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Description
Title: Snippets of Childhood
Main Characters: Ursule, Floatsam, Jetsam, and Ariel
Setting: Several years before Little Merman. Before 'Royal Babysitter'.

There was a tense noise, a faint wave that came from his door, and Ursule knew his father had left. The winding net of weeds and decaying flesh would have sealed the entrance. His father tended to do that more and more lately. Ursule had assumed it was to keep people from breaking in (Atlantica had a much larger community than Deep Abyss... or maybe it was that he could make them all out in the light?), but since just a few days ago, Ursule had to wonder if it wasn't meant to keep people from going out.

He stayed motionless in the corner of his cramped room for a while, waiting to hear any sounds that might indicate his father was coming back. There was no stir in the water from magic, though, and no sickening slurping sound from the "door" that signaled it opening.

Ursule swallowed hard, and drifted carefully out of his room, into the dark hallway.

Their whole home was dark all day, of course. There were no windows, and the only source of light came from small globes of light along specific points on the wall. Ursule could still recall how much his eyes stung the first day at school in Atlantica. He was simply not used to bright places yet, so instead of feeling frightened by the long passageway before him, he was soothed. This was home.

A small sound, something between a moan and a wheeze, drifted from the end of the hallway.

Yes, this was home, no matter how disturbing it had become.

He floated in the hallway for a few seconds (couldn't have been more than a minute or two, right?), taking deep breaths to brace himself. His hands closed a bit more tightly around the piece of food he'd kept from dinner, and he nodded to himself.

He wasn't really sure what eels ate, but he hoped they wouldn't mind some of his lobster.

Nimble tentacles pushed the albino-looking boy forward, and he decided to ignore how his pace grew slower and slower the more he approached the door at the end of the hallway. He brushed past the tightly-knit weeds, glad he knew enough basic magic to get them back in place. He didn't want his father upset with him again, no. He'd been very careful about his peeking around since that day.

The water seemed a bit thicker in this room, even when his father had water-refreshing runes on the walls. It wasn't a pleasant feeling (the thickness and the constant magic), but Ursule much preferred it to the eerie study on the lowest floor of their home. He couldn't say the 'guests' in the room felt the same way.

"Hi," he murmured into the darkness. The lights were even dimmer in this room, but it was good enough for his eyes. He could see the cage at the end of the storage room perfectly well. Unfortunately, that meant he could also make out the deadly glares from the occupants.

There was no reply from either of them. But then again, there never was.

At least, Ursule reminded himself as he bravely began wading forward, they had not yet begun the spark-show. That was encouraging, wasn't it?

"I brought some food," he offered coyly, coming to a stop a couple feet away from the cage. Its inhabitants were curled up on the opposite side. They were clumsy while moving, not yet used to... to their situation... But they hadn't hesitated about twisting quickly and launching themselves against the bars to try and shock him. In fact, Ursule recalled with a small grimace, they already had. Thrice. His fourth and fifth tentacles still twitched funny every so often, and the stinging in his right arm had disappeared just yesterday. It was hard to keep his pains hidden from his father, but since the man didn't pay much attention to him these days, he managed.

"It's... It's lobster," he added lamely into the silence. Keeping close to the floor, he neared the cage some more. Watchful eyes on the twins inside the cage, he edged closer and closer, until he was right against the bars, and then slipped his arms through the bent metal, holding up the offered food.

This was how he'd gotten shocked twice. The first time, he'd come without an offering, he'd tried to give them some home remedies to their ailments, and hadn't been well-received. He had seen the black scraps of something that his father fed the eels, and thought food would be better, but they didn't seem to appreciate that either. He really hoped it would work this time.

It was a whole minute and half in silence, none of them moving an inch, before one of them advanced.

The one that approached was the one missing his right eye – Floatsam, as Ursule had taken to calling him in his mind. Because he was the one who approached more slowly, floating. He had tricked Ursule into thinking his offer was welcome, then shocked him. He approached just as slowly this time, his one eye trained on Ursule at all times.

When he was close enough to reach the food, Ursule had to fight very hard against the urge to close his eyes and jerk away. And he couldn't stop a flinch when the boy's face moved closer to his hands. His movements were weird, unnatural. The handicapped eel miscalculated his weight, and ended with his cheek against the cage. Ursule bit his lip, and carefully kept from commenting. He just held his hands in place, and after a few moments Floatsam leaned in.

And right when he thought Floatsam was going to try and bite his finger off, the twin slowly took a piece of the offered lobster into his mouth, and chewed.

Feeling shocked, Ursule looked up at the other twin, still at the end of the cage. He felt his chest fill with hope when the missing-his-left-eye twin gave him a wary nod of acknowledgement – they were finally giving him a chance!

Floatsam gave him a small shock a few seconds later, but Ursule thought it was his own fault for giving that small cry of triumph and moving his hands so suddenly. So he didn't hold it against him.

- Break -

It actually took him a month to realize, but Ursule finally understood that the twins were not giving him the cold shoulder.

They couldn't talk.

"This is weird," he mused out loud, as he slipped the plate of food through the bars and placed it on the ground. Lately, he'd been thinking out loud a lot. Maybe it had something to do with hanging around mute twins, but he liked to fill at least some of the silence with friendly chat. They certainly didn't seem to mind anymore. "Are you sure he's not been coming?" he asked again.

For what seemed to be the hundredth time that day, or so the expression in Jetsam's face told him, a head was shaken no. Ursule gave a defensive shrug at the curt shake of the head, but couldn't get the matter out of his head.

"I – I just think it's weird! I mean, I don't want him... d-doing... doing anything to you guys. It's just, he usually doesn't drop something so quickly."

