ADINA'S MILESTONE (part 1of 2)


Adina woke up slowly and felt something odd pressing into her cheek. She lifted her head sleepily, feeling the object tangling in her hair, so she pulled it out irritably, horrified to discover that it was one of her ears.

Deeply shocked, she lifted a trembling hand to touch the side of her face, feeling the soft curve of a grown-up ear.

Unable to believe it, she glanced down at the fin-shaped ear in her palm and zoomed out of bed to get a closer look in the mirror, her heart thudding loudly in her chest as she inspected her reflection.

One side was a beautiful, curved ear.
The other side…didn't match.
If she turned her head to the side, it obviously showed, because the ridges of her fin-side ear would poke outwards.

She turned her head to the other side, inspecting her grown-up ear again, feeling a rush of triumph. It was so pretty. She could see her entire side of her cheek and jaw.

She turned her head to the other side and grimaced at the line of scales still stuck to the side of her face, creeping up into the finned ear, showing no signs of falling off.
Auntie Medic had said that it could stay like this for moons!
It was rare that both ears fell off at the same time…

Feeling awfully self-conscious, Adina undid her braids, saying a small apology to Uncle Seth before she shook her hair out and let it billow around her shoulders in a thick plume.

There.
Now no one could see her ears.

Letting out a satisfied huff, Adina clutched the husk of her ear in her fist and decided to hide it under her pillow. Wait. That wasn't a good hiding place, because someone might come in to change the sheets.

Bookshelf?
No, because Noah was always coming in here to rummage through her things.
Treasury?
No, because it wasn't as full as Papa's, there was nowhere to hide anything.

Grinding her teeth, she decided the best place to hide it would be Daddy's room, because he was rarely in there, and he practically lived inside Papa's room anyway.

Determined, she peeked out into the hallway, making sure no one was around before she zipped to the men's wing, keeping her eyes peeled for anyone who might be swimming by.
The husk of her ear burned annoyingly in her palm, and she felt like hurling it far, far away.
It was so gross!

Daddy's door came into view, and she pushed it open with effort, leaning it shut behind her and glancing around the barren room, biting back a shiver. Everything here was black—the sheets, the pillows, the curtain covering the treasury, and the mixed black sand on the ground added to the cold atmosphere. Nothing hung on the walls except for the lone pennant awarded to him by the Council reinstating his royal status….

This was a far cry from the room he had at the surface, which was nicely decorated with white sand, soft cushions, and all his electronic human toys.

It was clear Daddy hated this room…which was why this place was perfect.

Diving into the treasury, she was surprised to find it just as full as Papa's, so she tucked the husk behind a plain black bowl full of diamonds and backed out of the cave, just in time to hear a commotion happening outside in the hallway.

Men were so much louder than the women, Adina only had to lean her ear against the door to hear what was happening.

Who is shouting? Gods…please shut up… Ambassador Shada's voice was booming in her head, followed by a high-pitched, squeaky voice.

"ANNOUNCEMENT! King Atem and Prince Seto are awake! ANNOUNCEMENT! King Atem and Prince Seto are awake!"

It sounded like one of Mahad's messengers was shouting itself hoarse and people were rousing themselves out of their restful periods to make themselves presentable.

Filled with excitement, Adina darted out of Daddy's room, not caring who would see her and sped straight for the infirmary.

Finally! After two moons of hibernating in the pods following an egg extraction procedure, her parents were going to wake up! Did Noah know this?

Skidding to a halt outside the infirmary door, Adina waited for a purple octopus to zoom by before she shot her hand out with fierce precision and caught it by the head, hearing it squeal and wiggle in her grasp.

"H-HELP! ABDUCTION! ABDUC—"

"It's me! The princess!" Adina said haughtily, giving the octopus a shake to make it shut up. "I need you to deliver a message to Kaiba's Private Rock, for Prince Noah! You are now an important royal messenger, because I declared it, and I'm soon-to-be-queen of this hemisphere."

The octopus stilled instantly and stiffened its tentacles, standing at attention.

Adina gave it a satisfied smirk and spoke quickly, making sure to speak Japanese instead of Mer.

