A/N: Hey, I watched The Little Mermaid earlier! It gave me some ideas for this story, and so I can get the boulder rolling again.

The reason it took me so long was because my brother had his birthday soon after the fourth of July and I was busy writing his story. All he asked from me was an origional story, so I was busy working on that for the past week. Outside of the fourth and my brother's birthday, I was getting over the death of my guinea pig. It may not seem like much to some of you, but after five years, you become attatched to something, I should think. I really miss him, but I'm moving on, and that's why I was later than I had planned. I had actually replaced the story chapter before he got sick, then he died a little after, and then it was the fourth. So, that's my explaination. Long and winded, but explained none the less.

This chapter was a lot of fun to write in the beginning. I loved writing Youko's reactions to everything, even if he is a bit out of character. But I think I deserve some slack, since he's gotten one helluva shocker from this. Also, I reserve the right to make Sesshoumaru a bit out of character himself. Why? You'll see. He's not so heartless after all...The second part of this chapter was pretty easy to write, but at the same time, not. That's all I can say on the matter without giving it away.

So, now we've got a plot. What else? We've got characters, lovers, action, adventure, sadness, death, blood, gore, royalty, villains...am I missing anything?

Also, my poll is still going on. As it stands, nobody's participated. Which is making this all the more difficult...I don't know who the evil villain will be yet! The current numbers are: Karasu: 0; Naraku: 0; Rando: 0; Other (specify): 0.

One more thing. My sister says that I somehow wrote Rin like a cross between Marlene (FFVII : AC) when she's stamping her foot at Cloud over by Vince, and Alicia (Full Metal) when their at the end of the first season...Any agreements?

Anyways, I hope you enjoy my chapter. I enjoyed writing it, and I apologize for the delay. Which isn't as long as it seems, since I actually replaced the last chapter. Have fun reading!


The first thing that Youko noticed was that someone was talking above him. A couple someone's, actually, and one had an incredibly beautiful, feminine voice. The other two were too quite for Youko to pick out clearly, but he had some semblance of an idea as to whether or not they were male or female.

The second thing he noticed was that he was being held up by two people. They were holding him by the shoulders, which were incredibly sore for some reason. He didn't know why, but brushed it aside as strain and stress from his father and the notorious king's ideas of marriage.

The third thing, upon opening his eyes, was that there was definately a female around him. In fact, she was hovering over his face. His eyes traced delicate, pale features. He noticed her stubbornly set chin, the definate sharpness of her nose, and met curious brown eyes before he himself had a chance to blink.

To his surprise, the girl looked somewhat shocked. What, did he have something hanging out of his nose, he wondered briefly. But there couldn't be anything seriously wrong with him. He would have known had anything significant happened, other than the fact that he didn't remember what happened to that cloaked figure.

Youko groaned and sat up slowly. He felt the hands leave him to fend for himself as he put one of his own up to his forehead. He had a massive headache aside from being sore all over. He thought he had pulled muscles, somehow, that he hadn't known existed.

The girl was speaking to him. "...just saw you falling, and came to check up on you. Are you alright?" she asked. Her voice was full of concern and the ever present curiousity. He looked at her face, and saw that it was shadowed.

"I'm just a bit sore." Youko stretched, practically hearing his limbs grate against each other. That was a creepy thought, he told himself. "What time is it?"

The girl cocked her head to the side and looked past his shoulders. She was, presumably, sharing some sort of look with the people behind him. He felt their presence disappear from behind him before she turned her attention back to him. "Time?" she retorted. "What is that?"

Youko raised an eyebrow. His entire expression said 'Don't play coy with me, young lady'. "Time. As in, is it night time? Day time? Morning, afternoon, evening, nap time?" he said. To his immense frustration, the girl just seemed to be getting more and more confused the more he said.

"I'm sorry," she began, "but you must not be from around here. We have no such thing as time. At least, I don't think we do." She shrugged. "I know that when we're hungry, we eat, and when we're tired, we sleep. That's about it."

