The Sea Prince.
The Sea Prince
Author: dong-bang @ kiiteruno
Pairings: HoMin (... kinda!)
Rating: PG-13-ish.
Genre: AU. Fairy tale. Not-so-happy, twisted fairy tale, really. Oneshot (~2,000 words).
Warnings: Supernatural. Kind of haunting. Boy kissing.
Summary: The ocean holds many secrets, and from those secrets have sprung many stories. This is one of them.
AN: Written for reallycorking, and inspired by her Merman!Yunho (as seen here. :D). Used a dorky name for the country and giggled the whole way through. Sob, I hope you like it bb. ♥
The vast oceans of the world hold many secrets that we, as land lovers, aren't always privy to. Those who witness first-hand the mystery, the horror, and the wonders that reside deep beneath those murky depths -and live to tell the tale- are rarely forthcoming about what they've seen. But maybe, if you're lucky, in some small seaport tavern, you might be able to locate a fisherman willing to tell you a tale or two (for the price of a mug of ale). And maybe, just maybe, if you stumble upon the right gentleman from the right part of the world, he might be persuaded to tell you the tale of The Sea Prince.
///
A long time ago, there was once a small, quiet, but fairly wealthy island nation known as Aquataine. The king and queen were kind and generous to their subjects, and well loved, but the queen was barren and unable to produce an heir. Fearing for the future of their country, the queen would walk out to the cliffs each and every day and pray to the vast ocean, which had always provided for their small island nation, to gift her and her husband with an heir.
One day, as the queen sat upon the rocks, praying to the great sea, she saw a lone person walking along the shore. The person looked lost and confused, stumbling and tripping on the soft sand. The queen, being the generous soul that she was, hurried down to the shore, fearing the person was hurt and seeking to help. Instead of a grown adult, however, she found a boy, just blossoming into adulthood. His hair was ragged and wet, his eyes as big and deep as the vast ocean itself. His clothing, what little he wore, was ragged and torn, and barely able to keep him decent.
"What is your name?" she asked the boy, but he could not answer. Despite being so close to adulthood, he knew not a word of the language she spoke.
The queen could not begin to guess where the boy came from. She led him back to the castle where her attendants bathed the boy. They cut his long, ragged hair and dressed him in luxurious finery. And as the queen watched them tend to the boy, she began to wonder.
What if the boy is from the ocean? she thought to herself, a gift for the country and its humble leaders who have always been so faithful to the seas? And so the queen found her husband and showed him the boy, and when she shared her theory, the king was pleased.
"Let this boy of the sea be our heir," the king declared, "for I can think of no one finer."
And so it was. They named the boy Changmin and loved him as their own. The king brought the finest tutors in the country to teach the boy to speak, to read and write. They taught him about the country and its citizens, about advisers and government, and above all, they taught him to love and respect the sea.
As the years passed, Prince Changmin grew into a fine man. The country prospered even more than it already had. The citizens were content with the knowledge that an heir had been found, and that even when the good king and queen of the country passed on, the little island nation would have leadership.
Of course, for the royal line to continue, Prince Changmin himself would one day need an heir of his own. The king, hoping to expand the little island nation by creating alliances, began to seek a bride for his son among the daughters of the monarchies closest to Aquataine. He settled on the nearest country's daughter, who was rumored to be fair and beautiful and had just come of age. "Go to this country and bring back your lovely bride, so that Aquataine may grow and prosper," the king said.
The prince protested. While he had been a loyal and dutiful son to his adoptive parents up until then, he claimed he was not ready to have a wife and be wed. He begged his parents to let fate bring him a wife, one that he would fall in love with on his own.
His parents, to his surprise, were furious. "We took you into our home and raised you," they said. "We gave you the best education and the best home with the best food and the best care and this is how you repay us? It is your duty to obey us, and you will be wed." Prince Changmin pleaded with them to reconsider, but the king, having already made up his mind, would not be persuaded.
And so a boat was readied and despite his protests, the prince left Aquataine for the first time since he'd arrived. Sullen and distraught, he spent the first few days at sea locked in his room, despairing over his parents' decision. He would meet and bring back some woman he didn't even know, and wed her. The rumors of her beauty and kindness meant nothing to the prince, for he believed that without love, everything else was meaningless.
