Abyssal (ManxMan)

King Marius the Conquerer

King Marius the Conquerer 

Kai sat by the roaring fireplace, cupping a hot chai glass cup in his hands that was part of a beautiful set gifted to his mother by the Turkish Prime Minister. Following his life-altering, life-endangering swim in the Black Sea,  he'd followed his pale mother into their house and had suddenly experienced an ominous chill down his spine, so he'd gone to sit in front of the modern, open fireplace in their living room. He looked down at the red liquid in the cup, stirring as he stirred, stilling as he stilled. It mirrored his every reaction. 

"Kai?"

On the outside, he looked calm, but on the inside... he was coming apart at the seams. As it turned out, Kai Kozcuoğlu was not really Kai Kozcuoğlu, son of American mother Priscilla Evans and Turkish father Emir Kozcuoğlu, but rather Kai of Astria, son of American mother Priscilla Evans and Astrian father King Kaerius of Astria. He was not even fully human, but rather the half-breed Crown Prince of Astria and the next in a line of long, proud merpeople to be king. 

Him. A fucking mermaid. 

"Kai? Say something." 

Oh, but it didn't end there. Not only was he half-human, half-merman, he had apparently inherited a... power of sorts that was only passed down his bloodline (the aquatic one), one that had transferred to him from his father when he passed away. His moment of need at the bottom of the Black Sea had awakened that power for the very first time, and the golden merman had come to the rescue of its master. The golden merman he'd summoned was apparently not really a merman, but a monstrosity in disguise that was capable of unimaginable horrors, which was about all his mother could tell him, because it was all his dead father told her. 

But wait, there was more! 

His royal title came with a heavy burden. A war. A 100-year-old war to be exact. If his mother was to be believed, then the acquatic Kingdom of Astria -a Goddamn underwater kingdom-was at war with the Empire of Nostraza, another Goddamn underwater country that was currently the mightiest country in all the Seven Seas. 

"Kai, you're scaring me! Say something!" 

Kai felt himself begin to reel. 

He took in a deep, shuddering breath, attempting to calm himself, but it proved as useful as trying to soothe himself with a cup of brewed Turkish tea that only served to burn his hands.  As the weight of everything that was revealed to him suddenly settled on his shoulders, he let out an audible gasp and let the cup slip from his hand, instantly shattering to a dozen pieces on the tiled-ground. 

His mother was upon him in an instant, quite vocal about her concerns. But he couldn't quite make out the words above the roar of rushing blood in his ears. He was frozen with a potent mixture of shock, disbelief and horror, mouth agape, panting slightly. 

So this was what it felt like to have an existential crisis. 

He wanted to accuse his mother of lying or of being clinically insane even if that was bad manners, but he'd seen the golden merman with his own eyes. He'd been touched by it. He'd seen his powers in action, the powers that gave him the ability to breath underwater. He knew inside that what he saw was real. 

Finally, a few minutes later, when his heart rate returned to semi-normal and his breathing steadied, he looked into his mother's watery eyes, who was sitting next to him on the couch, half-hugging him. She was drop-dead gorgeous, even in her fifties. Wrinkles hadn't begun to mar her face yet and she was as fit as the best runway model, if a little short. Well, a lot short. 5'2. She had his eyes, a unique jade color that, when hit by sunlight, made it look like their eyes were glowing. What he didn't get was her raven black hair. He guessed his red mane had come from his father.