Chapter Text
On the outskirts of the central archipelago of the Ocean Empire, there is a small island containing nothing but a wooden dock and a bakery.
Although, bakery might be a strong word for what it really is.
After becoming queen, Lizzie commissioned the construction of an industrial one person kitchen on the small piece of land. It’s within quite a cute little cottage, with a sign above the door proclaiming, Cake!
When she has time, she comes here and she bakes and she bakes and she bakes. The citizens are welcome, and any who come can take a piece of cake (if there’s any left) made by the queen herself.
This island is also where Jimmy and Lizzie go to be alone together. Sometimes they talk, sometimes Lizzie bakes and Jimmy watches, sometimes they sit on the dock and stare out at the endless expanse of ocean in complete silence.
Jimmy can feel the hardness of the salt soaked planks against his legs. Water laps at his bare feet, and can see a formation of birds flying out in the clear sky. He breathes in the smell of the ocean and feels Lizzie’s presence beside him, and feels a little bit like he’s done it, like he’s made it where he’s supposed to be.
Except, Lizzie is squeezing her hands together, and he doesn’t know why.
It was a convenient anxious tick for her to develop as a child, as a crown princess destined for the throne. Jimmy remembers watching her from across the table, always told to sit straight, knees together, hands held tightly in her lap. He’d seen how her nails had dug into her skin, how her knuckles turned white and her forearms shook with the strength with which she held on.
Now, Lizzie is a queen, and has no need for hands clasped carefully in her lap. But, old habits die hard, or so they say.
Jimmy sighs, leaning to bump his shoulder against Lizzie’s. “What’s up?”
She blinks, looking up at him, “What?”
“Your hands.”
She looks down, loosening her grip. Jimmy can see where her long nails have left crescent moon indents on the back of her hands. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know,” Lizzie says.
“Yes, you do.”
She sighs, “I got a letter from Rivendell.”
“I remember.”
It would be hard not to. The high elves always made a production of their correspondence. A single royal letter delivered conspicuously by six snowy white owls. He read a book about birds once, it listed owls as one of the slowest birds. They seem to be an awfully inconvenient method of delivery.
“It was about you.”
This slams into Jimmy’s train of thought like a sledgehammer, bringing everything to a complete halt.
“ What? ” he asks, because people don’t just send letters about Jimmy. Especially not to his sister. In the near decade of her rule, he can count on one hand the amount of times a royal correspondence has specifically concerned the Ocean Empire’s first-born prince, not just an invitation with his name tacked on the end. “Why would they be asking after me?”
Lizzie tilts her head up to look him in the eye, “We need allies right now.”
“Yeah.” Jimmy knows this, of course he does. With tensions rising between them and the Grimlands, and more salmon entering the oceans, there is very little between them and all out war. Even with Gem ascending to Great Wizard in the Crystal Cliffs, and their alliance with the Grimlands’ sister nation stronger than ever, the threats continue rolling in.
“Rivendell has offered us an alliance.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” he asks, because Lizzie looks so uneasy he wonders if he should be more scared.
“Their prince, you know him?”
“Not really.”
“Me neither,” Lizzie gives him half a smile, “but his mother wants him married before she dies and he becomes king.”
Jimmy doesn’t say anything, he's gotten the horrible impression he knows where this is going. He begins unbuttoning his vest.
“In an exchange for the alliance,” Lizzie says, “they want you to marry him.”
Jimmy removes his vest from his shoulders, laying it down on the wood of the dock, and slips into the water below him. It’s cool and comforting and he feels every muscle in his body relax as he goes under. His gills flare and his larger fins, usually pressed tight against his limbs in the harshness of dry air, open themselves up to the ocean’s current.
He breaches the surface and lays his forearms on the boards in front of Lizzie’s crossed legs. The wood darkens as seawater spreads from his wet arms.
