. Your father would probably be searching for you soon, but whether he’d risk immediately sending guards to the graveyard was another thing. He’d probably be too delusionally indignant and focus his efforts on the surface. But the capacities of the witch were strong too. Too strong to know in full, the way she disappeared people. You were making a shot in the dark. You didn’t know where the lines crossed each other. Your father’s resources and will to see you come around, the powers of the graveyard and your own will to join the Prince’s world. You were making a bet like Caspian and Jerry did with you. You tensed your hands as you waited for her to continue.

She sighed like she’d been worked to the bone before turning around, still silent. After a moment too long of silence, you decided to say something. You needed to keep her where you had her, but your voice pierced through the silence that almost made you shiver.

“This way both me and you–”

A signal of her palm cut you off. She was burying deep in one of the high shelves and she continued to for what seemed like days before she had 3 potions in each tentacle and drifted back down to you with a stone cold grace.

“Come here child”, she beckoned with one crooked finger, leaning over the cauldron with her tentacles on display around her like she was selling the potions that dangled from each of them.

“I am a business woman first and foremost, regardless of what your father says”

The sneer of her words made its way to her nose, scrunching it up in disdain. The mention of your father sent one of the bottles flying, and you started to think she picked up half of them just to throw them in frustration.

“And I am intrigued by your offer, let’s just say…”

“You must get your entrepreneurship from your Aunty Unakite”, she laughed, barring yellow teeth.

The words were like daggers in your ears but you kept a straight visage. You were inches away from her face and couldn’t even afford an atom of movement. This was about bargaining now.

She moved back from the cauldron and you followed suit. This must be it. You allowed yourself the thought that you had actually convinced her. Somehow your shot in the dark had reached its target. But before you were on land with two legs, there was nothing certain, especially not coming from her. You pushed the thought away and just hoped your words had instilled the fear in her you hoped they had. Maybe you got that part from your father.

She threw the bottles in one after another in no order but with a violent vigour, arms crossed in the motion. An explosion of colours erupted with smoke from the cauldron and you had to shade your eyes a little with your forearm. The colours weren’t inviting like the explosions above the Prince’s ship, but violent like they were attacking you just for seeing them. The boil and crackle soon simmered down and she beckoned you closer again. You drew together at the same time and listened as intently as you could with the slow scald of the smoke and bubbling gradually engulfing your chin.

“Listen carefully… playing God and changing your fate isn’t just sacrificing, it’s life changing”

Her words, for the first time, felt wise and unfiltered by deception.

“You must never return to the oceans. That is the deal. That way I get what you want and so do you…”

It was logistically fair, but you couldn’t help think about Jerry and Caspian. And your sisters. And everything you knew down here, from the creatures to even just the colours of the reefs which were irreplicable on land.

“But if you do even touch the seas ever again”, she jabbed in a slower tone this time, “you have one day before I turn you into foam”

The image of a sun passing from east to west jumped above the cauldron before she continued,

“I’ll know where you are… and you’ll belong… to me”

She grimaced in the final words. Your bones shuddered internally.

“So do we have a deal?”

You took a moment to really think about what you’d be missing. Everything you’d grown up to love and cherish, all gone never to be seen again. For him. You knew the deal would have to be rough but that didn’t alleviate the difficulty of the decision. You looked to her eyes, yellow and indoctrinating like a spell themselves. The words of Caspian echoed again. 

Trust that.

There were other ways to see those you loved whilst being in the world that you knew belonged to you, just as you belonged with him. You matched her face with an eyebrow raise yourself.

And nodded.

It was only a slight movement, big enough to be well-perceived from her distance. But it felt like a heavy creak formulated from ages of trauma. It symbolised so much. The up-ending of your life for a world uncertain, a continuation of your mother’s words that could not be known as either fruitful or malicious, and the greatest act of war against the seas. But it was only the answer you could give. You’d entered the wreck knowing that. It was life or death, and death wasn’t held by the Sea Witch. Death was held by you father, and life was held by his destruction. But even then, the world wasn’t decided in how it was going to treat you. To spit you out or embrace you for your whole existence. But… you did have a tiny, maybe even insignificant, amount of power to decide that. The nod felt weathered. Like a life lived and a life lost, the culmination of living in one movement.

The witch just chuckled.

—

Twisting and fighting, a shock ran like a line from your fins to your chin as you were suspended in the water. 

A rip. In your body and your mind. You felt like you weren’t even living anymore and you were subject to the torture of some God. That you had reached an afterlife and your sins were being answered for.

Your ears, mouth and eyes felt like blood. You didn’t think you should’ve been able to hear anything but white noise, but a cackle and a snarl still pierced through. It was a reminder you were still in the oceans, but not necessarily a welcome one.

You didn’t know when the transition happened. All of a sudden, you felt your arms lower in exhaustion. 

But it was a sign that they were under your capacity again. 

You opened your eyes slowly to see the hole in the wreck at the top, and the faded suggestion of light that was centered in it. It felt like there was nothing around you but you, the cracked wooden opening and the light. A lost partner begging you to return. To feel its warm embrace again. You could hear nothing.

Your feet began to kick.

Your feet.

…

And they were truly useless. A hopeless land animal lost in a medium not built for them. If your memories were with you, you’d realise it was like being in the tub all over again. The movement was slow. Painfully so, but gradual. That graduality kept you alive, kept your spirit burning, as you reached with an arm towards the surface. 

It wasn’t long before you were out of the wreck. You would’ve been surrounded by so many creatures but you didn’t feel any of them, just you and the light. Your only companion. Your legs snapped in tandem. Faster.

The destruction of your old fate and the beckoning of a new. An entirely new life that you had to shift and form with your hands so you didn’t fall. Everything you’d learned and loved before now, both brought along and cast aside as you kicked upwards.

And upwards.

Voices floated over your head. Or was it just one voice? It faded and sang in an echo of an echo, a memory of a memory, from a far forgotten pit in the trenches.

Above all the reefs and the palace of the king,

Above all the schools and constellations of starfish

And even above the shallowest of waves

There exists another one. 

…

Your fingers perceived the boundary.

Your arm drove you up to take your first gulp of a breath.

Chapter Text

It was bright. Too bright. Brighter than you hoped. There were some clouds but they did nothing but attack your eyes with their blinding whiteness too. 

Triangles in your vision, far away in the sky. Birds. Two of them, circling around your head and screeching at you to wake up. Or screeching at something in the distance.

The sound of the sea, intercepting the screeches with a calming wash. And then it’s touch. Painfully familiar, but soon gone again. Only in moments did you feel the pain.

The sand had matted in your grey hair. 

Grey.

You scowled at the unspoken, cruel price omitted by the Sea Witch. Somehow a bigger sign that you couldn’t go back than your loss of tail.

The sand plastered all over your face, making you feel dirty and confined. All in your fingernails and creases in your body. Maybe the seagulls were actually laughing at you.

You were panting heavily, eyes fully wide now, but unable to move. Unable to speak. The only movement you felt was the gentle brush of the sea reaching your legs in the in-between moments. 

Legs.

And then, a more distant sound. More than the sea and far more than the birds. It was just a discernable and controlled high pitch. The birds retorted in louder screeches. But the noise continued, and the more it did so, the lower and closer it came.

Until it was human.

Until you could make out words.

SIGHTING ON THE BEACH.

—

Fuck. You hadn’t thought this through at all. Memories flooded back into your brain like a hole in a hull struck by lightning. The Prince. Your father and the Sea Witch. Caspian… your mother. You remembered everything. And as the guards got closer, one last thing plunked into your brain.

Soldiers. With orders to kill life from the sea.

You were a washed up body. Human looking, sure, but washed up and potentially dangerous nevertheless. Your heart was pumping before but now it lost control. You started to hyperventilate in the new human air, which felt like it wasn’t even there. The voices got closer too quickly. Your fight or flight response broke yourself out of your daze. You had to move.

You dragged your limp arms up onto your elbows, looking at the oceans in front of you. They existended into the horizon and beyond with a blinding shimmer, the waves erupting in their own sparkles. It was almost cruel the way they glimmered in your departure. You tossed yourself onto your left side, taking a dangerous bet that it wouldn’t collapse under the weight. Your upper body staggered into position on your stomach. But as you looked up through your crumpled hair to your path before you, all you could see were the boots of men.

—

You froze looking up at them. They were shouting before but they must have stopped as they got closer. You were completely armourless before them, looking into their eyes as much as you could to beg and plead for mercy. Your voice still wasn’t with you, but you were too out of it to use it anyways. 

But they looked at you with a certain expression. Made by their brows and their eyes, and a little bit by their down-turned lips. Was it empathy?

The one on the left knelt down and you had to reposition your whole body to face him. Even if you were caught without guard you couldn’t allow your physical body to become so easily controlled. But his tone was calm. Soft and deep. He extended a hand that you didn’t take. Partially from apprehension and partially because lifting a hand would almost certainly undo the structure of arms beneath you that was keeping you up. Shakily, but nevertheless. After only a quick moment of no responses and silence, they looked at each other in a knowing nod. Your heart plummeted. You could feel your head constricting itself. But as you expectantly looked to their waists, they hadn’t drawn weapons. In fact, they only had basic equipment on them. Before you could think about all the possibilities and questions you had any longer, they dragged you up, one arm for one man, and were carrying you across the beach to the distant sight of horses. A faint but certain voice grazed your ears.

We’ll get you to the castle and get you cleaned up.

—

You were one of them. Or at least that’s what they thought, as you were in the trailer of their carriage. The beings that you had always been taught to fear and hate. And it wasn’t even just that you were in a vehicle on a one way journey to their lair, but you were one of them. That lair of violence and evil, was your home now. You glanced over to the sea past the cliffs and the beaches. It still glimmered in the sunset in a farewell.

The reality started to hit you, that you’d really abandoned everything you’d ever learned and known and remembered for a new and completely different life. Not even a life, a hope. A hope that the man of your dreams would remember you and your name. Would they miss you down there? Or, was it the only option you were given. As you pulled through the gates of the castle, the sound of the iron bars stung in a screech. The vision of the sea vanished in front of you. Your brain told you you were doomed, but you didn’t feel remorse or regret. The Sea Witch’s laugh didn’t matter anymore, you were in a whole new realm.

The soldiers helped you generously off the cart, and you leaned on them with full support as they took you to the “kitchens”. You glanced over to their faces which were focused ahead. Were these really the same people that threatened you with guns and spears only a number of days ago? You tried to decode if you actually remembered their faces, but your vision was just leaving its blurriness. The number of days in question was lost on you, and there was something jarring about the spineless nature of humankind. Able to mimic both great kindness and love and turn it into hatred and murder in a blink. You lessened your weight on their shoulders, but your legs were useless. You tried your best to remind yourself it probably took some time to get used to, but you couldn’t help thinking that two fleshy stumps on gravel and sand were the most useless instruments God could have created. You almost gave a chuckle at how difficult it was to balance your weight on one foot whilst swinging the other in front so you could actually move. If this was your tail, you’d have covered triple the distance by now. This was all disregarding your toes, which you couldn’t help but see as creepy mini fingers.

They soon reached a fireplace with a lit fire and a stool right beside it, gently lowering you down. You flinched away from their touch, the memories of your past still too fresh. There was something about becoming human that made your anger and hatred at their violence reborn. But they seemed unoffended and rather more focused on looking away from you. You pulled a face of offense, trying to catch their faces, but one of them handed you a towel. You looked down at your bare knees and shins, still wet but collapsed together like fallen trees. Oh right. Humans wore clothes to cover their bodies. You wrapped the lower half of your body with the blanket and tucked it firmly in.

A maid made her way over to you as you were staring at the fire. It only crackled gently, and it didn’t spit at you either. In fact, it was actually quite calming, even though you’d never been this warm before. But you had learned one too many times not to get too close, and almost burned your fingertips in the process. As you heard the relaxing crackle, you couldn’t help thinking of the ship, burning. And the Prince, dizzied and weak, falling from it.

The maid began to fuss you and rub your shoulders. Her voice was kind and warm, and you began to think it was only human men that were the problem. But you had other things of greater priority.

“Where is the Prince”

It was the first words you’d managed to actually bring out of your throat since washing up, and the surprise in her face made her look like she’d witnessed your whole horrifying journey.

She gave an empathetic look, like looking at a child with an impossible wish, before responding with a shoulder rub.

“Well you should focus first on getting your strength up, miss”

You thought she wasn’t going to answer you and it was going to be endlessly difficult to find him. Even in the kitchens, 100 people must have already come and gone. How could you pick him out from a crowd in the castle when you could barely stand? But she continued in contemplation under her breath, the circles she was drawing on your shoulder slowing,

“Anyways, the Prince hasn’t wanted to see anyone for weeks now”

Your head bolted to her face, and the visual response she gave you told you you were giving a look of pure helplessness and need. 

“Why”, you whispered, needing her to respond to this request more than anything.

She hesitated before starting, like you still couldn’t handle such complex concepts, “well, he says he’s mourning something that never came and won’t tell anyone anything else”

“It’s really not like him”, she concluded, looking at nothing in the distance. Her tone turned sad and despondent, and you could almost see in the contours of her face, her eyes and her lips, how the mood of the Prince had even affected the servants.

Her words rang in your head again like an urgent bell. Like you were young again and late to class.

Mourning something that never came.

Your whole head snapped forward, eyes straight forward like you’d been electrocuted. That never came. It was past 21 sunsets since you’d promised the Prince to come back. Your hand reached the boundary that day but no further. And no more of you. You’d been in chains counting the breaks and betrayals every day, every sunset and sunrise, your bracelet as a dial for time. How could you have forgotten. Time constricted and refracted in that cage and it suddenly didn’t exist for anyone else but you. And now you were out and it was catching up, chasing you down. Maybe it had already caught him. You turned to the maid who tilted her head in earnest attention.

“I need to see the Prince”

The words had only half left your lips by the time you had dragged yourself onto your feet, hand burning on the mantle above the fire.

—

“Miss, you can’t go anywhere you must stay here”

Her frantic words were already faded and distant.

You didn’t know how your legs carried you but you were thankful they did. You dragged your hand from the mantle to the stone walls of the room, towards the door barriered by stairs. It was small and curved round the top, but old. You could see the light filtering in the aged wooden cracked, like the call of an angel. Your hand was already grazed and bleeding slightly, as you had to rest your entire weight on it to not fall. All you were focused on now was one foot at a time. A bend in a leg and a planting of a foot, resting the weight for the other foot, dragging your hand along the uneven surface, and repeat. The protests of the maid became the protests of the staff, but their voices mumbled and merged, slowly dying as a whole in your ears. You only had one thought and you couldn’t afford to fill your brain with anything else.

The stairs were the worst part. You didn’t know why humans created such inconvenient and unnecessary blockages to accessing different parts of the same building. You fell one too many times and decided to just crawl up them instead. It probably looked unflattering to all the humans behind you, now concerned at your dedication, but hands and knees made you far far quicker. You got to the top of the stone stairs and pushed the wooden door open. You were met with a hall. Windows spanning the left side, light busting through in angular and shaped beams as the sun set with a fiery glory. You helped yourself to your feet again. Walk. Move. Anything. You had to keep going.

The walls of the halls were more smooth now and your hand got a small rest at least. You grabbed onto the joiner of each window in a rhythm, taking three steps in between. A repeatable method was probably best. The hall was empty, and as you rounded the corner, the next one was too. The voices of pleading became more hurried and urgent, but they were still distant. You tried to focus on the layout. Had you seen this before? You thought you had. You were looking for any sign that this was where the Prince had smuggled you in and out, but at the time you were frankly terrified and hidden and you didn’t have a good idea. Your need to see a familiar setting and hope that this hall was the one merged in a dangerously delusional combination. 

But he had to be here. Somewhere. You’d circle the castle 50, 500 times if you could see him again. You’d fight off any guards or maids that tried to stop you even with your feeble legs. This was just something indescribable that erupted in you, and fought your legs into motion past every window. Just three more steps. Three more steps. Three more steps. He had to remember you. Even with his hair and these legs. You were past the point of praying for it, it was something you needed as you were nothing without it. You may as well have given up and become foam if he didn’t. You’d sacrificed everything for him. You’d thrown yourself into an endless void for the chance to see him again. To live the forbidden life that you needed that badly. More shouts. As you turned another corner, a few men were at the end of the hall you’d just passed, pacing. They weren’t violent but their speed towards you made them seem that way. Just three more steps, towards the light. Past each of the sunset barriers demarcating the floor, each was a small inch of progress towards a revival that you’d bet your whole world on.

You rounded a third corner. Your legs had picked up speed at the sight of the men and women behind you, but as you turned the light got brighter. The sun burned through those windows in a flurry before its certain death as it sank below the horizon. You instinctively winced at the light, covering your eyes with the back of your hand, but a figure stood in the hall. You lowered your hand.

