Waves brushed against the white sands of Galdin Quay on the overcast day. Alone sat a young boy by the name of Prompto, who sunk his toes into the newly wet sand. He sat resting his arms against his knees as he stared at the foaming waves, his eyes blank behind his glasses.

The boy absentmindedly brought his hand up to rub his sore cheek. The purple bruise spread far across his pudgy cheek. His lip quivered, and he dropped his hand back to his knee. A bitter smile spread across his face. "You really did it now, Prompto," he whispered as he dragged his eyes across the horizon. He let out a heavy sigh. "I just had to speak my mind, huh? I just had to talk back to that big bully? There's no way they're gonna let me go back to that school…"

He propped his forehead against his knees, taking in a shaky breath. The dark clouds seemed to thicken above him, threatening to release its rainfall at any moment. Prompto's fists clenched around the fabric of his pants. "Why can't I just…?"

The water stirred in front of him. Prompto's head snapped up. He yelped in surprise, kicking his feet forward and falling back as he tried to back away from the water. Peeking out from above the waves was a pair of clear blue eyes, framed with slick locks of black hair.

Prompto shook his head, blinking his surprise away. He thought he had been alone.

The head in the water raised more, revealing a boy close to his own age. The boy's brow furrowed in concern. "Are you okay?"

Prompto took a deep breath. "Yeh… yeah. You just scared me."

The boy tilted his head. "You looked like you were about to cry."

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

Prompto frowned. "I'm fine… I just wanted to be alone."

Why did he lie to the boy? Even Prompto didn't know. It seemed to be what Prompto did sometimes; he was too afraid of rejection, so he rejected the opportunity before they even had the chance.

In a stroke of luck, or perhaps fate, the boy in the water didn't believe him. He gave a coy grin, pushing his arms beneath him and lifting his torso out of the water. "Do you want to play?"

Prompto was shocked, but slowly he smiled. "Sure, but… I don't have my swimsuit."

"That's fine!" The boy beamed. "I'm Noctis!"

"I'm Prompto," Prompto held out his hand.

Noctis tilted his head at the action. He stared at Prompto's outstretched hand wearily, as if it would bite him.

"It's… a handshake," Prompto stated hesitantly, vaguely wondering if he was doing something wrong.

"Oh?... Oh!" Understanding shone in Noctis' eyes. He leaned forward with one hand outstretched, gripping Prompto's hand. Prompto shook it once, and Noctis laughed. He retracted his hand, making a fist and crossing it over his chest. "It's nice to meet you!"

Prompto was confused, but mimicked Noctis' action, smiling when seeing Noctis' pleased expression.

Noctis lowered himself into the water more, pointing his finger towards the other end of the beach. "I'll race you to end of the beach. Me in water, and you on land."

Prompto was a little uncertain. He wasn't the most athletic kid, and surely Noctis could tell by looking at his filled-out form. Not to mention running on the beach was rather difficult. Then again, swimming sideways and fighting against the waves would surely put them on even grounds. "Okay, you got it!"

"On your mark," Noctis braced himself to fight against the waves.

"Get set…" Prompto tensed his arms and bent his knees.

"Go!" they shouted together, and Prompto took off running, occasionally checking on Noctis whilst checking his unsteady footing. Noctis was doing butterfly strokes, keeping up just in time with Prompto. They ran away from the pier, towards the rocky alcove at the end of the beach. Prompto kicked up the white sand as pushed himself to keep going forward.

Prompto huffed as he looked over his shoulder. The boy in the water seemed to be swimming with all of his might, fighting against the crashing waves with a determined look upon his face. Something in Prompto stirred, and he found within him a competitive spirit. He was going to win this race, no matter how hard it was.

With newfound determination he put his legs into overdrive. He was a foot ahead, and then five, and then seven feet ahead. Noctis called out from behind him, laughter in his voice. "Hey, you're fast!" Prompto turned to shoot a smile Noctis' way, and that's when he lost his footing. He tumbled forward, rolling over once. When he came to a stop, he was facing in Noctis' direction, his glasses falling off of his nose and barely hanging on by his ear.