“I’m not making you do this,” she says. “I’m barely asking you to. There are other options, other alliances, and other ways forward. We’re not even-”
When Jimmy cuts her off, it’s not because he truly wants to. It’s because he knows his sister, he knows the creases at the corners of her eyes, her clasped hands and the marks her fingernails leave. He knows her late nights in her office, the years of her life spent writing treaty after treaty, deal after deal. He knows every drop of sweat that she’s put into nothing but keeping their empire out of war. It’s because he knows that the letter was delivered two weeks ago, knows how long she must have spent thinking about this, knows that he can’t bear to watch her kill herself over something that he can change now.
“Lizzie,” he says, “stop. Please.”
She stops talking, mouth clamping shut. He can see tears at the corners of her eyes, something he is very near the only person privy to.
“I don’t-” he stops himself. “I’m not saying no, not at all. Ok?”
She nods, “You can though.”
“I know,” Jimmy says. “Trust me, I know.”
He takes a deep inhale, smells the sea, feels the warm sun on his back and the cool water against his legs. “Can you give me a day on it? Please?”
“Of course.”
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That evening, Tango only has time to hang his sword up on the rack by the door after entering the room before Jimmy is on him. He grips his forearms right over the bulky armour and resists the urge to press his face into the warmth of his neck, right above where his chest plate ends.
Tango jolts, turning into him. “Jim?” he asks, disorientated.
“I’m getting married,” Jimmy says, all in a rush. It’s only been a few hours since he left Lizzie on the island, but it feels like hours spent with his mouth sewn shut, protecting a secret that was never really a secret in the first place.
“What?” Tango’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm. Jimmy feels a familiar sensation on his calve as Tango’s soft tail reaches to wrap around his leg.
“I’m getting married,” Jimmy breathes it out, half a sigh of relief at finally being able to tell someone. He slumps down into Tango, letting his best friend hold him up. “I’m getting bloody married.”
“Ok,” Tango says, his voice has gone tight and controlled like it does when he’s stressed. “Ok, let’s get you sat down.” He guides Jimmy to the bed and sits him down on the edge. He shucks off his chest plate, takes a moment to unbuckle the thick guards on his arms, and sits down next to him. “Ok, tell me what’s happening.”
“Rivendell offered us an alliance against the salmon.”
“The high elves? In the mountains?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy nods. He feels out of breath. “Yeah, them. They just- they want me to marry their prince.”
“And you have to do this?” Jimmy can still feel the weight of his tail around his leg. It’s grounding.
“No, well. Liz says I don’t have to, right?” Tango nods. “She says there are other options, other things we can do. But she got that expression, you know the one I’m talking about, and she kept clasping her hands, and-”
“Jimmy,” Tango leans towards him, bumping their shoulders together. “Slow down. Why can’t you say no?”
“Because she works so hard. She does so, so much and I can’t just sit here and not do the one thing I can to help.”
“Ok, ok,” Tango says. “I-”
Jimmy feels his shoulder against his own as he inhales and exhales, regulating his breathing. The guard training had breathing lessons, Jimmy knows. Tango can’t breathe underwater, so he needed to learn to hold his breath. Train on how to get more air into his lungs. He’d taught some of it to Jimmy. He’d insisted that he didn’t need to be able to hold his breath. But, in the end, Tango was right, breathing helps sometimes.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think this was going to happen to you,” Tango says. “I mean, I probably should have thought of it. It’s normal, right?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy nods. “My parents didn’t meet until their wedding day. Lizzie and Joel are the exception, not the rule.”
“Yeah,” Tango says. “I just, I just never considered it.”
“You didn’t need to,” Jimmy says. “That shouldn’t be something you had to consider. It’s my issue.”
Tango snorts, “You know very well this isn’t just a you issue. I’m in it too, whatever choice you make.”
Which is, of course, the way it has always been. Jimmy and Tango, entirely interwoven.
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy says.
“No, you’re not,” Tango replies, poking him in the side. “That’s stupid. You’ve just been told you might have to get married to some creep you don’t even know, this isn’t a time for you to apologise.”
“I’m… sorry?”
Tango laughs shortly and leans down to begin unbuckling the armour still strapped to his legs. “Stop it.”