He was alone, back turned. But he was unmistakable. The third beam of sunset stemming from the third window down the hall lit up his golden blonde hair. A white shirt and worn brown trousers. You stopped in your tracks. It didn’t matter that the men were closer now. It didn’t matter that your legs had about 6 more strides in them before your legs buckled like the worn and defeated flesh they were. You only had one thing left. The word left your throat barely audibly, your mind barely able to conceive of your sight. That maybe you’d done it. You’d reached your fate and it was time to see if you’d fall back or rise up, and it was completely out of your hands.

“Felix”

—

He span around instantly. His hair flipped and then bounced in the movement as he immediately turned still. He looked desperately around at the end of the hall where you stood, and just the concentrated look of desperation in his eyes stopped the men behind you in their tracks. He locked eyes with you even from your far distance. Even with your legs and your grey hair. He looked weathered. Damaged and worn. His whole figure seemed lost, but his face was the most hopeless of all. His brow quivered at the sight, his eyes wide, taking in all the light they could and reflecting the rest. His mouth was a little agape in shock, but different from how it usually was. It wasn’t inquisitive or surprise, it was like a form of magic had been performed right in front of him, which in a way, it kind of had. His freckles beamed in the sunlight. 

You just stood there looking at him. Eyes innocent like a baby deer, just waiting for a response. You didn’t realise you were out of breath from walking, and gave a dry swallow, probably not aided by your world-shattering nervousness. You felt your heart almost pump right through your rib cage out of your chest, as you heard your pulse in your ears too.

You stood there looking at each other in an endless moment. Silent. Just looking at each other. Like you couldn’t believe it was each other. He looked at you like you’d risen from the dead, and you looked at him in utter disbelief. That you’d made it. Beyond all odds and confinements, you’d made it. It had taken an unbreakable will and too many stabs in the dark, but you were here and so was he.

But the moments were too long. Your kneecaps soon buckled under you, and you cursed the fragility of human legs, plummeting to the floor. But he saw you well before that. He saw the excruciating look on your face and immediately swept into motion, past one window and then another, in a movement that even put mermen’s tails to shame. You only looked at the ground as you plunged down, looking at your certain fate. You were inches from a shattering collision of bone and cold varnished wood before he caught you. In both of his arms, and swang you round.

You could see his face far clearer now. You thought his expression changed a little now, into a less confused disbelief. Just like yours. As you laid caught in his arms, he rested his hand at the back of your head and scanned your whole face and body like you were fragile and could’ve been broken at the smallest of mismovements. You just looked back into his wide doe eyes that told you everything. That he did remember you. That it had all paid off, all that sacrifice and trauma and resilience. And you were back in the place you had dreamed for the last 20 sunsets and sunrises. That tiny flicker within your soul and it had been answered. You cupped his face with your shaking and bloody hands. His face didn’t move a muscle as a tear protruded from his left eye and fell to your hand, mixing in red before dripping off his chin. You could feel his hands shaking around your waist and head too. 

“Sorry I’m late”, you smiled at him, the words a forced creak out of your restricted throat. You had no idea what else to say. What could really answer this definitive moment that neither of you could believe had happened. He heard your words but still seemed pre-occupied at checking if your body was ok.

His eyes met yours again once he was sure this was real and you weren’t about to die on him. They somehow got larger, more innocent, as his brow began to bob again. He was breathing heavily now and you felt his breath against your skin. Panicked but relieved, like his life had been spared. He didn’t say a single word before he collided his lips with yours, channeling everything he couldn’t express in his mind into one movement. He was in a desperation and a need. His touch was warm but there was a need for assurance in it. An assurance that you were really there and would never leave again, like he was sealing your life with him. 

And you needed that from him too, leaning into him. From your side, it was more of an apology but he didn’t seem to care. You were here now. In every movement he made and every morsel of his skin, it was like he was pledging to never let you go.

Your brain stopped all computing and went completely silent. All you knew is you were with him, finally. Your fate had turned its corner and swanned together with your greatest wish. As you felt his mouth caressing your own, you finally could accept that you’d reached your sanctity. You, in his arms at that moment, was all you’d ever wanted.

The sun gave one last brush of your hand before retreating behind the stone walls, to die behind the hills for another day. 

You no longer needed to count sunsets.

—

It was some time before you broke from each other’s arms. The time you had lost away from each other had taken its toll, and you didn’t want to split from him like you’d be certainly taken and chained for another 20 sunsets. You just sat the whole time without saying a word. It was a miracle the guards and staff chasing you down the hall had disappeared and not reappeared, but you guessed they probably got the message from the response of the Prince. He just sat there on his knees in front of you too, completely exhausted by his own emotions. He’d occasionally whimper in his tears, a vulnerability you weren’t even sure the man who saved you time and time again could’ve mustered. The sun was long gone now, and the hall was getting dark. You’d both said very little, but you still had so much to deal with, once you both stopped being so overwhelmed.

“... your father”, he started, as you were still in defeated disbelief in his red puffy cheeks. You just smiled like it didn’t mean anything and caressed his cheek. It kind of didn’t mean anything. He fiddled with the ends of your hair, shocked but not mournful of its new colour. If anything it was a new fascination, and in that moment it made a part of you actually like it.

“He gave me an ultimatum”, you said, “life or death”, like it was choosing what to eat in the morning.

His gaze widened as he understood a fraction of what you meant. He took your hand in both of his and enclosed it in a sanctity and looked down. But looking down tore at his heart even more. The bracelet. Still shining and intact. You saw his brow quiver again and eyes expand, overwhelmed. You honestly had nothing to say, although you wished you could, at least to reassure him. That bracelet had kept you alive, and even given his reaction, he still had no idea what it had got you through. Like a piece of him with you always. He leaned down to bless it with a kiss, lips reaching passed it to your skin underneath. Silence soon filled the room again as you sat, overloaded in emotion and devoid of words.

“I didn’t mean to rock up so out of the blue I’m sorry”

“And your tail”

It was immediate, like you’d said nothing. He didn’t even turn to look at your loosely attached legs, just looking down and snivelling through his words. You were almost frustrated this was becoming a one sided conversation but his concern for you – above himself, and whatever all of this now meant – warmed your heart. The person who had been the only one to really care for you had lived so far above the seas and the palace. You were kind of mad at yourself for ever doubting that he’d forget you.

“Hey don’t worry about that”, you said calmly, raising his chin towards you with your fingertips. His damaged gaze met your confident eyes and he was reassured if only a little.

“Sometimes you need something more than you need a body”

You seemed to laugh a bit at the end and neither of you could really believe it. He looked at you with a look adjacent to horror that you could even think of giving up something so fundamental and precious. You’d long accepted your fate without a tail, and had definitely accepted it when you were hobbling along a hall with no control of your body. But somehow in the dusk, you’d forgotten about it all, and he now seemed to care more than you did. A moment of silence passed between you again, as he now noticed your bloody hand. He stroked it gently with his fingertips, still cupping the whole hand in his other. But his face showed a distant look, like he wasn’t really here and was trapped somewhere in the calamity of his mind. Like all of your pain was his to bear.

“I know this is sudden”, you started quietly, “and I know I really shouldn’t be here”

Now he laughed, or at least chuckled through his burning hot cheeks. It was good enough for you given tears now pooled on the floor. You thought if mermaids could cry, you’d be doing the same right now.

“And I don’t want to ask too much, but if you could maybe accept me as I am…”

He brought his head up to breathe deeply, rolling his eyes like it was so obvious.

“And just allow me to exist with you”

He was sobbing again and you just cradled his head in your chest, patting his head until he caught his breath again. 

“Then I would be eternally grateful”

After a moment of self-collection, he pulled himself up and held both of your hands in his.

“I thought you were never going to come back”

Your heart shattered, a dagger in your machine. You could feel your head growing heavier slowly in guilt and memory. You searched into his eyes but what you found was too complicated to decode. A combination of regret, relief, frustration, hopelessness and something else. You could feel your heart beating in your chest again. For a moment, maybe you didn’t deserve him. You’d betrayed your promise and by a long-shot at that. You only had the tiniest idea of how that had affected him, but if you thought about it, it had affected you indescribably. Those days in the cage where you almost gave up. Looking into his trembling teary face, you realised it was probably worse for him. Throughout all this time, you never considered the dangers of reuniting with him after breaking your promise, but now they were hitting you in the face. Your hands fell for a moment as you looked to the messy floor of blood and tears. What could you even say to him. You were here – and forever – but at a cost you hadn’t thought of. 

You raised your head with a tremble in your lip, preparing to gasp the word “sorry”, but he engulfed your shoulders in his arms, pulling and holding tight. Your head was resting in his open chest as he rested his chin over it. You had nothing to say but he would speak for you.

“Never leave me again”.

You sank into his arms, gently moving your arms round his waist in response, and sat there for as long as he needed.

Chapter Text

“So, what do you think?”

“I’m not so sure”

You said you weren’t so sure, but really your stomach was almost falling out your ass. His face beamed with a promise, his teeth shining in his smile and his eyes glimmering in the light. But you must have shown an anxious face, as he soon pressed his lips together in a restrained giddiness. 

“You’ll be so perfect I promise”, he said, lifting your hands into his off of your bed, “you’ve improved your walking so much and it's basically just the same”

You did trust his words. He’d proclaimed himself your sole “walking teacher”, even though no one else knew you were a mermaid so there could be no one else. Each lesson, he held your hands and waist gently as you stood on his own feet, and he waddled you across the room. Those were the first few lessons, and he’d soon upgraded you to walking with just one hand help and then alone. In reality, you had made huge improvements in only 7 days, but dancing seemed too… controlled. Too rhythmic and too purposeful. You could basically stumble uneven steps and it was still vaguely classed as ‘walking’, but not dancing. And not when all eyes would be on him anyway. 

You looked down at your joined hands. He was rubbing the space between your thumb and index finger with his own. You had already fallen even deeper in love and barely any time had passed. But so had he, and you guessed it was really a continuation of what you had before. So, you thought you really should do it, to show him how much you really loved him. But you also really didn’t think you were ready. Embarrassing him in front of the entire Queendom was not only a possibility but a likelihood. But at the same time, when were you ever going to be comfortable? You were a fish out of water. 

People in the castle were starting to ask questions. Catch you and corner you when either of you were spotted in the halls, or god forbid coming out of each other’s rooms. And even worse were the rumours, about where you were going together when you were spotted leaving the castle, when in actuality, Felix was probably just taking you to the beach for some well-earned privacy. You’d need to make an appearance to quieten down everyone’s minds sooner or later. About who this new girl was and why the Prince would spend no time with anyone except her. Why she had a room on the top floor of the castle and even a maid to help her dress. Although, the last one was at your own useless protest. But making a presence and exposing yourself for a fool was undoubtedly worse. You raised your gaze again to see him smiling at you endearingly with his eyes. A small part of you hated the grasp he had on you.

“Please for me?”, his tone was soft and high. Your eyes ran away from his and he spoke again.

“It can be my birthday present?”

Your whole face shifted back to his immediately. You’d felt bad enough already about ignoring his birthday. It wasn’t something done in the seas at all, and you’d only known it was today from overhearing some maids. Convention was to get the person in question a present and you had nothing. You explained it to him with a downturned gaze and a shake in your voice but he just hugged you instantly and kissed you on the forehead, saying he understood with a cute giggle. Your heart leapt in the moment but your brain was still drowned in guilt in the days after. 

You sank your head in shame once again, hands going limp in his own. 

“Don’t say that”, you pouted in almost a whisper. You felt like you couldn’t meet his eyes and just wanted to bang your head against the closest wall.

“Oh no Princess I’m so sorry”. He said your kind-of nickname with regret at your demeanor, hastily wrapping his arm around your head and pulling you onto him. Now you were forced to meet his gaze, peppered with his own guilt for having brought it up. His doe eyes were wide and a smile plastered his face. He raised a finger tentatively to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear.

“I shouldn’t have said anything I’m sorry”, he said, pouting through the words still.

You gave a sigh as your expression soon changed. You couldn’t allow him to sulk like this, not on his birthday of all things.

“Ok fine”, you exclaimed, a little louder than you’d wished. A smile grew across his lips again and you kissed his button nose, somehow shining in the sunlight from the western window of your room. Ever since that moment in the hall, you felt like your bodies were one. You thought it was stupid you’d protested it in the first place, as you’d really do anything for him.

—

“Your Highness I promise you you’ll be fine”

Sungho’s words were good additional reassurance for your mind. You’d properly introduced yourself to him a few days ago, and he’d given you an overgenerous bow in greeting, although you had to remind yourself you’d met him and he’d not met you. His tone was always calming and reassuring, and he had a wiseness that always seemed trustworthy. But words wouldn’t do much else for you as you stood behind two huge towering gold-encrusted doors, the only boundary between you and the ballroom.

Felix had prepared you as much as you needed. In fact, you’d been grateful that he answered all your questions and worries with patience and kindness, two things that you’d barely extend to yourself if the positions were flipped. You were to be Princess Aesterie of the Monarchy of Ciusri. A royal, so unwanted prying and shadiness would be minimalised, but from a made-up far off land so you didn’t get yourself into any trouble with answering difficult questions about trade or politics. This way, everyone was happy. You’d even created some of your own facts about Ciusri just in case, and for a moment your mind had wandered from the fact that you’d really have to trick all these people into this. You took a deep breath and held it for a moment. Your gown was killing. Humans wore these incredibly uncomfortable corsets to suck in your waist but then huge frames covered by adorned and encrusted fabric to give you a skirt. It made no sense, and you’d asked Felix if it was meant to be like that, despite checking probably 6 times with the maids. But he reassured you you looked beautiful. And that it would only be today that it would be so extravagant. 

“Thank you, Sungho”, you said earnestly, and finally breathing out, “ok I’m ready”

You weren’t really, but you had to blurt it out whilst you still could. It had been only 7 days, and everything was so complicated up here. The culture, the clothes, the people. You hadn’t realised what you were really getting yourself into by throwing yourself into a whole different world. But you were slowly getting the hang of things. And this was the ultimate test, the parade of high society. If you could make it through tonight, you’d prove to yourself you were fine. And you’d prove to them all that you were worthy. You gathered the front of your dress in your fists, squeezing the anxiety out. Sungho gave you a reassuring smile before announcing your entrance.

“Princess Aesterie of the Monarchy of Ciusri”

His voice boomed and you internally jumped, before the door creaked open with a grandness. You could feel the air displaced from the door wafting into your face, making the baby hairs laid carefully on your face dance. It was a room of maybe 100 people. All in huge gowns, jewels and with tiny purses you were sure they couldn’t actually put anything in. Only so many days ago, you’d wish to have one in your hands, inspecting it for artefacts and pearls. But you barely even noticed the intricate designs of the clothes and the ornaments when the doors opened, as Felix stood in the middle of the floor, turning to you on his heel with his hands joined behind his back.

—

You felt late. You could sense all the eyes in the room watching the both of you, reprimanding you for such an outrageous entrance. New girl, and this is how she treats the Queendom? You tried not to overthink their looks that you could feel and not see, and think about how they felt all too familiar. You focused in on him and steadied your pace. He was wearing a shining white coat, gold buttons up the left side. His hair looked soft and fell over his temples, the ends of the back of his hair curling to sit on his shoulders. Your stomach leapt at the sight and you gave a swallow trying to control your face. He met your gaze and didn’t stop, a subtle smile stuck on his face telling you to look at him and no one else. You tried not to think about the Queen, who was inevitably at the back of the hall looking on. She’d always symbolised the most evil of evil for most of your life, you had probably somehow detached Felix from her entirely. And you planned to continue that thought process and ignore her presence entirely tonight. Besides, it would’ve been rude to introduce yourself to the Queen after only having been in the Queendom 7 days.

You finally reached where Felix was standing, past the daggers of eyes of the nobility, and his face fell completely. He looked from white shined shoes, pink bows cascading up your ankles and calves. The silver dress you were wearing had a small skeleton underneath, which you had no idea how you’d move in. It was adorned with bright jewels at every crease and you thought you could see them flicker in Felix’s own eyes as he looked at them. Your white satin gloves were cluttered with silver and jewels, a little too much you thought, but you thought it wise not to question the maids. Your hair was pulled back so violently you weren’t sure it was still there. You caught the top of your head in the mirror opposite the room for a moment in the chaos before leaving. It was gathered at your crown with a clip, curls cascading down to the middle of your back. 

“You look… beautiful”, he said, drawing his face closer to your ear. He probably thought he shouldn’t be overheard but you thought his face would’ve given away everything anyways.

“So do you”, you responded, but he was already parading you round. The music had started at some point when he was speaking to you. He felt one of your gloved hands high with his own and guided you step by step around in a circle. His gaze was comforting but certain. His eyes were saying one step at a time, the phrase he’d used to help you walk on day one. Your body followed suit like it was attached to his.

