Archive of Our Own ^beta

In the past few days, we suffered through some terrible storms. It seemed to be a blessing and a curse alike. A blessing, because it looked like the Arrival of Hapi had finally come. The Nile flooded with the excess of water and brought the land some much needed silt. A curse, because no one was safe outside. Windows were covered, doors were barred and outside, the strong winds brought destruction.
After days of being cooped up in the palace, everyone refused to let me help them with the clean up once the sun came out again. As was expected, but still, I had hoped that someone would finally let me. I hated sitting around, while all the others worked hard to rebuilt what had been broken. Always the same old answers, every time I offered my help. 'My Prince, this is nothing you have to worry about' or 'Prince Atem, this is no task someone from the royal family should undertake' and so on. This time, however, I couldn't stand doing nothing and so I made my escape.
The head cook always had a soft spot for me and looked away, when I sneaked out of the kitchen door, but I had to promise him, to bring back some fish. Swiftly I made my way down to the stream, that bordered the palace and got myself some fishing gear, before taking a small boat and leaving the palace far behind me. I rowed towards the Nile as fast as I could, since I didn't want anyone to spot me and finally arrived a bit out of breath. Still, I got to work right away. I got a nice piece of bait and the fishing rod ready and secure.

And so the waiting began. Fishing was a slow ordeal and usually I didn't mind that, but today, for some reason, I felt impatient. For a long time, nothing happened. I laid back in the boat and watched the sky. There was no trace left of the storms and I couldn't see a single cloud. Every now and then, another boat passed by and I made sure to cover my hair with my arms for good measure. I really didn't want to be recognized. I made up a game to pass my time. It was mostly guessing where a ripple of water would next appear, but I discovered fast, that there was some kind of rhythm. It almost seemed, like something was moving in circles underwater. Thanks to the flooding and the storm, the water wasn't clear enough to actually see something though.
At some point I decided, that I wouldn't catch anything for the cook like that and began to pull the string out of the water, but something pulled the string in the opposite direction. I didn't know what was going on, but something I must've caught something. Elated, I began to pull as strongly as I could and nearly got pulled into the water myself. I took a deep breath and pulled with all my strength and this time I succeeded and pulled the giant fish out of the water. At least I thought it was a fish and for a moment, time seemed to have stopped. I stood in the boat and lost my footing, falling backwards and in the air in front of me, I saw another person, another creature, crashing down on me. There was blood everywhere. It seemed to be a boy, not much younger than me, who got his hand pierced by the sharp hook. He cried out in pain and I saw tears flowing down his face, but mostly I saw the giant fish tail, that the boy had instead of legs.
The moment passed. I fell on my back and the boy right on top of me. I got my breath knocked out of my lungs and closed my eyes, while I tried to regain my composure. It felt as if I had been struck by lightning and my heart hammered in my chest. I took a sharp breath and opened my eyes. The boy was still laying on top of me and cradled his hand to his chest. Instead of the fish tail, strange markings were seen on his skin where before his fins and gills had been. For a moment, I was too shocked to move any further. His hair looked just like mine! Blond bangs above dark hair that shimmered red and its tips. He wore what looked like a silver crown on his forehead and necklaces made out of pearls were around his neck.

His eyes opened suddenly and I looked into a startled pair of violet eyes. The boy tried to get up, but was hindered by his still bleeding hand.
“Careful”, I said and he looked at me frighted, “I won't hurt you”, I then added, “I am so sorry. I didn't know... I didn't want to hurt you in the first place... I was just fishing”, I began to ramble and sat up carefully and pulled the boy into a sitting position as well.
“My hand”, the boy whispered and I nodded panicked.
“I think we have to pull out the hook or else it won't stop bleeding”, I said quietly and tried to remember everything I had ever learned about healing and medicine, as well as sending constant prayers to the Gods.
“I don't...”, the boy whispered and only now I heard the accent in his voice and realized he might not understand me.
“What's your name?” I asked him.
“Yuugi”, he said and I released a breath. He understood me. It made the whole task a bit easier.
“My name is Atem”, I told him and he nodded. He seemed to relax a bit as well, now that he realized, that I meant no harm.
I pointed to his hand, “we have to pull out the hook”, I told him and his eyes widened in fear, but he nodded all the same. Carefully, I opened the knot of the string, so that only the hook remained attached to his hand and I thought about which way to pull it out. Then I ripped of stripes of my shenti. Even if I got the hook out of Yuugis hand, I still had to stop the bleeding. He already looked so pale.

“Are you ready?” I asked him once I was finished.
“As ready as I will be”, he answered. His voice sounded surer now and calmer. Some of the panic must have left him as well.
“It will hurt”, I told him, before carefully taking his hand. I counted down from three and then pulled the hook out of his hand in one go. He cried in pain and I didn't waste a second and immediately began to bandage his hand as best I could. Yuugi started crying again and I felt so awful, for causing him all this pain, that I pulled him into a hug.
“I am sorry”, I told him again, “I just wanted to catch some fish, I didn't mean to hurt you”, I said and regretted, that I had left the palace in the first place. Yuugi continued to cry for a while, but melted into the hug without hesitation.
“It's not your fault”, he eventually said, “I was being stupid”, he told me and pulled back, so that I could see his face again. It was all red and puffy from crying, but still, he was beautiful. Otherworldly beautiful, like nothing I had seen before.
“I just wanted to help you catch a fish”, he explained, “but I got my hand stuck instead and then you pulled and I panicked and pulled right back, which made it all worse”.
“You wanted to help me?” I asked him surprised.
Yuugi nodded, “it's what we do. We serve Hapi and we herd fish into the nets of the fishers, he said.
“So there are more of you, down there?” I asked and pointed to the river.
He hesitated, “I probably shouldn't tell you about it”, he said.
“Oh...”, I answered, “yeah, I guess. I am stranger”, I said and added, “but we can change that!”
We began talking and time passed extremely fast. Every now and then, we checked whether Yuugis hand was still bleeding, because he probably shouldn't return to the water, if it still did. It was easy to talk with him. Easier than talking to anyone in the palace, even to Mahad or Mana. For him, I was just another fisher and I enjoyed that feeling immensely.
By the time the sun began to set, we finally said our goodbyes and I watched him jump into the water. For a moment his head stayed above water and he showed me his true form once again, then he disappeared.
In the end, I couldn't keep my promise to the head cook.