Finally, after three days at sea, feeling lonely and restless, Prince Changmin came out of his room and onto the deck of the boat. He marveled at the stars, so vast and bright in the sky, before walking to the edge of the boat to peer at the water. It was dark, of course, so dark and so vast that the prince immediately became fascinated with it; for, while he had lived in Aquataine for years, he had never gone out to sea.
As he stood at the railing and gazed out over the ocean, the prince's eyes began to tear up. "I do not wish," he whispered to the waters, "to wed. I wish to be free, to explore these great oceans that I have been kept from all my short life." And as he uttered these words, a single, salty tear fell from his cheeks into the calm waves below.
Moments later, some movement under the surface of the water caught his eye. Some denizen of the sea, it seemed, was circling the boat. Feeling not a trace of fear, the prince leaned over the railing, peering down into the dark depths of the ocean as he tried to make out the pale figure flitting through the waves. He watched the form circle the boat once more before swimming up to the side where the prince stood. Finally it surfaced, peering up at Prince Changmin with strikingly deep eyes.
The prince blinked. And blinked again. For it was not some fish or shark that stared at him, but a very human-looking person - A mer-person! The prince could not believe his eyes, for while he had heard tales of such beings, he never dared believe them to be true.
And yet here one was! The prince watched as the merman -for surely, from what the prince could see, this was a man- placed a hand on the side of the boat, stroking the wood before looking up at Changmin once more. The prince swallowed deeply, feeling the strangest pangs of recognition and kinship that reached so deep into his soul that their origins were surely from before his adoptive parents found him.
Slowly, slowly, the prince held out a hand, fingers trembling only slightly. "Do I know you?" he whispered to the man in the water, and the mer-person reached up, gently clasping the prince's hand, smiling brilliantly then as he tugged the prince overboard.
The prince cried out as he fell into the ocean, more from surprise than fear. The merman dragged him down down down into the murky depths, his long, powerful tail thrashing easily through the water. Only when the prince's lungs began to ache from holding his breath did he fight, true fear beginning to finally grip him as he realized how far now the surface truly was.
The merman paused then, turning to peer at the prince. He cupped Changmin's face, stroking his cheek with a knowing smile before quite suddenly kissing him full on the lips. When he pulled back he began stroking the prince's neck, whispering words from a language only those who live below the waves can speak. The prince cried out as heat seared his neck, the skin shifting and molding itself into gills, while the flesh of his legs sloughed off to reveal scales beneath, the two limbs fusing into one. A final kiss from the merman lifted the veil that had for so long been stretched over the prince's memories, and that kiss, the prince returned.
For you see, long has it been known that, from time to time, mer-people shed their fins and live the lives of men. They walk on land, marry into families, and even have children as they play at being human. Finally, when the life begins to bore them, they will return to the sea, one of their own coming to lift the magic that gives them their legs and their air-breathing lungs, and together they will descend back into the depths, the once-human mer-person abandoning without a care the family they had been part of for so long.
Of course, those who had been on board the prince's boat didn't know this. When they heard the prince scream as he went overboard, they nervously wrote him off as shark food and turned the boat back towards Aquataine. After all, it'd do them no good to arrive at the neighboring country with no prince for the princess.
When the prince's ship returned to Aquataine with news of the prince's demise, the queen went mad with grief. She hung herself soon after, and the king, devastated at the loss of his wife and adopted son, slowly withered away in his castle, dying from what most agree to be a broken heart.
And so the island nation of Aquataine collapsed without the monarchy to lead them. The wealth of the country dwindled down to nothing, and the island became little more than a small fishing community, visited only occasionally by trade ships passing through the area. The story of Prince Changmin faded from history into myth, and then from myth into legend; a cautionary tale told to children to warn them against expecting and demanding too much from those around them.
And on occasion, when fishermen are asked to share a tale, those who know it may share the story of Prince Changmin, The Sea Prince, who shed his fins and lived a life of royalty; who then fled from pressure and responsibility back to the watery home he'd come from, back to those who loved him without any such strings attached. And it's said that, when the depressed and desolate are out in open sea, weary from human life, if they let but a single tear fall into the water, they might find Prince Changmin's face staring up at them from the murky depths, smiling as he holds out a hand to welcome them back from whence they came.
