He was born to darkness, to cold that swirled around his fingers and bubbles that rose from his open mouth. There was no color, only a dark emptiness with pinpricks of light in the distance. As he got older and bigger, his scales got harder, his claws, his eyesight improved until he could see that those pinpricks of light were others like him, and he understood that this was the deepest place in the entire ocean. They were left alone down here, where no one could ever reach them or hurt them. His entire life had been spent here, in this dark trench where he hunted white skinned sharks and slippery serpents with gaping mouths, where he scratched his own keep into the cliff walls with homemade knives and his claws and teeth.

He had never left, had never wanted to leave. He was safe down here, the trench was his home, where he had been born and raised, where he had seen his parents laid to rest, where he'd hunted for the first time and where he had met his only friend. Sure, he didn't much trust Claude, and they rarely met in this dark existence, but there were very little of their kind left over from the Great Hunt, when the monsters - the humans - had hunted them down and killed them by the hundreds. They all had to make do.

Sebastian was content to stay in the trench.

And then the fish started to disappear. The white sharks and serpents dwindled until he wasn't sure if there were any left. Dangerous creatures with poison for blood started showing up with needles for fins and rocks for scales. The cliff walls started to crumble, started to shake beneath his palm and the water was too warm to be comfortable. When they met again, in the now less then friendly darkness that was their dying home, Claude told him what he'd already been thinking; They were not welcome anymore. The ocean was changing and the trench was not fit for them anymore.

So with a tightness in his chest, Sebastian packed what little he would take with him, wrapped in a bundle of broad strips of seaweed and tied to the black handled staff his father had given him from his first hunt. His heart ached and his hands shook with a terrible fear, but they had to leave. If they stayed they'd only starve to death in a place that was no longer the dark, calm place he'd been born in so many years ago. Seeing Claude and the others appear so gaunt in the light of their lanterns, he was sure they were making the right choice.

They journeyed upwards, towards a better place, a place where the light cut through the chilled water and would shine on them, on their beauty and their fins and warm their hearts - like the elders used to say they would do, before the humans came and slaughtered them.

Cold water swirled around his fingers, bubbles erupted from his mouth and a fish swam right past his face, as if it didn't know he was a predator and it prey. For the first time in forever, Sebastian saw color, and it was beautiful, in explosions of blue and pink and red and yellow. Tiny, clawed hands gripped his staff, and as he looked down at the awed triplets of Hannah's, he felt hope since the serpents and sharks had disappeared.

They could make it. They had to. For them.

"I guess this is goodbye." Sebastian looked up from securing a blade to the end of his staff, having not heard Claude approach him.

"...We've never been out of the trench. This is a new place for us, for all of us. I...I want to know what there is to know, and to do that..."

"You have to leave." Claude said this, looking away from his long time friend who so easily had decided to just leave. Sebastian sighed, watching the tiny bubbles rise above his head and towards the greatest light he had ever seen. One of the elders called it the sun, which was a star, and he'd been told that there were thousands of stars that hung in the sky like the bobbing lights of an angler fish. He knew it was wrong in some way, but he wanted to see it with his own eyes, he wanted to know what was above this endless ocean, he wanted to know everything he could see and touch and smell and taste.

To do that, though, he would have to leave Claude, Hannah, and the triplets behind, as well as others that he had known his entire life.

"Maybe we'll meet again. Maybe we'll find a new home and we can be safe. Maybe we'll meet others like us out there, living in the way we were denied." Sebastian knew he was spouting nothing but bullshit, he knew it was likely they would never see each other again, this ocean was too big, too unknown, every corner there would be challenges and obstacles that could very well kill them.

Everything from here on out was a uncertain series of events that no one had any control of.

So he stopped talking and embraced his best friend, inhaled the scent of familiarity one last time. With that silent goodbye, he turned tail and left, stubborn enough that he never looked back - because if he had, he would have turned back, he would never have been able to leave.

It took many years for him to meet someone in the vastness of the ocean, another like himself. The Undertaker was an odd fellow, with white scales and silver hair that covered his eyes. He carried a scythe and he spoke of times beyond that of even his elders, of when humans barely ventured out past their shores, when those like themselves were worshipped like gods. Sebastian was wary, but the stories he was told were intoxicating, knowledge that he'd wanted for so long finally within reach, and he took what he could get. Traveling with the older male got tiring fast, the constant jokes and the need to get a laugh out of everything grated on his nerves.

