Chapter 1

A single bubble containing a pink starfish drifted off far from it's nest.

Far and wide, it travelled across the ocean, being swept by the currents until it one day landed in the hands of a young princess.

That small bubble popped. A new freedom coming with the awakening of the one within.

The first thing he knew he remembered was a sense of duty. Duty before feelings solidified, before thoughts came into being, before anything other thing became certain, one thing had always been crystal clear, his duty was to protect the princess.

His first sights were her pair of emerald eyes. The smile. A smile he grew up seeing and swore to maintain.

He grew up learning and being taught how to go about his duty in a quiet understated manner, not drawing attention and remaining focused.

Such a role was bestowed upon him naturally.

He had never met his father, the steppe priests mentioned to him that he probably had been

conceived during the war of the seven satrapies, there had been a rash of baby abandonments and no one could really say if he had been born on the steps or had been abandoned fresh out of the womb. Odd, he found it. Considering the first thing he remembers seeing, was the princesses face. He never second guessed other than that instance for he was content with the present. Not ever, his past.

His belief. To forever watch over princess Atilia forever. His only home being at her side, regardless of where she'd be.

Nothing matched the unity he had with her. Sisterly, motherly, everything. With her, he experienced true euphoria. The only secondary love, being his walks and travels. Walks and travels that offered him exposure to new knowledge and growth.

On one such special day, it all began just like that.

He explored his thoughts as he walked through the glass shelled walls, they glowed faintly with luminescence and gently reflected light around the passageways, causing green hues and tinges here and there.

He strolled through the passageways, built at a time when water folks were less tolerant of the vast open water, they were filled with gentle currents of oxygen rich water and movement was without overly exerting appendages to swim.

His mind crossed to when he was taught of it all, with the princess present to explain anything he didn't really understand.

Of everything he was informed of, he was mostly interested in the history. The colonies had been created shortly after the first war, the great war of the satrapy, that war had led to collapse of the great satrapy and its break into the seven smaller satrapies that made them all vulnerable to hunters, still smouldering and bickering form lunars of hate and anger, greed and envy ignited a conflagration in which nutrient poor satraps invaded their richer neighbours who in turn called on their neighbouring allies to help in doing battle.

A few nobles on seeing the direction things were headed and packed families and friends who were willing and set off into the murky depths and outlying reefs for a new region to settle, others soon joined them on their trek and their contingent grew the farther they went, it took a long while to discover a suitable region to settle and so were the luminous colonies formed. They set up a new way for leaders to emerge, totally without succession and relatively unknown till it was their time to reign.

For lunars, the colonies existed, thriving, growing completely without disturbances and unaffected by the wars that continually plagued the remnants of the satrapies except of course for the babies and refugees that flooded into the colonies as a result of such wars.

And so there was peace, quiet and growth for a long time, in this time was Starboy born and the water folks forgot the ways of war, the learning of it and the pursuit of defence, the elders who founded the colonies had foreseen this would happen and handed the learning and preservation of all known about war to the gathering, they also sought the discovery of better ways to do so. All these the gathering taught to each other and to the younger generations raised in the temple and there, Starboy learnt and was taught.

Arce is the capital of the colonies, all interconnected by single huge passageways now largely unused with the evolution and invention of crafts, each individual colony had smaller passageways linking the major structures, all passageways also largely unused but still maintained. Starboy walked along one such passageway on his way to meet the princess.

He had not known who she was when he had first been assigned to her and she is on the few friends he had, chosen from the ranks of the mermaids, she was dainty, beautiful and kind, being chosen as the princess meant she was going to be the queen and his duty was to see to her protection. Most water folk thought it unnecessary of course but the gathering went about their duty regardless of what the folks thought.

Of course, when he had to fight off a tiger shark on one of their journeys to an outlying settlement, their concerns were the farthest thing on his mind, he had also saved her just before the last winter solstice when freak currents had threatened to cause a major catastrophe, swimming had become impossible, visibility down to nothing and princess had become in a roiling underwater spout, at the end, he had been left with seven broken fingers, a broken arm, shattered leg and web, she only had a tear in her tail flippers.

The gathering had commended and then in the same tone, urged him to take better care of her next time, he had left them chuckling. He had been told the news about a turning of the moon later. A jar in his steps interrupt his thoughts, he lifts up his head to see that he has come to the end of the passageway and arrived at the central passageway, shaking his head at deep in thought he had been, he exits into the main thoroughfare and hurried along to the enclaves and the lessons he was scheduled to take there.

The lessons are part of the preparations for his wedding, a subject that still continually amazed him even as the moon raced towards its 97th lunar solstice, it was not so much the wedding as who he was getting married too and what it meant. His bride is the mermaid princess, marrying her meant they would together reign as the King and Queen of the Luminous colonies, their marriage marked the beginning of their reign.

He had been told the news only a moon after saving her, although he loved her, it was almost impossible not to after growing up together, inevitably, she loved him too, he had strived to always keep his mind on his duty. The gathering was quite pleased to see how stunned he was upon hearing the news and were satisfied as it confirmed that their decision had been the right one.

Of course, once it clear that they would be getting married, the time they spent together was drastically reduced and they were never left alone, in addition to him, she now had a retinue of palace guards and an attendant. He got no guard of course, to his amusement and shared grins amongst the gathering, the fact was that he didn't need one.

The currents raced by and the solstice steadily approached, the closer it came, the more Starians arrived from all over the colonies to witness the royal wedding. Creatures great and small, tiny and substantial all turned up along with the water folks to witness the marvellous spectacle that such weddings were. Pearls, shells and glass beautiful beyond measure gathered and employed in such stunning arrangements, they sparkled in diverse hues and refracted through the waters, delicacies were bountiful as the entire week was a celebration.