Youko's brow furrowed. "Then how can you see at night?" He saw her blank look and continued. "You know, when it's all dark and the sun isn't out?"

The brown-eyed girl raised an eyebrow, copying Youko's earlier expression. "The sun? We have no such thing. And if night is what you say it is," she paused, and Youko nodded. "Then it's always night time here," she concluded.

Youko laughed. "That's crazy. There's no land in the entire world that has only night. The sun doesn't let that happen, so it's impossible." He stopped laughing when he realised that, no, the girl wasn't making some sort of joke. Or if she was, she wasn't ready to give it up. "I tell you, it's impossible! Even the moon lights up the sky, or the stars do!" He looked up to prove it, and stopped dead.

There was no sky. Even more shocking, there was a rippling effect that made everything above him have a surreal, watery effect. With wide eyes, he turned his head back to the girl in front of him and got a good look at her.

On her neck, there were slits. It actually resembled flaps of skin that moved constantly. Her arms were crossed, holding some of her raven black hair trapped. The rest of her hair floated around her. As his eyes traveled past a bare stomach, he laid shocked eyes on her dark, green tail.

It took a moment to process that information before his jaw dropped. He looked between the girl's human enough face, back to her tail, and back up once again, before squeaking out in a very un-princly manner, "You're a mermaid." The statement held an accusatory tone to it.

The girl's eyes narrowed in anger. "I am a person. And I'd think that you would have known that as well, seeing as you're a person as well."

Youko looked down in surprise and nearly fell over. In fact, he would have fallen over, if he hadn't come to the uncomfortable conclusion that there was no way possible for him to fall onto the ground.

For there was no ground. There was only ocean water, for as far as he could see, in any direction he looked. Above him, below him, and on all sides it covered. It didn't help that he realised he himself had somehow obtained an odd looking tail of his own, a green shade the color of grass with bits of silver glitter scattered throughout.

Youko's arms pinwheeled about as he tried to stay afloat in, what he hoped was, an upright position. He could only guess that somehow his subconcious mind had kept him in a relatively normal position, but now that he realised it wasn't logically possible for him to be in the position he was, his concious mind took over all movement in his body once more.

And, seeing as learning how to swim like a fish wasn't covered in school, he was left flailing like a fish out of water. Or, perhaps the more appropriate term was he was flailing about like a human off of land.

The girl watched for a moment in confused suspicion before her pitious side seemed to kick in. She swam over- Yes, Youko told his brain, swam- and helped to set himself to rights again.

"I'm Kagome," she said suddenly. Youko looked over at her, hoping to see a smiling, friendly face, but was instead meant with a stern, soul-peircing stare. "And, if your swimming ability is anything to go by, you aren't from around here." It was a statement, and Youko knew there was little to nothing he could do to convince her that he just wasn't used to swimming. In this ocean. Right.

"No, I'm not," he admitted. "I don't remember exactly how I got here, but I know that I'm not supposed to be living under the water."

Kagome looked taken aback. "What do you mean? All people live under the water, regardless of where we were born. It's always been that way, and there's no proof to the contrary," she said.

Youko looked over to her, ready to spill everything in a place where there seemed to only be one (somwhat) sympathetic ear, when he had another shocking revelation.

Kagome wasn't wearing a shirt, in any way, shape or form. What was more, she had his arm slung across her shoulders and her chest was incredibly close to Youko's own bare torso.

"Sorry!" he said as a lifetime of manners caught up to him. He pulled himself away to give her space, give her a chance to cover herself up decently, and realised his mistake only after he was flailing around again.

Kagome wondered what had gotten into the stranger. He was acting like no person she had ever heard of, even in the stories and legends that spanned across the kingdoms. She moved forward and grabbed Youko's arm, pulling him upright again. "What was that for?" she asked.

For some reason, he would look at her. She tried to swim to meet his eyes, finding it rude that he wouldn't let her see his stunning orbs once again, but he kept turning so that his head was always turned away from her. For some reason, his face was turning red as well. It was enough to confuse and annoy the young princess.

