If asked what his favourite thing in the entire world was, Gilbert would take a while to decide. There were too many activities and objects that caught his interest. For instance, combat practice was fun, but sprint swimming was even more fun, especially since barely anyone in the kingdom could beat him. He'd wondered on occasion if that was why nobody ever played tag with him as a kid. Being rocked along in a stormy current was enjoyable too, but in the relaxing kind of way that he had learned to appreciate as he got older. Clams and swordfish were delicious, war games were exciting, and Gilbert's prized possession was his sash-cape. But all of those would get blown out of the water when he'd suddenly remember his fondest past time: hanging out with Heracles. That was his favourite.

In fact, he was on his way to do just that.

The sun was almost set, which meant that the sea bottom had become pitch black already. But Gilbert was all too familiar with the area and could sniff out Heracles in no time. Unless the little bugger was somewhere else. That would be a pain. But sure enough, as Gilbert swam closer to their usual spot, he caught a whiff of his friend, partially masked by sand and dirt. The prince smirked and slowed his pace, coming to a stop right in front of a quietly napping form. Heracles' back and tail were concealed by sand, but the lazy merman had neglected to cover his arms and face. His tannish skin and wide fins, lightly blotched with brown, blended in with the ground, and his curly tangle of hair could be mistaken for a clump of dead seagrass. Usually, this made it difficult to spot him during daylight hours, let alone at night. Unfortunately that didn't matter to Gilbert's sense of smell, as the devilishly smiling prince swished his tail and brought up a cloud of sand right in Heracles' face.

A single cough told Gilbert that his dearest friend had been woken. "Yo, Hera! Up and at 'em!"

Heracles propped himself up and rubbed his face clean, letting out a soft groan. "...Good morning," the young merman mumbled.

"It's evening."

"Ah, right...good evening then..." He rose out of the sand, shaking off the excess from his curly hair and wide fins. "Has his highness found a suitable bride today?" The sarcasm was hard to detect under the lazy manner of speaking, but Gilbert easily picked up on it.

"Oh shut up." He elbowed Heracles lightly. "Be thankful you don't have to put up with that crap. Even Edelstein was on my case today."

The other merman smiled sleepily. Since Heracles was 4 years younger, Gilbert had always thought of himself as an older brother to the kid. It was nice to pretend to have siblings. Still, they also considered each other best friends, despite the age gap–or probably because of the age gap, since most in the kingdom thought the prince was immature.

The duo passed the time talking and goofing off. Gilbert proudly showed off his wealth of foreign coins and then spent the next five minutes sulking after Heracles informed him that they were only worth a small trinket at the market. He cheered up considerably when reminded that he hadn't eaten dinner yet, swiftly grabbing a blenny from its den and enjoying it as a snack. The evening's "daring escape" was discussed and bragged about while Heracles, hiding the fact that he was impressed, merely shook his head. Gilbert hid his anxiety just as well under a wide smile.

"Let's meet with Kiku tomorrow," the prince later announced over his shoulder. He was busy scouting out more snacks, scanning the ground carefully for any burrows, his vivid red eyes having somewhat adjusted to the dark. Heracles was lying down again, sleepily staring up at the inky blackness as he played with a stalk of seaweed between his fingers. Gilbert quickly stabbed the ground with one hand, continuing to speak when he found nothing. "It's been a few days, right? He probably has something cool to show us." The following silence, filled by the distant clicks of a whale pod, told him that his friend was thinking. He frowned and waited for a response.

"...I have a sinking suspicion," Heracles finally said, "that Kiku makes some facts up."

"No way!" Gilbert shouted, horrified at the accusation.

"For example...the 'sandal'..."

Gilbert waved his hands. "Okay, alright already, it probably isn't used to write on, but what else could it be? Besides, it's not like Kiku himself is a human. He's just a crow. He can make mistakes."

"The seeing glass."

"Yeah, everything was blurry, that was kinda..."

"He thought leather was edible."

"Hey, that's still up for debate and you know it." Gilbert smirked, swimming over and flicking one of Heracles' arm fins. "It smells edible, runt."

"Jelly guts."

"Sand eater."

"Vent head."

"Shrimp face."

"Slug-for-brains."