Though, to be sincere, he didn't know what else the man could do to them. He'd taken both their arms, and an eye. Ursule knew that he'd come to check on them every few nights, too. But he didn't seem to be doing anything else to them. If anything, from what the twins managed to get through to him, he just tried to get them to swim properly, instead of flapping around numbly like they usually did. They were getting better, but it would still be a while until they got the hang of it.

Jetsam picked at the food thoughtfully with his tongue, and Floatsam chewed slowly on his own piece. Ursule had tried to feed them by hand when they warmed up to him, but they didn't seem to like being babied, so he just left the plate on the floor and allowed them to do as they pleased.

That was really brave of them, Ursule thought, holding one of his tentacles tightly against his chest. He didn't know what he'd do if he was armless. He didn't think he'd try to feed himself.

"I almost got the unlocking spell down," he offered after a few minutes of uneasy silence.

It would be hell for him if his dad found out (and he would), but Ursule had decided he would free Floatsam and Jetsam. Although he could barely understand what he was doing, he'd been practicing magic more and more lately. A small blotch of red had begun showing just below his belly, and he knew that getting more markings meant he was getting better at magic, so surely he was getting somewhere! He'd have the unlocking spell in no time, and then he'd be able to open both the cage and the main door of the house.

He wasn't too sure about how far the twins could get on their own, seeing as they couldn't even swim straight, but he preferred not to think about it. He'd already thought he could go with them, abandon home, but the idea was sincerely frightening. He was too young, they were too young. Where would they even go? His young mind would soon close up when thinking of these things.

He felt a small nudge, and turned towards the cage. Floatsam had rubbed his cheek lightly against the tentacle Ursule had wrapped around one of the bars, a gesture Ursule thought was a 'thank you'.

"I'll get you guys out soon," he promised, sinking against the bars.

His father wouldn't be home for an hour more, at least. It probably wasn't wise to remain here longer than absolutely necessary, but it didn't feel right to leave the twins all alone. Every time he thought about them alone, surrounded by darkness, maimed, and with only Belial's visits to look forward to, he felt as though a heavy stone had replaced his stomach. The guilt he felt was horrible, but it would all be fine once he released them, right? They would be free, and he'd be punished, and it would all be okay again.

It'll be okay, he promised himself, hugging himself tightly and watching the entrance to the storage room compulsively. He didn't catch the odd look passing between the twins behind him.

- Break –

"Freeze!"

"Seize him!"

"Give up now, Leviathan!"

Ursule's eyes were wide and panicked as he fumbled with the lock of the cage. His fingers were clumsy, and he could barely concentrate over the sound of metal and stone hitting each other. There was also screaming – such loud, pained screaming --, which made his task much more difficult. From the constant ripples in the water, his father was pulling magic into the battle. It occurred to Ursule that maybe that was the reason his own spell wasn't working.

"Come on," he whimpered, his voice a pitch higher than normal, his eyes stinging with tears that dissolved as soon as they formed, as he tried for what seemed to be the tenth time to open the cage. "Come on, come on."

He was downright sobbing now, the fingers holding the lock shaking so bad that said lock rattled against the cage. A particularly strong ripple of magic had him hugging the edge of the cage tightly, eyes clenched shut, the magic reverberating in his body. The sounds outside of the storage room raged on, and a frantic Ursule let out a strangled cry of despair.

He was useless! Useless, completely useless. He'd been training for months, months, and he couldn't even undo a stupid lock! The cave-like room trembled around them, and chips from the ceiling floated slowly towards the floor. Ursule didn't dare look up, scared of seeing the cracks he knew would be appearing along the stone.

"I'm sorry," he chocked, gathering enough valor to look at the eels inside the cage, their wide, dark green eyes fixed on his face. They didn't look nearly as frightened as Ursule, but they had always been much braver than he. He'd promised them so many times, he'd promised he'd release them, but now they all would die here. Crushed beneath the ceiling, or maybe killed by a backslash of his own magic resonating against his dad's. Either would probably be a better end than waiting for his father or his attackers to come and find them. They would be tortured, wouldn't they? And they would cut Ursule's arms, too, and who knew what else they might do to the twins.

"Hey, there's someone in here!"

His head turned so fast his neck ached, and all eight tentacles wrapped tightly around the bars of the cage as a dark silhouette (the lights had gone out when the first waves of magic came) approached. Ursule could make out a sharp, pointed something held tightly in his hand, and through the increased stinging in his eyes and trembling lips, he cried,

"Stay away!" the shrill cry must have surprised the attacker, because he stopped momentarily. He wasn't an octopus, so at least it wasn't Ursule's father. "You can't touch them! Stay away!" he repeated, his small hands clenched even more tightly around the bars. He had failed them with the spell already, and he wasn't about to fail them in this too. He would punch, bite, yell, or, Poseidon help him, strangle if he had to. He'd make sure they weren't harmed again, ever.

The figure was advancing again, muttering soft nonsense that Ursule didn't bother listening to, the sound of his own voice much louder. A second figure came in, and Ursule braced himself as one of them reached out.

Firm hands wrapped around his belly, and gently began to pull him back. It only made Ursule hold on more tightly, though, and scream his throat out about how they would never get their hands on Floatsam and Jetsam. Another pair of hands reached his tentacles, and one by one began unwinding them from the bars. Ursule feared they would actually get him away, as the grip of his hands was already slipping.

There was a sharp intake of breath, some muted swearing, and suddenly Ursule's tentacles were free. He wrapped them around the bars once more, and was able to see one of the attackers cradling his hand to his chest, and Jetsam's bared teeth close to where the hand had been on Ursule's tentacle. There were bits of light filling the room, from the small sparks both eels were now sending, but neither was actually discharging electricity yet.

