Lukas blundered through the next day, not really paying attention to what was going on around him, moving along like a ghost. He zoned out during his lessons, didn't reply when someone asked him a question, and mostly ignored everyone else. His mind was still whirling with thoughts of yesterday.

The mermaid, he thought to himself a bit wistfully. A creature of legend that had contacted him specifically! He hoped that yesterday hadn't been a dream; he would like to get to talk to her more, get to know more about what she was.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when his teacher smacked him on the head with a bow.

"Concentrate!" He yelled in accented Norse. The man was some renowned musician from the main land. He had been brought up to teach the prince how to play an instrument called a violin. It was a bit of a mystery to Lukas, but he was beginning to get the hang of it. He had listened to the brown-haired man play some really long songs on it, and they sounded nice. Lukas hoped that he would be able to master it soon. This instrument seemed preferable to the other instrument that he was trying to teach him to play, the piano.

He felt like the day would never end. He half-heartedly played the song in front of him, his mind elsewhere.

"No, no, stop. This won't do. You are obviously distracted. You are done for the day. Pack up and come back with a clear head," Mr. Edelstein said with a dismissive wave of the hand.

Lukas smiled, actually smiled, when he said that. Edelstein's eyes widened in shock, he had never seen the prince smile before. He pushed up the frames to his glasses and watched as the young man ran out of the room, footsteps echoing in the hallway. He briefly pondered what had caused it, then pushed the thought away and sat down and started playing the piano.

Lukas ran like the devil was at his heels. He narrowly avoided several collisions with various servants and guests, and full on ran into Emil as he rounded a corner.

"Hei! Watch where your- Brother?!" He exclaimed.

"Hi Emil. Sorry about that. Don't walk and read!" he said as his brother picked up a book.

"Don't run in the castle," he shot back, fingering through the book to find the page he was on. "Why are you running anyways?" he asked.

"Yes. Well. Yeah, because." He frowned slightly. "Yes, because of that. See you later, Emil!"

And he was off running again.

Emil just rolled his eyes and continued walking.

Lukas ran until just before he got to the cove, he bent over and panted for breath, wondering if he would see the mermaid. Once his breathing was back to normal, he could hear the sound of laughter and splashing in the water. The noise drew him in, and he slowly stepped forward

She was out in the water, swimming around on the surface, a dolphin seeming to play around her. The dolphin let out a series of clicks and whistles, motioning towards Lukas. Mathine turned around and waved.

"Hiya Luke!" she called.

"Hei," he responded, walking closer to the edge of the water. The two in the water made their way towards him.

"Luke this is Gunne, short for Gunnar. And Gunne, this is my friend Lukas."

The dolphin, Gunne, clicked and whistled, and if it were possible for a dolphin to do so, it seemed to be glaring at Lukas. He waved slightly and the dolphin jumped up, splashed, and turned tail and swam away. Lukas flinched at the sudden wetness. Mathine just laughed.

"Haha, I'm sorry. Normally he is friendly towards people. I wonder why he did that…" she pondered for a second or two, before shaking her head and smiling brightly. "Anyways, I have known Gunne since he was a baby dolphin. His mother was killed by netters. She got trapped in one and died. I comforted him afterwards, and he has sort of become a personal bodyguard slash best friend to me. I wanted you to meet him."

"Um, right. Okay," he said, sitting in the sand. Mathine shimmied up in the sand, leaving her tail, for the most part, in the water, and her upper body on shore.

She looked rather childish, he thought, hands folded together under her chin, the ever present grin on her face. And pretty. He stopped that train of thought, though blush found its way to his cheeks. He looked away, looking into the distance.

"So what is your place like?" he asked, "A palace?"

"Well," she started. "It is a palace. It stretches for kilometers and has many courtyards, full of gardens and places..." She continued to describe vividly what the palace looked like. As well as what sort of things went on under the sea, politics, and gossip, how wars were fought, when and why, how they kept the borders and other neighboring kingdoms. Lukas asked a constant stream of questions, Mathine always happy to answer them.

He learned that she was an only child, though had a large extended family.

In return, he told her about life on land. He talked about the castle, surrounding lands and his brother.

"Your brother seems like a nice person," she said, idly drawing a pattern in the sand.