Jimmy lays back on the bed, arms spread wide and staring up at the ceiling. “You stop it,” he says half-heartedly.
Jimmy hears the thunk of leather and scales against the wooden floor. Tango scoots up the bed, supporting himself with an elbow to lean over Jimmy.
“I want you to reject the proposal, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Jimmy echoes.
“Like, to be clear, I don't want you going to live with some guy in the mountains. But also, I get it. You know?”
“You get it?”
“You and Lizzie. I get what she’s going through, and what you’re thinking, and I get it if you accept.”
“Thank you Tango,” Jimmy says. “I, yeah. Thanks.”
Tango flops down on the bed, broad shoulders clipping Jimmy in his fall. Tango takes a moment to settle, arms behind his head, but when he does Jimmy lets himself close his eyes and listen to his breathing.
Technically, Tango has his own room. It’s an offshoot of Jimmy’s built shortly after he became employed officially as his bodyguard. There was something about needing to be there in case of danger, extra protection. They didn’t really listen, they were just happy to be closer.
Except that Tango’s room was small, and his bed was uncomfortable. And maybe they could have just asked for a new mattress, what with the whole being royalty thing, but who could be bothered?
Tango slept on the couch for exactly three days before moving into Jimmy’s bed. This was an issue for neither of them. As children, they’d slept more often sprawled over one another than not, why was this any different?
And now, Tango’s armour rack stands next to Jimmy’s bookshelf. Now, his amateur woodcarving is on the same shelf as Jimmy’s extensive collection of sea glass. Now, they have two wardrobes and two sets of drawers and two dressing robes hanging on the hook on the back of the door.
Jimmy sometimes thinks that one day they might get sick of it, sick of living in each other’s pockets. It hasn’t happened yet.
Tango rolls over toward him and Jimmy opens his eyes. Tango’s hand reaches out to touch him, and Jimmy looks down to see him tracing the outline of one of the many scales against his shoulder.
“It’ll be alright you know,” he says, not making eye contact. “Whichever you choose. And like, even if you do go, I’ll be there with you.” Tango looks up, so close with his pure red eyes. Entirely all-encompassing. “You need a bodyguard right?”
It is this realisation, more than anything, that makes Jimmy tell Lizzie yes.
On the one condition that he can take Tango with him.
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Scott has spoken to his mother seven times in the past year.
This is not a bad thing, it is, perhaps, even a good thing. Things tend to go better for Scott when he doesn’t speak to his mother.
The Queen of Rivendell is gorgeous and imposing and as Scott enters her throne room for their eighth annual conversation, he finds himself wishing that her eyes didn’t look quite so much like the icicles hanging from the ceiling of his balcony. The kind of icicle that would much prefer to puncture someone through the eye socket than be served in a drink.
He bows deeply as he stops in front of her throne, tall, gold, and three steps up on a marble dais. The floor he stares down at is the same white as the stairs, freshly cleaned and trying awfully hard to convince him that in the millennia it has existed, no one has ever stepped foot on it.
“Rise,” his mother says.
Scott looks up in time to see his mother’s lips close carefully after the word. They are painted to match her skin tone, and he doesn’t think he would even be able to see the flat line they’re fixed in if he were any further away.
His back straightens and his shoulders square, his jaw sets and his gaze fixes firmly ahead. His posture is perfect, and he knows it.
“You are to be married.”
All at once, Scott stops breathing. He keeps his face perfectly still, but his throat closes up and any air flow is halted immediately. One, two, three. He breathes. Aeor, he could have done with a little warning. Except, of course, this is his mother, and she is not practiced in anything but perfect bluntness. When speaking to her son at least.
“As you know, before you ascend to the throne you must secure a partner in order to maximize the potential of an heir before the end of your reign,” the queen pauses, and for a second, Scott feels hopeful.
He thinks for a desperate moment of the possibility that this is simply a gentle nudge into him looking for himself; her encouraging him to find a partner soon. Maybe.
“I have taken the liberty of securing you a match.”
He reminds himself he had expected this, had known it was coming. He shouldn’t be disappointed.
