Series: Melody of the Heart||Title: A New Dawning
Characters: Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Mimi, Miyako, Hikari, Takeru, Daisuke, Ken||Ship: Taichi x Yamato
Chapters: 1-1||Words: 999
Genre: Friendship||Rated: G
Prompt: Taichi Week 2022, day #2, Friends
Notes: Same AU as Broken Siren and set afterwards.
Summary: Taichi has never been on a journey like this before. But he's learning a lot, including about those he travels with. About his friends.


Taichi wasn't used to sleeping outside or traveling all day long. When he woke up, he was used to waking up inside of his pleasant bedroom, with guards in their usual places. He would eat with his parents and Hikari, meals that held the greatest and most variety of flavors.

Everything he had, everything he did, just seemed so soft compared to how he and the others lived now. He slept every night near Yamato, if not in his arms, and for every meal someone, usually Mimi, went out to gather whatever she could find for them to eat.

Which was often strange, because as a dryad, she could and did eat things that humans considered either moss or algae or whatever. She was getting better at finding what he, Takeru, Iori, and Hikari could eat safely, though.

Not all of the others needed to be as careful. Yamato was undead – something that he had to admit unnerved him if he thought about it too much – and only quietly slipped away to find what he needed when he had to. Sora was an angel of love, and Taichi had to admit he had no idea of what she needed to eat. He'd seen her eating a few normal fruit, but she'd also said she could go without if necessary.

Daisuke and Ken ate – things. Taichi refused to look too closely at what they ate. Ken was half-demon and could probably have eaten anything from nail shavings to dust and still gained nutrition out of it. Daisuke was a construct, a creature built of magic, and frequently shared Ken's meals, no matter what they were. Both of them could eat almost anything, but he'd noticed that since this journey began, they shared whatever there was enough to share, with the four humans getting the first pick of it all.

What are Jou and Koushiro going to be like? He vaguely recalled having met Jou once or twice, back even before Yamato's revelation as being a siren and subsequent – issues.

He didn't really want to think of those issues being "sentenced to death for the crime of being a siren, throat being slit, and thrown out, only to be brought back as a vampire" and everything else that came from that. So he didn't.

What he'd heard boiled down to the fact Jou was a vampire now as well, and Koushiro was a werecat.

And I'm going to be a werecat too. At least they hoped that he would be. He had to be something supernatural to avoid being affected by Yamato's voice. If that didn't happen, Yamato wasn't ever going to talk around him again.

That wasn't ever going to happen. He'd make Yamato bite him if he had to!

He knew he'd have a hard time convincing Yamato of that. So he didn't worry himself about it right now and concentrated on gathering the wood for the evening fire. He had no idea of how far away they were from the kingdom, but they'd been traveling for weeks.

I should send Mother and Father a message. They'd want to know what he was doing. He'd probably be disowned and cut off from being heir. But he could manage that. Becoming a werecat probably wouldn't help with that anyway.

So what else would he do with his life? He'd been raised and trained and taught everything he knew to be a prince and later king. Would Hikari return? She hadn't had quite the same lessons, but it had been more or less assumed she'd enter into the priesthood and not have to worry about ruling.

His eyes flicked by the small white cat – or a not-cat – seated at Hikari's side as she checked over Miyako. The phoenix – who went off to do her own hunting on a regular basis – had almost healed from the injuries she'd suffered during the battle against Vamdemon.

Even if she doesn't rule, she might not join the priesthood regardless. Not when she had her very own guardian angel, and the potential to ally them with the phoenix clan.

That would all have to wait for later, though. First he would ensure that Yamato's supernatural voice couldn't affect him – at least not anymore than it normally did, since the blond had always had an amazing singing voice. Then he'd figure out what being a werecat meant and if it would cut him away from his realm forever.

His gaze shifted over the circle of people as he settled the pile of wood down and began to sort it properly. He'd barely known how to do this when their journey began. Just one of the many things he'd learned.

A vampire-siren. Four humans. A dryad. An angel. A construct. A prince of demons. A phoenix.

Two that he'd not yet met, but he had high hopes they'd become friends as well – another vampire and a werecat. Everything he'd heard said that they were decent people and that was what mattered, wasn't it?

They were all his friends, and were going to be his friends if all worked out. If he couldn't stay to be king, then they'd help him find someone who could. Ken surely knew people! If his parents didn't trust a demon prince's judgment, then wouldn't that of a cupid or a phoenix be worthy?

They were his friends. He had problems and they would help him work through those problems.

I wonder if we can keep traveling after this. Maybe that was something he could do for his people, if not be king. He could be an ambassador, traveling all over the world, to all different types of realms. This could only be the beginning. They could make connections, forge alliances, and meet new people from one end of the world to the other.

His friends would help with that, too. He believed that down the core of his soul. A fresh start for all of them. He hoped it was an auspicious one.


The End

Notes: They have so much ahead of them. And one day I will write it. I hope.