A Land of Ice

I'm honestly so thankful for everyone who is reading/favoriting/following and reviewing. I'm so excited to see where this fic goes and hopefully you're enjoying it too. I'd love to know what yall think is going to happen/what yall want to happen.

-Cass

Voices.

Victor's eyes shot open, a blank white ceiling greeting them. For a moment he thought he was back in his bedroom at the castle, but the previous day's events crashed into his mind. He sat up, wondering why his companions were being so loud.

Chris was the only one in the room and Victor looked around wondering where the voices were coming from. The voices were coming from a small box set on the table. Bright colors flashed outward, slightly illuminating the dark room.

"Is that a television?" Victor asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He crawled across the bed to take a closer look.

"Yes. The voice called this HBO." Chris responded, not looking away from the images on the box. Victor moved closer, his fingers reaching out to brush across the smooth surface. The humans on the screen were arguing about something and they seemed to be in someone's home. The previously bright colors were now muted and Victor wondered why.

"I think they're in love but they're mad about something." Chris' voice came from behind Victor, trying to help him understand what was going on. The couple moved closer, their yells getting louder until suddenly they were kissing.

Victor was a little shocked. Angels were very conservative about affection, especially between men and women. He'd barely seen angels hold hands much less kiss. Chris' face looked equally shocked, but somehow still very intrigued. Victor wondered if, as the prince, he should do something.

"Uh…" He started but Chris didn't seem to hear him. The humans' kissing seemed to be getting more intense, moaning coming from the television. Victor really hoped that Lilia and Yakov couldn't hear them from their connecting rooms.

The couple on the screen had reached a bedroom and the male was pushing the shirt of the girl over her head. The girl was wearing nothing underneath.

"Chris!" Victor shouted, surprised by the nudity. Chris jumped and at the same time, Yakov walked through the door.

Chris fumbled with the television, mashing the buttons to try to figure out how to turn it off. The moaning noises were getting louder and more frequent, but Victor kept his eyes trained on Yakov, whose face was now an unhealthy looking purple.

"This is not something an angel, especially a prince, should be seeing." He barked, his eyes bugling a bit as the man on the television disrobed. All Chris had seemed to do was find the buttons that made the sound get louder.

Lilia walked in from behind Yakov, her face as stern as ever. She reached down and pressed something on the side of the box, and the screen went black. Thankfully the loud moaning had stopped as well.

"I see you two have figured out how to use a T.V." She stated. Neither Victor nor Chris answered, Victor once again thanking the universe that angels couldn't blush while Chris just stared in horror up at the older woman. Victor brushed his hair out of his eyes and got off of the bed, his white sleep pants hung low on his hips but his oversized white shirt ensured no skin showed.

"If you two are done, we are going to head into town." Yakov didn't wait for an answer, simply returned to his room muttering something under his breath.

"Your father will be hearing about this." Lilia said coldly before she too exited the room. Victor groaned, knowing the purity lecture he was sure to get from his father. Chris looked apologetically at him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know that was going to happen." He didn't sound particularly sorry, but then again Chris wasn't usually actually sorry for most of the things he did. It was part of the reason that Victor enjoyed his company. He was pretty open about his actual thoughts, unlike most angels who worried more about propriety than honesty, and was fairly unapologetic about it.

"Let's just get ready to go." Victor began to rummage through his pack, finding a pair of white slacks and a white shirt, not too different than what he already had on.

"Don't you think the humans will think it's weird that were dressed in all white?" Chris asked. Victor looked up at him and watched in surprise as he pulled his shirt off. Victor looked him up and down, having never seen a bare chested person this close before, other than himself of course. He was fairly muscular without being overtly so, you could see the faint outlines of muscle all over his chest and arms. He had a slim chest but well defined abs which were accentuated by a trail of darker hair that ran from his navel to beneath the waist band of his pants.

"Victor?" His eyes snapped up to Chris' face, which was adorned with a knowing smirk. Victor clutched his clothes to him and scrambled for the bathroom, tripping over his shoes as he did so.

He could hear Chris laughing from the room, though it was muted by the sound of his pounding heart.

He'd been more embarrassed during his one day on earth that he had ever been during his whole life back home. First watching a couple get intimate, then openly staring at his friend's naked torso. He could only imagine what his father would say.

Victor finished dressing and gathered the courage the reemerge from the bathroom. Chris was sitting on his bed, fully clothed and acting as though nothing had happened. Of course to Chris it had probably been nothing, just Victor being weird.