All through it, poor Starboy was a mangled mass of nerves and anxiety, the gathering tried its best to calm him down and set his heart at ease, a few moons to the wedding, they sent him to the enclaves, there the historians told him of the parts of history that was not common knowledge, they told him of men, taught him about land, showed of maps of lands where they lived, dry, above water and often in cities. Astonished at first, he soon settled down as was the way of the gathering and as had become his way to listen, learn and understand what he was being shown. They taught him all that was known and remembered of men, their customs and culture, the stories point to the fact that the water folk and men shared the same ancestor.

He also learned the joining dance, the dance of the Arcelia's, this was the marriage ritual dance, it both joined them together and also installs them as King and Queen, it was a wavy dance with complex movements and each step had to be take in perfect synchronization with your partner, in a case where the couple could no longer meet or see, substitutes were used and the rest was left to the hope that everything would be all right.

The day of the wedding dawned, the lunar solstice and the weeks of preparation had turned the capital from ordinary to spectacular. The princess resplendent and sparkling with carefully arranged attached to her wedding sheath gazed at the statue of her father and wished he were there to witness the occasion.

Starboy whose had eyes only for his bride clasped hands with her as they begun the dance of the Arcelia's slowly twirling on the raised pavilion, schools of brightly coloured fish swarmed around them and the water folk joined in outer circles, the gathering then began to intone the ancient words of joining and courtesan pearls attached to the sheath soon began to glow, they did in patterns that matched the cadence of the tune and as the dance went on, the brighter they got until the whole area was lit as with the radiance of a star.

The couple rose and the concentric circles rose a bit below with each circle forming lower until the shape resembled a pyramid that had for its crown a star, the crystals began to pulse and the gathering began the whispers of power, the culmination of Arcelia's dance.

It was fortuitous for the princess to look at that moment as there was completely no reason for her to do so. A gleaming chain caught her eyes and held them, paying a closer look she realized that it had barbs and the shape they were in formed into circles made it completely impossible to escape the web except for the very middle which had very tiny links and spaces that looked like it might be possible to squeeze through.

Making a quick decision, she twirled into a tight circle startling Starboy who was forced to match her steps and then using his momentum, she angles him towards the space that he might slip through as the web descends the last few feet and let's go of his arm. Wide eyed, he stares in disbelief at her and then finally notices the chain, by then it is too late, whorls of lightning spears through the water and as it the water folk, tiny explosions ripple the water causing the bubbles and the creatures all collapse.

Electricity arcs through the water and the princess being near the epicentre of the chain takes the full brunt of it, muscles clench and scream in protest and her heart staccato's wildly and then stops, her eyes go dark with her vision failing, her body shutting down grants her respite from further pain. Starboy completely befuddled watches jaws agape as the water folk, nobles, palace guards and the gathering alike all crumple under massive electric shock.

His own jolt comes a breath later, the chain formed a latticework in the middle and in between this links electricity also arced though at a much lower concentration, his body heats up so rapidly and excruciating pain ripples from his heads down to his midsection as he drifts upward still twirling slowly, his out flung arm hits the chain and a range of foreign yet agonizing reactions hit his body, breath seized, muscles clamp along his spine and down his lower back, teeth clenched, he screams in pure pain and his overloaded senses fail to keep track of which parts lead to which.

Still aware but dimly aware, he glimpsed strange shapes descending as through a partially remembered dream, swimming strangely, they extricate from the webbed chain a glowing figure with flowing blond hair that streamed through the water and begin to ascend back up the way they came.

All went black, the eight figures all disappeared . . . .

" GRAAAHHHH, GRAHHH!!! " - The princess cried out for the star boy. Within his empty mind, starboy heard the princesses cries. He slowly opened his darkened eyes, but there was just a single ray of light shining down on him. Starboy tried to move his finger, but just when he did, he felt tingles of electricity coursing through his body still, sending heated burns along his forearm.

The vision of the princess in pain, hurt the poor starboy. A far greater pain in his chest, far exceeded the exterior. His heart throbbed in despair. The ray of light became smaller and smaller as he sunk down further into the seas darkness.

Mustering every last ounce of strength, starboy fought back the electrical currents that paralyzed him. He forced his arms to his chest and swung them to his side ripping it with a scream. " RRRRAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! " bubbles fluttered up to the surface, the starboys pink hair rose up. He felt his fingers again and formed fists. From within the darkness of the crevice he had been in, bubbles bursted out. Starboy shot out like a piercing harpoon. He narrowly avoided a school of red fish and shoot out of the water flopping over midair. The moonlight shined over him, reflecting off of his pink skin. He landed back down into the water with a " SPLASHH!! " and frantically twisted his head in all directions but there was no ship to be found.

Starboy dove back down into the ocean and looked ahead. Black gunk passed him and he closed his eyes. Focusing on the irregular inky substance, he opened his eyes. His once dark eyes flashed, glowing a bright blue below the darkness that surrounded him. With a clear path to follow, starboy set his hands to his side and took off.

Over on the pirate ship, the mermaid princess tried striking the glass cage she was stuck within. Her screams were silent to the crew of the ship, but the sonar waves, traveled out of the ship, loud and clear to many of the fishes below. Starboy heard it clearly but he could only follow the ink trail, hoping it'd lead him to the ship. An ink trail that kept many of the sea creatures away, despite many coming to the aid of the sonar wave.

Starboy continued to monitor, swimming closer.

A ship that grew farther and farther away, for no matter how much he tried; the waves were far too strong for his weakened body. He could only hope the ship would eventually stop long enough for him to catch up.