1 Chapter 1

"Once upon a time," a woman in her sixties, with long black and grey hair fastened neatly at the back of her head, wearing a rich brown silk gown that told where she belonged to, mumbles as for only her grandson to listen, continuously running her fingers through his soft ocean blue hair, smiling, "there lived a prince, and he,"

"Grandma," a gentle voice, of the crown prince, her grandson interrupts looking up at her with his blue eyes - that has the same color as his hair - wide open from where he lay on his bed covered with fur as soft as his hair, "I have heard this one," he whines in his five year old voice, his small chubby fingers reaching up to his grandma's hand in his hair and mildly taking them in two of his little ones.

The queen mother smiles affectionately - her smile spreading all over her face making the creases over her aged face look beautiful - at how her grandson moans, every time reminding her of her son, Kim Taehyung. She kisses his temple, warmth spreading her insides, knowing she is loving her son's little version, laying beside him with her right hand propped up supporting her head and left entwined in crown prince's tiny hands.

"This is a different one," she cooes, trying to talk like her grandson, raising her brows slowly.

"No," he protests and sits up, his small frame looking big all of a sudden, "Tell me about mermaids," the queen mother jolts up and her eyes go wide at the mention of the word. She stares at the innocent, tiny frame sitting in front of her pouting, as if he was not already adorable enough for the queen mother to soften a bit more at the mere change he did with his lips. Her thoughts about scolding him or asking where he heard it from, long forgotten.

From the corner of her eyes, she notices the portiere move, as if it sensed the unease of the court lady behind it. She ignores her for now and smiles down at her grandson's big curious eyes, that are twinkling in the dark of the night. The room lightened with candles at the sides of the bed and the corners of the room.

"Not now little one," she whispers pinching his cheeks, smiling, knowing how stubborn her grandson is, just like her son, but still giving it a try to stop him from frowning more and more with each passing second wanting to know about the mermaids.

She sighs, "Let's listen to it when my baby prince is, um, 15?" she lowers her head to come in level with her grandson and places her hand on his left rosy cheek watching him lower his eyes and pushing his bottom pink lip out. She is amused and delighted to see her grandson act exactly like his father, Kim Taehyung. She laughs heartily, startling her court lady as well as the guards at the crown princes rooms door. It is only with Kim Chi that she ever smiles or laughs, after she had to part with her dearest son.

"You are just like your darling father," she says tenderly and immediately regrets when Chi giggles, knowing she will be bombarded with his innocent questions again, and she will have to lie again. Albeit relieved he wouldn't ask about mermaids anymore.

"Where is father?" Is his first question and he straighten ups as if he could grow any taller doing it. Chi never gets tired of asking the same question to anyone and everyone who surrounds him. Be it his mother, grandmother, court ladies, guards, or cooks. He gets the same answer every time, yet asks as if someday the answer would change. "When is he coming to see me?"

"Soon," his grandmother replies yet affectionately, even as she lies. Guilt clouds her eyes when the crown prince jumps up on the bed, delighted and claps his hands. She sweeps the thoughts clouding her mind away and swats her grandson lightly, smiling again.

"Look at you, the most ill behaved prince." Chi starts running on his bed in circles, his laugh resonating his whole room or who knows even the whole palace, at his grandma when she fails to catch him with both her hands. He would be called a spoiled prince only at his grandmothers expense.

"No! Crown prince!" his says as if his little soul knows what the title means.

She has always loved him more than any other prince in the palace and had therefore spoiled him, letting the little devil do whatever he had wished for.

While every royal member is taught about the royal manners from the very start, Chi has always run away from it, courtesy of the queen mother. Even though he is just five, his other cousins who are elder or even younger than him, know how to behave like a royalty, which Chi in his still baby voice says, is being rude giving orders to his dear court ladies, guards and the others that work for the king.

"Forgive your dear grandma, his excellency." She smiles and bows her head when Chi comes back to her jumping and sits on her lap. She laughs fondly when Chi reaches up to her from her lap and places a soft kiss on her left cheek. Her smile the brightest today.

She stiffens all of a sudden when a familiar voice sings lullaby. As if direly wanting the child to sleep.

She recognizes the voice immediately.

How can she not?

When it is the same voice that has destroyed her life, that has snatched away her happiness in a mere second, that has ripped her soul apart, that has wrenched the life out of her, leaving nothing but just emptiness. All the happiness she was just feeling, gets thrown out of the window the second she hears the voice.

Even though it is distant, the crown prince stops playing and listens to his mother sing. The queen mother loathes the queen, who albeit has beautiful voice, it pierces the queen mothers soul, reminding her of the cries she listens to in her nightmares, she rocks Chi in her lap to sleep, remembering how her beloved husband - the king, and her sons were snatched away from her so brutally by mermen.

She trembles lightly remembering the moment her family was snatched away from her. The pictures of her sons, dying, passing before her eyes. She remembers how she had seen her husband and her sons die before her own naked eyes and how she had felt helpless and pathetic for not being able to do anything for her family. How her hands were filled with their blood when she had sat beside their dead bodies wishing all this were a dream. A bad dream. Her worst nightmare. How furiously she had been shaking her head and closing her eyes tightly praying everything to get normal when she opens them. But when it didn't, all she could do was mourn. And curse the merfolk for their evil sins.

She had sworn that day, to wipe out every mermen on the planet, if not with her own hands, then by what had remained of her family.

Yet here she was, after seven years, clutching the crown prince, the descendant of the water creature, to her breast so dearly as if he would disappear any second, just like her son.

(Gyotaejeon is a building used as the main residing quarters by the queen)

(Donggung is the living quarters for the crown prince)

Meanwhile, at Gyotaejeon, a woman, with long hair of color blue and violet - just like the shade of sky at dawn - that reaches down to her knees, stands by the pillar outside her quarters, her head resting by the pillar with her right hand on the chest where her heart is and left circled around the pillar, looking peacefully at Donggung, her skin gleaming under the moonlight, singing, with a faint smile playing on her lips, missing the touch of her love, Kim Taehyung, and her son Kim Chi.