"Noah, it's me, Adina! Guess what? Both my daddies are awake! Come down here to see them as soon as you can! Also, when is summer vacation? You keep talking about it, but you never told me the exact dates. Reply soon! Love you! Oh! And bring me some chocolate…and those fizzy drinks! Please and thanks! End message."

The octopus bobbed up and down in the water before her for a second before it squealed happily and swam away at breakneck speed, leaving a trail of white bubbles behind it.

Good, Adina thought snobbily. Hijacking Mahad's purple messengers were the best because they swam the fastest aside from the red or yellow emergency ones.

Patting her hair down over her shoulders, she made sure her ears were still concealed before she swam into the infirmary, seeing both her daddies sitting upright in the folds of their pods, looking dazed but refreshed.

"Papa!" Adina cried, diving for Atem first because she knew he had the worst of it before they sealed him into the pod. She threw her arms around the king's shoulders and Atem patted her back gently, his head spinning from being over-oxygenated, but pleased that the horrible, nauseating lump that had been at the back of his throat for what had felt like an eternity had finally vanished.

Kaiba noted that Adina had taken out her hair and that it was floating everywhere around her, even concealing Atem's face from view as it billowed around them.

"Hey, I'm alive too," he said mildly, and Adina's crushing embrace enveloped him as well, squeezing the air out his lungs.

The Medic floated respectfully off to the side, opting to sit on a bed behind another curtain to give them privacy.

"You haven't been keeping your hair in braids? How long was I in there?" Atem wondered, stretching stiffly and floating out of the pod, inspecting his fins with a protective air.
Thank god every part of him was still attached. Now where was that cursed egg that had been giving him hell these past five years? He wanted to see it with his own eyes.

"I'm trying something new," Adina said confidently, giving a lock of her hair a soft twirl and hoping her expression didn't show the anxiety about losing an ear. She wasn't ready to tell anyone yet… Otherwise everyone would fuss about it and every single octopus would be screaming about it for the next two moons, further solidifying her embarrassment about her one, fully-formed ear to the rest of the kingdom.

"I like it," Kaiba said simply, giving Adina's shoulders a loving squeeze and enjoying the beaming smile she gave him in return.

Their brief moment of peace was interrupted by Mana, Anzu, and Mai zipping through the water in a blur to give Atem tearful hugs.

"Are you okay? Did it hurt?" Mana asked breathlessly, and Atem shook his head, still in a mild state of shock at how much better he felt now that the egg had come out.

"Can we see them? Mediiiic! Can we see the twins?!" Anzu called, and the Medic floated out from behind the curtain with a pleasant nod, gesturing for them to swim over to the wall of incubators where two eggs had been placed separate from the others.

Brimming with curiosity, Kaiba let Adina yank him out of the pod, nearly ripping the leaves when his fins caught along the edges, and they approached the two eggs sitting snugly in the veiny incubators. One was a beautiful milky white, and the other was a dark green. Kaiba felt his stomach turn at the various veins anchoring the egg into place, and a strange steam was curling up from the white one.

"Why aren't they the same?" Kaiba asked instantly, and to his relief, Atem backed him up with a nod.

"Yes! Why the strange colors?" Atem whispered, his arm burning from the way Mana was gripping onto him tightly.

"The membrane of the egg forms differently, just like how human twins are in different sacs," Mana explained gently, and the Medic nodded approvingly.

"Very good, Mana. You'd make a great midwife!"

"I've been reading up on twins," Mana puffed up proudly, and Kaiba shut them out, unable to stop staring at the glistening white egg. What the fuck… Couldn't he just have a normal egg? Didn't Adina come out of a black egg?
Why did one have to be black and the other have to be white?

He reached his hand out magnetically to touch the white one, and everyone watched with bated breath, staring at the tips of Kaiba's beautiful fingers grazing the egg's surface.

Nothing happened for a brief moment and Kaiba was about to withdraw his hand when he saw the flash of Atem's face at the front of his mind.
Oh. Shit. The white egg was Atem's.
Thank…God?

"That one's yours," Kaiba said gruffly, moving to place his hand on the darker egg, silently fuming at the difference. He placed his palm on the warm surface of the dark green egg, and waited, listening to the steady beating of his heart it immediately heated to the touch.
No vision accompanied this egg.
Only a feeling of deep serenity and satisfaction.