You broke away at the end of the 8 count. You curtseyed close to him and he bowed in response, the signal for all the others to join the floor.  He’d drilled all of this into you days ago, and all you could think was how annoyed you were that human manners involved so much leg work. You balanced on the corners of your feet with a slight tremble as you reached your lowest point. You’d soon made it through the hardest part, and at least the whole focus wouldn’t be on you now. Or at least explicitly, as you could sense they’d still always be watching you as you turned and through their peripherals. Your faces met close and you whispered something low to be undetected,

“Why are they all looking at us like that”

He responded without a shift in emotion in his face, which was still dazed from seeing you approach him from the doors in your gown,

“Just focus on me”, he started, and you fell into his eyes immediately. On his rise he finished, 

“You’re the most beautiful thing that they’ve ever seen”.

In a swift movement you had no time to think about, he swept you into a hold. Something about it was different though, as you looked up to him, faces still locked into each other’s and only inches apart. It was definitely closer than you’d practised. Into the movement, you could smell his perfume. Blossoms and roses. His huge brown eyes stared straight into your soul and all you could do was stare straight back. His hair bounced and danced as he moved and you thought you could see his freckles glimmer and sparkle into gemstones on his face under the light of the chandelier, glitter basically radiating off him. He guided you round a simple waltz without moving his head even one inch and you did the same. Looking up at him, you felt like you were completely his. Safe, finally, in his arms.

—

Being a human Princess, you soon learned, was beyond tiring. Everyone wanted to know everything about you, and on top of that you had to decode the side-glances and looks they gave you. After so long you gave up. You couldn’t distinguish between judgement and satisfaction or even laughing and ridicule. From the glances Sungho snuck at you, you thought it was probably fine. Felix had had a quiet word with him in the far corner of the hall as you were swamped by a group of noble women. He’d come over unsuspectingly and accompanied you for the rest of the night, introducing you and swerving the conversation from any undesirable questions. Something about his presence shifted the whole vibe of your conversations. They were suddenly a lot more reserved and distanced. You figured Sungho was so well-known and a high member of the royal household, so they couldn’t push the boundaries without showing themselves up. They usually asked why you were here, to which you responded with your rehearsed line. You were sent by your father to negotiate business and trade, but your ship got caught in the storm and you were the sole survivor. You and Felix had purposefully made it slightly uncomfortable so they wouldn't pry too much, and it mostly worked.

But now you were shattered. You’d been standing swaying on your feet, zoned out in a corner of the hall for at least the last 3 dances. There was nowhere to rest your feet, and even if there was a seat you didn’t know how you’d sit in it in your dress. Overall, you thought it had gone well. You’d satisfied enough people with answers to their questions and put your name out there. That was all Felix wanted from the night too. And your heart could rest at the fact you’d avoided the Queen. Now, everyone seemed otherwise engaged. Finally, their stares had cleared themselves from your skin. A voice entered your left ear and floated around the back of your head to your right. You jumped slightly, swearing no one was behind you when you’d purposefully positioned yourself in the corner.

“Are you enjoying yourself”

His smile entered your peripherals as he swept round to your right, presenting his forearm for you to rest on. You took a beat before placing your hand there, trying not to give away your tiredness. You gave him a subtle grin.

“Of course, did you enjoy your birthday?”, your question was sincere but slightly targeted to shift the conversation from your fatigue. You didn’t want to let him down or bring yourself any attention, but he wasn’t having any of it.

“Not when my Princess is almost falling off her feet in the corner all alone”

You batted your head right to him in surprise. Were you really that obvious? You hoped it was mostly a joke and it wasn’t that bad, but your eyes still scanned for people jeering at you between the crowds before you turned back to him. He eventually turned his head to yours two, tilted on its side with a beaming smile.

“It’s ok, it’s difficult even for me, let’s go outside”

—

He led you to the balcony, weaving round the edges of the hall and sliding past the people who wanted to catch his ear about any number of things. In a weird way, the balcony felt secluded. It overlooked the vast gardens at the back of the castle, and you thought if you stood on your tip toes you could see the coast in the back. It was only just outside of the hall, but everyone seemed too involved with themselves to care about anything happening past the curated glass doors. You rested on the golden railing with Felix next to you, breeze cool in the night. It fluttered through your hair as a calming distraction to how uncomfortable these types of clothes made you. After a while in silence, Felix looked behind him and then turned to you. Before speaking he inched closer so your arms were brushing. Even the slightest rub against his skin began to warm your body.

“I hope it wasn’t too bad”, he dipped his head to whisper in the lowest tone you’d heard like it had come from the deepest depths. Your stomach somersaulted at it but you shook it off.

“No it was fine angel, really”, you replied, turning to him with a hand on his cheek as he moved his arm round the other side of your waist. His freckles were illuminated by the light emanating from the hall.

“I’m proud of you, I know it was difficult but you did so well”, he started, “I promise”. You must have given an unconvinced look.

He held your face in his two perfectly soft hands, lifting your chin so you were more on level with him. You beamed up at his shining eyes, embracing you like a hug. Your mind shifted to the sound of a movement by the doors but you didn’t look. You wouldn’t dare break his gaze. And maybe he was right, just focus on me. A brush of wind floated his hair over his doe eyes, and by the time he’d shifted his hair out of his face again with a shake of his head, his face had fallen, eyes on your lips. He tilted his head around like he was inspecting something, mouth slightly open and lips glistening. All you could do was stand there, still even now, a little bit nervous from all the attention from him. 

“Hey angel”, he started in a croak

“Mhm”, you responded

“Can I please kiss you now?”

You thought it was ridiculous that he asked so formally. You restrained a chuckle and you thought he almost noticed, breaking his gaze but only for a moment. In fairness, he didn’t know he could kiss you whenever he wanted. 

“Only if no one’s watching”, you teased, still in a slight disbelief that he didn’t care this much about everyone in the hall within sight. I mean sure you were Princess Aesterie of Ciusri, but that didn’t mean he could just go around kissing anyone at such a huge event. His eyes turned to the doors immediately in a short panic. You rolled your eyes at his cute sincerity and guided his head back to yours with your hand on his cheek. His eyes fell back onto yours for a moment before returning again to your lips.

“I’m joking Felix”, you started, a little nervous to say the next bit and forcing a laugh, “you can kiss me whenever you want”

He hesitated for a moment, apprehension turning his brow down. He must have felt your nervousness. You sighed and closed your eyes for a moment, reaching your arms up to link around his neck.

“I promise”, you reassured, looking straight into his deep brown eyes. His face eased up and a smile eventually made it to his lips. 

He didn’t say anything else before leaning in. He lingered close to you and you could feel his breath for a moment. You didn’t know if it was intentional as a tease, but it made you want to rip your hair out. It was only when he was this close that your mind went feral and you realised just how bad you needed him all for yourself. He didn’t let it go on long though, as he placed his lips in between yours. Delicate and familiar, he soon leaned into the movement and your mind closed over. 

“I hope you had a good birthday”, you tried to utter between his own lips and kisses. 

But he just intensified his tongue with a slight smile, like he thought you were stupid for even saying it.

Chapter Text

Your favourite thing to do was watch the sunset, and it kind of always had been. Even as a child you’d beg mother to go closer to the surface by sunset to see all the refracted colours bouncing and gliding into the oceans. And if you asked her at the right time, and could sneak past father, you did just that. But now there was no refraction and no illumination, you were getting it unfiltered. From your room on the highest floor of the castle, your window looked out to the far-beyond seas, rippling at the horizon. Sitting on the ledge with the window swung open, you could feel the beams hitting your skin with a warm embrace, the wind intervening to dance in your locks in the intervals. You’d seen 15 sunsets since you’d arrived in the castle, and you always made sure you were back in your room, perched resting on your foot at exactly the same time each day. Looking to the sea didn’t give you the nausea you thought it would. It seemed distant and calm. And watching the sun fall into the horizon reminded you that mother was still with you every day.

“So he’s really that good huh”

“I knew it was strange you never talked about anyone like that before”

This was the first time Caspian and Jerry had visited you, and they had way too many questions to ask, acting like worrisome mothers. 

“And what is that you’re wearing”, Caspian quipped, as if you’d been styled as a joke by the royal maids.

“It’s what they wear up here it’s fine I promise”, you said twirling in your white ruffled dress that was a little too tight in the waist despite not even being corseted. 

You all agreed never to talk about your father. You told them you didn’t want to know out of fear, but they reassured you that they didn’t have to say. You didn’t really know what that meant, but it couldn’t have been catastrophic. They would’ve been obliged to tell you if he was on a rampage, but at the same time, not knowing brought a new and different fear of the unknown, not of land this time but the oceans. You must have shown a panicked face for a moment, batting your eyes between them, as Caspian returned a confident and reassured face. You sat looking at the distant erupting waves on the beach afterwards. Whatever happened and whatever he thought, you’d probably never know even if you went back down there to ask him yourself. He had given you an ultimatum over days and days, and as his tone lowered and his interactions decreased, you thought he finally might have realised he wasn’t talking to a child. You had dealt with the choices given to you. If he had to be forced to accept them, that was his problem. He’d been told since you were born you were going to have to make that call at some point in your life. It wasn’t your fault that time had caught up with him when he had his back turned. 

You smiled and sank into your seat, looking at the endless variety of trinkets and flowers Felix had adorned your windowsill with. Sometimes he’d come busting into the room with a bright smile to announce he’d found something new, with a kiss on your nose, and sometimes he’d plant them on your window whilst you were sleeping and leave the light breeze to wake you up. Jerry and Caspian took no interest in any of the ‘human flowers’ that made them sneeze and almost fall off the ledge. Caspian pledged to bring some real flowers back for you next time he came and you pacified him with a wave.

“Aesterie”, Jerry said from the bowl you placed for him on the corner of the ledge, “you really look happier”

You smiled at his words and folded your arms to relax your head into them. The words from Jerry in particular meant the confirmation of something you’d thought for the last few days. That you’d made the right choice, but even beyond that. That you were really meant to be up here. Your fascination with the human world grew with you as you got older and didn’t stop even despite your father’s petty vengeance. And that was why you were so depressed all this time. You could never explain it in words, just an urge. It was like the stars decided your fate with Felix long long ago.

“Thank you, Jerry. I really am”

They both beamed, easing your relief that they were actually ok with your leaving the seas for good. It was the only thing playing on your mind these days and the cleansing of it from your mind made your spirit free. 

Three knocks on the door soon broke your petty arguments about the human world.

“Sorry boys, I’ve got a date to get to”

They both huffed, half sincerely half sarcastically, at being blown off so soon. The sun wasn’t even half way down the sky yet but they knew they couldn’t hold you. You had survived imprisonment and made a deal with the Sea Witch, if they thought they had the privilege of controlling your life they were surely misguided.

You closed the window latch and turned eagerly to your door, Felix already shutting your room door behind him.

“Your friends were here?”, he inquired and you gave a short nod in response. To say it hadn’t even been that long since you both first met, he had a quick acceptance of almost anything you did or said. There wasn’t even the suggestion of confusion when you casually mentioned your best friends were a lobster and a rainbow fish. You couldn’t pin it down, but every time you were surprised at him all you remembered was that time in the bath tub. His fingers gently stroking your tail showing a revolutionised face. You thought maybe that moment had shifted something in him.

“I hope you're settling in well”, he asked earnestly but your face didn’t respond. He’d asked it every day despite your lectures that you were just fine. Perfect even.

“I brought you these”

He whipped his arm round in front of you and you startled, taking a step back, just to see a bouquet of 40 roses launched in your vision. Your face must have lit up as he responded with a beam himself that made you think you were back watching the sunset again. 

“Oh my favourite thank you, my angel”

You took a deep breath of them before turning your back to place them gently on your desk. He followed you, hands behind his back and head tilted in a loving gaze. You were happy he was obsessed with everything you did, as it meant you didn’t have to tone yourself down either.

“I just picked them today not far from here”, he said with a skip in his step but disjointed eye contact, waiting childishly to be praised.

“I know, however can I repay you”, you half teased in a lowered voice, reaching over to place your hands on his shoulders and leaning in to kiss him. But for the first time he responded with a teasing grin and an eyebrow raised, his index finger imprinting into your lips. You were genuinely taken aback for a moment before pulling an exaggerated confused face. 

“Well,” he started with a half-shout, bounding to open the window and standing on the ledge, “I have a lot planned this evening”. The excitement and speediness scared you alone, as if he intended to jump off the ledge there and then. You tripped on your feet pacing to catch up with him and maybe take his hand for safety.

“So all I ask”, he started slowly, shaking the chunky rope that dangled from above your room all the way to the first floor. It was only used for relaying supplies and water up to the top floors, so you were as confused as any when he started paying excessive attention to it.

“Is that you enjoy it”, he concluded with a single shoulder shrug in response to your bewildered and frightened face. And without time for a response, he leaned back, face to the sky and eyes gently shut. Sun and wind combining in a flicker of a moment to ignite his freckles and light up his hair, and he fell off your balcony rope in hand. Your mouth fell agape for a moment before panicking, as you ran to the window and peered down over the ledge, your hands gripping the rail in a desperate attempt to steady yourself. Your torso was crushing all the blooming flowers he’d planted. But he just looked up at you with a menacing and teasing grin, as he floated down, rope sliding through one veiny hand, shirt fluttering in the wind.

— 

It was the warmest of seasons, and merchants and stalls lined the path all the way from the castle gates to the lower villages still enclosed by the walls. Rows of cloths, materials, foods and ingredients, any time you came down it never wasn’t busy. People came from far away to trade and do business, or just shop with their eyes. Although, at this time it was a little quieter, some closing up for the day and travellers from afar having gone home already. All that was left really were a few local people and most merchants thinking about packing up. But you didn’t really have time to take much of it in, chasing the Prince over the cobbles down the market.

The wordless dare to chase him down was more than clear by the smug look on his face as his boots rubbed against the rope he descended down. But it was destabilised for a moment when you jumped down the rope after him. He probably didn’t think you wouldn’t hesitate to throw yourself over a balcony like that, but you reasoned standing on land was hard enough, so why not air. It was probably far closer to water anyways. As you giggled and slung your feet over the edge, there was a comfortable familiar feeling of freedom, no hard medium at the end of your body. But at the same time, with your legs flapping and flailing in the wind, you realised they really weren’t built for anything else except ground. You’d managed to land without too much violence, and surprisingly picked your legs up to chase round the corner after him, already having an unexpected advantage. You followed him round the walls of the castle through the gates to the lower towns, most castle maids and guards looking in confusion rather than alarm, which you were thankful for. As you left the gates, the sun was lower in the sky, well on its inevitable path of collision with the sea on the horizon. 

Running wasn’t your greatest talent. Even if Felix had reassured you that you were getting on just fine, you still cursed your legs for every tip, tremble and roll of your foot. And at that, running down a path made of cobbles, he really had it out for you. Some of the merchants winced and cringed in empathy as you flew down the path, Felix increasingly just a dot in the distance. He had no idea what you would do when you got a hold of him. But as he ran his fingers through his hair at the bottom of the cobbles with a grin, you thought you might still be the loser. 

It didn’t take you too long to reach the gate at the bottom, out of breath but annoyance intact. Was this really his plan?, you thought, you chase him all evening until he disappears and your legs give in? Romantic. You turned your head round the corner of the final quiet house before the city gates. It was surely the only place he could’ve gone, but it was carpeted with thick and tall grass. You gave a sigh before placing your first foot to start wading through it. He’d put you through 2 different surfaces and you’d have his ass for it. At least you could have relied on him on his birthday, and it was an even albeit shiny floor. But even as you got your foot stuck in the wet mud under the grass, the memory of how happy he was to teach you to walk kept you back from screaming. The smile that beamed across his face at your progress every time you practised with him.

“Felix”, you gave up, “this is diffi–”

Before you could finish your sentence, your right ankle gave in. As your knees buckled, an all too familiar feeling, you could’ve sworn this wasn’t one of your usual mistakes. You denied it was your own fault in your head like a petulant child, before feeling the strong grip of a hand around your wrist, swinging you round to a smirking grin. The man you’d been chasing this entire time, with his leg out, foot locking your own in the deep grass.

You would have given him a look of mixed hatred and a forced laugh, but not even his own pull of body weight could stop the force of your body. As you swung into his torso, his grin was still subtle on his lips. The top half of his face was more shaded by the roof ledge of the house but his bottom lip was in direct contact of the sun. But as you finally collided, his face immediately turned to surprise and slight panic, a tiny “oh” leaving his lips as he realised you were both doomed. A couple trips of steps were shared between you before you both fell into the grass. You felt a little worse for Felix, as it was him who had to fall on his back with you on top of him, despite your best but futile efforts to lessen the blow. But his immediate giggle as you both collapsed put your mind at ease. 