"What is it with you?" she snapped. Her temper paid off in one way, at least; Youko's face snapped around, and he finally met her eyes. She made sure to give him the same stare she often got from her father, the one that wouldn't let her look away. Curiously enough, his face darkened to a deep crimson.

"You're not wearing anything," he muttered, looking off to the side as she broke eye contact with a blink.

At least he's not trying to pull his arm away, she thought. This way, he can't swim away and I can keep questioning him. Kagome scoffed at his pathetic reason. "Everyone knows that wearing anything will just slow you down. That is one of the most suicidal things that a person can choose to do, wearing things."

"Well, obviously I didn't know that," Youko bit back. He still wasn't meeting her eyes.

Kagome shook her head slowly. "Who are you?" He looked at her through the corner or his eye. "You're obviously not a person," she ignored his venomous glare, "because all people can swim and know that object weigh you down in the water. And no person I've ever seen or heard of has ever had green eyes."

Youko started. "What do you mean, green eyes? I don't have green eyes. It's impossible." Kagome gave him a look that said he was a horrible lier, and he became angry. "I should know. The last time I looked in the mirror, my eyes were golden brown."

"Well maybe you should look into the mirror again," Kagome said. "Since you're obviously suffering memory loss, I'll fill you in. You look like a person, but you can't swim and you think you should be wearing things. You have green eyes and red hair. You have the darkest skin I have ever seen on someone, and all of this leads to the obvious conclusion that something happened to you to turn you into a person without your knowledge." To prove she was telling the truth, she brought a strand of his deep red hair into his face.

Youko picked the strand out of the floating water and stared at it momentarily. Finally, he conceded. "You're right," he told her.

Kagome nearly dropped his arm in surprise. That would have been a bad thing, since Youko would have started to thrash about once more. "I am?"

Youko nodded and decided to give Kagome a heavily edited, somewhat believable version of his life. It took a lot longer than he thought, though, since he kept having to explain everything about humans to her in order for her to believe him.

And when he was done, they both sat there and stared at one another, each with their own thoughts.

A young man stood before Sesshoumaru and his family. He was shivering and trembling under the king's cold stare, his eyes darting every which way. It wasn't hard for someone to figure that the sailor would have rather been anywhere else than where he was, about to give his saddened report to a man known for his cold calculation and terrifying demeanor.

Off to one side of Sesshoumaru's chair sat his wife. A young woman who was more often seen trying to calm her husband than showing a nasty temper of her own, Kagura had hair as black as the night. Her eyes were a reddish brown, and at the moment, they were trained on the person in front of her. She wore a simple gown of sapphire silk, fitting her elegantly without seeming to scream power and money.

Rin held her mother's hand, wearing a gown nearly identical to her mother's in green cotton. She was yawning, her young mind wishing she could be with her dear brother out playing in the sand. She hated sitting in audiences, especially when they were the sort that required her entire family to be there. They were generally boring and long, and she never liked them to begin with.

Sesshoumaru signaled for the attendant to begin, and the dry old man announced the sailor's name and rank. He was apparently a young fish trader, who regularily visited the coast to get his produce.

He began to wring his hat in his hands as he addressed his lord and king. "M'lord, ye know there wus a big ol' storm night a'fore last, yes?" he asked.

Sesshoumaru nodded; it was the night when Youko had stormed off after learning that he would be wedded. The young prince hadn't been seen since then, but his family wasn't worried. A couple of sailors had beared witness to him leaving on one of the ships that went out to retrieve messages from neighboring countries. The ship itself wasn't due back for a good five days yet.

"Well, m'lord...th' storm wus a bad 'un, an'..." the sailor trailed off. Sesshoumaru glared until the lad started to stutter out the last of his message out of fear. "T-the ship ca-ca-carryin' his h-h-highness wus s-struck."

