A/N: This is inspired by the story 'The Sea Prince and the Fire Child', which itself has elements of 'Romeo and Juliet', and other tragic love stories in it. However, it isn't a word-for-word retelling. As a child when I first saw the movie 'The Sea Prince and the Fire Child', a lot of it bothered me. There were things that the characters did that I thought were ridiculous, and I didn't like the way the story ended. So this is me fixing all of those problems and telling the story the way I want it :) I hope you enjoy.
A face peers around the smooth edge of a wall. Green eyes shimmering with bioluminescence pierce the surrounding shadows in search of guards.
"Is the coast clear?" a hushed voice echoes too loudly in the cavernous hall.
"Shhh!" the first escapee snaps. "Yes, but you're going to wake the whole castle if you don't keep your trap shut!"
"I know that," the second escapee whines, huddled beside his friend.
"Then stop talking," is whispered in a hiss that can be heard for miles.
"Ugh! I don't even want to do this, Sebastian."
"Well, you're gonna, Trent. And I don't want to hear another word."
Sebastian grabs his friend's hand and drags him around the corner. Sticking close to the wall, they sneak down the hallway. It's woefully dark – lit only by a subdued shaft of soft blue light, courtesy of a mob of phytoplankton congregating outside the castle windows. The two friends spiral up and up a rarely used tower of the west wing to a cramped turret obscured by a growth of coral. Out through the open window they swim, throwing anxious looks over their shoulders until the castle is completely out of sight, and the fugitive water sprites reach the open ocean.
"We shouldn't be doing this," Trent says, tossing a few extra glances over his shoulder. "If your father finds out we're gone…he'll send the royal guard…"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Sebastian mutters. "And he'll be disappointed. So, what else is new?"
"Well, maybe," Trent says, feeling bad for his friend but fearing for his own life, "but I don't need him angry at me."
"Are you scared of my father, Trent?" Sebastian chuckles.
"Yes," Trent replies, "and I'm not ashamed to admit it."
Cutting through the water the two sprites swim, passing amid schools of fish that decrease in size as they make their way up to the surface – a place no water sprite dares to go.
Trent stops just below, but Sebastian breaches the water's surface and looks around, searching out the fabled lick of fire light burning in the darkness of the wood. He narrows his eyes and peers through the veil formed by the black interwoven tree branches and the moonless sky until he spots it - a tiny yellow and orange drop of fire dancing magically on a branch that hovers inches above the water.
Sebastian smiles crookedly. He reaches blindly and grabs Trent by the hair, pulling him up out of the water.
"Owwww!" the sprite groans, but Sebastian turns him roughly toward the light flickering in the darkness.
"Bingo," Sebastian says. He releases his struggling friend's hair and claps him hard on the back before paddling his way toward the fire.
"Are we really going to do this, Sebastian?" Trent asks, following close behind, not wanting to be left alone above water, where any manner of animal can swoop down from the encroaching trees and swallow him up.
"Yup," Sebastian answers without turning to look at his frightened friend.
"Why, again?" Trent asks, slowing his swim as his body trembles.
Sebastian doesn't even dignify his friend's fear with a snarky remark.
"We've heard legends about this flame our whole lives, Trent. Don't you finally want to see it? With your own eyes? Once and for all?"
"No, not particularly, no. I don't."
"Why ever not?" Sebastian treads water quietly till he reaches a log jutting out of the water that blocks his path. On the other side of the log is a small enclosure of water blocked off from the sea that surrounds the light. From this distance he can see the flame just fine. But there's something else that he's searching for.
"You know why!" Trent argues. "They say these woods are haunted, Sebastian. Th-they say that the fire is tended by a hideous witch, and that the flame is kept lit by the bones of water sprites who got too close and were eaten whole."
"Oh, please," Sebastian says, rolling his eyes. "Do you still believe those stories, Trent? Look at yourself. You're a grown sprite, a member of the royal court, personal advisor to our kingdom's one and only prince. How can you still believe in ghost stories?"
"B-because some ghost stories are t-true," Trent stutters as a chill blows past, whistling through the trees.
"Jeez, Trent," Sebastian groans. "If you're going to be such a baby, why did you even come?"
"You didn't give me a choice!" Trent yells, forgetting all thoughts of evil sprite eating witches with Sebastian's arrogant comment. Sebastian clamps a hand down over Trent's mouth and holds him still, both sprites staring wide-eyed around them, willing whatever might be lurking in the shadows to stay there.
A mouse rustles the underbrush as it scurries through the leaves. An owl shrieks over their heads, causing them to duck down and submerge up to their chins. A moment of silence, and then a tortured squeak as the mouse is carried away in the owl's deadly talons, joining the bird of prey for dinner.
Sebastian lets his hand drop away from Trent's mouth.
"B-besides, you n-need me," Trent stammers unconvincingly. "I'm s-sworn to protect you."
"So how come it is I spend so much time saving your sorry ass?" Sebastian shakes his head and leaps over the log, landing with a gentle splash in the pool on the other side.
"Wait!" Trent calls out. "You saw the fire! Isn't that enough? Can't we go home now?"
"Not yet, Trent."
"Why, Sebastian?" Trent whisper-yells to the prince's back. "Why not yet?"
"Because we got this far, Trent," Sebastian says. "I'm going to go find myself a witch."
Trent sinks his fingers into the soaked log, his arms shaking.