"You're the only slug here, lazy."

They solidified their plans for the following day, and then the dreaded time came when Heracles had to head home for the night. Soon, Gilbert found himself drifting alone in the dark, as his staved-off worries came crashing down on him again. The whales were long gone by this point, leaving only deafening silence to comfort him. He knew he had to go home and face the wrath of his father. There was no way he could put it off any longer, unless he wanted a search party to come after him. And Gilbert knew how remarkably embarrassing that would turn out. Shoulders drooped and brows furrowed, he tried to gather up the motivation to swim home. "Shit. I should've given my last farewell to Hera 'cause I'm sure as hell gonna die tonight."

Arriving in the outskirts of the city as quietly as he could, he was more or less cornered by two watchmen making their rounds. Or looking for him. Gilbert cursed under his breath as the two armoured mermen escorted him to the castle. He thanked the heavens above that they stayed silent the whole way, though; he would already be getting an earful from his father. Perhaps they already knew that, too, and were showing him some twisted form of sympathy.

Upon entering the darkened castle, Gilbert didn't sense his father anywhere, and he hoped he still had a chance of making it up to his room without any confrontation for the night. But as he made his way down the wide, quiet hallway towards the bedrooms, all hope was dashed when a voice spoke up in the dim light and pierced his very soul.

"Where have you been?"

There it was. The one sentence that no youth wanted to hear, the kind that was supposed to show concern but only sounded like anger. Gilbert cringed the heaviest cringe of his life, and he turned to face his father, a half-smile desperately forming on his face as Antonio glared with arms crossed.

"H-Hey, Papa..." He waved weakly, his fingers curling up like a dying plant. "We were just having fun, that's all..."

"Do you know what you've accomplished with that stunt? You worried the hell out of me, and you embarrassed yourself in front of the king of Languedoc!"

And then Gilbert's fake smile dropped.

"No," he snapped back, arm slowly dropping to his side. "You were the only one being embarrassed. The only thing you were worried about was your shitty son making an idiot out of you, right?"

The defiant comment took Antonio by surprise, but he continued with a stern tone. "Gilbert, that is not true and we are not discussing that–"

"Do you even care why I ran off in the first place?" Gilbert's hands were balled into fists by this point, while his voice got progressively louder. "It's because of all this marriage shit! It's infuriating! Why the ever-loving hell are you forcing me to do all this, I'm only eighteen! And don't try to give me that alliances spiel again because that's bullshit and you know it!"

"Calm down!" Antonio was looking angry as well, but his eyebrows were beginning to knit with anxiety. Everyone in that wing of the castle could probably hear them by now. "It's too late at night to discuss that again, so just go to bed for now."

"Oh, what is this?" Gilbert crossed his arms. "Now that I'm arguing back, you don't wanna talk about it anymore? Don't ignore me!"

"I'm not ignoring–"

"Yes, you are! You're ignoring my feelings about this! That's just as bad as ignoring me!"

That seemed to quiet the king, at least for a moment. He hovered in the hallway, the worry on his face etching out his age as he stared at his son. Finally, he sighed heavily, hanging his head. "It's much more...complicated than that. There's no easy way for me to explain it right now; but Gil, you know this is for the good of the kingdom, so I wish you would stop being so selfish."

Gilbert let out a humorless bark of laughter. "Selfish? Have you looked in a fucking mirror?"

"Gilbert!"

"I see through you, now." The prince was smirking darkly at his father. "You're the selfish one. The only reason you want me to get married is so you can show me off, like some sort of accomplishment! You want to show everyone that the prince isn't useless after all!"

"Where are you getting these ideas? That's not true!"

"Stop lying to me!"

"I'm not!"

"Then tell me the truth!"

There was a painfully long pause as father and son faced each other in the hallway. Antonio was at a loss for words, too tired to continue arguing fruitlessly, while Gilbert was slowly burning through all his seething anger that had built up over the past few months. It seemed like any words the king uttered at that point would be ignored and disintegrate in the prince's rage.

The long stretch of silence forced Gilbert to assume he was right about his accusations, and he barely heard a weak reply from his father as he turned and headed off to his bedroom, his jaw clenched so tight he thought his teeth would crack.