"Part of Your World" Summary: Prince Yuuri can't remember much about that night he fell from one of his ships during a storm and washed up on the beach - but he remembers a voice beautiful as sea glass, and hair lit up dark golden by the rising sun. (The Little Mermaid AU)
Summary: Prince Yuuri can’t remember much about that night he fell from one of his ships during a storm and washed up on a beach—but he remembers a voice as beautiful as sea glass, and hair lit up dark golden by the rising sun.
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Yuuri walks by the sea every day.
He’s not sure what he’s looking for, but he looks. Phichit walks with him, and he doesn’t understand, either, but he never questions it—not verbally, at least. Yuuri looks and looks and never sees anything but he looks all the same, in the hopes that one day that will change. Sometimes, he’ll stop on the beach, stare at a spot in the water and wonder, wonder more than his heart can bear, before he continues, leaving footsteps that will be washed away come morning.
It’s a Thursday when he finds the first lotus flower on the shore. He turns the small flower over in his hand, once, twice, shows it to Phichit, who just shrugs and makes an offhand comment that it’s beautiful, isn’t it?
Then there’s two, then three, then ten, and Yuuri knows this can’t be a coincidence. He keeps them by his bedside, simply piling them up and realizing that they never lose petals, that they never seem to fade or change, as though they’re immortal.
It’s a Monday when he tells his guards that he’ll be out for the night—he doesn’t tell them where, only not to inform the King and Queen, so that they do not worry. If he hasn’t returned by morning, he says, then inform Sir Phichit.
It’s dark out when he settles behind the railing of the small dock, keeping a careful watch on the sea and clinging to the wooden frame with trepidation making his heart race. It’s darker, still, when a form emerges from the water, silver hair glinting in the moonlight, and, and, beneath, beneath, where the legs should be—
He hadn’t wanted that tremble to his voice, but it’s there all the same. He stands on wobbly legs. The figure turns around, and, just like that, crystals, or at least, crystalline, the eyes that had enhanced his dreams and come to him in the dead of the night, the eyes that are familiar—
The eyes are huge, shocked.
The figure dives back into the water.
Yuuri watches it retreat, unsure of what to do, his breaths coming in quick pants. There are lotus flowers on the shore and he presses his palm to his forehead, collapsing against the railing and keeping his eyes trained, still, on the shore.
He wonders what that had been, what he’d just seen. There are legends of merpeople, of course, but they’re simply legends, sailors’ myths. He remembers an old man saying with complete seriousness that perhaps he’d met a merperson after falling off of that ship so long ago, that perhaps that’s how his life had been saved.
Eventually, exhaustion overcomes Yuuri and he falls asleep there, head pressed uncomfortably against the hard wood.
(In the morning, there’s a lotus flower in his hair.)