When he focused his eyes on the water, he saw the worry on the boy's face. "Prompto!" Noctis called before diving underwater.

That's when Prompto saw something he couldn't comprehend. A tail, black as the night sky, following Noctis under the water.

In what felt like no time at all, Noctis was beside him, shaking his shoulder. "Prompto, are you okay?"

Prompto shakily lifted himself up, rubbing his eyes before he saw everything that was in front of him. Noctis was next to him on the shore and… he had a tail. It was black with gold speckling along the frills of his fin. The frills of his fin were long, curving into a crescent moon shape, and there were golden pelvic fins on either side of his body. His fin met his body in fading scales, slowly transforming into his pale skin. Looking back to Noctis' face, Prompto finally noticed the pointed, fanned ears and the diagonal gills along his neck, slightly obscured by his long black hair.

"You're… a merman?"

"Yeah," Noctis frowned, eyebrows creasing in worry as he looked upon Prompto skeptically.

Prompto starred up at him in awestruck wonder. "Are you… gonna take me away?"

"What?" Noctis's upper lip curled in disgust. "Why the heck would I do that?"

Prompto blinked. "Because that's what merpeople do; they take humans far away, or drown them…"

Noctis looked shocked, shaking his head furiously. "No! No way! We… I would never do that!" he tried to smile, but worry remained etched on his face. "Besides, how could we hang out if I took you away?"

Prompto continued to stare, a grin slowly spreading across his face as he began to laugh.

Noctis tilted his head. "You're not scared of me?"

Prompto's grin was from ear to ear, "Are you kidding? You're amazing!" Noctis was taken aback, blinking as Prompto shot his fists into the air. "I never thought I could be friends with a merperson! I must be the luckiest kid in the world!" Prompto pulled himself up and sat with his legs crossed, fixing his glasses back on his nose. "What's it like under the water?"

Noctis shrugged. "I don't know, normal, I guess. What do you want to know?"

Prompto wanted to know everything. Noctis didn't mind answering any of it.

"Where do you live?" Prompto began, his eyes shining in anticipation.

"I'm from Insomnia; it's a really big city under the water, but its location is a secret to humans, so I can't tell you that," Noctis hummed in amusement as Prompto gave a pout. "It's not my fault humans can't even remember where their capital used to be! It works out for us, though. We're safe in Insomnia because nobody can find us."

"What are you hiding from?" Prompto asked.

Noctis shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, humans I guess?" He reached up to scratch the back of his head. Prompto was momentarily distracted by the subtle webbing between Noctis' fingers. "I guess I should ask my dad about that."

Prompto nodded to himself. "Okay, but how do you talk underwater? If I talk underwater all I hear is bulb, bulb." Prompto made a face as he mimed out his actions, pretending to be swimming and speaking.

Noctis spat out a hard laugh, holding his sides and shaking his head. Prompto froze, grinning awkwardly, silently wondering if he had made a fool of himself. Noctis straightened himself out, wiping the corner of his eye. "You're right. Common doesn't travel well underwater. We speak in Mertongue. It's easy to speak underwater," Noctis tried to suppress the grin on his face. He reached a hand up to his neck, cupping his gills. "We kinda just use our gills and-" a strange sound emerged from Noctis' throat. It was somewhere between a whine and chirping, and Prompto gapped in awe. Noctis gave a cocky grin, "We can still learn Common if we want to, but it's only useful outside the water, so most don't."

"Woah…" was all Prompto could manage to mutter. He stared at the merman for a while, causing Noctis's tail to fidget as he awaited another question. Once Prompto realized he was staring, his entire face flushed. "What do you eat?" he blurted in an attempt to move the conversation.

Noctis chuckled at Prompto's random question. "We eat fish of course!"