After a moment of enjoying how the sun hit the Prince at this angle, and how happy he looked just to be laid there, he interrupted your inner monologue,

“Oh”, he started, shifting his hand down his pocket with some difficulty that showed he didn’t want either of you to move, “I plucked this on the way”

The smallest of lilies. You twirled the baby pink petals in your fingertips for a moment before he plucked it gently back out of your hand. He sucked his lips in for a minute before moving his left hand to tuck your dangling hair behind your ear and secure the lily in place on top. He probably sucked his lips out of a nervousness, which was also resonant in his eyes, but all it did was make you want to kiss them even more. He secured the stem through your locks and curled his gentle fingers round your ear, brushing your hair around your ear so he could get a better view of your face. He started asking you a question about your day but you interrupted him to plant a kiss on the tip of his shining nose. His eyes shone a surprise but he knew now that you would move to his lips. He was annoyingly ready for it as he immediately engulfed your lips into his, smiling into the movement as you gave a short and shallow groan. After you felt like both of you had made your points, you rewarded him with answers to his questions and rambled on about the interactions you’d had with people in the castle. They knew little about you apart from your name, but you mostly made up meaningless lies about Ciusri. Although some of them were intermixed with the truth about your childhood and your parents. You were laid there for ages, almost as if the whole thing wasn’t an unfortunate accident in the first place. And the whole time, he just laid there, one of his arms under his head and the other curling its fingers round your ear like he’d die if he stopped, listening to every letter that fell off your lips.

—

Thankfully, his plans were more than just running. Although you thought you could’ve just stayed half-hidden in the grass all evening too. He took you to one of the outlying villages, hoping not to be noticed too much. You thought it was a stupid effort as he was literally Prince of the Queendom but you allowed him. And in fairness to him, he wasn’t wrong. You both stuck to the shadowed corners of the tavern and you were mostly unaccosted, despite the occasional apprehensive glare of someone who caught his eye in the chaos. Through one way or another, he managed to swerve attention before being recognised. Although some of the times it was at your own peril, as he pulled you up to dance through the crowd with him. Dance was a big word, and his birthday hadn’t really introduced you very much to the energetic bounding dancing that happened in taverns. He was still dragging you on your feet but you only felt a little guilty, and he didn’t mind at all. You’d long learned that his grip was tight and reliable, even if he was the reason you had fallen down to begin with. 

You both sat down afterwards with a huff. The room was clammy now even at your colder solemn corner, and there was basically no room to breathe with the amount of people dancing. You tucked your hair back behind your ears, feeling the lily again and smiling instinctively. Felix pushed his hair back with his hands, out of breath too. His shirt clung to his skin with sweat that accentuated his biceps in a way that you tried to drag your eyes away from. He just looked disassociated as you stared gormlessly at his features. Your moment was soon interrupted and you looked at each other despondently as a new song started. You thought your reactions were a collective sign that you’d sit this one out, but Felix took a courageous swig from his tankard, hammering it back on the table and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he stood up. He offered his hand to you and you looked at it like it was an insult. Mostly because you knew you’d have to go regardless. The Prince of the land couldn’t go alone for entirely different reasons that a newly-human mermaid couldn’t either. You responded a tired and reluctant look to his pleading grin as you offered your hand back to him. His pull helped you up a little but you mainly did it by yourself this time. He kissed the back of your hand like it was your first time meeting at a ball, probably hoping to renew some energy into the both of you, but you were both stopped in your tracks when your heads turned to see the crowded centre of the room. 

At least 5 people were looking at you with glances and shared whispers that made your heart jump and nerves run on edge. And it quickly spread, more people were looking and more assured as more time passed. Once the count was 10 going on 11 people, you turned to each other. This time, Felix was the hopeless one, looking into your face for a way out as your eyes read ‘you got yourself into this’. He pulled a cringing face and took off, swinging you by your hand like a piece of cloth. He carved away through fallen and misplaced chairs so your legs were mostly saved, but you winced a little as his own shins collided with some of them. Once you got to the door, you were the only one to take a look back. Most of the crowd had caught on already, but some were still dancing. The chaos he’d caused in leaving probably hadn’t helped. People cheered and smiled and others stood as still as stone in sheer disbelief. As you left to the cold, you stepped around him to face him, but his deep red face was already in his hands. You just stood there and laughed, uselessly clawing his hands off his face with your own and telling him it was ok. He flopped his arms down either side of him in an embarrassed strop, exclaiming that it wasn’t funny but it just made you cackle even harder. Though you soon regretted shutting your eyes and holding your stomach, as he swept you off your feet into his arms with one swift movement, much to your initial horror as your centre of balance was entirely upended. He only showed a timid grin as he walked over to Zelda and told you you definitely had to get going before they all came out looking for you.

—

He took you further up the hills and further from the castle. He seemed happier and freer the further away you got, and for a moment you considered this was all he wanted to do. Could a Prince like him really get tired of the life he had? I mean you had in the seas, so much so you left forever, so you could blame him for even one moment. He halted Zelda into a walk as you approached a night market 5 fields over from the tavern. The stalls were illuminated with lanterns that led a path winding round the fields through merchants of all different types of crafts. You could have sworn you’d recognised some of them from the castle square and caught some of their eyes to give them a grin, internally in disbelief that they were basically working all day and night. You stayed on Zelda for the most part, not wanting the difficulty of having to hop on and off to talk to people and look closer at anything, despite your jealousy that Felix could. You approached a stall owned by an old woman who seemed to make accessories out of cherry blossoms, but you couldn’t tell what exactly. His face seemed to light up as he inspected them at a closer distance, laughing and joking with the old woman. His ability to get on with everyone ever was a mystery to you. He quickly turned around with a wide smile to you, reaching for your waist to lift you down. You steadied your hands on his forearms as he placed you firmly back on ground, and now you could see the accessories were mostly semi-circle shaped. But still nothing you’d ever seen before. You stood in a little embarrassed silence in front of the old woman, as all you could say was they were beautiful. Felix thankfully reached for a filled baby pink one near the back, 

“It’s a flower tiara”, he explained, placing it delicately on your head, “perfect for my Princess”, he said, caressing your cheek with the back of his index finger on the way down.

You moved to the side of the stall to look in the small oval mirror that was placed on the corner. You had to admit, human flowers were pretty. Pretty in a different way, you corrected, Caspian’s reprimanding voice still in your head. They were smaller but popped more, more of a feature than the endless amount of flowers in the reefs. There was something special about them and how they were all so different and carried tales about what they meant. Felix emerged in the vision of the mirror behind you, placing his hands on your shoulders and tilting his head in pure joy.

“You look so beautiful with pink”, he said mindlessly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear again to show the lily.

You unintentionally blushed and begged that he didn’t see, but staring deep into your eyes off the mirror there was no way he didn’t. You stood trapped in a wonderful gaze for a moment but he broke away to pay the lady far more than he needed too. He grabbed your hand and pulled you away from the mirror to run off with a grin as she protested it was too much. You hoped he didn’t think you were looking in vanity, as you were really thinking how you’d never wear any other colour ever again.

You walked round the rest of the market with Zelda close behind. You were both happy to mostly shop with your eyes and speak to anyone who grabbed your attention. But as you reached the last of the stalls, the dark open road signalled the end. You almost pouted in sadness. You knew you should both really be getting back so no one in the castle was alarmed by your absence, particularly his. Even more rumours of you two going out wouldn’t be excessively damaging to the Crown, but the Queen’s habit of coddling the Prince meant he could barely go anywhere without either eyes on him or guards being sent out to find him. But before you turned to him to accept the truth, he enclosed his hands in yours and turned to you.

“I have one last thing I really want to do”

“Shouldn’t we really be getting back though”, you responded, your brain pushing out the words in resistance to your urge to just run off with him

“No it’ll be fine”, he reassured, weirdly confident given how it definitely wouldn’t be, “anyways, watching the stars with you is well worth whatever mother says to me when I get home”

“And whatever battalion she’s ordered after me”, he said in a whispered tone

“Oh you mean your mother the Grand Queen”, you retorted

“Yeah whatever”, he smiled, lifting you back onto Zelda, and making for the east coast.

—

Even if you wanted to remind him how late it was, you really couldn’t. He was annoyingly right again. You were on a cliffs edge by the eastern beach, a sheer hill of sand beneath you. From this vantage, you could see right where the sky met the sea. They looked like one combined plain. Rocks jutted out to make tiny islands, just as the stars dotted and marked the sky in a mirror of each other. You laid next to him, heads gently touching as he pointed and guided your own hand to tell you about human names of the different stars. Which ones were used for navigating and which ones had ancient tales about them. The fragility of humankind, relying on your father’s waters and the stars to navigate the sea, seemed a foolish dedication. Placing their fate entirely in two forces they had no control over. But at the same time, you’d seen how they’d been able to traverse the seas and marvelled at it yourself. You couldn’t remember half the things he said. He told you so much like it was his side passion, and you could only remember the last three names at any given point despite your best efforts. But you reasoned it was ok, he didn’t want you to remember them all and you just liked to hear him talk.

A moment of quietness fell between you and all you could hear was the whisper of the grass in the wind.

“Thank you for showing me all of this”, you said, still looking to the stars curving around the sky. If you looked close enough, you had convinced yourself you could see them move.

He interlocked his fingers in yours and turned to give you a grin. He didn’t need to respond anything, he just placed your joined hands on his chest and took a deep breath. He would’ve done all of this for you regardless of anything. You turned your own head to see him smiling from his chin to his eyes. Looking back at the stars, you could only see his freckles in the constellations.

“I hope one day I get to learn everything about the oceans”, he said mindlessly

You took a moment to sigh before responding, “yeah… me too”

You’d told him some days ago how you couldn’t go back ever again. When he’d asked why, it felt like spitting up your lungs. You didn’t know why you had felt so tense. Maybe it was how distraught he was when you reunited that clogged your brain. Or maybe it was the fact you’d left everything you’d ever known behind. That deep down, you still worried for Jerry and Caspian. It was such a radical move, you didn’t even want to dwell on it when you were the one who made the decision actively. You just told him you would be at the whim of the Sea Witch. Regardless of what it was, he looked at you with nothing but intent doe eyes and a gentle rub of your hand. You couldn’t believe your sight when he put so much trust in something he knew absolutely nothing about. And the fact you’d just left your father too, none of it phased him. Although, a certain shift in his visage told you a different story. That somewhere within him, he completely understood you. The chance to run away forever and start afresh, completely alone. Maybe it had called to you both more than you’d expected.

“Hey Felix”, you started, but you immediately forgot what you were going to say as he whipped you up, sending you flying down the sand dunes with him, only stabilised through your joined hands.

You screamed your way down. You couldn’t really see your feet in the dark of night, although there were faint outlines thanks to the stars and the full moon. Nevertheless, Felix tore down the dunes with you, even stumbling himself which made you feel less bad. Even three steps in you were shocked you hadn’t fallen already, especially with the effects soft surfaces had on your sturdiness, but you also thought that Felix wouldn’t have given you the time to fall over with the speed you were going. You reached a more horizontal angle and both slowed down, though he was still dragging your hand along. You were basically on the actual beach now, the sea still rippling far away.

“The moon's so beautiful tonight”, you said 

“It is, isn’t it”, he said, refusing to let go of your hand. 

He only stared at the moon for a moment for turning back to you with a grin, yanking at your arm so you would fall into his arms again. This time you stayed upright with no leg to trip you up, grinning right back at him. The collision into his firm body made you almost collapse for a different reason but you decided it was your turn to capitalise. You ripped your hand from his, and his face would’ve turned into a distraught shock if you didn’t put your arms around his neck and jump up, legs gripping around his waist. It took him by surprise, and you almost slipped as he mentally stalled, but his hands landed on the back of your upper thighs just in time. He twirled you around in the air as you brought your forehead to his, your two noses almost swanning together. You could still see his smile in your line of sight, a little lighter now as he sucked his lips again. His touch was so sensitive you almost forgot you had to put some effort in to keep up this position. And for a moment, you thought this was all it was about. What you’d dreamed of and hadn’t even known it, what you’d survived 20 sunsets in that cage for, what you’d sacrificed everything for. To be here, right now, just in his arms. It was everything you ever needed. You giggled in the disbelief of it all.

“What”, he asked, as if he’d been caught with food on his nose.

You just kissed him to shut him up. It was the only way to explain anything that went on in your head. Everything he stood with you wholeheartedly but could never understand anything about. He answered back instantly, taking small strokes across your tongue. You broke apart for only a moment, faces still only within inches. He now laughed to himself, and you had to bite your lip to resist the urge to ask what, just like he did. He’d probably have burst out laughing and you’d never find out that way. But his laugh was a little more timid. More thoughtful in a way than your own. To your surprise, he turned his face to the ocean, illuminated by the moon. His eyes danced in the light, locks joining in as a distant faint breeze made its finale in his hair. You still saw the stars in his freckles

“Aesterie”, he said contemplatively. You hummed in a genuine curiosity. You were unsure about the vision on his face, and a part of you was unnerved about how little you could predict his words for once. He always was so emotive with his face but now, it was like his mind had been wholly cleansed.

“I love you”

…

You just looked into his confident eyes and blinked. Long. Mouth a little agape. Your stomach dropped but your heart warmed. It was devastating to hear in the best way possible. And it had taken you entirely off guard. You blinked for another moment as his eyes stared into yours, not even really asking for a response. The ripple of the waves were barely audible.

“I love you too”

The words left your lips without a single thought. You didn’t think about the fact he was a human and all of this was crazy, or what this would mean for the future, or what your father would think. Or actually, what anyone would think. You hadn’t thought about any of those things for some time now. It was purely for you. The truth, finally unfiltered by the noise around you. He must have sensed it too, his face beaming at the purity of it.

“Actually”, he began, and you immediately sensed some teasing coming from the light in his eye and the smile on his face, teeth showing,

“I love you more”

It was irritatingly sincere like he actually believed it, if only a little bit. He was half-joking but there was a resonance of truth in there too. At least deluded truth, you thought, as your face soon turned to outrage.

“Um”

But it wasn’t worth starting. His lips were already back on yours and blocking you from retorting anything and protesting vehemently. You mumbled something along the lines of ‘that can’t be true’, but it was largely a futile effort as you had to push each word through his increasingly intense lips like he was getting desperate. You chuckled slightly in your throat at just how cute he could be.

—

It was dawn before you returned to your room. It was astounding even to you how much you could sit in each other’s space and revel in it, time flying away. Even more than you had ever thought it could. The thought of people seeing you – early merchants, guards or drunken villagers – didn’t cross your mind once again. It was purified of everything. Leaving each other was still with great reluctance, but at least now you got to see the sunrise. The sky shifted into pinks and light oranges, projecting further into the clouds. It was a sight you’d always wanted to see properly, and immediately seemed like the distant sibling to your sunset you were so fond of. You laid your head on your folded arms on the balcony and shut your eyes, lily still in place by your ear.

Chapter Text

A gentle knock interrupted the legion of maids swamping you, tugging at your corset, binding your feet with ribbon and pulling your hair back. To be honest you were grateful at least one of them had to leave to open the door, even if it meant you were late. The Prince’s face showed none of that though, as he fixated his eyes on you, standing a small distance away.

“Are we about ready?”, he asked, shutting the door behind him.

He was initially giggling a little as he saw you both overwhelmed and tired with this many hands on you. Your look back was half blame, half a plea for saviour. Nevertheless, he drew his gaze up past your dress to your hair, but then soon back to your face. You didn’t realise how closely he’d stepped. He hesitantly brushed one of the baby hairs at your hairline like he was treasuring it.

“You look so beautiful”, he whispered, leaning in, his breath catching your neck. He wasn’t really looking at anything in particular when he said it, as his eyes had scattered before leaning in.

You just smiled timidly in response and he plucked up the courage to look at you again, brushing a lock behind your ear with a smile.

“Well all the best for the Queen”, you responded, the maids still pulling at your corset.

Felix gave a sheepish grin but his eyeroll juxtaposed a reassurance. You had been invited to breakfast with the Queen, although you were unsure who by. It was now 30 days since coming to the surface, and you’d foolishly and stupidly hoped you’d never have to meet her after dodging her at the ball. As you stood trying not to swing round and smack the maid with a vendetta against your waist, you stared at an indiscernible point in your room and recited your logic again. Best case scenario, she just wanted to meet the mysterious person who was taking up a room in her castle and had danced with her son on his birthday. You had some reason to believe she’d caught on a little too much, at least from the hesitant cringes Felix gave when you mentioned it. Too many eyes seeing you both, sneaking out to each other’s rooms in the late hours, or maybe even at the ball. Word travelled faster in the human world than in the oceans, but it also got far more easily distorted. That being considered, she could also want to suss you out. A new girl on her land, and you had been lucky she had only reduced orders for the guards to kill all sea life the day before you washed up. As usual, your mind began to spin as you catastrophised her exposing you and you making a jump for the oceans over the dining balcony. The fuzziness in your brain was killed by the corner of a face in your vision.

“Hey”, he said in a lower tone, “it’ll be just fine”.