"Lemme touch! Lemme touch!" Adina cried, also shoving her hand forward to touch the egg.

"You must come in at least eight times every moon to hold and bond with your children in egg form," the Medic said, reciting her script. "The more often you come in, the better you'll feel. You might even experience further sickness, nausea, or mood swings when you miss a nursing session. Majesties?"

Atem still hadn't touched his egg, and he was fighting with himself briefly before he finally mustered up the courage to place his palm against the glistening, white surface, and a heavenly calmness settled over his tense body. I-It was like a miracle cure for all the illness he'd been feeling up until this point, and he had a sudden urge to hug the egg tightly to his chest.

"I want to hold him now," Atem said, and the Medic floated over the incubators to release them with a wave of her hand.

Kaiba swallowed thickly as he watched the veins snake away and disappear back into the base of…wherever the hell they came from, and the egg was handed to him carefully, leaned against the Medic's breast. He accepted it gently and breathed a heavy sigh of relief, pleased to see Atem doing the same, his expression soft and loving.
His heart leapt with joy. This was so sweet. Now if Adina could stop darting around his shoulders, trying to continuously run her hand down the outer edge of the egg, he could enjoy this a bit more in silence. Thankfully, he knew the novelty of these eggs would wear off soon, and she would leave them alone in the future.

"Papaaa! Let me touch!" Adina whined, her arms clinging to Atem's neck as he tried to steady himself from her rough motions.

"Yes, Princess, please wait—" Atem breathed, resting his hand on the surface of the egg again and seeing a flash of an angelic face that made his chest constrict. It was a beautiful baby boy with round, amethyst eyes and pale skin. The smile he was wearing was so breathtakingly adorable….

"Can I hold him?" Mana asked Seto bravely, and to her great surprise, the merman nodded and handed the egg over with a practiced motion, one hand wrapped around the base and the other at the back.

Mana blushed deeply and cradled the egg close to her chest, listening to the warm heartbeat inside the shell. She was about to hand the egg off the Medic when Mahad came bursting in through the infirmary doors, frightening several people in the neighboring beds as he dove furiously towards them, glaring at Adina.

"Princess! You are causing security breaches by openly hijacking my messengers!" Mahad hissed, and Kaiba edged protectively in front of his daughter, ready to face off with Mahad about this.

To his surprise, the Medic placed herself between them and pointed at the door, grimacing and shouting in her mind, "MEN, FIGHT OUTSIDE!"

Mahad threw a poisonous look over his shoulder at Kaiba before he swam out the doors, and Kaiba felt Adina hanging onto him, blubbering tearfully, "I d-did it to send a m-message to N-Noah because he keeps asking w-when you g-guys were gonna wake u-up!"

"I'll deal with it. Stay here," Kaiba glowered, giving her a nudge towards Atem who was surrounded by his mermaid friends who were all cooing over the appearance of the white egg.

He hurried out through the double-wide doors and found Mahad hovering threateningly in his face, his eyes narrowed with anger as ranted at him in his mind, "This is un-queenly behavior coming from your daughter, Prince Seto. We need to set boundaries for what she can and cannot do! This can't keep happening! This is the fifth messenger she's stolen from me this moon cycle! I will not have it! She's becoming more and more unmanageable when you're not awake to discipline her."

Biting back a frustrated sigh, Kaiba curled his fists at his sides and willed himself not to argue back.

"If you don't want her stealing your octopi, maybe give her some of her own?" Kaiba raised his eyebrows, wondering how much had changed since he'd been locked in the pod.
It had only been two months…had Adina reverted to being a little terror in that short period of time? Was she stealing from Mahad just to antagonize him?

"I have given her some of her own!" Mahad cried, throwing his hands up, exasperated, and he reminded himself to keep his voice down, because a few maidens floating by in the hallway stopped to stare.

"Did you give her shittier ones or the ones that you normally employ?" Kaiba asked cleverly, knowing Adina only coveted other's possessions if she felt they were better than her own. After all, he was the same way, but there had to be a more constructive way of dealing with her stealing.

"I gave her a pod of the orange, mild-mannered ones, and one black Stealthapod," Mahad sniffed, crossing his arms stiffly across his muscular chest, feeling his cheeks burn as he felt oddly attacked.