"No human's on the menu?" Prompto asked, nervousness present in his voice.

Noctis scoffed. "Why would we eat humans? They're sentient beings; basically our cousins. It would be like cannibalism!"

Prompto slowly smiled. "So merpeople are actually friendly?"

"Merfolk," Noctis corrected. He rolled his eyes. "We don't attack humans, we only practice self-defense."

"Humans don't just attack for no reason…" Prompto pursed his lips, hoping his words to be true.

Noctis pointed at Prompto's face. "Really? Then how did you get that bruise? Did you do something to deserve it?"

Prompto's eyes grew wide as he covered his cheek with his hand. "No…" He murmured to himself, casting his eyes downward.

Noctis crossed his arms. "I guess bullies exist everywhere, huh? Well, sometimes humans bully Merfolk."

"Then why do all the legends say that Merfolk drag people to the bottom of the sea? Why would they say you're dangerous? Heck, even my school teaches beach safety from merpe- I mean, Merfolk!" Prompto watched as Noctis looked more and more astounded. Prompto scratched the back of his head, feeling kind of bad for throwing this all on Noctis. "I mean, not that you would do that… right?"

"I wouldn't," Noctis answered quickly, but his eyes searched over the horizon. "I hope nobody else would do that…"

"Right!" Prompto cheered. Noctis shot him a questioning glance as Prompto nodded his head. "If you can't think of a time anyone of your kind has done that, then it must not be all that common, right?"

Noctis grinned at the positive boy in front of him. "Yeah."

"Which means we can be friends, right?" Prompto grinned sheepishly.

Noctis raised an eyebrow in amusement. "I thought we already were."

Prompto erupted into laughter. "You're right!"

Noctis laughed as well, settling down to give a sad smile. "But, you can't tell anyone about me."

"Why not?"

"Well," Noctis' tail flicked as he worriedly scanned the empty beach, "I'm not actually allowed to talk to humans…"

"I getcha! It can be our secret then!" Prompto was about to reach out his hand, but stopped himself. He placed a closed fist over his heart with a goofy grin on his face.

Noctis smiled back at the blond boy. He returned the gesture with a firm nod.

/0\

Noctis' tail wiggled back and forth as he leaned his head into his hands, eyes scanning excitingly over the pictures spread across the sand. Prompto pointed at a picture of a meteor crashed into the ground, with strange, wispy formations surrounding it. "This is the disk of Cauthess! You can find this-" Prompto pointed at a map laid to the left of the pictures, "Here! In the middle is the Meteor of the Six. It's where the Archaean is, he holds the Meteor on his back! The Meteor produces energy that gets turned into power by the factories in Lestallum. And this is a volcano-"

Prompto continued his explanation of the pictures before them.

This had become their tradition, to meet up at the beach of Galdin Quay on the weekends and share knowledge of their shared, but divided, world. Ever since Prompto had received a camera a few years ago as a birthday gift, he had shown Noctis the strange things that the merman claimed were impossible to appreciate without seeing.

In return, Noctis told him more about his world. An urban landscape, with skyscrapers and subways tunnels alike, completely submerged underwater. At least, that was as Prompto has come to understand it. Noctis used different terminology, such as 'housing spires' and 'the deep caverns'. The photographs helped bridge the disconnected worlds, letting the two teens come to better understand each other's way of life.

"Your descriptions remind me of the old legends." Prompto stated as he leaned on his splayed-out beach towel.

Noctis look up from the picture reluctantly. "What old legends?"

"You know, the fallen Kingdom of Lucis."

Noctis seemed to freeze. He slowly looked up to Prompto with curiosity in his eyes. "Kingdom of Lucis?"

Prompto blinked in surprise. "Yeah… Insomnia was the capital, you know?"

"I knew that!" Noctis chewed the inside of his mouth, avoiding Prompto's eyes. "I wasn't aware that it wasn't called that anymore."

