Chapter Text
In the very beginning, there was nothing. The vast darkness of the universe was beyond our comprehension — only dust kept each other company, gravitating towards each other with frevor only so strong because of loneliness. They kept coming, closer, closer, until they bound together as one into a bright explosion of light; light that said 'we are together, we are one, and we will never be alone again.'
And so, Sunne was born.
Alfred was far from a busy man.
As the son of a royal, it was expected of him not to be; he would use his reputation to his advantage, often slacking off and examining the life around him. He enjoyed watching the fish flit about in their schools. He loved talking with his brother, Matthew, who — although much more studious than Alfred — always indulged him, letting him ramble about politics and his useless yet entertaining inventions.
But most of all, he adored looking at the sky. At night, it would turn almost black, which was a little off-putting, but the dazzling reflection of white dots on the sea floor was more than enough to make up for it. Alfred would raise his hand, splaying out his fingers and eyeing the beams of light that filtered through them, before clenching his hands into fists, imagining that he was crushing the dots along with them. They spilled through the gaps between his knuckles, the light scattering the edges of his skin blue, like his blood. Alfred did not know much about the sky, but he loved it. Loved its everchanging colors, its light, its gifts.
Gifts, in this sense, were literal — every so often, items would fall from the sky, ever so entrancing in their build. A sculpture made of metal, with a soft edge and sharp end. A toy with the same material as decayed ships, shaped to look like nothing he'd ever seen. A bottle made of glass — he knew the terms for this, for they always got lost among seawrecks — carrying a message too faded to decipher. It often made Alfred's heart ache, but he never dwelled on such things, for the next thing was infinitely more entertaining; what good is it to read a dead man's plea when the ocean itself scrubbed it from view — when he was perfectly content looking for other odd treasures from the surface?
The gifts were hardly eye-candy, however. Alfred loved them for their uniqueness and reflective properties as much as the next man, but just looking was boring. It was times like these when he was glad for the ever-raining gifts from beyond the Break — the border between sea and land — because he could tinker with them as much as he pleased without getting in trouble for breaking something important. In any case, to his father, they were all just trash. Alfred thought his father got some perverse joy from watching him take apart gifts and rebuild them into something more 'mangled,' but so long as his father's ire was not directed towards him, Alfred would never complain.
With this comforting thought, Alfred settled into his routine. The sun was going to paint the sky with reds instead of blue at any minute. So, quite far beyond the palace grounds without actually leaving the place, he sifted through the gifts and brought an array of them home.
With a bright grin, he rushed past his servant and dumped them on his bed, not paying any mind to Matthew's tired grumbling.
"Alfred…" Matthew groaned, rubbing his eyes and sitting up, tail twitching irritatedly. It was a vibrant purple that matched his eyes and ear fins, fading into lighter shades as it reached its tail-end (heh). His tail was forked and pierced, the same as all royals, in gold jewelry and chains. A shame, considering Alfred thought Matthew looked all the more stunning in silver. "Seriously, aren't you supposed to be studying? Don't you have your exam soon?"
Alfred blanched at the reminder. "Sunne, don't make me think about it. Or I'll really bash your head in with mine."
"Oh my gods, Alfred! Don't say that," Matthew looked around worriedly, as if afraid a spy were in the very roots of their shared room.
"It's not like anyone's listening," Alfred rolled his eyes playfully, flinging himself onto his own bed. His side of the room was more cluttered than Matthew's, but that was because he had more stuff so he could build. Matthew preferred the art of something more than the makeup, which Alfred could not understand. Beauty faded easily with the ocean's will. "And besides, you won't even let me practice doing that."
"Because last time, you did it to cheat on your testing. And I got that cut. You should really be more careful. My palm still hurts," Matthew whined. He was always dramatic — it hardly stung when Alfred cut himself on broken glass, and Matthew's palm was barely scarred with a thin, white line; absolutely unnoticeable to anyone, even those who spared a second glance.
"Of course," Alfred said, looking up at the ceiling. His side was adorned with hanging pearls, mimicking the white dots' light at night. They were dimmed — it wasn't yet dark, after all, Matthew just enjoyed napping before dinner — and Alfred couldn't help but take one of the lower ones and fidget with it, before looking over at his brother knowingly. "And besides, weren't you the one who wanted to learn it in the first place?"
Matthew flushed sheepishly. "I needed it that time. Anyway, you know that's forbidden now. And why, in father's title, do you never use its proper name?"
"It's hard to say," Alfred joked, pushing his pearl back and forth.
"In any case, it's probably for the best," Matthew sighed. rolling over as if to go back to sleep. "Forget about it, Alfred. I'm not helping you cheat, and you're not gaining my physicality or whatever the requirement was."
"If you were supposed to gain my physicality, you'd be able to lift my tools a lot easier by now," Alfred teased.
Matthew threw his pillow at him.
Dinner, as always, was a quiet affair.
Alfred's father wasn't a quiet man, but he was practically mute at the dinner table, often only talking to order the servants around. Frustration often clung to Alfred's throat as he tried to swallow it down with his food, but — well, his father was just a special brand of irritating.
Matthew hunched in on himself as he cut through his, admittedly, much smaller portion — what good it did, Alfred didn't know, because the man never finished it — and avoided talking before father said the first word. Which was a bit stupid, in his opinion, but he could understand. Father didn't pay much attention to Matthew, and father's attention always brought yelling, or lecturing, or… something. It wasn't of much matter.
Alfred thought it would continue on as normal; with him shovelling food in his mouth and Matthew shovelling food around his plate. But it was then his father spoke, and the room almost went still.
"Now that both of you are age…" Arthur tilted his head at Alfred, who bit back a scowl. "I was hoping we could talk about the next heir of the throne."