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Author: dong-bang @ kiiteruno
Pairings: HoMin (... kinda!)
Rating: PG-13-ish.
Genre: AU. Fairy tale. Not-so-happy, twisted fairy tale, really. Oneshot (~2,000 words).
Warnings: Supernatural. Kind of haunting. Boy kissing.
Summary: The ocean holds many secrets, and from those secrets have sprung many stories. This is one of them.
AN: Written for reallycorking, and inspired by her Merman!Yunho (as seen here. :D). Used a dorky name for the country and giggled the whole way through. Sob, I hope you like it bb. ♥
The vast oceans of the world hold many secrets that we, as land lovers, aren't always privy to. Those who witness first-hand the mystery, the horror, and the wonders that reside deep beneath those murky depths -and live to tell the tale- are rarely forthcoming about what they've seen. But maybe, if you're lucky, in some small seaport tavern, you might be able to locate a fisherman willing to tell you a tale or two (for the price of a mug of ale). And maybe, just maybe, if you stumble upon the right gentleman from the right part of the world, he might be persuaded to tell you the tale of The Sea Prince.
///
A long time ago, there was once a small, quiet, but fairly wealthy island nation known as Aquataine. The king and queen were kind and generous to their subjects, and well loved, but the queen was barren and unable to produce an heir. Fearing for the future of their country, the queen would walk out to the cliffs each and every day and pray to the vast ocean, which had always provided for their small island nation, to gift her and her husband with an heir.
One day, as the queen sat upon the rocks, praying to the great sea, she saw a lone person walking along the shore. The person looked lost and confused, stumbling and tripping on the soft sand. The queen, being the generous soul that she was, hurried down to the shore, fearing the person was hurt and seeking to help. Instead of a grown adult, however, she found a boy, just blossoming into adulthood. His hair was ragged and wet, his eyes as big and deep as the vast ocean itself. His clothing, what little he wore, was ragged and torn, and barely able to keep him decent.
"What is your name?" she asked the boy, but he could not answer. Despite being so close to adulthood, he knew not a word of the language she spoke.
The queen could not begin to guess where the boy came from. She led him back to the castle where her attendants bathed the boy. They cut his long, ragged hair and dressed him in luxurious finery. And as the queen watched them tend to the boy, she began to wonder.
What if the boy is from the ocean? she thought to herself, a gift for the country and its humble leaders who have always been so faithful to the seas? And so the queen found her husband and showed him the boy, and when she shared her theory, the king was pleased.
"Let this boy of the sea be our heir," the king declared, "for I can think of no one finer."
And so it was. They named the boy Changmin and loved him as their own. The king brought the finest tutors in the country to teach the boy to speak, to read and write. They taught him about the country and its citizens, about advisers and government, and above all, they taught him to love and respect the sea.
As the years passed, Prince Changmin grew into a fine man. The country prospered even more than it already had. The citizens were content with the knowledge that an heir had been found, and that even when the good king and queen of the country passed on, the little island nation would have leadership.
Of course, for the royal line to continue, Prince Changmin himself would one day need an heir of his own. The king, hoping to expand the little island nation by creating alliances, began to seek a bride for his son among the daughters of the monarchies closest to Aquataine. He settled on the nearest country's daughter, who was rumored to be fair and beautiful and had just come of age. "Go to this country and bring back your lovely bride, so that Aquataine may grow and prosper," the king said.
The prince protested. While he had been a loyal and dutiful son to his adoptive parents up until then, he claimed he was not ready to have a wife and be wed. He begged his parents to let fate bring him a wife, one that he would fall in love with on his own.
His parents, to his surprise, were furious. "We took you into our home and raised you," they said. "We gave you the best education and the best home with the best food and the best care and this is how you repay us? It is your duty to obey us, and you will be wed." Prince Changmin pleaded with them to reconsider, but the king, having already made up his mind, would not be persuaded.
And so a boat was readied and despite his protests, the prince left Aquataine for the first time since he'd arrived. Sullen and distraught, he spent the first few days at sea locked in his room, despairing over his parents' decision. He would meet and bring back some woman he didn't even know, and wed her. The rumors of her beauty and kindness meant nothing to the prince, for he believed that without love, everything else was meaningless.