"She keeps stealing from you because she wants the ones that you have," Kaiba replied with a nod, feeling a sympathetic laugh climbing up his chest when he saw Mahad's brow furrow handsomely. "I'll call her out here and have her tell it to your face."

"No need," Mahad growled through gritted teeth, but it was too late. Prince Seto was already calling for Adina loudly in their minds.

ADINA! I need you out here, now.

Adina paled visibly and shrank away from the group, trying to avoid the sympathetic looks Atem and Auntie Medic were giving her as she floated in dignified silence to the door.
Whatever it was, it wasn't her fault.
Daddy would never scold her for something that wasn't important.

Anxious and irritated, Adina made sure to close the infirmary doors behind her before bobbing up and down beside her father's elbow. Mahad kept avoiding her gaze, looking anywhere but at her face while his ears were dark red.

"Apologize for stealing five messengers from Mahad," Kaiba said stiffly, and he heard her gasp defiantly and open her mouth to retaliate, but he cut across her, not giving her a chance to whine. "And he will give you a pod of the ones you want. Just ask nicely. Apologize now."

I didn't agree to that! Mahad protested privately, but he held his tongue and waited for the princess to say something.

Adina sniffed and straightened up, looking haughtily at Mahad and thinking very clearly.

Dearest Warrior Mahad, I'm sorry for stealing your messengers five times this moon cycle. I promise you and Daddy that I won't do it again because I know it's bad for security.

"Apologize…out loud," Kaiba growled, clenching his jaw so hard his cheeks ached.
This was definitely his prideful genetics at fault.

"I'm…sorry!" Adina snapped, crossing her arms tightly, her blue eyes flashing at the long-haired warrior. "Now I demand that you give me a pod of the purple messengers, because those are the fastest and you know it. If you had just given them to me when I asked you nicely two moons ago, we wouldn't be here, now would we, Warrior Mahad?"

"Is this true?" Kaiba eyed the warrior with a steely gaze and saw Mahad's ears turning a darker shade of red. Well, then. It sounded like the messenger-stealing was warranted because Adina had asked and had been denied.
Why was this even a dispute?
Mahad needed to pay up.

"I can't spare an entire pod of violet messengers, my dear princess, but I can give you…four," Mahad breathed, hating how he felt like melting on the spot due to the intense pressure coming from Prince Seto.

"Five," Adina shot back. "Or I'll steal from you once a month and you can't stop me."

Kaiba pinched his brow, wondering if all negotiations with the princess went like this. She would start wars if she ever encountered a hostile colony's queen.

"Four for now," Mahad was firm on this, and he looked to Prince Seto for help, but the brown-haired royal looked like he was in his own turmoil. "And if you need a fifth one, we will discuss it in private…about where it needs to go and when. Deal?"

Adina frowned deeply and became eerily silent.

Kaiba looked between the two of them, sensing that Adina was hiding her thoughts but what she really wanted to do was lunge forward and scratch the hell out of Mahad.

"Fine," Adina turned her nose up in the air and swam back to the doors of the infirmary. "Four for now. Good day, Warrior Mahad. Daddy."

She swung the doors open and they closed with a resounding thunk after her, and Mahad sagged lower in the water, feeling drained. His lifespan would be shortened with stress at this rate.
No Warrior training could've prepared him for the Princess's constant demands.

"She's full of it," Kaiba declared, feeling a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Maybe it was time to bring her down to earth with a little lesson in perspective. He knew if his own ego went unchecked at such a young age, he could've turned out to be worse than he was now.

"Don't speak ill of the Princess," Mahad muttered out of habit, and flushed deeper when he caught Kaiba grinning at him.

"Prepare for a shore journey," Kaiba said, his eyes gleaming. "It's time to knock some sense into her hard head. I don't care what anyone says about her being too young to soak in a Chrysalis. She needs to go up there now, otherwise her behavior here will become nightmarish. Even I won't be able to keep her in check."

Mahad paled significantly and bowed, the blood rushing loudly in his ears at Prince Seto's words. Oh…the horror. This generation of royals was definitely going down in the books as the most eventful and terrifying era.