Suddenly understanding that they weren't stunning their foes because Ursule was too close not to harm him, his resolve became steel.

It was at least half an hour before an exhausted Ursule was pried away from the cage, with a hoarse throat from the screaming, and two more of the intruders having arrived. One of the intruders used a sharp spear to break down the lock of the twins' cage, bringing them out.

"N-no, leave them..." Ursule whimpered, small fists hitting the arms of the man holding him. "They didn't... didn't do anything. Please leave them..."

"Shhh. Calm down already, little guy. We're taking you somewhere safe," the attacker was saying, although Ursule didn't believe a word he said, and attempted to get a bite of his fingers. Ursule sobbed and whimpered, his mind growing hazy. The water was still full of so much magic, and he'd exhausted himself so much. The dark figures before him were growing darker, as were the corners of his vision.

"F-floatsam... Jetsam..." he murmured, his struggles growing weaker, but he didn't let his eyes close.

- Break -

The soldiers that went to the Wizard Belial's home that day would always remember the wild struggle that Leviathan's son fought to protect his father's experiments.

Those that carried the three mentally scarred children to the castle would confirm that the young wizard boy had only calmed down when his semi-unconscious form was allowed to hold tightly to the tips of the two maimed eels' tails. After that, he fell asleep most peacefully.

- Break -

Ursule scratched nervously at the herbal patch on his cheek, and gave a weak noise of protest when his hand was slapped away by a sharp tail. Jetsam gave him that stern look he always gave him when he thought he'd said something stupid, and Ursule didn't try to scratch the patch again. He still wasn't sure if Jetsam was taking revenge on the fact he couldn't scratch at the two larger patches on his chest, or he simply didn't want Ursule to undo the medicinal work done on him. But that was just silly.

They'd been in this room for two days straight, though he had slept through the first one. Magical exhaustion was like that. But he'd woken up to find the marking under his belly had stretched, so he supposed magical strain had its uses if you survived it.

The other day had been spent eating food a nice lady in a white coat offered, letting another similarly-dressed lady patch up a few scratches and cuts they had gotten back in the cave, and answering questions for who Ursule now recognized as soldiers.

"Its too bright in here," Ursule complained quietly to the twins, and didn't flinch when Floatsam cuddled a bit closed to him. Jetsam did the same after a moment's consideration, and Ursule wondered why he had not simply rolled his eyes, like he would have expected him to. But he wasn't going to complain.

The room was a long rectangle, and there were no windows, but there were bright globes of light not unlike the ones at his home all along the ceiling. Too many, and too bright, and who had decided that the low beds had to have light colors? The light bounced off them and hurt Ursule's eyes, and he'd taken the bed on the darkest corner of the room, but it didn't help.

Floatsam and Jetsam stuck to this bed too, even when there were others just as nice, and Ursule thought maybe their eyes had grown too used to darkness, too. That was why they would stick to him and bury their faces against his flanks sometimes.

From the moment he'd woken up, he'd noticed the twins were in a much better mood. They didn't smile or anything, because how could they smile when they didn't even know where they were. But they were more touchy, and they didn't mind when Ursule accidentally wrapped his tentacles around their tails. It was a nervous habit, to cling to anything nearby, but they didn't' pull away once.

Maybe they weren't mad he was poop with the unlocking spell, then.

His eyelids had begun to drop when he heard the soft cough above him. Blinking drowsiness away, he glanced up at the guard standing by the bed with a frown. He didn't mind being woken up, but the twins were another story, because they were glaring daggers up at the guard as they shifted clumsily closer to Ursule.

"Hey there." It was Guard Ervin, the friendly one. He always had a smile on his lips, as though they were friends. But he was better than Guard Mortimer, who always scowled and made the twins shoot sparks of annoyance when he scoffed their way. "How are your wounds doing?"

"They're just scratches..." Ursule muttered, averting his eyes as he tried very hard not to scratch at the herbal patches again. "Where's... where's my dad?"

The water seemed to get thicker with tension, and Ursule regretted the question when he felt the twins rub against him in what he thought was a reproachful gesture. Sure enough, when he looked at them, they were frowning. They didn't really look mad, but it made Ursule look away again, back to the guard. He wore the same expression as the eels.

He was silent for a while, but when he finally spoke, his voice wasn't angry, just tight – guarded.

"Your Father has been taken to prison," he said slowly. "You... will not see him in a very long time."

Ursule stared.

"How long?" he ventured, and the guard grimaced.

"I'm not sure, kid. He's awaiting trial. But you don't need to worry about that. We'll take care of you, here in the castle. You have nothing to worry about."

"He's not coming back, is he?"

The guard was definitely looking strained now, but after a moment of hesitation, he shook his head. "No, kid. I don't think he'll come back."

The guard nearly crumbled when the child's eyes filled with tears. He'd known it was a horrible thing to say, specially to someone so young. But he didn't want to lie, and just having seen the things the madman kept in the basement... Leviathan would be getting a death sentence.

Ursule didn't notice the shame showing in the guard's face, not when he was burying his face in his hands. He didn't notice him reach out hesitatingly to try to rub comforting circles in his back, nor how he paused halfway and just left.

But he did notice the two warm bodies pressing against his flanks, and he clung to them fiercely with both arms and tentacles. And then he cried. He cried like he'd done the night he'd first seen the twins, only his tears weren't of pure horror and despair.

He wasn't sure why: he knew it was wrong, to feel this way about his father being taken away. He knew he should have maybe asked to see him. But all he could think of right then was that the man wasn't coming back. He wasn't coming to experiment more on the twins, wasn't coming to beat him for all the little things he'd done without his permission. He wasn't ever going to do what he'd done to the twins to anyone else.