"Are you two ready?" Yakov asked through the door, probably worried he'd walk in on another HBO moment. Chris let him in and the three angles waited for Lilia to emerge from her room.

Lilia's outfit wasn't too different from the boys, her clothes only slightly tailored to give her a more feminine shape. Victor looked at each other them, their clothes stark white, and gave some thought to Chris' question.

"Yakov, will we stick out too much?" If he was being honest, he was wondering if he could convince his teacher to allow him to wear something other than white, though he wasn't sure where they would get new clothing. The town may be small but it had to have a clothing store somewhere right?

"We've met in this town for a long time. The humans here have gotten used to seeing such things."

Victor sighed but he couldn't be too disappointed. He doubted that even if their clothes were a distraction, Yakov wouldn't have allowed Victor to dress in anything else. Forget Yakov, Lilia would have found a way to contact his father directly to relay his son's indiscretions.

The group headed out, heading down the stairs as the hotel was too old to have elevators. Victor had been excited to use one of those, but he guessed he couldn't have both a television and an elevator.

"Have a good day!" The man behind the desk said with a smile. Yakov and Lilia ignored him, they both felt like humans were too far beneath them to deign making unnecessary conversation with.

"Thank you very much sir!" Victor responded cheerfully, waving to him as they walked out the doors. Lilia gave an annoyed sigh but Victor pretended he hadn't heard it. He was fascinated by humans and their inventions, and he planned to get as much experience with them as possible.

Yakov and Lilia walked down the street, their white clothes standing out against the dull town. Even in the morning light the town wasn't much to look at. All of the buildings were darkly colored, their exteriors either painted that way or faded with age. Snow covered the ground and crunched under their feet, and Victor vaguely wondered if he'd ever get to see anything other than white. Some children were playing in the snow outside one of the buildings and they stopped their play to stare at the group passing. An older woman came out of the building, eyeing the strangers warily and calling the children inside. They groaned but trundled inside, the last and youngest one stopping to turn and look back. Victor waved at him and earned a small smile before the child was ushered indoors.

"Are the humans scared of us?" Chris asked. Victor pondered the question. The man at the hotel had been quite friendly, though in a town this small any business at the hotel probably put the man in the best of spirits. However, none of the humans had looked very kindly at the group since they'd left the hotel, and the way the woman had glared at them had not exactly been welcoming.

"These meetings have not always been peaceful, though for the past decade nothing major has occurred. This town has been witness to some nasty battles between the species." Yakov mused. "However I do not doubt that warnings about us have been passed down from generation to generation."

Victor looked down at his feet shuffling through the snow and wondered how much the angels' arrogance had to play in these fights. If the angels spoke to the other species the same way they spoke about them then it would come as no surprise that some would get a little fired up. From what he had heard the vampires and werewolves had a nasty temper, though if he was being honest he didn't know how much of that stereotype arose from angels trying to absolve themselves from any blame in the scuffles.

"Where are we going?" Victor asked, realizing they had reached the end of the row of buildings that seemed to make up the town.

"There's a small museum at the edge of town. Your father thought it would be beneficial for you to learn some human history while you were down here." Lilia stated. He rolled his eyes. Leave it to his father to try to turn this whole thing into another history lesson. He'd been taught about history his whole life, the history of the angels, the other species and the humans. His father believed that knowing the histories was the only way to uphold the traditions, though Victor was beginning to believe that knowing the histories was the reason that some of the traditions should be changed.

"If I knew I was just going on another school trip I would have stayed at the Academy." Chris mumbled. The two older angels gave no sign that they had heard him. Chris leaned over to Victor, his breath fogging the air around Victor's face. "If I got to choose what we were doing, we'd go to that little bar in town and find out what the deal is with human alcohol."

Victor laughed, though he was a little shocked. Forget what happened that morning, if they were ever caught consuming human alcohol his father would lock him up in the castle for the rest of his life.

Or worse. They could be banished.

He'd only seen one angel be banished. It was an older angel and the only thing Victor could really remember was that he'd had some sort of relationship with a human. He had been caught sneaking down to earth and without even a trial the king had banished him. Being banished was brutal, you couldn't ever return to angel land, and to ensure that, your wings were cut. There was a large sword that hung on the wall in the castle and its sole purpose was the cut wings. It was almost beautiful, though the beauty was a terrifying reminder that even angels weren't above punishment. The ground was littered with feathers and silvery angel blood dripped from the man's back. The blood glistened on the ground and, even though Victor had been young at the time, he had found it hard to look away. Then the man had been carried to earth and he was never seen again.