For some unknown reason, Lukas felt a sudden flash in his chest. He pushed the feeling away and said, "Yeah, I suppose he is."

The two were quite for a while, only broken by the waves rolling in.

"I wish I could show you around. It would be the perfect time to, there is a festival coming up in the next few days," Lukas said.

Mathine looked at him curiously, "Mmmm, yeah. That sounds like it would be fun."

They fell into another comfortable silence, though Mathine looked like she was deep in thought.

Lukas looked at her, thinking she looked quite a bit older when she looked serious. And beautiful. He quickly looked away, glaring stubbornly at the sand.

He jumped when Mathine poked his cheek, giggling. "Your face will get stuck that way if you keep that up."

"No it won't," he said, making his face blank.

"Don't do that! That's creepy! Like you don't have a soul, or something," she said, waving her hands, as if it would blow the expression off of his face. Lukas raised an eyebrow and smirked at her childish reactions.

She pouted before grabbing tightly onto his legs, surprising him, and dragging him down into the water. He screamed and tried to break free. But his thrashing only seemed to help the mermaid pull him in more. She laughed and dunked his head under water once they were out far enough. She shrieked as he splashed about, trying to get up. She let him go and he came up for breathe and said a number of unspeakable words that would result in a glare and a demand to rinse his mouth if his mother had heard it.

She laughed some more and swam a distance away from him before he fully recovered. He let out an angry noise before he tried to catch up with her. Tried, being the key word. A mermaid in her home territory, he didn't have a chance. She swam circles around him, taunting him and coming just within reach before darting away. Maddened, he tried again and again to catch her before finally giving up and just lay there floating in the water, pouting.

"Aw, are you pouting?" she asked.

"I am not."

"I think you are."

"Am not."

"Mmhm."

"No."

She laughed and pulled him underwater, this time going down with him. She brought her face close to his, resting their foreheads together. He struggled briefly before, suddenly, he could breath as he normally would, except in the water. It was slightly disorienting.

Oh! It does work! A voice said, though he seemed to hear it in his head and it sounded like Mathine.

He opened his mouth, trying to form words, frowning when only bubbly came out of his mouth.

No, haha. You don't have to do that. Just think what you want to say, and I'll hear it in my head.

There was nothing for a time then he tentatively tried it. Mathine…?

Yep! That's me! She grinned childishly.

His eyes widened. How are you doing this?

The perks of being a royal. Mermaid royalty have special powers. This, being able to breathe and speak underwater, is one of them. A short gift we are able to bestow upon humans. It only lasts around a quarter of an hour?

How long had it been since they went under? How much longer did he have?

She took his hand and dragged him around. They swam for a few minutes more and then broke for the surface. Lukas began to breathe normally again. He glanced up at the sun.

He was late for dinner, if he had read the sun correctly.

"Oh, I have to go," he said.

Mathine pouted. "Why? You stayed late yesterday!" she exclaimed.

"Well, yes. But that had been after dinner. And that is the one meal I am not allowed to skip."

"… Will you come back tomorrow?" She asked.

"I'll try, though I don't know if I will get in trouble."

"… Okay."

The two swam back to shore, and said their goodbyes.

Lukas ran back up to the castle, managing to dry off a bit, but still dripping wet once he reached it. His mother scolded him for getting the beautiful rug wet. "What were you doing?"

"Swimming," he replied lamely.

"Well, obviously. But why are you late for dinner? You know that we must be there to help plan the festival. And the princess acts up less if you are around."

Princess…? It took him a second to remember who he was supposed to be courting. Natalya. He wrinkled his nose. If he was the Ice Prince, she was the Ice Queen.

"Don't make that face," his mother chided. "Now go dry up and get dressed in dry clothes. Be there in 20 minutes."

He sighed and started to his room.

~o~O~o~

Yep, hello. I have had the beginning of this chapter sitting in a folder for the last 6 months or so. School, homework, stressful, fun summer schools, got into a relationship. I have been quite busy. But I wasn't up to much the other night, so I sat down and typed up this. I have more ideas for it now. I have a more concrete idea of where I want this to go. Thank you for the reviews saying that you like it! I am not the best writer, or fastest, but I hope you enjoy this

I will try and write more, I have what I want to happen next in my head. But I need to type it all out. I'll try and have more words the next chapter as well.

Bye then))