So Ursule wept, and gasped, and cried his little heart out as he held on to Floatsam and Jetsam.

His father wasn't coming back. And it was a relief.

- Break -

"You're doing it!"

His loud voice carried well down the wide hallway, and he flitted backwards while the two nimble shapes cut across the water behind him. He couldn't help the grin spreading his lips, watching them go. By this point, all servants had seen or heard of them, but they still got many stares wherever they went. With the twins' way of moving, he wasn't sure he could blame them.

After all, it really was something to watch them twist their bodies in such fluid motions, navigating around the water without need of their arms. It was true that many adults didn't need their arms to swim, keeping them still by their sides, but they were still a very important pivot, specially in youth. To see the two boys adapting so well was amazing. Ursule was now certain that they hadn't mastered swimming before because of the reduced space of the cage they had been in.

They stopped practice to rest against a wall, bringing out the lunch a nice blonde lady had given them that morning. While they were welcome in the dining hall and the kitchens because they were in the first floor (and they weren't allowed on any floor but that one), Ursule preferred to avoid the stares and patronizing tones.

"Here you go," Ursule held out one of the scallop and oyster sea-lettuce wraps, letting Floatsam get a firm bite before holding out the other to Jetsam.

He was just settling down to take a bite of his own, when a pair of hands swooped down and took it from his hands.

"Gimme a bite."

"Hey!" he cried, glaring up at the offender.

The merman looked anything but repentant as he took a healthy bite off Ursule's wrap, tail swaying playfully to stay out of reach of the octopus. His hair was disheveled – REALLY disheveled. One side was cut prim and short, while the other reached mid-neck and was messy as could be. He had the prettiest blue eyes Ursule had ever seen, though.

"Calm your webbings," he spoke after swallowing the mouthful of seafood, cleaning the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "You know, I can--"

"There he is! Please come back, your highness!"

"Oops," the boy scratched his head awkwardly, and flashed a grin to the baffled kids watching him. "Got to go. Bye. Thanks for the wrap!"

And just like that, he was off, taking Ursule's lunch away. Two servants speed up in his trail, calling out for him to slow down and come back.

"Y-you said a bite!" he shrieked uselessly after the boy. He was grumpy as he accepted a few bites off the twins' wraps, and hoped he wouldn't have to see the boy again.

- Break -

"Hey!"

Ursule tensed. He knew that voice. Last time he'd heard it, he had been left without lunch. He turned carefully, and felt the twins twist to float before him.

It had taken a bit to accept the idea, but Ursule had caught up to the fact that they were kind of protecting him. They would get mad if Ursule was scolded, and they wouldn't leave his side, and they were a lot more touchy-touchy with him: they even let him feed them by hand sometimes. It was very weird, specially since Ursule thought they should be swimming off and away from him. But he still wasn't comfortable in the castle, and he was being selfish: he didn't want them to leave.

Their protective streak was showing now, as they lurked and threw sparks and just glared at the boy, who raised his hands in a placating gesture, but still glared back.

The first thing he noticed was that the boy's hair was no longer disheveled: it was all in a clean short cut, now.

"Hey, watch it. I'm the Prince, if you try to hurt me, I'm getting you all kicked out of here." Ursule was still trying to decide if this was a bluff when the boy pulled on a small satchel by his hip, digging around it with a hand. "Besides, I come bearing gifts!"

He extracted two very weird things from the bag: they were round and red, and Ursule had never seen anything like them before. But he caught the rounded thing when it was tossed to him, and examined the smooth skin with curiosity.

"The ambassador called it an 'apple'," the boy offered. "Comes from the mainland. Funny thing, isn't it? But its supposed to taste sweet, and they brought them for me, but I guess you can have some, too." Then he bit down on the apple, watching them as he chewed. "I'm Ariel, by the way. But you can't call me that – call me Prince Ariel, or just Prince. Or Your Highness. Or my Prince. Or Mr. Awesome. Whatever's easier for you, Big Head."

Ursule's cheeks flustered at the familiar insult.

"I'm Ursule! Ursule!" he snapped, and tried to cover his embarrassment by biting down on the apple. It was quite firm, but not like bone, and he was surprised by the sweet taste that filled his mouth. It was unlike anything he'd tasted before, and he was quick to share with the twins, who were more careful when taking bites.

"Big Head," Ariel corrected. "So, I hear you're a wizard?" he continued. "My dad says your dad is a bad guy, and everyone should keep an eye on you. Are you really dangerous or something like that?"

Dangerous? Ursule? He'd say the twins were dangerous, if anyone asked him. Their electric shocks hurt quite a bit. But Ursule? Ursule couldn't even do simple magic... Though, he now could do the unlocking spell.

"I don't think I am," he mumbled. The prince laughed, but it was more amused than mocking, so Ursule didn't mind.

"Yeah. Mum said the guards said you didn't look very threatening, too." Swiftly, he moved to float next to them, offering some of his apple to one of the twins, who still watched warily. He shrugged and took a small bite, talking through it. "So come on, I'll show you a few really swell places around the castle, ok? At Even outside the first floor. Because you can't leave the first floor, I heard, but I'm the Prince, so its okay if you're with me."

"Ehhh... Won't your dad be angry if you hang out with us?" When his dad disliked someone, Ursule was meant to stay away from them.

"I'm hanging out with you because it will make him angry." And his tone was entirely too cheerful about it. "He's been ignoring Mum for weeks. Maybe this will get his attention. Besides," he looked back, and there was a cheeky grin in his lips that made Ursule feel oddly comfortable. "fathers are very overrated."

Ursule glanced from Floatsam to Jetsam, but while they didn't look all that happy with the Prince, they didn't seem as cautious as before. Ursule smiled slowly, and turned towards the prince.

"I guess they are."