"Yeah, now it's addressed by its sections instead of a whole," Prompto began, looking up at the sky whimsically. "The legends make it sound awesome, though. It was ruled by a King who was chosen by the gods, but now it's just territory split between Tenebrae and Niflheim."

"What section are we in?" Noctis asked, scanning his eyes over the map.

Prompto leaned forward, "Well, we're in Galdin Quay right now…" Prompto pointed to their location on the map. He traced with his finger, following the coastline and then splitting the land in half. "So, everything to the right from here is considered Tenebrae. The Northwest is Niflheim territory."

Noctis frowned at the map. "It seems so arbitrary."

"It is!" Prompto whined. He flopped on his back and starred at the clouds. "The Oracle claims that one day the chosen king will return… Whatever that means. All we've ever really known has been this standoff that's lasted for hundreds of years."

Prompto peeked over to Noctis. The merman seemed distracted, completely lost in thought. The human boy wondered if he had actually said anything that interesting. This thought slipped from his mind as he reached into his pocket. "Oh yeah! I wanted to show you my new smartphone-"

As fast as he had brought it out, the device had been snatched from his hand. Noctis brought the screen nearly up to his nose, staring at the light in awe and wonder. Prompto chuckled at his friend's childlike excitement, reaching forward and pulling the phone further from the merman's face. "Chill, you don't need it that close!"

"How do I use it?" Noctis asked excitedly. That was always his first question when Prompto showed him something new. Prompto unlocked the phone, and with a smirk took Noctis directly to a photo gallery. Noctis gasped, copying Prompto's flicking motions to scroll through the vibrant pictures on the phone. "You really have been traveling a lot," Noctis mused as he paused on a picture of a busy city street. Vendors stood behind stalls and haggled their wares to the people. Noctis was curious about all the items that were being sold. "Is this because you got your life-sense?"

"My license," Prompto corrected, pulling out his wallet and flashing him the card with the same cheesy smile on his face as the picture. It read Under 21 Driver's License, Lestallum, at the top. "Passed it my second time, baby!"

"Is it common to retake a…. driving test?" Noctis smirked when he saw Prompto sheepishly scratch his head.

"Eh, it doesn't really matter. What matters now is that I can finally go places without my parents," Prompto pulled another envelope out of his bag. Noctis leaned forward as Prompto revealed more photos, his attention completely absorbed in the images. Prompto smiled at Noctis' interest. "I can finally show you the things I've been describing all these years without them asking me why I keep taking these weird photos."

Noctis flipped through the photos; images of cars and streets, photos of trees and animals that Noctis had never seen before, and pictures of food prepared in strange ways.

He paused on a picture of a large building. A sign out front read 'Lestallum University at Galdin Quay'. He flipped the photo towards Prompto. "What's this?"

Prompto's eyes lit up as he took the picture. "This! Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you!" Prompto beamed. "I'm trying to get into the college nearby! I'll be double majoring in merbiology and photography, and I'll be staying at the dorms!" Noctis stared at Prompto, simply blinking as his response. Prompto cocked his head to the side. "You don't know what any of that means, do you?"

"No clue." Noctis admitted.

Prompto grinned, taking on the challenge to explain everything for Noctis. "Going to college basically means I'm going to go to school for four more years. I'll be studying the Merfolk and photography, and get a fancy certificate at the end that says I'm qualified to work in either of those fields. And I'll be staying in dorms, which is like your housing spires filled with students. But shorter."

Understanding slowly crossed Noctis' face. "That's great!" Noctis and Prompto shared a fist bump, which was their agreed method of interaction between them; a hand greeting that was less intimate for Noctis than a handshake. Prompto's ended in a big explosion and Noctis could only laugh. "It must be nice to have all of that figured out."

"Yeah, although my folks don't like the photography part," Prompto grimaced. "They think it'll distract from my studies."

