Hermitcraft Ships

Aquastone

I don't usually do aus, but here's a mermaid au, oops 👀

"Pardon me your majesty, but I'm the architect coming to renovate your room. I hope I'm not intruding." Grian bowed low, tail flicking nervously. He was more than friendly with the king, but he had actually never met the prince before, so his stomach churned nervously as he waited for the reply.

"Oh right, uh, come on in!"

"Thank you." Grian swam past quickly, not making eye contact. He scanned his blueprints again, identifying the walls he needed to fortify and where it would need new coral molding. He pulled out his marking tool, and began scoring the walls and ceiling where work needed to be done.

Grian couldn't help but overanalyze his short talk with the prince- Prince Mumbo was his name. His voice was smooth like chocolate, but higher than the king's voice- kind of like a white chocolate. King Iskall definitely had a dark chocolate voice. Hopefully he didn't seem too pushy when he came in; it would suck to offend the prince in their first meeting.

"What are you doing exactly?" Mumbo's voice pulled him back to reality.

"Ah..." He looked down at the marking tool in his hand to find he had nearly ground it to dust against the wall, the particles floating through the water slowly. Grian followed its trail all the way down, where it landed in the princes hair, who was watching from below him. Grian also noted with embarrassment the bed was also covered in the white chalk.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry! I'll get that cleaned up right away, that's my mistake!" Grian swam out of the room quickly, face flushing. He made a fool of himself within five minutes of meeting the prince. Great.

Grian returned with a small clean towel, and began scrubbing the bedsheets vigorously. The small dust motes were stubborn, and Grian's tongue poked out as he worked.

A gentle hand on his shoulder froze him. "Don't worry, we can just get a new set of sheets."

Grian turned around, finding himself face to face with Mumbo for the first time. He had shimmering black eyes, and a gently curling mustache. Most notably at the moment however, was the white dust covering his hair.

"I'm so sorry for the mess, let me just-" Grian reached up, trying to rid his hair of the dust without mussing it up. Mumbo sat awkwardly as Grian unconsciously held his arm for support.

"Uh, how long have you worked here?" Mumbo managed to choke out.

"Oh, nearly eight years now. We haven't run into each other very often."

"Yeah..."

Grian lowered the towel, frowning at how much dust was still in his hair. "You may want to ask a servant to wash this out. It's enchanted to stick to any surface, and I can't get it out of your hair."

"Well thank you for trying. I'd better, uh... Go do that." Mumbo swam out, and Grian collapsed, groaning.

"What was that, Gri? You get close to people all the time, and that wasn't any different! Besides, he probably didn't even think about it like that. Nothing happened! Ughhhh, emotions are so stupid.." Grian chattered to himself as he busied himself with his work again. Grian didn't see Mumbo again that day.
—
"Hello Mumbo, I'm here to finish your room!" Grian beamed as Mumbo opened the door.