Description
Title: Snippets of Childhood
Main Characters: Ursule, Floatsam, Jetsam, and Ariel
Setting: Several years before Little Merman. Before 'Royal Babysitter'.

There was a tense noise, a faint wave that came from his door, and Ursule knew his father had left. The winding net of weeds and decaying flesh would have sealed the entrance. His father tended to do that more and more lately. Ursule had assumed it was to keep people from breaking in (Atlantica had a much larger community than Deep Abyss... or maybe it was that he could make them all out in the light?), but since just a few days ago, Ursule had to wonder if it wasn't meant to keep people from going out.

He stayed motionless in the corner of his cramped room for a while, waiting to hear any sounds that might indicate his father was coming back. There was no stir in the water from magic, though, and no sickening slurping sound from the "door" that signaled it opening.

Ursule swallowed hard, and drifted carefully out of his room, into the dark hallway.

Their whole home was dark all day, of course. There were no windows, and the only source of light came from small globes of light along specific points on the wall. Ursule could still recall how much his eyes stung the first day at school in Atlantica. He was simply not used to bright places yet, so instead of feeling frightened by the long passageway before him, he was soothed. This was home.

A small sound, something between a moan and a wheeze, drifted from the end of the hallway.

Yes, this was home, no matter how disturbing it had become.

He floated in the hallway for a few seconds (couldn't have been more than a minute or two, right?), taking deep breaths to brace himself. His hands closed a bit more tightly around the piece of food he'd kept from dinner, and he nodded to himself.

He wasn't really sure what eels ate, but he hoped they wouldn't mind some of his lobster.

Nimble tentacles pushed the albino-looking boy forward, and he decided to ignore how his pace grew slower and slower the more he approached the door at the end of the hallway. He brushed past the tightly-knit weeds, glad he knew enough basic magic to get them back in place. He didn't want his father upset with him again, no. He'd been very careful about his peeking around since that day.

The water seemed a bit thicker in this room, even when his father had water-refreshing runes on the walls. It wasn't a pleasant feeling (the thickness and the constant magic), but Ursule much preferred it to the eerie study on the lowest floor of their home. He couldn't say the 'guests' in the room felt the same way.

"Hi," he murmured into the darkness. The lights were even dimmer in this room, but it was good enough for his eyes. He could see the cage at the end of the storage room perfectly well. Unfortunately, that meant he could also make out the deadly glares from the occupants.

There was no reply from either of them. But then again, there never was.

At least, Ursule reminded himself as he bravely began wading forward, they had not yet begun the spark-show. That was encouraging, wasn't it?

"I brought some food," he offered coyly, coming to a stop a couple feet away from the cage. Its inhabitants were curled up on the opposite side. They were clumsy while moving, not yet used to... to their situation... But they hadn't hesitated about twisting quickly and launching themselves against the bars to try and shock him. In fact, Ursule recalled with a small grimace, they already had. Thrice. His fourth and fifth tentacles still twitched funny every so often, and the stinging in his right arm had disappeared just yesterday. It was hard to keep his pains hidden from his father, but since the man didn't pay much attention to him these days, he managed.

"It's... It's lobster," he added lamely into the silence. Keeping close to the floor, he neared the cage some more. Watchful eyes on the twins inside the cage, he edged closer and closer, until he was right against the bars, and then slipped his arms through the bent metal, holding up the offered food.

This was how he'd gotten shocked twice. The first time, he'd come without an offering, he'd tried to give them some home remedies to their ailments, and hadn't been well-received. He had seen the black scraps of something that his father fed the eels, and thought food would be better, but they didn't seem to appreciate that either. He really hoped it would work this time.

It was a whole minute and half in silence, none of them moving an inch, before one of them advanced.

The one that approached was the one missing his right eye – Floatsam, as Ursule had taken to calling him in his mind. Because he was the one who approached more slowly, floating. He had tricked Ursule into thinking his offer was welcome, then shocked him. He approached just as slowly this time, his one eye trained on Ursule at all times.

When he was close enough to reach the food, Ursule had to fight very hard against the urge to close his eyes and jerk away. And he couldn't stop a flinch when the boy's face moved closer to his hands. His movements were weird, unnatural. The handicapped eel miscalculated his weight, and ended with his cheek against the cage. Ursule bit his lip, and carefully kept from commenting. He just held his hands in place, and after a few moments Floatsam leaned in.

And right when he thought Floatsam was going to try and bite his finger off, the twin slowly took a piece of the offered lobster into his mouth, and chewed.

Feeling shocked, Ursule looked up at the other twin, still at the end of the cage. He felt his chest fill with hope when the missing-his-left-eye twin gave him a wary nod of acknowledgement – they were finally giving him a chance!

Floatsam gave him a small shock a few seconds later, but Ursule thought it was his own fault for giving that small cry of triumph and moving his hands so suddenly. So he didn't hold it against him.

- Break -

It actually took him a month to realize, but Ursule finally understood that the twins were not giving him the cold shoulder.

They couldn't talk.

"This is weird," he mused out loud, as he slipped the plate of food through the bars and placed it on the ground. Lately, he'd been thinking out loud a lot. Maybe it had something to do with hanging around mute twins, but he liked to fill at least some of the silence with friendly chat. They certainly didn't seem to mind anymore. "Are you sure he's not been coming?" he asked again.

For what seemed to be the hundredth time that day, or so the expression in Jetsam's face told him, a head was shaken no. Ursule gave a defensive shrug at the curt shake of the head, but couldn't get the matter out of his head.

"I – I just think it's weird! I mean, I don't want him... d-doing... doing anything to you guys. It's just, he usually doesn't drop something so quickly."