He took your hand now, enclosing your palm in his own. You looked around for a moment surprised that the maids had all left. He squeezed your hand again for attention, tilting his head endearingly at you.

“You remembered our plan so well anyways”, he said, like there wasn’t a reason to waste another thought on it.

Right. You were Princess Aesterie of the far Monarchy of Ciusri. You re-rectied the script in your head, more important now than ever. Felix had told you she hadn’t doubted the idea that a new Monarchy had contacted them, but playing the long-term game would be different. You’d both have to craft a delicate story, but that was far down the line. Right now, you just had to get through breakfast and conversations usually characterised by mindless chatter. You felt the wind at your back, egging you on slightly.

You gave him a reassured grin from a down-turned face. This was what you signed up for, and stage fright wasn’t going to stop you for a moment, especially not after all this. He gave a wide smile in response, moving to peck your cheek before taking your hand formally in front of him and leading you to the door.

“You may not be Princess of Ciusri, but you’re definitely–”

“Princess of the Seven Seas?”, you quipped back, playfully but reminding him this was a little more serious than he wanted to let on.

“I mean I was going to say my Princess”, he said in a defeated sarcasm. 

You turned to the door, and was grateful you were in front so he couldn’t see the smirk you made.

— 

“Your Majesty, the Crown Prince Felix and Princess Aesterie of the Monarchy of Ciusri”

Sungho announcing your entrance gave you a little less nerves, his voice a memory of comfort. He gave you a knowing wink before booming his voice past the towering doors, which opened like gates to heaven. You’d been in the dining room once before, although you tried to scrub that memory from your mind in case the Queen could read it on your face. In the middle of the night when you definitely shouldn’t have been there. Felix led you in, hands joined, once the doors were three quarters open. He had decided to wear his most formal naval wear. A black and golden suit jacket with buttons scattering one side and high boots that were for once clean. The cuffs of the jacket shone in the pure light of the room. You’d tried to distract yourself from focusing on how his shoulders built in that outfit in particular.

He led you only a few steps into the room before disjoining to bow low to the Queen. You gave your own low curtsey, avoiding eye contact. Halfway through, you instinctively raised yourself again to not fall, but you were relieved to find the Prince was already standing upright again. Well at least that was test 1 passed. He’d drilled the precedent into you days ago. You looked to the Queen at the far end of the table that must have seated 50. Almost a spec in the distance, you couldn’t believe you’d almost embarrassed yourself falling over in your curtsey – again – and she could barely see it.

You soon moved to opposite sides of the table now towards the Queen. An unnecessarily long walk, but walking wasn’t one of your problems these days, even in your heels. Felix and the Queen started greeting each other more informally, and you only had to respond a quietened “Good Morning your majesty” before reaching your chair. A shorter servant pulled out the chair for you to sit and you were grateful for all the help you could get, thanking him generously. As you were pushed towards the table, you caught Felix’s eye in an intense arrow to the face behind you, biting on his gum. You tried to catch his eye with a look that centred him back in reality, and was eventually successful after too long of staring. You needed his full attention anyways, as it was still as much his job as yours to get you through this breakfast.

—

But for the most part, Felix did the talking. And to be honest you were grateful any time he jumped in. Not that you couldn’t handle the trivial questions the Queen posed to you, but your mind ran circles on fire about accidentally saying something that would’ve showed yourself up. It was only a couple times where the Queen got frustrated at Felix’s responses, as she was looking directly at you and told him “she can speak for herself”. But it was only about the weather in the Capital of Ciusri and what you’d been doing since arriving at the castle. Easy enough. The weather was always warm in Ciusri. 

It was after a copious amount of courses for Breakfast that a silence finally fell among the three of you. Felix had guided you through everything you needed with almost his eyes alone. All you had to do was catch his eye with what you imagined seemed like the look of a child, and he would look deep into your eyes with a confidence, making not-too exaggerated movements to show what fork you needed to use for the incoming dishes. He’d give you a small grin and a nod afterwards that sent butterflies in your stomach, a distant reminder that you’d really fallen this hard for a man. 

The Queen just sat after the courses, head turned to the open west-facing doors for a moment. The wind played in her hair as it lifted off the seas and swept into the palace. Well, test 2 kind of over. You’d reached the end of the majority of the conversations Felix had told you would probably cover, and a raise of his eyebrow as he took a sip from his glass told you as much. You took a long blink and an internal sigh in the silence. It had been just fine.

“Aesterie”, the Queen started mindlessly, “the seas are cruel aren’t they”

Her look was wistful to the horizon and her tone was empathetic and contemplative. There was nothing you could respond except something along the lines of “yes”, but you turned to Felix who gave a panicked look in his eyes, shifting first from you to his mother. You took a gulp. It was better to respond to her immediately rather than wait too long just to say the exact same thing after overthinking it.

“Yes, your majesty”

She naturally continued, “we have no idea what lives down there, but they’re getting crueler and crueler than ever”

She flicked her tongue around her teeth like it was a hard truth she had to lay out to a child. You just looked into her face which now squinted in hatred and rivalry at the horizon. Like she was a God herself. In actuality, there was a slither of truth. The violence your father employed certainly wasn’t accidental or coincidental. But her scornful gaze was all too familiar. The ability of the powerful and protective to homogenise entire lands around them in fear and apprehension. To wield death and life at the flick of a fingertip based on factless ideologies of two incompatible worlds. The look of a stubborn ruler, dragging a whole species self-righteously along a road simply to more violence. You turned to Felix for only a moment. His face was fixated on the back of her head. His face was desolate, mouth a thin line, all apart from his eyes which pinned with a fire. He had clumped his napkin with his right hand, knuckles white and veins in his arms bursting from under his skin. You turned emotionlessly to look past your seat and to the horizon the Queen had spent so much time considering. There were endless waves that rippled and bobbed in a strong white of the high sun. 

“Indeed, your majesty”

The moment of silence that passed between you now was mostly filled with a look of complete disbelief that you felt Felix pin to the back of your head. But it was only a quick moment, the Queen gifting one chuckle, her gaze turned now to the floor, before starting again,

“Well Aesterie”, she said cheerily, “it was great to finally meet you, I think you’re a splendid young woman”

You beamed back at the Queen who gave you a wink. That was a win you hadn’t even dreamed of receiving. All the times and possibilities of things going wrong, and the outcome was a splendid young woman. You had to restrain yourself from tapping your feet by pulling at your fingers under the table. You flashed your grin to Felix who sat bewildered, having been batted between 50 different emotions in the last few moments. His eyes were wide and lips parted slightly as the Queen now gave him a look you couldn’t see. The light shimmered in the whites of his eye, making a stark and beautiful contrast with the deep brown of his iris. His skin glimmered in the sun and his lips shone a light red. He gradually shifted his head to your own face, which was still beaming in excitement and anticipation of a response. To which he just looked like a gormless child. You pursed your lips to stop yourself from laughing. 

—

“How is my splendid young woman”, a voice interrupted your daze, slurring the last three words in a tease that contained not-so-secret excitement.

“Ugh leave me alone”, you croaked back, turning off your stomach to throw a pillow at him.

You’d been back in your room decompressing the whole afternoon, but you were still exhausted. The breakfast had continued until noon, but it wasn’t until you were released from your corset and back in your room that you realised just how much intensity had built in your body. As you flopped face first on your bed and told the maids you’d be fine alone, you thought you’d need at least 3 days recovery to be able to even walk again. You’d been so out of it you didn’t even hear Felix enter. 

“You did so well I’m so proud of you, Princess”. He almost squealed, launching onto your bed and grabbing your shoulders with a shake. You just groaned back louder this time, and the shake sank into a massage. 

“Why the fuck do humans wear these hideous outfits”. You sounded a little too like Caspian for your own comfort but you were overcome with hatred. He just giggled in response and rested his head on your back. You didn’t want to admit it but just his touch was soothing enough.

“I’ve been doing so much work in preparation for these trade talks with Yllitria and you’ve just been laid here all day?”, he inquired in a sarcastic voice, spinning your whole body round with one quick flick of his hands on your shoulders.

Your back bounced once on the bed and his face was met with disgust on your own. He lauded his menacing grin over you and you scorned before starting, 

“Well–”

You got one word in before he pinned both your forearms down with his hands and kissed your open lips, a smug grin fluttering over his face before colliding with yours. Somehow the touch of his lips felt so different to the grin. He kissed you like you were finally his, after all this time and all these obstacles, there was nothing stopping either of you. Nothing could have stopped you for ages now, but the Queen’s approval was maybe the last formal hurdle. You’d finally made it, past the seas and past human society, and together at that. You still gave him a kick in the shin for teasing you, and he gave a hiccup of pain in response. The sun was gentle on the both of you. It was a bright day again and had been for the last 7. The wind gently propped up the transparent curtains in your room, and the only sound audible from your room was the very distant mutter of merchants bursting on the streets. For a moment joined with Felix, you realised you had made it, just as much as he had this morning.

He moved his kiss down your cheeks and eventually to your neck. You tried to rip your arm from his hand to run your hand through his gleaming blonde locks, now a little curled at the ends in the cutest way like a baby animal. But he just moved his hands down your forearms to intertwine with your hands. He clamped them to the bed and you settled for nestling your cheek on the top of his head. He spoke in between kisses and bites of your neck, some making you want to squirm but not wanting him to stop. You released the occasional groan instinctively and it just made him go harder. 

“I hope you’re not too worn out by this morning”, he eventually muttered in a low tone.

“Oh really”

“I have something planned”, he started

“More plans?”

“And it’s almost sunset”

You shifted your head to the window and was speechless by how much time had passed.

“Fucking hell it’s almost sunset”

You turned back to him in astonishment. He was also looking at you from under his brow, your neck red and already turning deeper tones. You both gave a muted laugh, which turned into a bright smile as he inched onto his knees.

“Well, slip into something comfortable”, he started, shaking his head to move his curls off his face, and jumping off the bed. As he moved toward the door, you shifted onto your knees too, probably instinctively. The sight of him walking away was almost traumatising to you, even if you knew you’d see him in a fraction of time. Nevertheless, the way his hair danced, it never was an unpretty sight. You pouted as he stood at the door to which he responded a pretty chuckle.

“Zelda awaits”, he said with another beam, the sun blossoming his freckles, before gently closing the door behind him.

—

You met him by the stables, which you were familiar with now. He was patting Zelda gently with his hand and seemed to be talking to her too as you stood at the gate. You reasoned he was probably saying something meaningless and decided to interrupt him with your walk closer into the stables. Zelda saw you first and gave you a welcoming huff. He turned to you and blinked a couple times over. You were only wearing a loose turquoise tulle dress, with a couple hair ornaments and of course your bracelet, but he looked at you like he had that same morning. And at the ball all those days ago. You took your final steps towards him and realised he’d actually always looked at you like that. With a surprise and astonishment every time, overwhelmed in taking everything in even if you were in the simplest of things. He extended his hand, which you took readily, but it was only a formality as he grabbed you by the waist and launched you onto Zelda. He leaped on behind you with an effortless bounce, and you sat cradled in his torso, his arms loose over your waist holding the reins. 

“Well, here we go”, he whispered in a low tone that you didn’t have the chance to get butterflies at, as you’d already taken off.

—

You had no idea where he was taking you. All you knew was it was further up than you’d ever been. Past the fields of the taverns and the night market, which was already in its early stages. Over vast plains where the only presence was the wind in the grass. But every time you asked him where you were going he just told you you’d have to wait and see, and urged Zelda to go faster. 

The sun was low in the horizon as you made a curve east round the faint and weathered path through a field. Your bracelet caught your eye, shining brightly as it bounced in the gallops and you extended your arms out in the breeze. You tilted your head back and shut your eyes. Your torso at least felt like it was swimming again, unstoppable and free, unobstructed in the wind just like the seas. You missed this type of movement every day. This medium of real freedom. He just smiled and nestled his chin in your neck, pulling his arms around your waist like you were the one guiding him along. You were honestly unsure at this point whether you were still on Queendom land, but Zelda soon made a shift west again, up another cliff, but this time to a certain point. The field built to a point, which was currently crowned on top of it by the falling sun.

You reached halfway up the cliff and Felix brought Zelda to a soft halt, jumping off with a swiftness and offering his arm to let you down. Zelda huffed quietly as you walked the rest of the way up the hill hand-in-hand. She trotted on the spot a little like she’d been physically confined to the space and you gave her an empathetic grin from behind your shoulder. 

You reached the summit and the breath was knocked out of you. 

“The highest point of the land”, he whispered, but his voice was mostly carried on the winds.

You could see to the horizon and somehow far past it. You thought you could probably even see back to your father’s palace at this vantage. The sea was far and huge but peaceful. Not even the waves on the beaches were visible. The sun was sinking into the depths before your eyes. In a final flurry, pinks and oranges burst around the sky, colouring the faint clouds that had appeared, making their own brushstrokes over the sky. The wind ripped through your hair, but with only the sea in sight, you were flying and swimming all over again. Rounding curves and currents in the ocean before you with even slight beats of your tail. You had no idea how long you just stood there staring in silence. After some time, Felix came behind you, pressing his torso lightly to yours in insurance. He cast his hands over the back of your forearms, sliding them down slowly and moving your arms out either side of you before he finally reached your wrists. You breathed quicker now, your chest flying away in the breaths. It felt even more real, and it didn’t even matter that you felt him too. He felt like a part of your body as you tore through the current of the sea in front of you. After a moment, he placed a gentle kiss in the corner of your neck and didn’t say a word.

You had no idea how long you’d been standing like that. The wind kept up its pace which put you in a trance of time. Your mind lifted and flew away from reality with each breath you took. So much so, you hadn’t even realised that Felix had left your back. It was only the utter of your name at a further distance than your ear that you noticed. Your mind shifted from its reverie to turn behind you. 

He was only a couple steps away, but he wasn’t eye-level.

The wind swept in his hair and fluttered his lace shirt and open collar.

But most of all it caught his face, sending colours of warmth and life across his face and lightening his brown eyes into a hazel.

The wind stopped for a moment and everything fell back to normal. Your hair by your sides and his adorning the sides of his face. 

A ringing began in your ears as you actually took him in, on one knee.

A sparkle of golden sun held between his fingertips.

—

You just stood in silence, the wind filling the gaps again. You both knew it was what was needed. But both of you looked straight into each other’s eyes, despite the desperate attempts of the ring to steal at least a glance, transforming in the dying sunset.

The wind swept your hair across your line of sight north for a moment, and a part of you believed that he’d be gone when it stopped and none of this would be real. But when your hair returned, he was still there, firmly on one knee and hand extended slightly. 

“Aesterie”, he started quietly, using a non-petname for the first time you could remember. The wind died to give him space to speak. It wasn’t abrupt or too late, and he hadn’t waited for you to gather your mind back again either. It was perfectly timed for the both of you. You felt like the sun even illuminated and projected his words like the elements were pushing him on.

But he was already lost for words. His mouth moved but nothing came out. He looked down at the grass and you just responded with your eyes, wide. He plucked his head up, looking straight into your eyes again, and started,

“I love you”, it was almost a whisper but you could feel it coming from his soul. When, in the strangest way, even though he was holding a ring out in front of you, there was nothing else to say.

“I’ve always loved you from the moment I saw you, even if barely on that cove”

He was more desperate and expressive in his face now. You hadn’t known this whole time how much he’d remembered of that night. Your heart engulfed in a warmth.

“And ever since then I”, he stopped for a moment in speechlessness you knew all too well. Being unable to express yourself in a way that actually represented what you felt. 

“My mind can’t leave you”

You had nothing to say the whole time. It was probably best you didn’t interrupt him at every word, but even if you wanted to you couldn’t. You’d just be repeating what he was saying back to him.

“Everything about you, Aesterie”.

“So I thought, if my mind can’t leave you, then why should I make it”

Your stomach jumped as you felt him coming to a conclusion, as if you hadn’t seen the ring this whole time.

“And if I could spend at least the smallest period of time on this earth with you, it would be all I ever ask for”

You remembered saying something similar. But to yourself, in that cage. The memory fluttered by in the wind and saw itself away. It was the first time a memory of that time wasn’t met with you clamping your eyes shut and shaking your head. You still just looked at him.

“Princess”, he started. Your mind was completely lost in his face. You had never seen the sincerity it showed in anyone before, it was almost a wonder to you.

“Will you marry me”

…

Your legs took you slowly towards him. The wind and sun at your back, you only had to take 3 steps before reaching him. He looked up at you eyes wide, and it pissed you off slightly that he was really still waiting for an answer. A tear floated in a whirlpool in his eye before finalising in a drop that tore down his temple and cheek. You crouched down to meet his face, your own face still straight. After a moment you consciously drew a smile across your lips, and he followed suit like your mouths were mirrored. You took his face in both of your hands, wiping the trail of the tear from his cheek.

