The Twilight Children//The School for Good and Evil

16 ~ Aqui

. : Sebastian of Havfrue : .

She pushed him into the water.

Sebastian had been avoiding water for the past few days, every touch of it to his skin making his skin alight with a sensation he couldn't explain. The water crawled beneath his skin, implanting into his bones and settling deep into his belly, acting as if it were its own creature. It scared him. He wanted it out.

And what had Laura done? When he asked for help?

She had pushed him into the one thing that terrified him most right now.

He had grown up in the water, with his parents' kingdom lying on the southern seaboard. Sebastian could see the ocean from his childhood bedroom and had often spent nights sneaking down to it with Melody to run along the shore with their feet in the water. Usually, they got away with it, but there were times they got caught and were dragged back to the castle exhausted from laughing. Half of his family lived under the southern sea. Sebastian had never felt such terrifying fear of something he loved. It drained and pulled him and made him feel like he was drowning.

The water pressed at his soul, the unknown force that had been a phantom on his inside for the past few days pounding at the fibres of his being.

He no longer needed to ask what it was. He knew that the beast that had taken hold inside of him had to be the cursed water magic.

Sebastian thrashed. Cold water pushed its way inside him, consuming his lungs and his very being. What was Laura's reason for pushing him into the water?

He should never have trusted her and never should've asked her for help. This was likely revenge for Neverland.

What would he do? Sebastian thought as he continued to sink lower into the water. He was his parents' only heir-- his older sister having passed a decade ago in a magic accident. His parents were too old to have more children, and without him, the kingdom would perish. The great ever kingdom, that had sat on the eastern sea for millennia, would be reduced to ashes without him to lead.

The water slowed his descent until his back pressed into the murky bottom of the lake. Silt rose up around him.

Sebastian's gaze began to blur; he had been holding his breath for too long, his thoughts consuming him. He thrashed, trying to rise above the water, but the pressure pushed him down, bashing at his skull.

He tried to scream, but water swam into his lungs, pulling the oxygen out of his lungs. He was going to drown.

Sebastian gasped, his lungs burning for air.

Until it stopped.

There was no more burning. The water had gone quiet.

Sebastian hesitated, his heart pounding. Why wasn't he dead? He should, by all accounts, be dead.

He forced his eyes to open, and his eyebrows furrowed when he realized that he could see through the water as if it were open air.

His lungs too had no sign of burning, there was no need for air. Water could come into his lungs and nourish him, the same was that air did.

A different feeling rose in him. No longer panic or fear. Instead rage. She had done this. She had changed him somehow. The Igni's burning touch had turned him into some sort of horrific monster. She had turned him into this.

Sebastian dug his hands into the bottom of the lake and pushed himself up. It was as if he were moving through air.

He was going to kill her. He was going to hunt her to the end of the earth if it meant getting this beast out of him. She was not allowed to change him, to force him to take on water magic that he didn't want.