Chapter 4: Parents Just Don't Understand - Sebastian

I make my way into the Throne Room, walking down the length of the room to be met with the sight of my parents in a passionate make-out session. Not the most professional use of this room, but hey, if I had five minutes alone with my animai I’d be doing the same thing. Besides, my parents are hot. Hence why I’m so drop-dead gorgeous. Don’t hate the offspring, hate the genetics.

My mother is considered one of the most beautiful women in the kingdom, a fact she’s very self-conscious about, to the point she has had a little nipping and tucking in recent years. She may have a long life expectancy, but she’s not a fan of aging. I still think she’s beautiful though.

Mother – Queen Callista – is 5’9” with a very toned physique. She’s a natural brunette with hair that just passes her shoulders but has been in a blonde phase for the last thirty years, and she knows how to rock it. She has sun-kissed skin, cerulean blue eyes – that she kindly passed on to me – and a petite face with perfect dimensions – but only because she’s been touched by an angel or two. Mum’s beauty is only enhanced by the way she dresses and holds herself. Today she’s in light-blue denim jeans, white pointed-toe stilettos, a white jacket with decorative gold buttons and a white spaghetti-strap camisole. Even in casual clothes, she looks regal and sophisticated. Plus at the wonderful age of five hundred and eighty-three, she still has a killer body, which is probably why my father’s hands are all over it.

Speaking of my father, I can’t say it was fun growing up with girls at school describing my father as a DILF – not that the term existed back then – but when I realised I may grow up to look like him, in which case that would make me the DILF, I embraced our stunning genetics. My father is what one would call a silver fox, and I hope to follow in his footsteps one day. Father – King Haemon – is a 6’6” man who has aged like fine wine. He works out religiously, so he is just walking muscle with his arms covered in a few tattoos. He has deep-set wrinkles on his forehead, but they only add to his looks. He has intense grey eyes, short grey hair, and a salt and pepper moustache that’s more pepper than salt, that blends into a full white beard. He’s wearing black slacks, black suede loafers and a deep red button-down shirt.

Instead of his black tie being around his neck where it belongs, it’s around my mother’s neck as he uses it to pull her close. I might steal that move. Just as I see my mother glide her fingers through the pure white of his chest hair I decide I’ve seen about enough and clear my throat.

“Sorry to interrupt your attempts to give me a sibling, but you wanted to see me?” I casually ask.

Mother squeaks in embarrassment and leaps off my father’s lap and nearly impales herself on one of the coral branches of my father’s throne. He smirks in amusement and wraps his arm around her to keep her close as he stands up. He slides his hand into his slacks in an attempt to hide his obvious erection, but it’s a little late for that.

“Thank you for coming Sebastian,” says my father in a deep voice.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t,” I smile.

“Bastian!” my mother scolds me. I simply shrug in amusement.

“What did you want to see me about?” I ask.

“As you know, we have decided to step down from royal duties, which means your coronation is fast approaching,” my father says.

I smile in excitement, “I have had so many ideas about the coronation and the party!”

“That’s all good and well, and you can discuss that with your mother later, but right now we need to discuss your lack of Queen,” dad says gravely.

“You mean King,” I correct with a bit of bite in my tone. Mother sighs while my father’s nostrils flare.

“We have entertained this phase of yours long enough. You will take your duties seriously and you will claim a Queen to provide this kingdom with the next heir,” says my father harshly.

“I really wouldn’t call over a century a phase,” I snap.

“Bastian, honey, please take this seriously,” mother begs.

“Oh, I take it very seriously that my parents still refuse to accept that their son is gay. When I find my animai, HE will sit by my side on that throne whether you like it or not,” I say acerbically.

“ENOUGH! No queer has ever sat on this throne and no queer ever will,” father spits venomously.

I stand my ground and don’t react to his cruel words. I’ve heard them all before. “Just because it’s never been done, doesn’t make it wrong. I can’t believe what giant hypocrites you are. You sit on your thrones with your tongues down each other’s throats overjoyed to be with your animai, but you would deny me mine? What the fuck bullshit is that?”

“Watch your language around your mother!” father shouts.

“Oh, so it’s wrong of me to cuss in front of her, but it’s perfectly okay for my parents to try to eradicate part of who I am and force me to take a chosen animai? Imagine if you were asked to reject each other and choose another,” I say harshly and watch them both wince at the very thought, “Exactly. You could never deny yourselves your other half, but you’d ask that of me just because you refuse to accept that I’m gay. You would deny me my birth rite and a gift from the Goddess because you’re bigots,” I say sorrowfully.

“Don’t you dare speak to us that way. We are thinking of what’s best for the kingdom, a duty you should well understand,” father says pointedly.

“And it’s in the kingdom’s best interest to tell them that if they aren’t just like you that there is something wrong with them? That they should pretend to be someone they’re not and force themselves to spend the rest of their lives with someone they will never love? That’s looking out for them? At least when I’m King I won’t allow my people to feel like they don’t belong, and I will be King. Whether you like it or not a gay man is going to sit on that throne, put a crown on his head and look fucking stunning while doing it, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it,” I say with a wicked smile before turning on my heel and storming out.

“Sebastian!” I hear my mother call out, but I quicken my pace into a full sprint.

I race through the palace and make my way out to the garden by the cliff. I speedwalk towards the edge, stripping off all my clothes and then dive off the cliff. I point my body like a torpedo as I dive 200 feet from the cliffs of Atlesper to the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Once I am meters away from the water I start to morph. I feel the brief sting of familiar pain as my legs fuse together and erupt with scales as my feet fan out into long fins while a set of fins grow from the sides of my hips.

I break through the normally chilly waters, that to my skin feel warm, and flip my fins swimming deeper, stretching my tail out for the first time in weeks. Not to brag… much, but I think I have the most stunning tail in the entire kingdom. My tail is 7 feet long with fins that span an extra 5 feet bringing my tail to 12 feet in total. My scales are a greyish blue that fade into royal blue and are shaped more like small feathers as opposed to scales. My fins are thin like chiffon but have the most gorgeous pattern on them. My fins are the same colour as my tail but look as though they depict an image of crashing waves, and the tips branch out almost like wispy tentacles. The fins at the sides of my hips are as thin as the ones at the tip of my tail and are 2 feet long, and to me, have always looked like a dragon’s beard. Everyone says that’s delusional, and they just look like beautiful waves, but screw that, they’re dragon beards.

I swim deeper into the ocean’s depths as fish scatter to avoid potential prey. They’re safe from me. I only eat raw fish in the form of sushi. I swim further and further away from the surface as my eyes adjust to their new underwater environment. Sirnas are able to breathe, talk and see perfectly underwater, so being in the ocean is like a second home to me. I don’t think a camera can truly capture the beauty and wonder of the ocean. The way the sun’s beams are refracted by the ocean waves creating streams of dancing light through the water that slowly disappear the deeper you go. No camera can do it justice.

There is a majesty to the sea that many will never know. The way sea life moves in perfect harmony, the beauty and colour of not only the creatures but all the plant life living at the bottom of the sea. There’s so much to discover down here, and it’s here I feel safest. Sea life doesn’t care that I’m attracted to men; doesn’t care that I’m royalty or expect me to act a certain way. Sometimes I wish our ancestors had never returned to the land, but then I figure I’d be having the same problems, just underwater.