So with no goodbyes and no heartfelt "maybes", Sebastian left while the Undertaker was asleep, slipping into the dark night like one of the creatures he had once hunted a long time ago. He didn't look back.

Even after spending many years away from his birthplace, colors still amazed him, mesmerized him and made him want to reach out and touch them. Even the colors of the fish he hunted gave him a little thrill, those colorful scales and fins that contrasted so heavily against the murky black of his fins and tail, the pale whiteness of his torso and face.

The sunken ship had been both a surprise and a delight. Following the lead of a friendly shark, Sebastian wriggled through what he knew was a porthole, only knowing it from the stories others had told him. The wood was rotten and soft to the touch, sometimes crumbling underneath his hands, sometimes bowing and groaning as if breaking beneath the shift of weight. Things he had never seen floated among the wreckage, trapped by the degrading walls. He discovered other things, utensils he vaguely identified as a dull knife, four pronged knives and oddly shaped things that resembled the shells his mother had once used to feed him when he was little. The corpses had him let out a scream, dropping the fragile teacup he'd been examining.

The skull was so similar to the corpses of his own kind, but there were...things in place of a tail, things that he didn't know - the Undertaker had said something about humans having limbs like turtles and crabs; legs, but not like legs as he knew them. They didn't have enough joints for a crab and too many for a turtle. Deciding that this was something to ask when he next met someone, Sebastian left the corpses be and continued to search the sunken ship for long forgotten treasure.

Seeing a ship float atop the water was surreal, something that Sebastian found delightful and dream like. He had seen many that were wrecked and below the water, but this one was very different. Rising above the water, he watched with wide eyes as creatures - humans, they had to be, for while covered in flesh they resembled the skeletons from the sunken ships he'd explored - walked about their vessel, talking in gruff, loud voices that grated on his hearing and made his heart skip at the same time. Edging closer and closer, Sebastian was soon climbing the ropes dangling from the side of the boat until he could watch these humans up close.

It was there that, once again, color exploded in his face. There was a human, young and small and oh so fragile, with eyes two different colors. One was the deep blue of his beloved ocean, and the other was the purple of exotic fish, of the teacups he had found underneath pile of rubbish. The boy turned, the colors of his eyes flashing. He was dancing with a boy that had colors as bland as a clownfish, and Sebastian wished he could be the one up there, even if it meant giving up his gorgeous black scales and the fins that had once made Hannah swoon for him.

What was the boy's name? Did he love the ocean like Sebastian did? Had he ever swam beside a great white, or hunted sea turtles or played with dolphins? He didn't the answer, but oh, he wanted to know. He wanted to see just how soft the human's skin was, to see if he smelt like the ocean or of things from the land, he wanted to hear the boy's voice and feel his touch.

Stories from long ago, of the cruelty of humans played in his mind. He remembered the scars of his elders, the sharks that were heartlessly harpooned and hurt simply for their sinister appearance. His heart ached, he already felt as if this boy was far more gentle and softer and kinder than anything in the stories he had heard in his life, but Sebastian was raised to be cautious, to fear what he didn't know.

Sebastian flipped off of the boat, hitting the water and hiding below the belly of the ship, where small fish whirled around him and a small shark bumped affectionately against his hands. Oh, boy he would never meet, why was he born to a place he could never go to?

Despite everything he knew about these fish killing monsters, Sebastian stuck with the ship, swimming close to the belly and playing with the sharks and small fish that he chanced upon. At night, while he was fiddling with a hairbrush he'd found, he saw another ship, one that was moving much faster than the one his boy was on. Spotting a shark fleeing from it, he reached out, trailing his hand along its flank. The shark stunk of fear and pain, mind practically screaming that the other ship brought nothing but death.

Sebastian let the other creature go, glancing at the fast approaching ship. He needed to warn his boy, he needed to get him to safety. Once again, warnings from his elders niggled at the pack of his head - but his boy, the beautiful boy with his colors and his eyes, was in danger and he couldn't let him be killed.