"What?" Matthew asked. The word must have slipped out, because Matthew's eyes widened and he slapped his hand over his mouth, looking cowed despite no lecture coming. A dramatic, through and through.
"I will live long, don't be afraid," Arthur reassured, an amused quirk to his lips. "But you both are mature enough. And while normally, it would be the one who has the most qualifications in this family, you both are equal."
That, and they don't have any other relatives besides their father. Their mother, as father seldom told, had died during Alfred's birth, no other blood relative to her name. Despite Arthur's many siblings, none of them deemed it necessary to sire children, either. Alfred knew that if they had, they wouldn't be having this conversation.
"I don't want to be king," Alfred said before another word was spoken. The room, which was held in place to pay attention to the current king's words, froze; to say something so contrarily so brazenly, why, that was only a privilege the prince could have. It was shocking to see it in action.
Arthur's light expression fell. "It's not a matter of want," he explained calmly, as if talking to a five-year-old. At this, Alfred really did scowl. "It's in your blood, Alfred. It's what you are. If Matthew were an only child, it would be a different story, but you are here. And we cannot compromise on the laws set by those who were here centuries before us; the best leaders never want to rule. What I'm trying to say is, not considering you in this process would be a betrayal to the people. You know our history. You know how corruption spreads."
"I know," Alfred quickly cut in before Arthur could start his next sentence. "I understand. But, what is this process? How do you decide who the heir is?"
"That, I can't tell you." Arthur looked at both of them with a deadpan expression, though they both knew the furrow in those thick brows were performative. "Just know that your behavior will be monitored more closely. You are still entitled to privacy, but that is a privilege you might no longer have when ruling. It would do you both good to remember that," Arthur implored. Alfred refrained from rolling his eyes. His father liked to act larger than life, at moments like these — but Alfred had seen him lose his temper, and he appeared more beastly than any human on the surface.
"Yes, sir," Alfred said mockingly, which is echoed by Matthew sincerely.
"All I can ask is that you understand," Arthur sighed. Taking his last bite, he ushered them both off. "Now go, Alfred. Matthew."
And Alfred didn't need any more convincing than that.
The next morning, after a long while of tinkering (which Matthew was always grumpy about, but none of his materials had even grazed Matthew's side yet), he decided to do something he knew his father would get mad about. If he knew.
Alfred didn't trust his father. Well, he supposed he did, on some intrinsic familial level, but Alfred was sure his father was up to no good. Arthur always got a little hard-handed about royal matters, especially when they were related to his dead wife, meaning that he definitely wasn't lying about monitoring their behavior. And Alfred was not excited for the day he decided to do something 'wrong' out of necessity, only to be punished for it when he could've gotten away with it a week prior. Testing the limits of this 'monitoring' seemed like the best solution. Even Matthew couldn't complain, since Alfred wasn't involving him at all.
Both of the brothers — as the only heirs to the throne — were forbidden from going to the Break. Ships always sailed past, and if humans found out about them, they would capture them and do unspeakable things. Not to mention — and Arthur and Alfred's tutors described this in great detail, so Alfred knew — the heavens beyond the Break held Sunne and Weolcan.
Sunne, the holder of the bright ball of fire deep in the sky, would extend her beams even to the ocean floor, but she got tired quickly, and had to rotate with Mona every night, who held much less light. But Weolcan built the heavens by hand, ever drifting from place to place even as his friends stay still in the sky for the world. And with his fleeting romances and tension, he often got… heavy. Like Arthur. And so it would rain, and sometimes pour, and sometimes thunder, and sometimes, strike — dancing lightning that would make Alfred's scales tingle, even though he was safe in the palace. In any case, the rain was pattering and dangerous in large amounts, impairing vision and even getting others ill in large amounts.
It wasn't thundering and lightning today, but the rain fell despite. Alfred watched the shimmering border with hardly concealed awe. The rain hit the Break beautifully, dispersing into circular ripples that evened out to the current, lighting up the surface. But as one fell, a hundred more followed, and a hundred more after that.
Alfred swam with a sweeping motion towards the Break, a hand slightly outstretched as if to catch a raindrop before it fell, even though he knew he was too far —
And above, the surface was engulfed by flames.
Alfred sputtered to a stop, frozen despite the vague heat. Above, in a patch of the Break, orange flames danced and wavered atop the water, ever distorted and so intensely bright that Alfred couldn't pay attention to anything else. It was captivating, a show of perhaps Weolcan's strength, or his impatience.
So captivating, in fact, that he almost missed the large ship falling beside it.
Alfred snapped himself out of his trance — his father was going to kill him if his brother didn't get to him first — and darted away from the body. But upon closer inspection, it didn't look like a ship at all.
There was no deep divet for humans to lie, no sharp point for the stem. The end was circular and cutting. There were fallen wings on either side of the body, the fire having burned away most detailing. The whole thing was unlike anything Alfred had ever seen; circular, dynamic, and dying right in front of his eyes.
Right beside the fallen 'ship,' however, was the thing that caught Alfred's attention just as quickly.
A human, eyes closed and bubbles streaming from its face, lay burned beyond the metal.
Alfred's breath hitched as he eyed it from afar. Near the odd, dying ship, its arms drifted upwards, its body limp. Its clothing was heavy and it dragged it down, down — and with a belated fear, Alfred realized the thing would drown.
Alfred propelled himself towards the human with no small amount of vigor, pulling it away from the ship — and the fire on the surface. Humans could barely last three minutes underwater. And this one was woefully injured.
Alfred didn't spare a second glance at the spectacle that was now well behind them. He rushed towards the surface, twisting so that the human's body would land atop of his once in the air. The water rushed past his face, pulling his cheeks and making his eyes sting. He felt every vein of his burn with hot-white blood, coursing through every limb to just swim faster, harder to the surface.
Alfred shattered through the Break.