“You're my miracle”, you began, the words coming from something deeper in you, like your whole being could finally speak and release something, “all my life I’ve felt unresolved until I met you”

He gave a hurried nod with a gulp, and you guessed he was probably the same. Your heart panged for a moment before you picked yourself up to carry on.

“I promised you I’d never leave again”

Another tear fell to the grass.

“Of course I’ll marry you”

You saw the relief and joy that shone across his face bubble up from his chest, up and out of him like he’d been cleansed from a curse. He looked down to wipe another tear and shakily slot the golden ring onto your finger. You’d heard about human precedent with marriage, and it was one of the few things you envied about them. Bound together symbolically with gold. You steadied his hand with your own, rubbing the side of his hand with your thumb and adoring the relief taking over his eyes. The ring moved down your finger, shining as it docked. 

—

You just knelt together. He had mostly stopped tearing up but a cute red puffiness still adorned his cheeks. You didn’t say much. You joked about how he’d trawled you all the way up this hill and how he knew if the ring fit, to which he just laughed and said he knew everything about you. He was right, and it was all perfect. You’d have no problem with ring sizes either, as you knew just how big his hands were, and where all the creases and lines were like you were retracing your own. Just for a moment, you considered he loved you just as much as you did. You were grateful to just be with him. You turned to the sea again after a while. The sun was long sunk, the clouds returning to their usual colouring. But it was still calm. There had always been something itching at you when you were back there. You would have no idea about what it was, and it would only reveal itself in tiny pieces. But now, not only had you found it, but he was yours. For life. And neither of you could be ripped from each other. You closed your eyes, feeling the wind through your senses and your whole body… and breathed out. You had done this before, sighing because you’d done ‘it’, whether it was finding him all those days ago, or re-finding him again. But now, you breathed for the future. It was on that thought that your brain twinged for a moment. You turned back to Felix with a suspicious smirk.

“Felix”, you began on a hunch, his face immediately bolting up with doey eyes, “was there a reason I met the Queen in particular today?”

A different kind of smirk slowly made its way across his face. He was a sneaky shit. You shook his hand in a petty reprimand and tensed your lips into a line.

“So she approves?”, you retorted to his now shy face, desperate to look away but too afraid to break eye contact. But your face soon turned into an inevitable smileyness again. It was impossible not to. 

You both giggled and looked down at your joined hands. You could’ve sat there forever.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, let’s do it”.

—

After a while, a noise grazed your ears and you looked up to him. Neither of you had spoken in a while, but you enjoyed the peace between you just as much as anything else. Just being there to rub his hands and sit with him was like a 1000 prayers being answered. His cheeks were still red and you tilted your head at him with a smile. Whatever worries or concerns he had, you knew you’d get over it together. But he showed a cluelessness that confused you for a moment. Like he hadn’t said anything at all, and he was waiting for you to speak. His eyes followed your own, waiting for something. 

And then.

A rumble. 

Almost like an echo of his voice that you swore you heard. You looked behind to the sea at your back. Darker blues now, and the greys of the clouds were certainly a depressing aftermath of the sunset. But further on, something was being birthed from the horizon. Where the sea and the sky met, they warred and collided. 

Black clouds. Completely unreadable and ghostly. Thick and encroaching.  

You felt something in front of you, and turned to see Felix had abandoned your hands to the grass, where they laid dead. He was standing straight up looking ahead. His eyes scanned the far distance frantically like he could read something in detail in the distance. Your eyes batted to the sea. You couldn’t see anything but the clouds, charging fast. But turning back to Felix, you knew he could see something more. His face was an increasingly uncontrollable panic. The ring looked more and more lifeless. 

“What Felix”,

“No”.

Chapter Text

One of your most vivid memories was from when you were an adolescent. Only just an adolescent, you had a child-like innocence infused with a growing curiosity, but not quite the spark of rebellion. You had just finished one of your regular boring lessons with Caspian. On the history of creatures in the shallow waters, and only boring because you’d already learned about it all from mother. What type of food they ate and how it differed. Although granted, mother hadn’t mentioned how it was still dangerous to go there in person in case of hunting.

“AESTERIE NO”

The voice was a desperation more than anything, like if you stayed there you’d certainly die. You turned around mindlessly to see your mother not even looking at you, but shooting through the water towards you with one arm extended far towards you. You stood there emotionless before she reached you, engulfing you in her arms with a haste that hurt a little.

“You can’t go this far up”, she pleaded, holding your face smushed between her hands.

“I thought I saw something shining mother I thought it could be human”, you responded, a little confused by her stress around a topic that you spoke so casually about.

“No Aesterie, please never go this far up”, she said with a quiet empathy, having established you hadn’t gone insane or was in danger. She began to escort you back to the depths, her arm wrapped around your shoulders.

After everything mother had hinted and poked at at that age, you were almost infuriated at her response. How could she speak of such wonderful things with a fanaticism and get so mad. Be so restrictive. Confusion bubbled into anger as you blurted,

“But you always speak of the humans and how they’re so interesting”

A twist in your chest told you you should’ve have said it. You didn’t dare meet her eyes. But all she did was take a moment to look in your little face, sigh and continue swimming.

“One day Aesterie when you’re older”

“I’ll understand?”, you finished, with an impatience brewed over rotations. She was slightly ahead now and didn’t turn her back to face you.

Ever since then, you wished she’d responded yes. It would’ve given you very little closure, but would’ve been familiar nevertheless. The way she swam away without another word was so much worse.

—

Rain lashed your face in a continuous whip that felt like a punishment, it didn’t matter how hard you tried to shade your face behind his back. But at the same time, it would’ve probably had the same velocity were you stood still and not shooting back over the fields. 

This time you were behind Felix, arms around his stomach and desperately gripping onto his wet shirt as Zelda tore towards the castle. The clouds had blanketed the entire sky, darker than the night sky and far more sinister with no texture. Just a blank darkness. Unpredictable strikes of lightning intermingled with flashes and thunder just past the coast like slashes into your own body. There was a vulnerability and a weakness against the elements when you were on land, and even the grass had been toppled. At each strike, you tensed into Felix’s rained-beaten back a little more. You dared not look at the seas. They were perfectly calm and flat what only seemed like moments ago, but that should’ve really been your warning. Felix rounded the second field with a pull of the reins and a grunt of force. As the path led you to the cliff's edge, you stole a glance in fear. The waves whipped up suddenly and violently high, climbing the cliff line all the way to the castle in a bid to destroy something. You clamped your eyes shut and prayed. Prayed that it wasn’t your father’s doing. Prayed it would pass. Prayed that he had learned something, anything, in the last days. The lives of the Yllitrian envoy, reaching the knives of the coast in their fragile vessel, toyed with by the hands of the seas, were last in your prayers.

At some point you’d reached the straight road to the castle, although you only knew from the crash that rattled in your ears. Zelda flew onto her hind legs with a cry, and Felix eagerly tried to calm her after clinging onto the reins with his dear life. Lightning had struck right in the path, only a few paces away. You only saw the remnant of the flash but peered past Felix’s arm and Zelda’s fretting face to see a black smoke seeping from the gravel. You looked to Felix for the first time since he threw you onto Zelda at the distant sight of the 3 ship envoy, eyes transfixed on a path along the waves that only he could see. His neck muscles looked like they could explode with his jaw so tight. His eyebrows clamped down onto his eyes as he looked as best he could through the sheets of rain. Your heart was almost in your throat.

“Felix”, you almost squeaked. Your arms were still locked around him but barely, weathered by the storm. Your defeated face peered up to his from the middle of his back where you’d buried it in a prayer and a terror. He broke from his focus almost immediately, eyes turning wide as they met yours. Your brow quivered and he responded with a hand cupping your cheek. He turned his head on its side a little with a reassuring gaze, but you couldn’t stop thinking about how he should really be gripping the reins and you shouldn’t have distracted him in your distress.

A second clatter made its way to your ears. This time from the west, and in the far distance. Felix turned his head instinctively and you followed his line of sight. You could see very little. Even the moon couldn’t break past the storm that painted the skies. It was only once another crack threatened the land that you got a glimpse. In the moment of light, a ship, reared up against a honed protruding rock just off the coast, already deflated and lifeless. It was a wonder they got this close at this angle. They had probably been aiming for the main port, but being cast this far off told you the seas were even more vicious than you thought they were. Before you even got a chance to meet Felix’s eyes again, he had jumped from Zelda and was bounding for the steps to the cove. 

—

“Felix wait, PLEASE”

Your shouts were useless, and even despite flying down the uneven stone stairs, he was still leaps and bounds ahead of you. It was beyond unsafe and dangerous to go down to the cove right now, but he wasn’t thinking about that. You wished you could get even a slight edge in his brain to reason with him.

“There’s bodies in the water, Angel. There’s no time for boats”

You could see outlines of humans. Some floating and some flailing in the illumination of the fire that took over the ship. A sight that sent your mind spinning, and you had to stop a minute to stabilise yourself. Even if it wasn’t your father, it was nightmarishly similar. And Felix, the one you’d saved once before, was bounding straight into the waves. 

You reached the beach of the cove still trailing him far behind. By the time you reached the edge where the waves reached, he was already waist deep in the chaos. The sea foam hissed at your feet before retreating, over and over. That was the worst part. The love of your life, your selfless prince, was making a life-endangering endeavour and you… had to stand and hope. For the first time you realised how privileged you had been to save him that first night. The ability and freedom to act, now completely stripped as you were forced to watch on. You strained your body upwards onto your tiptoes and clenched your hands, like you were trying to fly above the seas and help him. The rain lashed again at your face, lightning striking somewhere far off north. The waves in the distance collided with more rock, sending spirals into the air, and slowly consuming the envoy ship that Felix was now approaching.

You lost sight of him as he rounded the closest rock off the coast, swimming quick for a human towards the glowing ship lurking in the near distance. Every so often, the ship would groan and creak under its own damaged weight and you’d wince and clamp your eyes shut. But it wasn't long before you saw a white and gold disruption in the violence of the waves. You shaded your vision from beating rain in a desperate attempt to get a better view. Hope stalled in your chest until you got a certain sign. As he swam closer, you could make out his body, and the limp arm of an official tight over his shoulder, body dragging at the whim of the waves. Your lungs could finally breathe and you almost folded over in your first gasp. He was going to be ok.

He reached the shallow waters soon enough, stumbling to his feet and still fighting the smallest waves to move through them. He gently laid the official on his back with his hand resting behind his head. You crouched down to check for vital signs, taking your ear to his heart. Merpeople biology was close enough to that of humans, and it was far simpler for breathing. 2 lungs was easy work. He was still alive.

“Make sure he doesn’t choke on sea water”, Felix shouted above the sound of the storm. The official must have taken some in, even through the lungs. And by the sight of his pale, emotionless face, it had almost killed him. 

But even before you could turn back to Felix, his back was turned to you again. His shoulders seemed broader, like he was moving to personally spar the seas that screamed back at him.

“FELIX WAIT”

You launched your body forwards uncontrollably and almost fell, just managing to scrape your fingertips with his own. This time he turned around, face taken aback as if you hadn’t been shouting his name all the way down the stairs. You just stared at him despondently, brow knotted and pleading. You both knew you couldn’t go in. And even if you had legs, you knew the waters well. The now almost-defeated ship was life-threatening itself, and getting too close at the wrong time could send anyone spiralling unconscious into the depths. But the innocent smile that grew across his wet pink lips told you he didn’t even need to think about any of that. He moved closer in a gentle step and crouched, probably the only unhurried movements he’d made since he’d spotted the distant charcoal clouds. Since he’d proposed. He kept the same grin as he looked into your eyes, caressing the side of your cheek with his thumb and holding your chin in his palm. The wind shifted north for a moment, and more bullets of rain pelted your faces, his hair swaying in defeat. He left a quick but lingering kiss on your lips before pivoting back to the seas, so fast you could barely see him before he was knee-deep in darkened waters. You collapsed onto your forearms with your head on the beach. You thought your whole body could implode.

The second wait was even worse. To begin with, you weren’t sure whether you were just more impatient or he was actually taking longer. The ship was almost entirely engulfed beneath the waves, only the jutting mast being the last sign of what was once alive. But even that seemed unpredictable and threatening now. After so long, you forgot the official was even there. He was still breathing last time you had checked and wasn’t going to take in any more water. You were too transfixed on that same spot. As close to the tide you could get without threatening your very own life, and eyes on where you had last seen him erupting from the waves in a gasp. The ghost of his kiss twinged on your lips. 

But it got too long. The mast sank behind a sharp nearby rock and the light cruelly gifted to you by the flames was extinguished. You started to pace. You didn’t know how you even moved your legs but they moved anyway. Like a stranded animal, you almost didn’t even want to watch the waves anymore. Your mind had slipped too far past a certain point, and any sight without him gave you heart tremors. 

You turned around to pace north again as a disruption emerged. You stepped hesitantly closer, legs aware of your position but eyes still focused in the distance. It was some time before you could see clearly. The rain beat at your face relentlessly like it had been sent directly by your father, or maybe the Sea Witch. The fire had gone but the clouds certainly hadn’t, and you relied on the silhouettes of figures for any vague meaning of anything. But you’d accept any vague sign of anything every time without hesitation, because it wasn’t nothing. In a fleeting moment of mercy, the winds rotated the rain. You focused in with the time you had, knowing it was temporary at best. 

Three figures.

To begin, you could barely see who was in control. A chaos of strained and flailing limbs. The rain beat in your eyes one last time before you got a better view. Two bodies laid on their backs on the closest rock. It was tall and steep but given the circumstances it would’ve had to do. That was the only mercy you got. Your stomach unclenched for the blink of an eye.

Lightning struck again. Somewhere behind you, probably on the hills. But the power of the storm wasn’t its only method of destruction. The light sent the quickest moment into your eyes. A vision like a flickering and forgotten memory coming in and out of clarity. In that, you saw Felix. 

Having laid 2 bodies on the rock just above the grips of the waves, he fell backwards into the clasp of the waves.

—

You were hyperventilating. You clawed at your neck with your fingernails, a desperation for more air. Hair plastered across your face and your vision but your focus on one point, floating away, couldn’t be shifted. Only a shadow in the night, but the sudden lightning brought the nightmare even closer. His body, lashed around in the waves.

You desperately looked around you, but only his voice rang in your ears. No time for boats. And he was right. And there were also no boats. Not by the unassuming cove off the west coast. After a time of searching in your eyes and your mind, for boats, for life, for even life signs in the official sprawled on the beach, your breathing softened. It became slow and laboured, each breath audible. In fact, you couldn’t hear anything else but the in and out of your lungs. Your vision had slowly stopped searching too. Your gaze turned, unfretting, to the sight of Felix in the waters again. With every other wave, water engulfed his face under for a moment. It was teasing you. Telling you what could happen, what it had the potential to do. Your hands fell from your neck beside your body and your face dropped completely, you could have even seemed calm. 

You had sacrificed your body. Your family. Your position. Your abilities. Your friends. Everything you knew. For something more, unknown and unfounded. You had fought with every waking moment to have it. Against the forces of your life that you’d always known and even been blessed with. For someone, who really loved you and saw you. The price came with sacrifice, but also promise. To never go back to what you’d left behind, that which you’d discarded so certainly. That was the price levied on you, not created by you. It could’ve seemed illogical, but it wasn’t really. Wasn’t it clear enough that you’d do anything for him? After all this time. Your gaze blurred but your eyes were still focused. Your father didn’t even cross your mind, as did nothing else. He needed to live. How had Felix taught you to walk again? Oh yeah…

One foot in front of the other.

—

You had no idea you’d reached the sea until you felt it. 

Knives, concentrated in your feet but sending shocks up through your veins into your thighs.

Once both of your feet were in, your whole body tensed up. You felt the shockwaves even in your arms and they jutted out in response. You checked nervously but you still had control of your body. You creaked your legs one at a time. It felt like your first time walking all over again. You winced in anger not pain. You barred your teeth into the ocean beneath you.

One foot in front of the other.

Yellow fumes emerged from beneath your soles. Too bright to be natural. Too sinister to be coral. 

A warning light.

You growled at the sight before screeching into the sky. None of this mattered right now. The consequences were still long off. At least in comparison. It all felt like an inconvenience. The powers you’d long abandoned still with their reins on you. You fixed your head again in front of you, and plunged your body into the sea.

—

The path to the Prince wasn’t without danger, but you had become accustomed to the way the seas tried to take human lives after the first time. There was thankfully no exploding shipwreck to be cautious of this time. And despite that, the memories of that night still haunted your brain. Felix’s floating body was only so far off. In the liminal zone – just far enough to reach without needing to be swept by the more powerful current. Hauling his body, face above yours and arms tight round his torso, was a familiar feeling. Like a child’s recurring nightmare. His eyes were closed; he had probably been knocked out by the fall backwards. You had no idea if it had been the wind, the sea, a misstep or just pure exhaustion that had caused it, but you cursed them all to hell in a scream. He was still so beautiful. So so beautiful. The electrocution in your feet was persistent but your mind had rendered it numb.

