Part of your world

Toe To Toe

There was something tapping on the window.

Maybe Seb was imagining it but he couldn't sleep, and the tapping at the window, imaginary or not, was the easiest thing to blame, especially when the only alternative was blaming the carlosel of thoughts spinning through their head.

His father had seen them visiting the surface. That was immeasurably bad, but it could be worse... probably. Seb was still trying to figure out how it could realistically get any worse, but knowing the luck they had been blessed with recently, he would probably find out soon.

The tapping at the window stopped. Seb frowned, glancing over to the frame in the wall, it was pitch dark and Seb could barely see a thing. Chances were that they had been making it up but there was still something bugging him somehow.

Seb turned over, trying to push the carousel of thoughts down, attempting to get some sleep. It didn't work.

Quietly sitting up, wiping away a piece of seaweed from his arm they glanced hesitantly towards his bedroom door. There didn't seem to be anyone outside but they couldn't be too sure, his father had a habit of having guards around to watch Seb 24/7 after one of his trips to the surface.

The door was an unknown. But there was definitely no one by the window.

Shooting one quick glance back to the closed door of their bedroom, Seb quietly slipped away from his spot, laying sleeplessly by their vanity and as silently as possible, swam through the open arch of his window into the relative freedom of the open ocean.

If Seb was being honest, they sometimes preferred swimming at night, he had no doubt that if his father were ever to find out about that they would be locked inside the palace for the rest of his life, but in the dark stillness that the night brought, the world just seemed so much more peaceful, it was one of the only times Seb ever got to feel truly alone. It sounded sad, but as much as Seb hated the feeling of hopeless loneliness which was becoming increasingly familiar as he grew up, with all the noise that their regular life brought, being alone was a welcome change for him, crushing loneliness was better than the terrifying pressure of home, the lesser of two evils. Besides, feeling alone with no one around was a lot more palatable than feeling lonely while surrounded by people.

Seb wasn't exactly sure where they were headed, they just knew they needed to get away from the deafening constraint of his life, even just for the night, even thinking about the place that was supposed to be his home made him feel the need to bolt to the surface and dramatically gasp for air they didn't really need.

The surface seemed like a good place to start now, Seb figured, the world below the sea was sleeping, and it was likely that most humans would be too, in theory there wasn't a better time to sneak back up, especially considering the fact that after the events of that morning, they weren't sure when, if ever, they would be able to go again.

When Sebs head broke through the surface, the first thing they noticed was the rain. It had never rained while Seb was at the surface before, of course the rain did have some effect on life below the sea, Seb would often lay on the ocean floor and watch the water bounce across the surface when it rained, but they had never gotten the chance to see it from above the shroud of the surface.

It was colder than he had expected it to be. The temperature at the bottom of the sea stayed pretty steady all year round, and that temperature was definitely cold, but the rain was a different kind of cold, while the cold in the ocean was calm and surrounding, the cold of the rain was isolated and harsh, causing Seb to flinch every time a drop hit him or splashed the water around them. Despite the jarring difference, Seb decided they liked the rain, something about its unpredictability felt exciting and somehow human.