Jude tapped at Connor's cheeks. Did humans hurt the same way that the merfolk did? He had no idea. He had absolutely no idea about humans.

"Come on. Come on!"

There was no way that he could be sitting on the beach with a dead body! He tried not to freak out as he shook Connor, pressing at his wet shirt and nudging at his legs, trying to figure it out. He was shaken out of his thoughts by a strange sound and his heart leapt. He couldn't be discovered on the beach!

"Jude! What are you doing!?"

"Jesus! Jesus, do you know if he's alive?"

He wasn't sure what the bird could possibly know but Jude needed another opinion. The seagull dropped to the surface of the beach and pecked at Connor's forehead.

"Well, I hate to say it –"

"He's breathing!" Jude exclaimed. "Right!? His chest? He's breathing!"

It was the same way that his chest moved, when he was above the surface, and they looked the same from the waist up. Jude's hand touched the prince's leg, thinking about how those would work. Jesus hopped up on Prince Connor's chest, staring down at his face.

"Well, he seems alive to me."

"Get off of him," Jude said. "You aren't helping."

"Why are you helping?" Jesus asked.

"What? Was I going to let him die?"

Jesus hopped around Connor's head. "No but … What's going to happen to you when Stef finds out what you've done?"

Jude barely spared a thought about it. He leant over Connor, staring curiously at him, trying to compare him to the merfolk that he knew. It was the closest that he had ever been to a human and he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything. He touched Connor's face and it was so different to feel dry skin under his fingertips.

"Do you think he's going to wake up soon?" Jude asked Jesus. "What do you think humans dream about?"

"I dream of merfolk stuff," Jesus offered.

"Yeah but that's probably because you're not really a bird."

"I'm a bird now. I'll probably die a bird. How long do birds live anyway?"

"You're not a bird," Jude repeated, though it was the only way he'd ever known Jesus. "Look, look at his eyes!"

"Don't get seen!"

"Don't be a talking bird!"

Jesus fluffed his feathers; like Mariana, he wasn't one who liked being told what to do. He let out a loud squawk characteristic of a bird, and then he took off. Jude usually liked Jesus, but, this time, he wasn't sad to see him go. He looked nervously around, to make sure that Jesus was gone and he was really alone. Then, he leant even closer to Connor. He knew he should leave; he knew that Connor was waking up. Jude wasn't stupid. He knew what he was risking. But it was one man. It was one man who Jude had watched grow up from his ship, one man who often spoke of mermaids, and who looked at the sea with curiousity and respect. Part of him knew it was a bad idea and that his mother would kill him for it, but the other part of him absolutely had to know. It was one man and who was going to believe him if he turned out to be different than Jude expected. But Jude had to know if Prince Connor was as curious and good as he seemed.

"Hello," Jude said. "Hello? Are you okay?"

The man turned over, coughing violently into the sand. Jude reached out a hand to help him and then he heard a voice, one that he recognized.

"Connor! Prince Connor!"

It was Lena. Jude could see her coming down the beach, sailors in her wake.

"He's alive! Connor!"

And Jude knew that he had missed his chance.

He threw himself backward into the waves, letting the water catch him and pull him under. He pushed himself into the rocks surrounding the beach and then peeked above him, keeping an eye on Lena. They weren't close enough to have seen him, were they? He hunkered down even more, watching the prince sit up. His head turned toward the ocean and Jude's heart thumped double time inside of his chest. Connor was looking for him!

Then, Lena had her arm around him, helping him up off the sand. Jude watched to make sure that he was moving all right and he was satisfied that he'd saved his life. He watched the party make their way back up the beach but Connor paused again, looking over his shoulder and in Jude's direction. Jude couldn't help but push himself up. He wasn't sure if he wanted the prince to see him or if he wanted to see the prince. Jude wasn't seen, though, and Connor turned into Lena. Jude watched them until they were gone and then he looked up at the sky, the sun's rays starting to touch the ocean.

If he was lucky, very lucky, he would get home before his mother was out of bed.

(-.-)

"Where have you been?!"

So, Jude wasn't lucky. He was seated at his mother's vanity seat, watching his tail fins float in the water. Stef was floating with her arms crossed tightly over her chest – she hadn't moved at all – but Jude didn't have it in him to look at her anymore. She valued truth above all else, and it helped her to be the fair and just ruler that she was. But Jude knew that she had an inking about where he'd been and she just wanted to hear him say it. The problem was that Jude didn't want to say it. He didn't want to tell her how he felt when he breathed in real air. He didn't want to tell her how the sand felt against his palms. He didn't want to tell her how he had felt touching the human prince's face, making sure that he was all right.

He didn't want to tell her because he wasn't sure that she would understand.

"I'm waiting," she said.

"I stayed out late. I'm sixteen! I'm allowed to do that!"