The chamber grew quite. Nobody moved as this information was processed, with the sole exception of Rin. The young girl was twirling her skirts, twisting from side to side as she missed what the young man in front of her.

Finally, Sesshoumaru said quietly, "Do you have proof to your claim?" The question hung in the air like a morbid fog, waiting to be lifted to see if the prince was alive, injured, or... The last option didn't bear thinking, for it would have sent the kingdom into near chaos.

"Aye. An' I didn' let a one uther soul see't, m'lord. Came strai't 'ere." The sailor nodded to the attendant, who bang a plain brass staff against the mable floor.

The doors opened quietly, and four guards entered bearing a stretcher. Kagura held her breath. Sesshoumaru glared coldly at the sailor, daring him to say everything was a joke and this was just a paid actor. Rin looked up and smiled.

On the stretcher lay the body of the crown prince. Youko's pale hair lay sprawled about him, bits of wood and sea trash strewn through it. His eyes were closed peacefully, and even though he was pale, he looked to be sleeping. Except for the very prominant fact that the prince was split perfectly at the waist, his two halves placed together to give some semblance of a whole.

The bearers stopped and laid the prince at the base of the dais. Everyone held their breath to see the reaction of the entire family, not wanting to be the one to break the shocked silence that was brought in with the very dead prince.

Rin was the first to break it, tugging at Kagura's hand. "Mommy, brother's back!" she said. An innocent smile was covering her face. "Does that mean he's done with his work? Can we go out and play?"

Sesshoumaru stood slowly as Kagura beant down to hug her daughter, now an only child. "Leave." he said. "All of you. Now."

Nobody hesitated as they exited the room. Even the guards, used to the cold voice and sharp temper of the king, didn't waste time in getting away from the king's daunting presence. It never even crossed any of their minds to gossip about what had been seen- everything would be revealed when the family was ready, so why risk their necks when one slip of the tongue could bring them at the focus of the king's wrath?

Rin blinked with confusion. Everyone was acting so wierd. "Mommy, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" she asked with an innocence that was only brought about by the fact that she had never witnessed death in her entire life.

Kagura pulled back and wiped teary eyes. Now wasn't the time to break down, she figured. She could do that later, after everything had been sorted out and she could afford a moment or two to herself. "Rin, honey, Youko can't play with you anymore."

Rin pouted and crossed her arms, backing up. "Why not? He's right there." She turned to her father, who stood over Youko's body. "Right, daddy? He's right there, so he can play as soon as he wakes up!" Kagura shook her head, kneeling on the ground with her head down.

"He won't wake up, Rin. He's dead." That sole statement, the one that everyone had been avoiding the entire time, made everything come crashing down onto the two parents.

Rin didn't understand. "What do you mean? He's just sleeping, see?" Before her mother could grab her, Rin ran down the steps and approached her brother's prone form. "Time to wake up, brother!" she called to him. She was still smiling.

She was stopped by her father, who stopped her and held her back. "He's gone, Rin. He won't wake up, and there's nothing any of us can do about it."

Rin glared at her father. "What do you mean? I want to go play with brother!" She began to struggle against Sesshoumaru's grip, but her tiny frame wasn't a match for a fully grown adult. "Youko! Wake up and tell daddy that you want to play," she commanded. "Brother, stop playing pretend. I'm not having any fun. I want to play in the sand, not this game. This isn't fun."

"Rin, stop." Rin stopped struggling. "Don't you think he would have answered already if he could?" Tears gathered in Rin's eyes. "Don't you think he would make sure that you were happy if he could, that you weren't sad? I'm sure he would have wanted to play with you right away when he had gotten back. But he isn't, because he's dead. He'll never play with you again."

Rin broke down crying. "Brother, why did you leave?" she accused. "You promised you would play with me!" She turned to her father, who was crouched beside her, and buried herself in her open arms.

That night, the death bells rang as the kingdom entered a state of mourning, remembering the hot-headed young prince whose life was tragically cut short.

End Chapter
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