Though, to be sincere, he didn't know what else the man could do to them. He'd taken both their arms, and an eye. Ursule knew that he'd come to check on them every few nights, too. But he didn't seem to be doing anything else to them. If anything, from what the twins managed to get through to him, he just tried to get them to swim properly, instead of flapping around numbly like they usually did. They were getting better, but it would still be a while until they got the hang of it.

Jetsam picked at the food thoughtfully with his tongue, and Floatsam chewed slowly on his own piece. Ursule had tried to feed them by hand when they warmed up to him, but they didn't seem to like being babied, so he just left the plate on the floor and allowed them to do as they pleased.

That was really brave of them, Ursule thought, holding one of his tentacles tightly against his chest. He didn't know what he'd do if he was armless. He didn't think he'd try to feed himself.

"I almost got the unlocking spell down," he offered after a few minutes of uneasy silence.

It would be hell for him if his dad found out (and he would), but Ursule had decided he would free Floatsam and Jetsam. Although he could barely understand what he was doing, he'd been practicing magic more and more lately. A small blotch of red had begun showing just below his belly, and he knew that getting more markings meant he was getting better at magic, so surely he was getting somewhere! He'd have the unlocking spell in no time, and then he'd be able to open both the cage and the main door of the house.

He wasn't too sure about how far the twins could get on their own, seeing as they couldn't even swim straight, but he preferred not to think about it. He'd already thought he could go with them, abandon home, but the idea was sincerely frightening. He was too young, they were too young. Where would they even go? His young mind would soon close up when thinking of these things.

He felt a small nudge, and turned towards the cage. Floatsam had rubbed his cheek lightly against the tentacle Ursule had wrapped around one of the bars, a gesture Ursule thought was a 'thank you'.

"I'll get you guys out soon," he promised, sinking against the bars.

His father wouldn't be home for an hour more, at least. It probably wasn't wise to remain here longer than absolutely necessary, but it didn't feel right to leave the twins all alone. Every time he thought about them alone, surrounded by darkness, maimed, and with only Belial's visits to look forward to, he felt as though a heavy stone had replaced his stomach. The guilt he felt was horrible, but it would all be fine once he released them, right? They would be free, and he'd be punished, and it would all be okay again.

It'll be okay, he promised himself, hugging himself tightly and watching the entrance to the storage room compulsively. He didn't catch the odd look passing between the twins behind him.

- Break –

"Freeze!"

"Seize him!"

"Give up now, Leviathan!"

Ursule's eyes were wide and panicked as he fumbled with the lock of the cage. His fingers were clumsy, and he could barely concentrate over the sound of metal and stone hitting each other. There was also screaming – such loud, pained screaming --, which made his task much more difficult. From the constant ripples in the water, his father was pulling magic into the battle. It occurred to Ursule that maybe that was the reason his own spell wasn't working.

"Come on," he whimpered, his voice a pitch higher than normal, his eyes stinging with tears that dissolved as soon as they formed, as he tried for what seemed to be the tenth time to open the cage. "Come on, come on."

He was downright sobbing now, the fingers holding the lock shaking so bad that said lock rattled against the cage. A particularly strong ripple of magic had him hugging the edge of the cage tightly, eyes clenched shut, the magic reverberating in his body. The sounds outside of the storage room raged on, and a frantic Ursule let out a strangled cry of despair.

He was useless! Useless, completely useless. He'd been training for months, months, and he couldn't even undo a stupid lock! The cave-like room trembled around them, and chips from the ceiling floated slowly towards the floor. Ursule didn't dare look up, scared of seeing the cracks he knew would be appearing along the stone.

"I'm sorry," he chocked, gathering enough valor to look at the eels inside the cage, their wide, dark green eyes fixed on his face. They didn't look nearly as frightened as Ursule, but they had always been much braver than he. He'd promised them so many times, he'd promised he'd release them, but now they all would die here. Crushed beneath the ceiling, or maybe killed by a backslash of his own magic resonating against his dad's. Either would probably be a better end than waiting for his father or his attackers to come and find them. They would be tortured, wouldn't they? And they would cut Ursule's arms, too, and who knew what else they might do to the twins.

"Hey, there's someone in here!"

His head turned so fast his neck ached, and all eight tentacles wrapped tightly around the bars of the cage as a dark silhouette (the lights had gone out when the first waves of magic came) approached. Ursule could make out a sharp, pointed something held tightly in his hand, and through the increased stinging in his eyes and trembling lips, he cried,

"Stay away!" the shrill cry must have surprised the attacker, because he stopped momentarily. He wasn't an octopus, so at least it wasn't Ursule's father. "You can't touch them! Stay away!" he repeated, his small hands clenched even more tightly around the bars. He had failed them with the spell already, and he wasn't about to fail them in this too. He would punch, bite, yell, or, Poseidon help him, strangle if he had to. He'd make sure they weren't harmed again, ever.

The figure was advancing again, muttering soft nonsense that Ursule didn't bother listening to, the sound of his own voice much louder. A second figure came in, and Ursule braced himself as one of them reached out.

Firm hands wrapped around his belly, and gently began to pull him back. It only made Ursule hold on more tightly, though, and scream his throat out about how they would never get their hands on Floatsam and Jetsam. Another pair of hands reached his tentacles, and one by one began unwinding them from the bars. Ursule feared they would actually get him away, as the grip of his hands was already slipping.

There was a sharp intake of breath, some muted swearing, and suddenly Ursule's tentacles were free. He wrapped them around the bars once more, and was able to see one of the attackers cradling his hand to his chest, and Jetsam's bared teeth close to where the hand had been on Ursule's tentacle. There were bits of light filling the room, from the small sparks both eels were now sending, but neither was actually discharging electricity yet.