Their arrival at the museum pulled Victor from his thoughts. The building was small, like most of the buildings in the town, and built out of a light brown brick. The only color came from the sign sitting over the door that read:

Музей истории

Victor was fluent in Russian, as he was in a lot of human languages, and knew the sign roughly translated to "Museum of History". They entered the building and Victor noticed that the inside was just a dully decorated as the outside. A young woman sat behind a circular desk in the middle of the room, the top of the desk littered in papers and brochures. She looked up, smiling as she began to welcome the visitors.

"Welc…" She caught sight of the strangers in the lobby and the words died on her lips. Her smile faltered and her mouth dropped open into a soft 'o'. She blinked and shook her head as she realized she was staring.

"Welcome to the museum of history! How can I help you?" She seemed to be back to her original cheerfulness, though Victor could tell that it was forced. Yakov told her that they wanted to go through the museum and she gathered together a map and a few brochures.

"There's already a group in there so please be courteous." She opened a door behind the desk and let them into the main part of the museum. The museum was dimly lit, with brighter lights illuminating the exhibits. The first exhibit was a bunch of wax figure cavemen, crudely dressed with long stringy hair. Victor rolled his eyes and hoped that the whole museum wasn't the same quality.

Unfortunately for him it was. Which was to be expected from a small town with an even smaller museum. Every exhibit featured a group of wax figures that all looked similar except for their state of dress and grooming. Yakov made them stop at each and every one so he could give his explanation about whatever historic event the figures were supposed to be depicting. He was ignoring him while feigning attention, a feat not too easy considering the only other people there were Chris and Lilia. Yakov didn't expect Chris to listen anyway and Lilia had walked off almost as soon as Yakov had stated talking.

He could hear voices up ahead and figured they'd caught up with the other group, their laughter echoing off the walls of the museum. Yakov looked annoyed by the loud people in front of them but Victor was hoping they'd get closer. At least if they were funny he'd get some enjoyment out of this trip.

They rounded the corner and Victor could see the group in the dimly lit hallway. They were all dark haired, and much like their own group, there were a couple men and a woman. Lucky for them, the girl with them was at least half Lilia's age and looked much nicer. They were all dressed in bright colors and Victor wondered if they were from the town or just visiting.

The group turned, having heard the others come up behind them and Victor's breath caught in his throat. Right in front of him was one of the most beautiful beings he'd ever seen. A shock of jet black hair laid effortlessly over a pair of the deepest eyes he'd ever seen. A bright blue shirt matched the glasses that perched on his nose, making his eyes seem twice as bright. He had a lithe build but Victor could see the muscle that lay just under his skin. The boy caught his gaze and blushed, and it was the most vibrant color Victor had ever seen.

"And here I thought I was the only one who could get your attention like that." Chris pouted into his ear. Victor's head snapped around, realizing he had been openly staring at the boy. When he peeked back, the group had continued down the hall and the boy was lost in the shadows. Yakov resumed his teaching though now Victor couldn't even pretend to be listening. All he could think about was the color of that boy, the black, the blue, the red.

He wondered if he'd ever be able to look at white the same way again.

"Yuuri wake up!"

Yuuri groggily opened his eyes and wondered why there was someone in his room. Emil stood over him, his face hovering only inches above. Suddenly remembering where he was, Yuuri sat up. However, in his groggy state, he forgot that there wasn't any water pressure and his movements sent him crashing into Emil.

"Eager aren't we?" The guard said, rubbing his forehead where a red spot was already forming. Yuuri apologized profusely, to which Emil simply laughed and told him to get dressed. He still wasn't sure why humans had so many different types of clothes, surely the clothes that you slept in could be worn out as well?

Yuuri slipped into a light blue shirt, the collar scooping below his neck, and paired it with what Emil had told him were 'jeans'. The pants fit snugly but Emil assured him that he looked okay in his human garb. He placed his glasses on his face, though they didn't do much for him inside.

Emil, Otabek and Yuuri had stayed in the same room, with Otabek taking the floor despite Yuuri's many protests.

"What do you think Celestino would do if he found out I let the prince sleep on the floor?" Otabek had asked when Yuuri had told him to take his bed. Emil suggested that he and Otabek could rotate sleeping in the bed, which Otabek was much more agreeable to. Yuuri wished they'd let him rotate with them, to try to make it fair, but he knew that wasn't going to happen. He had barely gotten them to agree to stop calling him "Prince Yuuri".