It wasn’t even that long before you reached shore again with him. But your body was on the verge of death. You hauled him up the beach, the daggers in your feet leaving your heels and then your toes as you finally freed yourself from the waters. You simply looked at them with an unexplainable mix of child-like fear and unfettered anger. You placed Felix gently on his back on the sand before cowering on your hands and knees. You stared at the damp sand beneath you as air ripped itself from your lungs in punches of breaths. Your hands, wet and pale, fingers sprawled and digging into the beach. 

The only sound in your ears was the cackle of the Sea Witch.

Chapter Text

You were looking at the corner of the table, but you couldn’t really see anything. You knew really the carved wood curled up at the bottoms in a design like a flower stem, painted matte white. But you didn’t feel like you were even on the planet.

“Hey”

The voice broke through what felt like layers of blockages in your ears, seeping down from your mind. So much so that the word felt more like an echo, each sound wave tearing at your ears before finally one broke through in a whisper. Your mind was awoken again and your eyes broke back into use as they turned to the bed. 

“Are you ok”

You felt like he was so far away from you now. He was sitting up in the bed in front of you, and you were probably only a couple arms lengths apart. In your blurring vision, he felt… different. The person who you’d moved mountains for. His smile was wide, like he caught you in an embarrassing gaze, but looking deeper into your eyes put a furrow in his brow and his eyes turned wide and worried. He inched closer with his legs and reached out to grab your hand. You flinched back but he didn’t see. His touch was colder than usual as his fingers curled round your own to envelope your hand. You watched him in the movement and it felt like a memory had been struck back into you.

“You look white as a ghost, Princess”

His tone was lower now and he was almost in a whisper. Your eyes fell onto his accidentally and you stared into his deep brown eyes. Right. The memories crashed back in succession, each one a more devastating blow. The rain in your eyes. The fire off the coast. The flailing and futile limbs in the sea. The violence of the storm. The strike of lightning and what it illuminated. 

You, panting, soaking wet and staring at the sand completely out of breath.

Your feet gathered together and cowered under the chair you were sitting on. In a sudden and unrhythmic blast, one last memory.

Him, turning around at the faint call of a name, crouching down to graze his lips across yours. 

Probably the last time you had felt warm. The seas weren’t only vicious but freezing, that had come back to you now. You were still looking at Felix but your mind started to close over again in the silence, your eyes lulling and conceding total control. His mouth hesitated a word or two before his eyes shot to the door at the sound of a creak. You turned around instantly to see what could paint an expression like that on his face.

But it was only Sungho. 

“Sire you must sit back and rest”, he started, approaching the bed. Felix gave a subtle eye roll and gently detangled his fingers from yours. Despite the cold touch, the detachment made your whole body want to scream and jump on the bed again. You didn’t even move in that direction. Something weighed down on your solar plexus so you couldn’t move. Your face fell and your hand went dead.

The cackle. The cruel and sinister laugh.

Everything snapped back into place and your heart fell to your numb toes.

“I’m fine Sungho I promise”, he responded, annoyed that he had to do so much reassuring, “how are the Yllitrian officials”

Always so selfless. He had almost died trying to save every life he could in a hopeless effort against the 3 elements, and his first question was still about the people he had no idea who they were. His look was sincere too, eyes wide in hope. 

“Just fine sire, no lives were lost thankfully”

“Oh thank God”, he responded, blinking in disbelief and relief, brushing a hand through his hair to allow himself better vision. He looked to the open window for a moment, blue skies, before turning back to you with a smile.

“It was all worth it then”

You opened your mouth but all that left were two defeated breaths fleeing your lungs. You just looked at him hopelessly. Your arms swung by your sides and you couldn’t move at all. Just looking into his increasingly concerned face at your speechless wide tired eyes, like a damaged pet begging for help. Sungho interrupted your visual parle.

“Yes sire, it was really a miracle the guards reached you when they did”

The first part of the sentence was more than familiar to your ears, which made the second part all the more jarring. Guards? You hadn’t seen any guards. You wracked your brains for a forgotten forgotten memory that hadn’t popped out yet but it was silent and still. Felix responded with something that you didn’t really hear, something about telling him to continue, and Sungho carried on.

“Well sire, from what we know, when the guards reached the cove you’d intaken a lot of water. The Yllitrian official on the beach told them about how you’d tried to save them and they soon found the 2 men you’d left on the rock. It was really a miracle no one was harmed.”

…

“The official”, you repeated under your breath. It pulled too much attention and both Sungho and Felix looked at you for a moment. It was only the repetition of what Sungho said, but it felt like a life-ending phrase.

Your eyes fluttered from a throbbing in your head. A ringing was distant and threatened your ears. Your sight glazed over. They thought it was the official. The first guy that Felix had saved and you’d laid on his side so he wouldn’t choke. He must have regained consciousness between you retrieving Felix and the guards finding you all. You could hear your heart pound in your neck, in your head, in your chest. Your breathing turned shallow, as the sting of the seas still lingered in your feet.

“Although I must say, the official’s recollection isn’t necessarily clear sire, you had all passed out some time during the storm”

All? You turned to Sungho immediately but he just looked headstrong at Felix, not even giving you a side glance. Did he really mean all. If he did then you must have passed out… after retrieving Felix from the waves? With your body passed out they’d have no reason to believe you went in at all. You flinched your head up to meet Felix’s face, but he was already looking at you. His lips were slightly parsed and his brow knotted. Like he was both scared and concerned. A silence passed over the room as your eyes, so desperate to meet Felix’s, couldn’t muster the words to say anything. Nothing to respond. Sungho broke it with a formal cough.

“But sire”, he started

“The wedding”

Felix almost jumped onto his knees, the thought eager in his mind. You’d both said it. Tomorrow. And now it was tomorrow. A humble wedding of castle guests and presumably the Yllitrian officials who had arrived at a peak time. Your eyes floated to a different corner of the room in defeat as you could feel a ring of merciless pressure build around your head again. Fuck.

“Well sire”, Sungho started, holding out a hand like he was calming a child, “everything is still ready and prepared IF you are both fit for the event”

A beam shone across Felix’s lips, his eyes making happy crescents as he turned to you. The sunlight shone his freckles that reached from his ears, under his eyes and finished in a sparkle on his nose. He reached out his hand again towards you. 

“Thank you Sungho, leave us”, Felix said without breaking your gaze or touch. It looked like he’d finally caught your eyes and didn’t want to stop. Sungho gave a proper bow before clicking the door close.

His face was a complete light in your sight. You blinked once. You could feel the energy coming off him. Warmth and an unstoppable joyousness… He was what you’d given up everything for. And it was all worth it. All so so worth it. He laughed a little under his breath and showed his teeth. And just for a moment, you forgot about your headache. Your heart raised itself and your bones creaked back. You could feel him making circles on your hand like he always did. A faint gust fluttered into the curtains and into the room, ruffling in his hair as his eyes turned wide again and he looked at you with a heart of pure kindness. Your stomach flipped at the sight. You saw his beautiful red lips purse to start speaking, and thought how his smile was worth more than a whole universe.

“Are you fit enough Angel? Are you ok?”

His hand reached for your cheek, and your body let you fall into his palm. He just sat there with his head tilted on par with yours, rubbing your cheek gently.

“I’m fine, Sunshine”, you said, unbelievably through a creak, smiling into the sentence and shaking your head gently. 

You could see his heart relieve itself in his face.

“Will you please still marry me today?”

The please was so stupid, and the shining in his eyes suggested he could even be tearing up. He looked at you, face turned down a little. Was he regretful for being so reckless yesterday? Was that where it was coming from? He had no idea what you’d thrown yourself into last night. And still, you let out a sigh. Like everything was complete. You used his arm to propel yourself towards him, and his face turned to a gentle shock before you placed a soft kiss with your pursed lips on the tip of his nose. The centre of all his beauty. His nose turned a little red like you had finished a cake by placing a cherry on top and his mouth made a line from surprise. For some silly reason, his eyes still pleaded for an answer.

“Yes Felix, I’ll marry you”

He leaned in to kiss you properly. You felt all the love he had to give from his mouth and the way he cradled your own lips in his. You broke apart after some time and he sank his head into your shoulder.

“I’m so sorry about yesterday, Princess”

Like he had anything to be sorry about. You ran your fingers through the back of his hair until he purred and lightly groaned at the feeling. You never wanted to let him go. You wished you could treasure him forever.

“It’s ok. You’re my precious angel, remember?”

He joined his hands round your waist in an all-encompassing hug. The words were sincere, but interrupted. By a shining in your eye. You turned towards the window that was flown open by the maids at dawn. And now, filling the room instantly, a beam of sun descended into the room from the bottom right corner.

—

Corsets still hadn’t worn you down after all this time. You tried to disassociate from the pain as two maids tugged at one rope each and yanked the dress over you. A legion of 8 other maids busied themselves around you fixing and curling your hair and adding ornaments. Pulling up your stockings and judging sizes of shoes. You were almost certain that some of them were just fussing you for no real purpose. You looked to the door, hoping for a tall blonde Prince with a smile like sunshine to bust in and save you like he had before. But that wasn’t going to happen, because next time you saw each other was at the altar. 

The sun hit your skin again, illuminating your right arm in a threatening yellow. Your stomach sank for a moment at the sight of that colour. Like a warning shot, triggering the inward collapse of your mind. That which you’d managed to distract yourself from, albeit briefly. What the fuck could you even do. It hung menacingly low in the sky already, and it was barely evening. The words of the Sea Witch snapped in your ears, and you almost covered them. You’d have to tell Felix some time soon. In less than a day, she’d come for you. Somehow, somewhere. And the worst part was the uncertainty. Could she reach you in the castle? I mean she was the fucking Sea Witch but even she had limits. Limits on how and where she could move without being suspected. Your brain started to search for every possible scenario possible in this universe. If it was public enough, would she really interrupt the wedding? She’d be putting herself at threat and even she was weak to the steel of humans. She was the same flesh and blood as your mother after all…

You looked at yourself in the floor length mirror in front of you. Human weddings were usually a drag. All this changing your body to fit clothes just to superficially flaunt yourself in front of people you didn’t even know. To keep up a facade and parade yourself around about how perfect you were. Most of the maids finished their work and left your mind to its uninterrupted devices. Thankfully, deciding it would be the day after yesterday meant it was scaled down. No more than 100 people. Far fewer eyes on you… but just enough.

You turned to the window, the whole sun visible, like an animal making itself appear bigger to intimidate an enemy. Regardless, you only had so much time. You had a nasty feeling she’d risk a lot to kidnap the Princess of the Seven Seas. A final payment to her brother, from that day you rocked and screamed in your crate at the sight of her to the day you swam up away from her with human fucking legs. And to your mother too. The seas rippled in the light, but getting brighter, they only signalled the time you didn’t have. The sunset falling into the ocean had always reminded you of your mother and the hope she embodied, and now it was just a cruel countdown. 

“Aesterie”

You thought you misheard but looked around the room anyway. There was only one maid fiddling with some final hair pins in the corner. You turned back to tuck the sides of your hair behind your ears before you heard it again.

“Aesterie, here”

The first time must have prepared your senses, because the second time you knew exactly where it was coming from. Although you were in disbelief when your legs took you towards the balcony, eyes in a frantic search. 

Buried beneath a flower, Caspian. You saw his claw first, lifting the petals gently to reveal his face looking up at you apologetically. 

“Caspian?”, you said a little too loudly, and he hushed you before you could even finish the word.

“Listen very carefully Aesterie I don’t have much time”, he started, and you instantly panicked despite his words.

“I don’t know what’s happened or if anything's happened at all”, he said looking around like there were eyes on him all the time. Your heart started to race.

“But some crabs off the coast spotted the Sea Witch… coming to the surface”

Your breathing stopped. Shit. You would’ve cursed yourself for thinking you even had a morsel of hope, but your brain started to cloud over. She was on her way and could be here at any point. The price you paid for leaving everything you’d ever known, for taking a jump. And it was circling back at you at a pace you couldn’t outrun, even if you steeled all the will you had together. Your breathing came back, too laboured to be at the pace it did.

“Just watch yourself, Aesterie”, he said, reading the wide look on your face like a book, “she won’t reveal to herself in her sea form so she has to do this sneakily”

He was right but it didn’t really solve things. It actually made things worse. You swallowed and a knife scraped down your throat. She could be anyone. Caspian had sacrificed so much of his own to be here and even just give you a warning. You had no idea how he’d gotten up here, but he was really still on your side after all this. All this time. Somehow, he looked at you with nothing but confidence and reassurance. Like you had done so much worse, and still came out the other side. You raised your head to try and match him, but it felt so superficial. Your hands were still trembling but you still nodded back to him. You’d have to pull yourself through this regardless of what you feared or what you felt. You didn’t care if it was inevitable, Caspian was right. The inevitable had had no grip on you before, and it certainly wasn’t going to start now. You’d give up even more than you already had, just to be with him.

“Your Highness?”, the maid called in a high voice from across the room. You pressed your lips together before giving Caspian another nod and turning your back. Revealing you could speak to lobsters to a castle maid would be another inconvenience that you really didn’t need right now.

You walked back into the main room with your hands gently joined at the front of your white and silver decorated gown. You looked around with a smile in your best effort not to seem distressed or pre-occupied. The maid presented two hair clips to you in front of her. One long, white and sharp, with a pearl in the middle, and the other rounded and ornamented with tiny succinct flowers.

“Which one would your Highness prefer?”

You opened your mouth but hesitated, taking great effort into considering them. Half because it was important, and half still keeping up your definitely-not-distracted act. A moment of silence fell across the room that was a little more silent than usual.

AESTERIE

You looked up at the sound of the voice. Mostly out of surprise. You didn’t really need to know who it was from, although it would’ve been obvious given a moment’s thought that you didn’t have. A voice fraught in terror and desperation. But your eyes only met your own in the mirror in front of you, behind the maid. The maid just stood there, motionless. You looked yourself dead in the eyes. But something in the bottom left of your peripheral grabbed your attention and dragged your eyes down. Your pupils dilated in the mirror as your eyes bulged. You could feel your heart racing out of your chest immediately, and you immediately felt yourself sweating. You went to gasp but stifled yourself halfway through in a truncated effort. You couldn’t stop yourself from taking a stumble back with your right foot.

The sight of a purple tentacle, emerging from the back of the maid’s dress in the mirror.

—

You tried to distance yourself from her as much as you could in the room, but the grin that drew her lips up, revealing a snarl, could’ve reached you anywhere. You didn’t need to say anything to let her know you knew who she was. The morphing was flawless, and without the revelation in the mirror there would’ve been no way of knowing. Knowing what she could’ve done. Caspian had saved you once again. You moved so your back was to the wall and you began to move up the room with small, hopefully unnoticeable steps. You pinned your eyes on her for any slight or quick movements, but she only looked back with a menace. She barely looked human. 

“Hello niece”

“You shouldn’t be here, you’re risking too much of yourself”, you responded, looking up at her from a downturned gaze. You’d tried to steady your look into a confident defiance, but you didn’t know how much of it really emerged onto your face. Your heart was still pounding, hands shaking behind you as they searched for something – anything – along the walls. A distraction, a weapon, an object of any sorts.

“I believe it was you”, she started with a lax emphasis, “who was the one who risked too much”

She polished the words like knives before releasing them. You stopped, mentally stumbling for a moment just before reaching a chest of drawers behind you, eyes still locked into her every movement. 

“Oh my poor dear Aesterie”, she started, slithering closer. She’d abandoned all human ways of moving and her pale legs seemed to slide like tentacles. You could almost see a chartreuse light filter out of her eyes as her brow bore down on her face. 

“Such a young girl so innocent, so sweet!”, she continued as you plucked up your courage to start moving again. You had to find something to get yourself out of this room, to get somewhere more public where she wouldn’t make a move. 

“Too bad you signed a contract in blood”, she teased again. You reached the chest of drawers and started to rummage behind your back. Feathers and pathetic wooden boxes would do nothing. She kept creeping closer and your hands hurried quicker. If she got so close, you’d be within her unpredictable reach.

“Not even your father can save you NOW”

Her head launched forward at the last word and your eyes widened in fear, her face only inches from yours. You felt something in your left hand. Weighty and glass, it took up most of your hand. Good enough, you thought. You whipped your arm round and slammed the glass into the side of her head with a growling scream. An orb of a half empty bottle of perfume, and you didn’t even think you’d used it. Her eyes clamped shut and she stumbled two steps to the right in a yell. Good enough. You started running.