Suddenly understanding that they weren't stunning their foes because Ursule was too close not to harm him, his resolve became steel.

It was at least half an hour before an exhausted Ursule was pried away from the cage, with a hoarse throat from the screaming, and two more of the intruders having arrived. One of the intruders used a sharp spear to break down the lock of the twins' cage, bringing them out.

"N-no, leave them..." Ursule whimpered, small fists hitting the arms of the man holding him. "They didn't... didn't do anything. Please leave them..."

"Shhh. Calm down already, little guy. We're taking you somewhere safe," the attacker was saying, although Ursule didn't believe a word he said, and attempted to get a bite of his fingers. Ursule sobbed and whimpered, his mind growing hazy. The water was still full of so much magic, and he'd exhausted himself so much. The dark figures before him were growing darker, as were the corners of his vision.

"F-floatsam... Jetsam..." he murmured, his struggles growing weaker, but he didn't let his eyes close.

- Break -

The soldiers that went to the Wizard Belial's home that day would always remember the wild struggle that Leviathan's son fought to protect his father's experiments.

Those that carried the three mentally scarred children to the castle would confirm that the young wizard boy had only calmed down when his semi-unconscious form was allowed to hold tightly to the tips of the two maimed eels' tails. After that, he fell asleep most peacefully.

- Break -

Ursule scratched nervously at the herbal patch on his cheek, and gave a weak noise of protest when his hand was slapped away by a sharp tail. Jetsam gave him that stern look he always gave him when he thought he'd said something stupid, and Ursule didn't try to scratch the patch again. He still wasn't sure if Jetsam was taking revenge on the fact he couldn't scratch at the two larger patches on his chest, or he simply didn't want Ursule to undo the medicinal work done on him. But that was just silly.

They'd been in this room for two days straight, though he had slept through the first one. Magical exhaustion was like that. But he'd woken up to find the marking under his belly had stretched, so he supposed magical strain had its uses if you survived it.

The other day had been spent eating food a nice lady in a white coat offered, letting another similarly-dressed lady patch up a few scratches and cuts they had gotten back in the cave, and answering questions for who Ursule now recognized as soldiers.

"Its too bright in here," Ursule complained quietly to the twins, and didn't flinch when Floatsam cuddled a bit closed to him. Jetsam did the same after a moment's consideration, and Ursule wondered why he had not simply rolled his eyes, like he would have expected him to. But he wasn't going to complain.

The room was a long rectangle, and there were no windows, but there were bright globes of light not unlike the ones at his home all along the ceiling. Too many, and too bright, and who had decided that the low beds had to have light colors? The light bounced off them and hurt Ursule's eyes, and he'd taken the bed on the darkest corner of the room, but it didn't help.

Floatsam and Jetsam stuck to this bed too, even when there were others just as nice, and Ursule thought maybe their eyes had grown too used to darkness, too. That was why they would stick to him and bury their faces against his flanks sometimes.

From the moment he'd woken up, he'd noticed the twins were in a much better mood. They didn't smile or anything, because how could they smile when they didn't even know where they were. But they were more touchy, and they didn't mind when Ursule accidentally wrapped his tentacles around their tails. It was a nervous habit, to cling to anything nearby, but they didn't' pull away once.

Maybe they weren't mad he was poop with the unlocking spell, then.

His eyelids had begun to drop when he heard the soft cough above him. Blinking drowsiness away, he glanced up at the guard standing by the bed with a frown. He didn't mind being woken up, but the twins were another story, because they were glaring daggers up at the guard as they shifted clumsily closer to Ursule.

"Hey there." It was Guard Ervin, the friendly one. He always had a smile on his lips, as though they were friends. But he was better than Guard Mortimer, who always scowled and made the twins shoot sparks of annoyance when he scoffed their way. "How are your wounds doing?"

"They're just scratches..." Ursule muttered, averting his eyes as he tried very hard not to scratch at the herbal patches again. "Where's... where's my dad?"

The water seemed to get thicker with tension, and Ursule regretted the question when he felt the twins rub against him in what he thought was a reproachful gesture. Sure enough, when he looked at them, they were frowning. They didn't really look mad, but it made Ursule look away again, back to the guard. He wore the same expression as the eels.

He was silent for a while, but when he finally spoke, his voice wasn't angry, just tight – guarded.

"Your Father has been taken to prison," he said slowly. "You... will not see him in a very long time."

Ursule stared.

"How long?" he ventured, and the guard grimaced.

"I'm not sure, kid. He's awaiting trial. But you don't need to worry about that. We'll take care of you, here in the castle. You have nothing to worry about."

"He's not coming back, is he?"

The guard was definitely looking strained now, but after a moment of hesitation, he shook his head. "No, kid. I don't think he'll come back."

The guard nearly crumbled when the child's eyes filled with tears. He'd known it was a horrible thing to say, specially to someone so young. But he didn't want to lie, and just having seen the things the madman kept in the basement... Leviathan would be getting a death sentence.

Ursule didn't notice the shame showing in the guard's face, not when he was burying his face in his hands. He didn't notice him reach out hesitatingly to try to rub comforting circles in his back, nor how he paused halfway and just left.

But he did notice the two warm bodies pressing against his flanks, and he clung to them fiercely with both arms and tentacles. And then he cried. He cried like he'd done the night he'd first seen the twins, only his tears weren't of pure horror and despair.

He wasn't sure why: he knew it was wrong, to feel this way about his father being taken away. He knew he should have maybe asked to see him. But all he could think of right then was that the man wasn't coming back. He wasn't coming to experiment more on the twins, wasn't coming to beat him for all the little things he'd done without his permission. He wasn't ever going to do what he'd done to the twins to anyone else.