Mickey and Sara had stayed in the room next door and they met them in the hallway to decide what they would do for the day. The first meeting wasn't until later that night, so they had all afternoon to kill time.

"We could go check out the shops in town." Sara suggested. Otabek rolled his eyes though Mickey agreed. They spent some time throwing ideas back and forth, nothing sounding like something everyone wanted to do.

"Last time I was here, there was a little museum at the edge of town." Otabek spoke up, figuring a museum would be the quietest activity suggested. Yuuri's face lit up at the idea of getting to learn some human history, straight from the source.

"I vote for that!" Yuuri exclaimed and then blushed when everyone turned to look at him. The others laughed and Emil patted the prince on the back.

"The museum it is."

The man in the lobby greeted them cheerfully, and they all stopped to chat. They asked the man about the museum and he gave them directions. After thanking the man, they set out into the quiet town. Nobody seemed to be out and the blanket of snow muted any sound other than the crunching of the snow underneath their feet. The morning air was crisp and Yuuri could see his breath. He watched it billow outward from his lips, curling into the air and away from his face. He knew that his visible breath was a sign of how cold it was, but having lived at the bottom of the ocean for his whole life, he didn't really feel the sting of the cold air.

He wondered if the merpeople who got stuck on land ever grew accustomed to the weather. At some point did you just realize you were cold or hot? Was it a gradual acclimation or did it happen all at once. Did one then have to put even more clothes on then were already required?

"Do you think there will be any cute werewolves tonight?" Sara asked, her voice serious but Yuuri could see a joking twinkle in her eye. Emil laughed but Mickey groaned, knowing he would have to keep an eye on his sister at the meeting tonight.

"You're not running off with any wolves tonight." He growled and she thumped him on the forehead, right between his eyes.

"I can do what I please!" She exclaimed good naturedly. "What do you think Otabek? You gonna look for some cute creatures tonight?" She giggled as the group turned to look at Otabek who was composed as ever.

"I'm going to do my job, which is to watch Prince Yuuri." He responded curtly. Sara rolled her eyes and turned to Yuuri.

"What about you? I'm sure someone as cute as you could have a romp with a cute vampire. They dig the whole dark haired look you've got going on." She giggled again, reaching over to tousle his hair.

"I don't think I'm going to attract anyone." Yuuri laughed, his cheeks warming with blush. "I probably look like a fish out of water, pun intended."

The others burst into laughter and even Otabek managed to crack a small smile. Sara's smile faded though and she stopped in her tracks, her hand flashing out to smack into Yuuri's chest. He stumbled to a halt, the girl standing with her nose almost touching his. Her eyes studied him for a while and Yuuri wondered what she was looking for.

"Don't tell me you really don't understand how attractive you are." She finally sighed, turning her head away from him. Yuuri felt the flush from earlier spread up his skin and he was sure his entire face was bright red.

"I….um…I don't know." He stuttered. He wasn't really sure what to say in the situation. He'd never really worried about his appearance, he hadn't deemed it that important. But even so, he didn't believe he could be attractive enough to lure someone from one of the other species.

He was just…Yuuri.

"This boy doesn't realize that half of the merpeople back home drool after him." Sara threw her hands up. The other guys looked uncomfortable, not quite knowing if they were supposed to speak up or not.

"Are we going to the museum or not?" Otabek asked, interrupting Sara's ranting about how attractive Yuuri was. Yuuri could have hugged the guard for stopping the tirade.

"Fine. But we're going to have a serious talk about your self-image when we get back." Sara told Yuuri sternly. The prince gulped and nodded, worried she'd start up another lecture if he didn't. Otabek led the group across the snow covered land and they lapsed into silence. The wind had picked up and Yuuri had the weird feeling that if they spoke it would rip the words from their lips.

They reached the museum, or what Yuuri assumed was the museum. The building was small and there was a sign hanging above the door that had something written in Russian. Otabek held the door open and they filed in, the wind spraying snow into the lobby. The air rushed past them and sent papers fluttering around the circular desk that sat in the middle of the lobby.

The girl sitting behind the desk scrambled to hold her papers down, but brochures flew everywhere. Otabek shut the door firmly behind them and muttered an embarrassed "sorry" to the poor girl.

"No problem!" She said cheerfully. She glanced up at the group and her mouth dropped open. Her eyes raked up and down them, finally settling on Yuuri. A slight blush was creeping up her cheeks and Yuuri felt his face mirror it as she continued to stare. Otabek cleared his throat and she giggled.