And so he found himself climbing the side of the ship, not caring enough to be quiet, and peered over onto what he now knew was the deck. His boy was still, blissfully, awake. Standing next to the blond boy from before, his boy was watching the other ship, maybe wary, maybe not. Other humans had gathered, some talking, some pointing and wondering aloud about the unknown vessel. Taking a shell, from his bag, Sebastian tossed it towards the boy, wincing when it hit his shoulder. the boy turned, mouth open in surprise, and the blond was turning with him.

Both stilled as they saw Sebastian. The boy - his boy! - started to walk towards him, taking shaky, unsure steps across the deck until he was kneeling in front of him. there was a tightness in his chest again, his heart pounding and he was acutely aware that the blond had alerted others to his presence. He ignored their awed words and hushed whispers, staring at his beautiful boy instead.

"What are you?" The boy's voice was like a spear to the chest. His heart sang and the scales along his neck prickled like someone was breathing on him - death maybe, for he could see the humans picking up knives and guns, looking scared of him.

"My name is Sebastian, you are in danger." The other humans stiffened as he spoke, one of them shouting something about abominations, another whispering a prayer.

"I...I'm Ciel. Why are we in danger." Ciel. His boy's name was Ciel and it was beautiful and wonderful and he wanted to swoon. But he couldn't, because he could see that ship getting closer.

"Fish and sharks are fleeing. They say that ship," Was he saying that right? "Is bringing death with it. I can smell blood in the water they plan on hurting you, you must leave you cannot stay here!"

The humans dropped their weapons, shouting to each other, running on the deck. Ciel looked shocked, looking up when the blond urged him to. They spoke fast, too fast for Sebastian to understand, and then the blond was running off towards a woman with red hair and glasses. Ciel turned to Sebastian, reaching for his face with soft hands that smelt of flowers and salt. Fingers stroked over the scales on the sides of his face, tangling with the wet locks of raven black hair, tugging until his eyes only saw this gentle boy's face.

"You risked your life to warn us. Why?"

Why? He loved this boy. He adored the colors of his eyes, the softness of his skin, the warm smile so few had the delight of seeing, he loved Ciel more than he loved his own ocean. Shaking his head, Sebastian leaned away from the human's touch, although all he desired was to fall further into this boy, to drown in the violet and sapphire eyes and lay claim upon his tiny heart.

"You are what I have searched a hundred years for." Was his answer, one he knew the boy would not understand. How could he, when he had not spent so many years searching for the answers, for the knowledge that had been kept for him, only to find it all within a tiny, fragile human?

"...I'll slow them down. Get far away from here, my Ciel." Ignoring the cry of protest, Sebastian let go of the ropes he'd been hanging from, flipping back into the water with a great splash. The fish from before were gone now, having fled from the forbidding ship that was even closer. Even below the water, he could hear the men above shouting to one another, as well as Ciel's screams for him.

Sebastian was not the biggest, nor the strongest of his kind, but he was one of the fastest. Charging for the other ship, twisting and turning in the cold, seemingly lifeless water, he picked up speed before ramming into the ship's hull, cracking the wood and tilting the ship off course. Startled shouts came above, as did a barrage of spears. Only one managed to graze him, catching him about the shoulder and tearing a searing line of pain down his arm. Bubbles rose from between clenched teeth as he backpedaled, the pain only vaguely acknowledged for his boy was still in danger.

He rammed the ship again, this time ducking beneath its belly to avoid spears, and this time, the bullets that were meant to kill him. Ciel's ship was getting away, so far that he knew he would not be able to keep up with his injury. Still, he did not know how fast this vile vessel could go, so he gathered his strength, bolted out from hiding and turned to ram the ship one last time.

It capsized with a great racket, the screams of men and the cracking and splintering of wood. Sebastian fled, hopeful eyes glimpsing his boy's ship before he was too deep and could no longer see it. He fled deeper and deeper, finding a shallow trench that he could hide in. There were white skinned sharks here, and serpents as large as himself, but they left him alone, hissing and clicking their horrid teeth at him, but not attacking.

He clung to the cliff wall, he clutched his hurt arm and wept for what he'd lost.

He had lost his boy. He had lost the very person he hadn't known he was searching for. Seeing the boy again would be as likely as seeing Claude or Hannah or the triplets ever again.

"Sebastian?" Whipping around, he saw an all too familiar face - older now, with added scars, but a face he had never forgotten despite the years that had gone by.

"Claude."