"No, Sebastian!" Trent yells through clenched teeth. "No! Come back!"
Trent's pleas are lost to the wind and the bowing trees as Sebastian swims closer and closer to the crackling flame. The fire lures him to it. It sings to him a song both beautiful and heartbreaking. It fills his eyes and his mind with its music. It leads him from the safety of the water to its light.
Sebastian has seen heat before, in places beneath the ocean where volcanoes pour their scorching lava into the water. Beneath the sea, it blinks red for an instant then turns hard and black forever.
But this flame has a soul; it has life.
It wants Sebastian to become a part of it.
He reaches out for it – the heat drying his skin even though he is nowhere near close enough to be touched by the fire.
"Sebastian!" Trent continues to yell, but Sebastian doesn't care. He doesn't care about friends or family or life or his kingdom beneath the sea as long as he has this flame in front of him.
The flame with the mystical voice.
Something steps out from behind the fire and blocks his view. A sardonic, "Hey!" gets locked in his throat when he sees a lithe, pale body materialize from behind the fire. Sebastian has sense enough to drop down into the water, but he keeps his eyes glued to the spot where a figure dances, twirling on tip-toes, arms waving fluidly through the air, feeding the fire with petals and leaves until the light dances with him, higher and higher, touching the indigo sky.
Sebastian squints against the blazing light and he can see the figure more clearly.
His mouth drops open.
"A fairy," he breathes, watching as the young man twirls with his eyes closed, fragile wings of silver light fanning the flame, turning pink as they catch the light. The fairy faces the fire, singing (and Sebastian now realizes that it is this boy's voice he was hearing – high and otherworldly, carried on the wind) and Sebastian dares to emerge once again.
The fairy has a head of brown hair – the shade of autumn chestnuts and turning leaves. He is shirtless, and the muscles of his back throw shadows back and forth over his smooth, pastel skin. The play of shadows fascinates Sebastian, as does the line of his spine – so straight and so strong, probably earned by hours of flying. Sebastian sighs. What it must feel like to fly – to be free to travel the skies and into the clouds, to leave the world and all of your responsibilities behind.
Responsibilities that Sebastian feels pile on top of him every day, more and more, threatening to crush him dead before he even has the chance to live.
Sea King at only seventeen - the thought leaves its bitter tang on his tongue. Some sprites would see it as the ultimate honor, but for Sebastian it's a trap. Which is why he took this trip to the surface – his one and only trip, since the moment he is bestowed the mantle of king, he will never be allowed to leave the sea. Not that sprites actually can leave. His father has spent an eternity under the water, and to Sebastian's knowledge, has never once been on land, or looked up into the sky.
His father didn't have a dream - or if he did, he stopped dreaming it long ago.
The fairy stops his singing, turning his head to the side to catch a faint sound. Sebastian ducks down beneath the surface, sighing in relief that he managed to get away before he was seen. He peeks his head up, letting the surface tension of the water try to hold him under as he breaks through, but the fairy is gone.
"No," Sebastian whispers, turning his head all around to try and find the mystical being. He couldn't only have been a dream…could he? No, he wasn't. He was real. He drew Sebastian out of the water and led him here. He may be made of magic, but that hypnotic creature was definitely real.
Sebastian creeps up higher and higher. He looks into the fire, but the fairy dancing around it has disappeared.
"Hey!" he calls out. "Fairy! Where are you?"
Sebastian wants to coax the fairy back out and then hide again. He needs to see that vision once more before he leaves and never returns.
"Fairy!" he calls again, braving a move closer to the flame.
Suddenly, the light flashes brightly into Sebastian's eyes, filling the cove around them with its radiance.
"Aaahhh!" he screams, throwing his arms up to protect his eyes. But the light endures, growing brighter. It turns white, breaking through every gap, weeding into every space, and he's blinded. He's knocked hard into the water, unconscious, sinking like a stone.
"Sebastian!" Trent calls from his hiding spot behind the log. "Sebastian!"
When the light is gone, Trent looks over into the secluded pool, but the prince is nowhere he can see.
"Sebastian!"
Trent throws himself over the log and into the water, heedless of the fairy or the fire, and swims down quickly to the spot he last saw his friend.
From behind the lick of fire, the fairy peeks his head out and watches the two figures disappear beneath the inky black water.
"Sebastian!" Trent turns in a full circle, panicked at being in this strange water alone. It's too dark, too quiet, brimming with some kind of enchantment that Trent can feel prickling along his skin.
He spots the prince's limp body below him, falling through the water, heading down to a trench – a black, bottomless void cut into the ocean floor. Faster Sebastian falls, and Trent swims at full speed after him, beating his arms against the water, trying to keep up. Trent gains on him when Sebastian slows, reaching out an arm to grab him, but Sebastian swirls out of reach as a current of water sweeps him away, dragging him under. Trent kicks his legs furiously, feeling an invisible pull the closer they get to the gaping hole, as if icy hands are reaching for them.
"Sebastian!" Trent screams, putting on a burst of energy, a last desperate effort that will either save Sebastian or doom them both.
But it seems that whatever god protects water dwellers is with them. The current stops dead, and Trent grabs the sea prince under the arms, kicking with all his might to take them far from the fissure.
"I got you, Sebastian," he mutters as he fights up through the water, heading back in the direction of their underwater kingdom. "I'll get us home."