Kaiba swam back into the infirmary and noticed the women sneaking looks at him, checking to make sure he wasn't too angry. Even Atem was eyeing him cautiously, still holding the dark green egg against his chest while Mana cradled the white one tenderly.
Mai and Anzu were lovingly setting Atem's golden crown in his hair and fixing the golden spikes to perfection around it while exchanging private thoughts.

It was still an odd sight to get used to. Everyone waited on Atem, hand and foot, which meant Adina was going to get the same treatment—if she wasn't already.
Some humbling was in order.

"Everyone leave. Atem, I need to talk to you…alone," Kaiba said stiffly, and almost immediately, everyone dropped what they were doing and floated out of the room.

Mana handed him Atem's white egg without making eye contact and blushed furiously.
Adina hung around his elbows, giving him a pleading look, and Kaiba nodded at the door with a gentle smile.

"You too kid," he said, and she pulled a dramatic pouting face before swimming out the doors after the other mermaids.

"What is it?" Atem gave Kaiba a tired smile and got up to set the egg back into the incubator. His arms were aching from the weight.

Kaiba followed suit and tried not to recoil when he saw the veins come up and latch onto the sides of the egg. His body instantly grew cold, and he had to ignore it, reminding himself that the egg was here anytime he wanted to see it.

"Adina is growing up to be a terror," Kaiba said, wondering why he didn't feel more guilty about admitting it. "She's overstepping Mahad, and that's a problem. It's not that she doesn't respect him, but she usually gets what she wants, and when she doesn't, she steals and gets it anyway. We need to show her that that's not how the world works."

His shoulders grew heavy when he realized that this was probably why he'd been sent up to shore at such a young age. His ego was unmanageable, and what better way to manage it than by growing a pair of legs and boarding a crowded train in Japan to become one insignificant human in a sea of others?

Atem sat down on the nearest infirmary bed, and Kaiba eased himself down beside the king, reaching forward to hold his hand warmly, giving it a squeeze and enjoying the way Atem's many rings dug into his palm.

"What should we do? She's been like this since day one," Atem said, leaning his head on Kaiba's shoulder, giving him a worried frown. "I did try to correct this behavior, but now that you're here, I'm sure you can see that even both our efforts aren't enough."

"Yeah, so I'm going to suggest an extreme solution to her extreme behavior," Kaiba said gruffly, feeling Atem's hair ticking his ear. "And you'll promise not to freak out, okay?"

Atem nodded uncertainly and braced himself.

"We're going to send her to school for a year on land. She'll go to the same school as Noah, and we'll visit her often, but she'll be in the care of Mokuba and Ayame. Thoughts?" Kaiba held his breath and listened for Atem's startled protest in his head, but to his relief, Atem leaned away and gave him a fiery look.

"That is an amazing idea! She needs to learn there is another world above, and that it's not just a beach and a pretty house on a hill," Atem said fervently, his cheeks burning at the thought of going on land again. "She won't last two seconds without stepping on an ump-brella. I know I didn't! I don't care what people say about her rapid trauma-aging. Her behavior is what's concerning. I wouldn't want to live here if my queen behaved like her."

Kaiba beamed and leaned down to press a quick kiss on Atem's cheek, his chest curling with triumph.

"We could check up on her intermittently, like every other month," Kaiba said, already running a schedule in his head. "We can send up Mahad on the other months, or hell, I would even trust Tristan and the other dolt with blond hair to report back on how she's doing."

"But…!" Atem gripped Kaiba's hands, his head spinning with uncertainty. "She hasn't even had her First Procession yet! People will talk! This is highly unconventional. My grandfather will fight us on this…. We should at least plan her procession to let people see her, then break the news to her that we're thinking about sending her to shore, and if she wants to go, then we think about shore schooling. Let's not skip too many steps, Seto."

"Sure. Fine," Kaiba bit the inside of his cheek, feeling himself sweat.
He had no idea what the fuck a First Procession entailed, but he had a feeling he was in for some pompous bullshit.


Author's note:

wewwwwww i added on! go many feedbacks on people asking me to pleeease please continue it until i cover kaiba's mystery backstory as a merperson, soooo i guess we're in for 10 more chapters LMAO

love,
Ugli