A Heart Made of Coral Pearls (Hualian Mermaid AU)

Chapter 1: Discovery

Crown Prince Xie Lian pushed past a school of fish, gliding swiftly through the deep waters of the ocean. His golden tail shimmered brightly in the water, attracting small fish to the glow. He narrowly dodged a large shark, but it wouldn't have been dangerous anyway. Despite his beautiful appearance, mermaids were predators.

800 years ago, Xie Lian never would have thought that he would end up here, the most desolate place in the ocean. The Crown Prince of Xianle would never be caught dead anywhere like this, especially without his escorts. He almost laughed when he thought about the past him, the proud newly-crowned royal who always seemed to act embarrassingly pretentious.

The Xianle Kingdom had been vast and full of life, but now the cove he lived in was a sorry site. The area barely held a few fish and some scavengers that scuttled along the sand, but to Xie Lian, it was home.

Xie Lian sighed, setting down his woven net bag on the small rock table of his grotto. The cavern itself was only the size of one of his bedrooms in the Xianle Palace, but it was enough to fit his bed (or more accurately, clump of seaweed) and kitchen. Weirdly enough, it seemed to fall into an air pocket in the ocean, allowing him to take a breath with his partially human lungs before unpacking his collection of the day.

"Stone...glass...wood..."

He sighed, counting through the various scraps he had found on the ocean floor during his exploration.

After Xianle had fallen so many years ago, their crown prince was now reduced to this....a mermaid scrap collector.

Suddenly, a slightly shinier piece in the bag drew Xie Lian's gaze, and he smiled, pulling it out to take a better look. The artifact was made of a silvery metal, and he placed it on his shelf happily.

Rarely did he ever find human artifacts near his location, so he put it on display in the cavern. However...Xie Lian had no idea what it was.

The item appeared to be a weapon, like his father's trident, but it was much too small, as if it was meant for a different use.

Curiously, Xie Lian picked up the silver trinket and ran it through his chestnut hair, pulling on the strands that tangled easily in the ocean currents. This was it! Humans must use objects like these to take care of their hair. What an interesting invention!

Xie Lian's eyes sparkled and he left the bag of scraps on the table to swim gracefully out of a small opening at the top.

If a human object like this had been found near here, he hoped that there would possibly be more.

Xie Lian wasn't always entirely fascinated with humans, but being on his own was often lonely, and he dreamed of connecting with anyone that he could possibly find, and he hadn't seen a single mermaid since the fall of Xianle.

When he was royalty, he was constantly surrounded by people, especially his servants, and now...fish were his only company. 

Xie Lian blinked his eyes in the water, trying to clear his mind of his past unsuccessfully. As he neared the coral reef where he had originally found the human hair tool, another scrap caught his eye in the sand. Swimming down, he grasped it tightly in his pale hands, examining it excitedly.

Xie Lian knew what this was- human clothing.

He had only ever encountered a human once, but he was surprised at how similar their clothing must be among different people, since this gray scrap of cloth seemed to be made of a similar material.

The only human Xie Lian had ever met was a child, a small boy, whom he had saved one night many years ago during a storm that capsized human vessels near Xianle.