Although, he would argue that he can find someone to marry before his mother dies. Surely pairing him off right at this moment isn’t the only option. Except that this is his mother, and he doesn’t argue with his mother.
No one argues with his mother.
“Who?” he asks before his conditioning can set in. Do not speak unless asked a direct question.
Her expression sours. “The prince of the Ocean Empire.”
He remembers, years ago, attending the coronation of the ocean’s newest queen. It was a deeply informal event, and, despite the numerous royal attendees, he and his mother were the only ones in proper royal garb. He doesn’t remember picking out the prince in the crowd, but then again, he can’t say he even remembers the queen’s face.
“Why them?”
Her eyes narrow and he suspects he might be pushing his luck. “They need alliances, and they have grown in size and fortitude under their new queen. It will be a lucrative marriage for the both of us.”
“Of course,” his mother wouldn’t accept anything less.
She nods to him, and an advisor, previously standing a few meters behind the chair, steps forward. She turns to talk to them, and Scott understands that he is dismissed.
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Pearlescent Moon is, if Scott is being entirely honest with himself, the only person he would die for.
He would, given the chance, gladly be run through by a sword or pierced by an arrow or blown up by dynamite just for the smallest chance of saving her life. And he would be glad of it too.
This is all true.
What is also true, is that right about now he would like to run that sword through her himself.
“Pearl!” Scott says, sitting up from his spot on her floor, “You’re not taking this seriously.” He throws himself back to the ground, regretting it a little when his spine is bruised against the hard tile.
Pearl, on the floor just past his feet, continues folding her pile of shirts. “I’m taking it plenty serious, bud. I’m just not sure what the end of the world is.”
Scott groans, “The end of the world, bud,” he kicks her in the knee, “is that I have to get married now.”
Pearl pinches him right back, just above his ankle. Scott yelps. “You knew this was going to happen.”
“Not now.”
Pearl looks at him, “Last year she was being all cryptic and you were fully convinced it was happening for like two months.”
“I’m still not prepared.”
Pearl shrugs, “At least it’s a boy.”
Scott stares up at the ceiling. “At least it’s a boy,” he agrees.
“And,” Pearl says brightly, “at least he’s not old as fuck.”
“I think.”
“You said his sister was like twenty when you went to the coronation, if he was old as fuck he would be first in line.”
Scott rolls over onto his stomach, spinning to face Pearl as he does so. “I still don’t want to marry the guy.”
“I know,” she says.
He stays silent, staring across the room at Pearl’s wall.
“Would folding some laundry help?”
He groans, loudly.
“It helps, I promise.”
“Just cause it helps you, doesn’t mean it helps me.”
Pearl leans over and pulls at his shoulder. “Sit up.”
“No.”
She pinches him again, he slaps her away. “Sit up, you’re helping me fold.”
Scott sits up and finds himself with a pile of freshly washed shirts in his lap. They smell like the same lavender as the rest of the room.
Pearl started her laundromat four years ago. It belonged to an old woman who sold it to her for much below market value when she retired. When he had first entered it, almost a decade ago now, his first thought had been of how different it was from every other part of his life.
It had smelled like soap and fabric softener and felt like being on the inside of a paper bag. The walls felt light and insubstantial, warm wind drifting throughout the open rooms, and the sun creeping in unexpected places.
It still feels like that, and he still loves it.
Since Pearl bought it, he spends as much time here as he does anywhere else. And he spends almost as much time as he’s here, helping.
Which is to say, now, Scott knows how to fold a shirt.
Three shirts in, he has to admit that there’s a bit of truth to Pearl’s words. It’s nice to have something to do with his hands, to push all his nervous energy into motion, to distract himself a little from his thoughts.
“At least you’re not leaving,” Pearl says.
Which is true. He thinks of the ocean prince, he doesn't even know what he looks like, but he’ll be the one forced to leave everything he’s ever known. Not Scott. Scott gets to stay here.
He doesn’t tell Pearl that the only bad part of moving away would be having to leave her.