"How could they say that after looking at these?" Noctis held up the photos for emphasis. Of course, Noctis had thought the amateur pictures Prompto used to collect for him were magical viewing portals to another world. But after years of accumulating pictures, even Noctis could tell there was something special growing with each picture his friend had taken.

Prompto chuckled. "Thanks. It's an important part of my dream," Prompto raised his hand to the sky, as if he could already grasp the dream. Wind brushed his bangs out his eyes, and you could see the passion burning beneath them. "I want to be able to capture the beauty of the ocean, show people the magic that we're missing. Maybe even close the distance between our peoples," Prompto scratched the back of his head again. "Is that too cheesy?"

Noctis tried to hold a straight face. "Yeah, you should turn it down a notch."

"Hah! Shut up!" Prompto punched Noctis' shoulder, and both of them laughed. "What about you?"

"What about me?" Noctis became particularly fond of a picture of a lake to the north. He wondered what kind of fish swam in those murky waters.

"What's in your future?"

Noctis should have expected this question eventually. He had just hoped that he would think of a good cover-up by the time the question actually came. Unfortunately, he had not. But he certainly couldn't tell Prompto the truth; that he, was sure. He didn't want the dynamic of their friendship to change because of his underwater status. It was one of the best parts of talking to Prompto; here he was just a normal merman.

Here, it didn't matter that he was the crown prince of the lost city of Insomnia.

He had to improvise; his mind still distracted from the thought of exotic fish in unknown lakes. "I want to be a fisherman." Lame, but it had to do, and it certainly peaked Prompto's interest.

"You have fishermen? Like, with fishing poles and stuff?"

"What? No, we don't use… poles. We can usually catch them by hand, or a net if it's a school or a giant."

"Is it hard?"

"Depends on the fish."

"Do a lot of merfolk aspire to be fishermen?"

Noctis snorted. "No way. Most want to serve in the royal guard-" Noctis regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

"Royal guard? That sounds so awesome! Do they have cool armor and weapons?"

Noctis chuckled, pleased in knowing that his friend was still no closer to the truth. "Yeah, they get all of that."

"Man, how could you not want to do that? That's just too cool…" Prompto leaned back, eyes becoming dreamy and far away.

Noctis also leaned back on his hands, looking up at the bright sky and flicking his tail in the water. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Gladio seemed to really enjoy his job, and Noctis was always grateful to his Shield. He just didn't want Prompto to ask any more questions about that, lest he slip up and lose his cover.

Sometimes Noctis thought that Prompto would be a great merman, but he pushed the thought aside. Prompto was leading a full life in the surface world, and that magic was surely lost to the waves of time.

Beeping from Prompto's phone made the blonde gasp. "Oh man!" Prompto leapt to his knees, frantically collecting the photos. "I gotta go, gotta meet with my potential future advisor!"

Noctis tilted his head. "Advisor?"

"Yeah, Ignis. He's a grad student at LU," Prompto stuffed a bunch of photos in an envelope and haphazardly threw them into his bag. "I contacted him because of his focus in merbiology, and I'm gonna try to get on his good side to get me a leg up for entrance."

Noctis reached for the picture of the Meteor. "Can I keep one of these?"

The picture was snatched before Noctis could reach it. "Sorry, but these aren't waterproof. It'll just get damaged. I'll work on waterproofing some for you in the future."

Noctis gasped. "Can I get my own collection?"

Prompto chuckled. "Dude, I'll make you a whole book of all your favorite picture!"

"All right, I'll hold you to it." Noctis held out his fist and Prompto bumped his knuckles against them.

Prompto adjusted his shoulder bag and waved. "Gotta go! See you next weekend!"

"Later." Noctis called back coolly. He watched as Prompto ran across the beach, throwing his bag in the back of a large machine, known as a car, and driving off.

Noctis sighed. That was sudden, but he figured he had had enough sun for the day anyway. The secret prince slid back into the water and made his way towards home.