"You are a Prince of Atlantica! You don't get to run around! And, more than that, you are my son and you are not allowed to stay out until after sunrise doing God knows what! Do you know what's out there? Predators and sea-witches. Jude! Did you even think of the sea witches?! You know that no one in this family is safe from them! You've met Jesus!"

"I know. I just –"

"And humans," Stef continued. "How could you be so disrespectful to her memory? Anything could have happened to you!"

"Leave Callie out of it!" Jude cried, springing up. "Nothing happened to me! Nothing! I am fine! I am allowed to have something all my own."

"Not under this roof you're not. I'm not having something happen to another one of my children, do you understand me?"

"Do you understand me?" Jude shouted. "Do you? Because everything that you seem to hate is everything that I love! I love seeing Jesus, I love clouds, I love watching ships go by and seeing people happy on the decks! There is so much out there that you want me to miss! Do you even know what a fork is?"

"I know what a fork is," she said coldly. "And you're going to end up dead if you keep chasing fairy tales. You're merfolk, Jude! You are not a human! You have no use for them or their things and so help me, if you leave this palace once in the next month, I will seal you into your room myself and you will never see daylight again, do you understand me?"

"You can't do that to me!" Jude shouted, and he backed away from her, just encased she brandished the large trident that she always carried. She had the ability to do it to him; she could almost do anything. It was why it was so devastating that she had never been able to heal Jesus. "What have I done?"

"You have broken every single rule that this castle has, with no regard to what could happen to you, to this family, or the entirety of the people! Our people! If humans had found you, if you had been captured, they would have been crawling the seven seas, searching for all of us, and the humans wouldn't have stopped until we were all dead! You could have killed all of us!"

"You are overexaggerating!"

"They killed Callie! This isn't an over exaggeration! We have died from the humans before! They are a brutal species, Jude, I don't know how many times I have to tell you about that."

"You aren't seeing the whole thing! There are good humans and bad humans and I –"

"Do you know any humans? Have any of them seen you?"

Jude lost his grip on his anger for half of a second and he knew his face gave him away.

"They have! You do! Your room, now."

"Mom –"

"Room. Do not argue. Do not leave until I come get you."

"Mom!"

"NOW!"

Jude fled his mother's room but he didn't go to his own. He went straight out of the palace, heading toward the currents. If his mother wouldn't help him, if his mother wouldn't understand, than he knew who would help him. He knew who would understand.

He was close to the sea-witches' cave when the eels that he had more before approached him.

"Well, well."

"The merboy is back."

"I know you know why I'm here," Jude said. "Just take me in."

"Take you in to see the sea witch?" the two eels mused. "The youngest Prince of Atlantica?"

"I know what I'm asking," Jude said, his fingers curling into his palms so tightly that Jude could feel his fingernails digging into his skin but he didn't care. He wasn't just the Prince of Atlantica. If he and Callie hadn't been left on the palace steps or if Stef had been a little less benevolent, he might not have ever been a Prince at all. It shouldn't have been his life and Jude would never understand why it was.

Maybe that was why Stef didn't understand him. The woman he had called his mother for so long hadn't actually given birth to him and maybe that had caused so much disconnect that she would never understand him and Jude just needed to be understood. At this point, it didn't matter by who.

"Well, right this way," the eels said, voice twining together. "Our royal family will be so glad to see you."

Jude followed the two of them into the cage, looking around nervously, but there was no one but the two of them. There was nothing but the dark walls of the cave, lit only by a glowing slime that barely exuded any light. There were crags coming down from the ceiling, pointed rock rising from the floor. He had to move carefully, which was easier said than done since he could hardly see anything. Before they reached the witch's door, there was a room, a small floor full of dead, brown weeds, but they opened their eyes as they passed, and a horrible feeling filled Jude. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know what those things were but, deep down, he had a suspicion.

Because of that, he looked away quickly. He had only the vaguest knowledge of what the sea witches could actually do. All he knew was that they were fearsome and powerful, that they trifled in the dark arts and never had any qualms about fulfilling the wishes of those who wanted to follow them to the dark places. All merfolk were always warned to stay away and Jude knew this was the last place that Stef would ever want him to be. Which was probably exactly why he was here.

"Well, here we are," the eels said. "Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," Jude said, hoping that he sounded more confident than he was.

"Mistress!" One eel knocked while the other spoke. "You have a guest."

"Enter!" called the sultry tones of the sea witch and the door creaked open.

Not overthinking it, Jude swam inside, sealing his fate.

On tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about Part Of Your World, add backslash tagged backslash part dash of dash your dash world. Note that the punctuation is spelled out due to fanfiction's restrictions. If you have any problems accessing the extra content on tumblr please send me a message and I can help you out!

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~TLL~