You flung the door open with a clatter and it almost fell off its hinges. You might’ve had the time to slam it or jam it shut but you weren’t thinking about that. It would’ve only deterred her for a moment. Your heart and all the breath in your lungs were in your throat. It felt like it was going to burst open as you stumbled once and then sprinted for the hall. Your head went silent and for the first time that day, was completely weightless. Layers of satin and fabric trailed behind you as your hair ornaments flew off one by one in the halls. The beads and the clips which had been attached so delicately for the day you thought was impossible. And now you had to outrun time itself along these halls. The same halls where you had found Felix again, you could almost see the ghost of yourself laid there in a shawl holding his face. 

The crash of a door coming off its hinges far behind you sent your mind crashing back. It definitely wasn’t human. You stopped in your sprinting for a moment to look behind you and heave some more air into your lungs. You’d reached the end of the west side hall, the longest hall in the castle, and she still wasn’t in sight. The bottle must have damaged her more than you thought. And now she either couldn’t keep up the morph or had abandoned all niceties she had for you. You’d only find out if she saw you again, and the thought sent you running again.

You reached the southern wing before too long, willing and praying she wasn’t behind every corner you passed. Your brain told you she couldn’t be, and you occasionally heard clatters behind you, but this wasn’t a time for logic or reason. The high painted ceilings, adorned with human tales of loss, tragedy, birth and war, faded in the light but colours still strong, signalling you had almost reached the spire. You slowed very slightly to turn the last corner, almost shutting your eyes in dread.

A clear hallway. 

It was completely lined with floor-length gold-decorated windows, and it was only in passing them that you realised how high this section stood. It acted as a bridge to the second island that the castle complex was propped up on, and the tides ran beneath in a fervour. One step on the shined floor was like a gun shot and you even flinched at your own sound.

The doors. Marble white, with vines and roses made of silver running from the handles all the way to the tops of the doors at the high roof. You paced forward, and halfway through the hall you could sense the music. Violins and trumpets. 

The beginning.

Guests were probably starting to filter into the hall. Looking to the blinding sun out the west windows told you it was late enough, even if it kind of did blind you.

You started to kick your feet into a faster pace now. You could feel the blood circulating around your body and each breath that expanded and deflated your lungs. 

You just had to reach the doors. 

Beyond that would be a sanctum, where you’d be immune to the consequences that you’d collided into. Where he would be standing, beaming at you. Your safety, waiting to start the rest of his life with you, and where you would too. Your entire life circulated on a reel in your head. You finally reached the curved golden door handles, and almost released a normal breath. 

But a tightness wrapped your exposed ankle, and coiled to restrict any blood flow. Your heart stopped beating, and your hand hesitated on its one-way path to the doorknob.

Your feet flew off the ground, and your torso plummeted onto the marble floors, so swift your knees couldn’t even break the fall. All you could think of was Felix. His polished white navy gear and curled angelic hair. Eyes in a crescent smile and freckles decorating his face, waiting beyond that door.

—

She had restricted you with everything she had. You thought the crash had knocked you out but it must have been only for a moment, as you woke up to her snarling round the castle, trying to find an inconspicuous way out. Something deep within you must have awoken you. 

Before your eyes had even really opened, but as soon as you realised where you were and with who, you started thrashing with every morsel of energy you could muster.

But it was futile.

Your limbs just fought against their own flesh, writhing around in the flinchless and merciless grip of her tentacles. You were only restrained by 4 of them, one on each limb, as she still used her human legs to traverse the castle. You were rolled on your side and she seemed to be carrying you like a package. Another treasure for her shipwreck, and the one that would shine the most beautiful of all. King Poseidon’s own daughter, a lifeless flicker of a soul forever implanted in her garden, yearning for a life that wasn’t meant for her.

You began to scream. No tentacle or arm restrained your mouth, and you quickly realised your voice was your only power. You didn’t even scream words, deafening sounds erupting out your throat. It felt like intentional barbed wire but it was your only hope. You thought you sacrificed your superpower for a life on land, but all along, your voice had served you far more than your fins.

The Witch stopped in her tracks before flinging you upright again. She placed a fleshly morphed tentacle blocking your mouth and almost making you gag at the old crusty smell. It felt like rubber as you bit down on it as hard you could. But she didn’t even flinch once.

“Look out”

That was all she said before smashing a window in front of you with a human leg. It had dark purple coarse veins bursting out of it, like she herself was running from time. With her almost defeated human legs she flung you both out the window.

She cackled into the dive, and you tried your best to scream. It was only one floor thank god, and her tentacles stabilised the landing. She snarled in your ear, too happy that she’d tricked you so badly. 

But you had no time for relief, as she flung you both forward into a gallop. She moved with a speedy fluidity. Too fast. You screamed and writhed and bit hard again, but all she did was laugh, gradually louder.

The castle became more and more just a backdrop to what your life could have been.

—

It wasn’t long before you reached water. The seas and the oceans. Once your only friends in a world you didn’t understand and you felt didn’t understand you, and now your prison once again. She dragged you to the same cove that you’d saved Felix. Whether it was on purpose or not it didn’t matter. You felt your heart impaled with a thousand knives. Your vision blurred and you went limp in her grip. The place where you’d met him all those days ago. Where he had first laid eyes on you. Where he had saved you time and time again. And where you’d spent days, him by your side resting on his arms and asking what each shell that washed up on the beach was called as you watched the sunset. You begged for 100 more times like that, but it wasn’t in the stars. You stopped resisting altogether and the Witch gave a surprised huff before slinging you behind her. You dragged along the gravel of the cliff above the cove, only one tentacle left around your ankle that still hadn’t let go since the hall. Your dress caught and shredded on rocks along the way, now a starved ghost of what it once was. You curled up into a ball and hid your head. The seas and the oceans. Your jail forever for wanting a life that betrayed the laws of nature. You thought you could play God and construct your life entirely perfectly, but that wasn’t how it worked. And you should’ve known that. Your father had warned you well enough, and your mother too. The gravel imprinted into your side as you were dragged like cargo down the steps of the cove, almost like you were an inconvenience to the Witch’s plans.

The seas and the oceans, laid out in front of you. You turned your head upwards slightly to see the warm vast sun sinking into the horizon. 

One last time. 

One last reminder.

The seas rippled but only in a calm, illuminated by the closeness of the sunlight. You thought you’d miss this, but you’d miss even harder what it meant to you, back then and now. The hope of a new life. And after that, the life you had. Albeit briefly, with a perfect Prince crafted by angels, who gave you a purpose. You shuddered at the sight and clamped your eyes shut again, still holding your knees in a childish terror. Like fear would save you at all.

But your eyes only got to cower for a moment.

They batted back open at a sound that shattered the walls of your mind. Something that shouldn't have happened, and shouldn’t have been in your fate.

The echo of a musket.

—

The destructive noise left a void. Soon, nothing was moving or making any noise. In that void, you chanced a glance up.

The Sea Witch, attacked by the full force of the sunlight, displaying her warts and cracked skin, was standing frozen. Her arms were tensed up by her sides, her sharp fingers clawing the air in a still motion. Her mouth was aghast as she stared at the sun in a rage of blame like she could destroy it in revenge. Her grip round your ankle waned for a moment and you flinched at the movement, a few cells of blood finally making it that far down your leg.

And in her back, a tiny silver ball, winking at you in the light.

You turned your head backwards. Towards the castle, towards the life you had been ripped from.

Felix on the steps to the cove.

You looked at him unflinchingly. He wouldn't have been able to make eye contact with you at that distance, but you could tell he moved his head to you after he saw the Sea Witch stunned.

…

All of a sudden, life began moving again.

The Witch swept round in a fury. You hadn’t realised that she’d completely abandoned her disguise by now and was fully in her sea form. She scanned the beach for whoever it was, barring a snarl that even reached her nose. But her hands trembled. The vicious and fierce face she defended herself with was an offensiveness that couldn't transfer to the rest of her body. She only stood for a moment before stumbling and catching herself with a palm colliding into the sand.

You could hear Felix running, sprinting in his wedding attire.

You could feel a pulsate of the witch’s heart ricochet throughout her body through the end of the tentacle that was still wrapped around your ankle. It felt like it could even be her last, but her grip didn’t ease. After a moment of silence, the Witch looking at her shaking hands, the grip tightened. Tighter than it had before and you yelped in the coil. Like she focused all the energy in her body to that one part.

Before you could do anything else, she dragged you up to stand before her. The sun was clouded behind her deep purple head, her thin white hair like smoke. Her face was panting and frantic, but vengeful. The infuriation built on her face, willing to sacrifice it all in a burst. She grabbed your face between her hands. Her hands already felt cold, like her body had been dead days. You started to struggle but she had already begun. A putrid green lit in her pupils as her eyes focused into yours, gripping your face even harder so you could feel her nails mark your temples. You had no idea what she was doing and it was the most terrifying part of all.

But after less than a moment, her eyes faded. Entirely reluctantly.

And her whole body went limp, as the sight of an iron musket ball entered your sight on her left cheek.

She fell to the ground, revealing the sinking sun to your eyes. It touched the horizon and sent bright pinks and oranges cascading into the sky above in response. It froze at that moment. Your timer that had almost stopped, all of a sudden.

Your body finally released. Your heart could properly pump again, your mind alive. You took in the sight of the endless sea in front of you, a breeze swifting your hair and your ripped, trodden and dirty dress back in a dance. You took a breath you never thought you’d get back, and looked to the sea. It inched closer and closer to you, moving past the jagged rocks and welcoming itself into the cliffs of the cove. The waves rounded and wore themselves out, making slight ripples by the time they reached the Sea Witch, a shrinking black mess at your feet. 

But as they covered over your toes for the length of a heartbeat and retreated, 

Your toes had already bulged, into a white clearness, bubbles pushing their way to the surface.

—

You stumbled right at the shoreline, where one of your worlds met the other. The seal between realms that you’d been so brave to breach. You thought it was in surprise, but as you stumbled again, you hadn’t realised how important human toes must have been for balance. Your left leg then your right leg, but it was proroguing the inevitable. You flung your right leg forward as your last effort, falling over it.

But you fell into arms, adorned with shining white fabric and cuffs that shone like stars in the sunlight.

He turned you round in his arms to face you, gently even now, and kneeled on one knee, propping your body with his leg and your head with his soft hand.

He met your face first. His own was so distressed and speechless, you tried to give him the million answers he deserved with a look of your own. But neither of you could even fathom a word. He searched your body desperately for damage. His brow furrowed and eyes were wide. He was panting himself, but it didn’t seem like it was from exhaustion. His eyes eventually reached your ankles. He froze and it looked like his heart stopped.

Half your feet, gone.

Already lost to a bubbly whiteness, swept away by the sea every so often, as it dared to reach the beach like it was just cleaning up an inconvenient mess.

Your heart sank not at the sight of your feet, but at the look on his face. You blinked long and hard for a moment as he knelt, without movement. You steadied your mind, and your jaw. This was it. Your last granted wish. Over your battles and your indestructible will, fate had gotten to know you well. And it granted you one last request.

You reached for his face with both your hands. He didn’t resist as you brought it to your own. Panic was stricken all over it, and tears already appeared in his eyes. You felt like you couldn’t speak but your mind was overflowing.

“Listen to me Felix”. That name.

“It was you wasn’t it”

Even your berserk mind quietened for a moment.

“Who saved me”

You froze for a moment before lulling your head to the side. You pressed your lips together and caressed his cheeks as he continued speaking.

“You went back to the ocean”

You couldn’t answer his question, but that response itself was clear as the sky to the both of you.

Tears fell off his face onto your own. For that moment, you had your own tears, and you could finally be wholly human.

“You wreckless idiot”

He could barely make out noises from his throat, nevermind words. His eyes were entirely glazed over by tears, but you could still see the warmth of the brown in them. He swallowed hard in a struggle and his whole face was turning red in complete distress. You took a gentle sigh before starting again. You tucked his beautiful curls dangling from his face behind his left ear.

“My love”, you said gently, like it was any other date you were on. He trembled like he’d been stabbed.

“I’m so sorry I kept this from you”, you started, shaking your head in a self-reprimand, “I will never ever forgive myself”. 

You caressed his cheek with your fingertips. The memory of the morning floated over your mind. He just shook his head faintly, face distraught, eyes huge and wide. His movements were so small but meant so much more.

“No”. A whisper, his head swirling in thoughts, refusing to let you apologise. 

“And..”, you gulped deep, 

“I’m sorry I can’t fulfil this life with you”

“No”, he said under his breath, and then again in a desperate scream. You just cushioned his beautiful face in your hands again, wanting his attention, needing his attention. The wind ruffled his hair lovingly in an action you wished you had the energy to do yourself.

“I love you, and I’ve always loved you”

“You can’t go”, he just about uttered through his tears, which passed his shining pink lips. Over and over again. The heart at the centre of his top lip that you’d miss so much. So so much.

“Angel”, you responded, still quiet and low in your tone, “this was the deal I made, I love you so much”

“No”, he half whimpered and half yelled, as if he could seriously stop it. He wept into your shoulder for a moment and you patted his delicate head. 

“You can’t go”, he squeaked, slightly under his breath. 

Over his body, you could see half your legs disappeared completely. You glanced over to the sun with accepted concession. Your unabatable timer and your fate. It grazed your face in welcoming. And Felix gripped you like he’d never ever let go. Like he’d still be holding you firmly even when your whole body was sea foam.

All of a sudden, he burst out of your hold and reached for his pocket, shaking his head fervently in denial of the reality before you both. He reached for your hand and was shifting your fingers of your left hand before you saw what it was. A carved and curved gold ring. The gold was shaped like feathers but thick and solid. His hands trembled, red. He slid the ring on with some difficulty through his shakiness, tears adorning and sinking into your hand. You cuffed his face with your hand afterwards. The gold met the shining of your bracelet on that same hand in a dance of brightness, a powerful beam shining in the sunset.

You went to kiss him, but he reached you first. You could feel him put everything he had in it. All the energy and passion he could muster in his body into his mouth, like he wanted to keep you forever. He swallowed and hiccuped in his tears.

As you broke apart, you massaged his freckles with your fingertips. Your little stars, now surrounded by the redness of his cheeks. You had your angel in your arms, finally, and it was all you could ask for.

“Please”, he breathed, tears still streaming.

You just looked at him and smiled. You could feel his grip and knee getting weaker, but he’d sacrifice all his body to keep you upright. After another gust of wind, floating both of your hair, you leaned in to kiss his cheek.

“Never forget me”, you basically whispered into his ear, before meeting his wide eyes again.

He shuddered at the words. 

“I have to go now. I’ll always be here”. The words creaked out of you, “but please never forget me”. 

You trembled ever so slightly at the final sentence. His face whimpered again. The words “I’ll never leave you” exploded out of his lungs like it was his last release before he died himself. He hugged you tight in his hold, taking in and treasuring every inch of your eyes and your face. His trembling hand stroked the back of your head as he kissed your face all over, hurried like his life depended on it. 

In between the kisses, all you heard was “I’ll never leave you”, over and over and over. It became barely intelligible but it meant more than any other words could.

The disintegration of your torso had begun, but it looked like your hands would be one of the last thankfully. You wouldn’t have been able to bear seeing your left hand go, ring falling to the ground to be swept away by a wave. He repositioned his knee in response immediately. Forever the selfless one, you thought to yourself, again. You had to grab his face back in your hands for him to stop circling your face with kisses and promises in a broken record. To get all the words you needed out. But the moment you stopped him he looked wide-eyed, almost guilty. Attentive like he’d analyse every letter that dropped off your lips.

“My beautiful beautiful Prince”, you started, caressing his hair and pretty shining cheek again, “I’ll never leave you”

He nodded hurriedly and heavily as more tears appeared like crystals in his eyes and fell down to you. He shut his eyes to rid them, but for less than a blinks-worth of time.

“I’ll never ever leave you I’ll always be here, I love you”

His mouth burst open in an expulsion of emotion, his lips turned down as he sobbed even more. But he never ever left your eyes.

“I’ll never let go of you, ever”

“I love you so so much”

“I’ll never leave”

“My precious angel, I’ll always be here”

“My Princess, promise me please… you’ll always be with me”

“I’ll be with you forever, my Prince”

The sun was pushed into a crescent as the horizon engulfed it. The light of the day was fading, to return again, but not without a flurry of colour as it died for that day. The foam soon reached your neck, and all you did was look. The love of your life and the whole meaning of your existence, gripping you and caressing you, in a teary mess, never to let go. In a very brief moment, dancing across your lifeline, joy. Everything you’d done. And risked. And sacrificed. Colliding together in a moment. A moment in his arms, as you promised each other over and over until the very end. 

What was it again? Oh, right. Doomed and saved. That was the tale your mother told on that rock, with a jagged opening at the top that dreamed to exist on the surface. Kindness and hatred, war and peace, love and malice. Both sides of one shell. You felt like your life had been a blink of an eye, but you’d been all those things just in your time. But at the same time, your life wasn’t just some old tale that your mother told in a manufactured mystery. You had torn all your constraints to shreds. Lived for yourself and lived for him, despite having to overcome the world itself.

And just as fate finally caught up with you, the sun vanished under those same seas.