Finally, after three days at sea, feeling lonely and restless, Prince Changmin came out of his room and onto the deck of the boat. He marveled at the stars, so vast and bright in the sky, before walking to the edge of the boat to peer at the water. It was dark, of course, so dark and so vast that the prince immediately became fascinated with it; for, while he had lived in Aquataine for years, he had never gone out to sea.
As he stood at the railing and gazed out over the ocean, the prince's eyes began to tear up. "I do not wish," he whispered to the waters, "to wed. I wish to be free, to explore these great oceans that I have been kept from all my short life." And as he uttered these words, a single, salty tear fell from his cheeks into the calm waves below.
Moments later, some movement under the surface of the water caught his eye. Some denizen of the sea, it seemed, was circling the boat. Feeling not a trace of fear, the prince leaned over the railing, peering down into the dark depths of the ocean as he tried to make out the pale figure flitting through the waves. He watched the form circle the boat once more before swimming up to the side where the prince stood. Finally it surfaced, peering up at Prince Changmin with strikingly deep eyes.
The prince blinked. And blinked again. For it was not some fish or shark that stared at him, but a very human-looking person - A mer-person! The prince could not believe his eyes, for while he had heard tales of such beings, he never dared believe them to be true.
And yet here one was! The prince watched as the merman -for surely, from what the prince could see, this was a man- placed a hand on the side of the boat, stroking the wood before looking up at Changmin once more. The prince swallowed deeply, feeling the strangest pangs of recognition and kinship that reached so deep into his soul that their origins were surely from before his adoptive parents found him.
Slowly, slowly, the prince held out a hand, fingers trembling only slightly. "Do I know you?" he whispered to the man in the water, and the mer-person reached up, gently clasping the prince's hand, smiling brilliantly then as he tugged the prince overboard.
The prince cried out as he fell into the ocean, more from surprise than fear. The merman dragged him down down down into the murky depths, his long, powerful tail thrashing easily through the water. Only when the prince's lungs began to ache from holding his breath did he fight, true fear beginning to finally grip him as he realized how far now the surface truly was.
The merman paused then, turning to peer at the prince. He cupped Changmin's face, stroking his cheek with a knowing smile before quite suddenly kissing him full on the lips. When he pulled back he began stroking the prince's neck, whispering words from a language only those who live below the waves can speak. The prince cried out as heat seared his neck, the skin shifting and molding itself into gills, while the flesh of his legs sloughed off to reveal scales beneath, the two limbs fusing into one. A final kiss from the merman lifted the veil that had for so long been stretched over the prince's memories, and that kiss, the prince returned.
For you see, long has it been known that, from time to time, mer-people shed their fins and live the lives of men. They walk on land, marry into families, and even have children as they play at being human. Finally, when the life begins to bore them, they will return to the sea, one of their own coming to lift the magic that gives them their legs and their air-breathing lungs, and together they will descend back into the depths, the once-human mer-person abandoning without a care the family they had been part of for so long.
Of course, those who had been on board the prince's boat didn't know this. When they heard the prince scream as he went overboard, they nervously wrote him off as shark food and turned the boat back towards Aquataine. After all, it'd do them no good to arrive at the neighboring country with no prince for the princess.
When the prince's ship returned to Aquataine with news of the prince's demise, the queen went mad with grief. She hung herself soon after, and the king, devastated at the loss of his wife and adopted son, slowly withered away in his castle, dying from what most agree to be a broken heart.
And so the island nation of Aquataine collapsed without the monarchy to lead them. The wealth of the country dwindled down to nothing, and the island became little more than a small fishing community, visited only occasionally by trade ships passing through the area. The story of Prince Changmin faded from history into myth, and then from myth into legend; a cautionary tale told to children to warn them against expecting and demanding too much from those around them.
And on occasion, when fishermen are asked to share a tale, those who know it may share the story of Prince Changmin, The Sea Prince, who shed his fins and lived a life of royalty; who then fled from pressure and responsibility back to the watery home he'd come from, back to those who loved him without any such strings attached. And it's said that, when the depressed and desolate are out in open sea, weary from human life, if they let but a single tear fall into the water, they might find Prince Changmin's face staring up at them from the murky depths, smiling as he holds out a hand to welcome them back from whence they came.
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