"How can I help you?" She was addressing the group, though her eyes were still trained on Yuuri. He vaguely wondered if this was what Sara was talking about. If it was, Yuuri preferred when he was able to ignore it. He didn't like being stared at, it made him feel like there was something wrong with him.

"We'd like to tour the museum please." Emil spoke up. The girl glanced at him and he flashed her a smile. The smile usually won him some attention from the mermaids back home, but the girl simply turned back to Yuuri.

"Of course! I've got a map here that you can use." She handed them one of the now crumpled papers strewn across her desk. "Or I could give you a personal tour." She winked at Yuuri and he heard Sara choke back a laugh behind him.

"I think we can manage." Otabek said. The girl looked a little crest fallen but she showed the group to the door to the main part of the museum. Yuuri gave her a small smile as he walked past her and her spirits seemed to return.

"Enjoy yourself!" Her smile in return seemed to take up half of her face. Yuuri walked quickly through the door before she could say anything more.

"See Yuuri?" Sara barked out a laugh as soon as the door had shut behind them. Yuuri blushed again and he wondered if he'd ever blushed as much as he already had that morning.

He thought back to what Sara had said about having a fling with someone of a different species. It wasn't uncommon for hookups to occur at these meetings, except for the angels of course. For some reason they seemed to find themselves above such things, and only mingled with the other species when absolutely necessary. He'd heard plenty stories about wolves and vampires, and sometimes some of the other smaller species that didn't come to the species meetings as often. He remembered a particularly interesting story about a forest nymph that he'd over heard one of the older members of the Guard telling.

No, flings weren't uncommon, nor were they particularly frowned upon. The problem, of course, came when it was time to leave. He was sure that longer relationships may bloom between the land species, but for merpeople it was hard to maintain a relationship when you had to spend the majority of your time miles under the ocean. From what he had heard, merfolk had their flings and then at some point, grew up and settled down with another merperson. It was just easier that way.

"Get a load of this thing." Emil laughed, pointing at the crudely made exhibit. The others, Otabek excluded, mimicked the primitive humans, grunting and groaning until they erupted in laughter. Yuuri laughed at their antics, but stooped to read the plaque placed in front of the cavemen.

So it went for the next few exhibits. Emil, Mickey and Sara would poke fun, Otabek would watch quietly and Yuuri would absorb as much information as possible. It was all interesting to him. They had books at the palace, as someone years ago had figured out how to drain the water from one of the rooms and had brought down waterproof chests full of them. Yuuri had spent many days slumped against the water hole in the bottom of the room, his tail submerged but his hands as dry as possible so as not to damage the reading material. He loved the books, but it seemed that whoever had brought them down had simply grabbed whatever he could find. If Yuuri wanted to read more than one book on a subject, he was out of luck.

Yuuri planned to take advantage of his time on land to learn anything and everything he could about humans and the other species. He wouldn't waste a single opportunity, because with how cautious his parents were, he wasn't sure when he'd get another one.

They were a couple exhibits in when they heard another group approaching from behind. One of them seemed to be explaining the exhibits and Yuuri strained to hear what he was saying. The voice stopped, however, as they approached the mermaids. The group turned to see the other museum visitors and Yuuri was surprised by the stark white clothing they each wore. And it clicked in his head.

These were angels.

The angels either didn't realize who they were, or they didn't care. They probably didn't think they were worthy of conversation whether they were human or not. Yuuri felt the pressure of eyes on him, and he glanced up.

He locked eyes with the brightest blue he had ever seen. When he realized the angel had been staring at him, he felt yet another blush color his cheeks. Silvery hair caressed the boy's cheek and Yuuri had the strangest urge to touch it, to see if it was as soft as it looked. The other boy looked away quickly and Yuuri felt a pang at the loss of looking into those eyes. It was weird. Usually when people stared, he felt awkward and ashamed, but there was something different in this angel's eyes.

Of course he was an angel, so Yuuri was probably imagining it. There was no way an angel would ever stoop to the level of the other species and Yuuri would be surprised if this boy even spoke to him.

Otabek urged the group forward, no doubt recognizing just as Yuuri did what species they were dealing with. The older angel turned his head, as if acting like they weren't there. Sara rolled her eyes at the action and opened her mouth to make a comment, but a stern glare from Otabek kept her silent. They moved down the hallway, putting a few exhibits in between them and the angels.

Despite the distance, Yuuri felt as though he could still feel the angel's eyes on him. It wasn't the worst feeling.

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