So Ursule wept, and gasped, and cried his little heart out as he held on to Floatsam and Jetsam.

His father wasn't coming back. And it was a relief.

- Break -

"You're doing it!"

His loud voice carried well down the wide hallway, and he flitted backwards while the two nimble shapes cut across the water behind him. He couldn't help the grin spreading his lips, watching them go. By this point, all servants had seen or heard of them, but they still got many stares wherever they went. With the twins' way of moving, he wasn't sure he could blame them.

After all, it really was something to watch them twist their bodies in such fluid motions, navigating around the water without need of their arms. It was true that many adults didn't need their arms to swim, keeping them still by their sides, but they were still a very important pivot, specially in youth. To see the two boys adapting so well was amazing. Ursule was now certain that they hadn't mastered swimming before because of the reduced space of the cage they had been in.

They stopped practice to rest against a wall, bringing out the lunch a nice blonde lady had given them that morning. While they were welcome in the dining hall and the kitchens because they were in the first floor (and they weren't allowed on any floor but that one), Ursule preferred to avoid the stares and patronizing tones.

"Here you go," Ursule held out one of the scallop and oyster sea-lettuce wraps, letting Floatsam get a firm bite before holding out the other to Jetsam.

He was just settling down to take a bite of his own, when a pair of hands swooped down and took it from his hands.

"Gimme a bite."

"Hey!" he cried, glaring up at the offender.

The merman looked anything but repentant as he took a healthy bite off Ursule's wrap, tail swaying playfully to stay out of reach of the octopus. His hair was disheveled – REALLY disheveled. One side was cut prim and short, while the other reached mid-neck and was messy as could be. He had the prettiest blue eyes Ursule had ever seen, though.

"Calm your webbings," he spoke after swallowing the mouthful of seafood, cleaning the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "You know, I can--"

"There he is! Please come back, your highness!"

"Oops," the boy scratched his head awkwardly, and flashed a grin to the baffled kids watching him. "Got to go. Bye. Thanks for the wrap!"

And just like that, he was off, taking Ursule's lunch away. Two servants speed up in his trail, calling out for him to slow down and come back.

"Y-you said a bite!" he shrieked uselessly after the boy. He was grumpy as he accepted a few bites off the twins' wraps, and hoped he wouldn't have to see the boy again.

- Break -

"Hey!"

Ursule tensed. He knew that voice. Last time he'd heard it, he had been left without lunch. He turned carefully, and felt the twins twist to float before him.

It had taken a bit to accept the idea, but Ursule had caught up to the fact that they were kind of protecting him. They would get mad if Ursule was scolded, and they wouldn't leave his side, and they were a lot more touchy-touchy with him: they even let him feed them by hand sometimes. It was very weird, specially since Ursule thought they should be swimming off and away from him. But he still wasn't comfortable in the castle, and he was being selfish: he didn't want them to leave.

Their protective streak was showing now, as they lurked and threw sparks and just glared at the boy, who raised his hands in a placating gesture, but still glared back.

The first thing he noticed was that the boy's hair was no longer disheveled: it was all in a clean short cut, now.

"Hey, watch it. I'm the Prince, if you try to hurt me, I'm getting you all kicked out of here." Ursule was still trying to decide if this was a bluff when the boy pulled on a small satchel by his hip, digging around it with a hand. "Besides, I come bearing gifts!"

He extracted two very weird things from the bag: they were round and red, and Ursule had never seen anything like them before. But he caught the rounded thing when it was tossed to him, and examined the smooth skin with curiosity.

"The ambassador called it an 'apple'," the boy offered. "Comes from the mainland. Funny thing, isn't it? But its supposed to taste sweet, and they brought them for me, but I guess you can have some, too." Then he bit down on the apple, watching them as he chewed. "I'm Ariel, by the way. But you can't call me that – call me Prince Ariel, or just Prince. Or Your Highness. Or my Prince. Or Mr. Awesome. Whatever's easier for you, Big Head."

Ursule's cheeks flustered at the familiar insult.

"I'm Ursule! Ursule!" he snapped, and tried to cover his embarrassment by biting down on the apple. It was quite firm, but not like bone, and he was surprised by the sweet taste that filled his mouth. It was unlike anything he'd tasted before, and he was quick to share with the twins, who were more careful when taking bites.

"Big Head," Ariel corrected. "So, I hear you're a wizard?" he continued. "My dad says your dad is a bad guy, and everyone should keep an eye on you. Are you really dangerous or something like that?"

Dangerous? Ursule? He'd say the twins were dangerous, if anyone asked him. Their electric shocks hurt quite a bit. But Ursule? Ursule couldn't even do simple magic... Though, he now could do the unlocking spell.

"I don't think I am," he mumbled. The prince laughed, but it was more amused than mocking, so Ursule didn't mind.

"Yeah. Mum said the guards said you didn't look very threatening, too." Swiftly, he moved to float next to them, offering some of his apple to one of the twins, who still watched warily. He shrugged and took a small bite, talking through it. "So come on, I'll show you a few really swell places around the castle, ok? At Even outside the first floor. Because you can't leave the first floor, I heard, but I'm the Prince, so its okay if you're with me."

"Ehhh... Won't your dad be angry if you hang out with us?" When his dad disliked someone, Ursule was meant to stay away from them.

"I'm hanging out with you because it will make him angry." And his tone was entirely too cheerful about it. "He's been ignoring Mum for weeks. Maybe this will get his attention. Besides," he looked back, and there was a cheeky grin in his lips that made Ursule feel oddly comfortable. "fathers are very overrated."

Ursule glanced from Floatsam to Jetsam, but while they didn't look all that happy with the Prince, they didn't seem as cautious as before. Ursule smiled slowly, and turned towards the prince.

"I guess they are."