Thread by @murcielagoAO3

#nsfw #mermay2021 #incest #mpreg #breeding
#skts-centric, side #snkm, merfolk au, royalty au.
cw: male, female, and intersex mer-anatomy 🐬, incestuous dalliances, mentions of grief/mourning, merfolk mate for life.

"Marks of Good Breeding" 🧜🧜‍♂️👑🔱🌊🌴

After three years of mourning, Prince Kiyoomi's hair has grown long enough to reach the tiny, delicate scales circling his hips at the edge of his glittering, chartreuse tail.

He prefers to wear it short—he finds the feel of it curling around his body underwater /disgusting/.

But it's far more horrible to have lost both his siblings in the war with the neighboring Inubushi kingdom before the Sakusa kingdom negotiated peace through forfeiture of most of their territory, and pride.

The Royal family and what subjects remained in the aftermath of the war

were relegated to a tiny section of their former kingdom, one with enough to provide a stable life, though far less opulent than what they were accustomed to.

If it weren't for Motoya, Kiyoomi wasn't sure how he'd have survived. Watching his sibling's mates fall ill and die

of heartbroken grief was too terrible to endure without the comfort of his cousin's presence by his side.

Duke Komori Motoya knew something about grief, having also lost his family back when the war began. He'd been King Sakusa's ward since he and the Prince were both small fry.

Kiyoomi had a complicated relationship with his siblings, as they were so much older than him. But their loss still hits hard, and on the bad days Motoya always comforts him. Sometimes he braids Kiyoomi's dark hair and pins it at his nape with a coral clasp so it won't bother

him so much.

And when it dawns on Kiyoomi that he's the Crown Prince now, the one who will one day inherit all the responsibilities for their kingdom, he's nearly /crushed/ with the weight of it.

He's always been third in line—the Crown was never meant for him.

Motoya's the one to help Kiyoomi through his panic attacks, soothing him through forehead kisses and shoulder rubs, staying over in Kiyoomi's private chamber to keep him company at night.

And when that's not enough, he gives Kiyoomi the relief he needs, deep tongue kisses that

tease moans from his throat, or questing hands teasing Kiyoomi's cock from its sheath, letting it curl around his fingers in a needy grip, or stretch flat along Kiyoomi's belly where Motoya can stroke its length to full, swollen hardness and then bring him to completion.

The kingdom is small, and there aren't many partners to choose from. Kiyoomi knows this is only temporary, as does Motoya, but it's something they both need, and Motoya makes him so comfortable he can't see any reason to resist this desire, especially when neither of them

can get pregnant or carry young.

So they indulge in this comfort, prehensile cocks twined together like the tongues in their mouths and the fins of their tails, stroking and stirring and giving them both that delicious rush that makes the veil of sadness around them bearable.

When the third year of mourning is complete, Prince Kiyoomi and Duke Motoya are summoned by the King and Queen.

There, the King announces that it is time for both of them to find mates and breed pups. The Sakusa kingdom is dwindling, and won't sustain itself without an influx

of new blood.

They are charged with embarking on a quest through the territories of their peaceful allies to find suitable mates, and to bring them back to live in Sakusa kingdom, preferably with their families or a contingent of settlers looking to relocate to their waters

and help them rebuild to their former glory.

Kiyoomi and Motoya are shocked by the suddenness of this charge, but aren't given the option to decline.

The quest—while unexpected, and daunting—is sensible considering the situation, Kiyoomi agrees. They are also of the proper

age to be wed, and he knew one day it would be his turn to follow in his siblings' footsteps. Only they died in battle before they could produce offspring, adding another layer of tragedy to their family.

That evening, he asks Motoya to cut his hair, ending his mourning period.

If finding a mate and bringing children back to his kingdom will heal their wounds and bring joy back to their lives, who is he to refuse?

👑🌊

Kiyoomi and Motoya spend two days filling a small satchel each with courtship tokens to impress their potential mates. For safety and for hunting they also sharpen their sturdiest trident spears, and when all is prepared, they bid farewell to the King and Queen before departing.

The first part of their journey takes them south through an ocean corridor of peaceful tribes and kingdoms.

Motoya is particularly adept at gathering knowledge from the locals, and finds out about the most eligible merfolk wherever they go, for which Kiyoomi is grateful.

The two of them make a dashing pair with their unusual chartreuse scales and bright yellow fins catching the eye of many merfolk during their travels.

Kiyoomi meets one or two potential mates who seem calm and competent and show a strength of sprit when expressing their beliefs.

He tries to picture them at his side when he's King, and while they do match his general idea of what kind of mate he needs at his side, there's just no... /spark/.

Motoya, on the other hand, has a grand and wild time collecting conquests left and right, and zig-zagging

haphazardly back to their lodgings, hiccuping with drunkenness, and chest covered in hickies from an enthusiastic bed partner. Kiyoomi smells two different mermaids and rolls his eyes. He feeds his cousin hangover clams before putting him in his sandbed to sleep it off.

It's not like Kiyoomi hasn't indulged once or twice since leaving home; he's prudent, but no prude.

They continue traveling south in this vein, until disaster strikes—the currents they are following suddenly veer off course, pulling them into the middle of a terrible storm.

Kiyoomi and Motoya flip their tails as fast and as nimbly as they can while the sea floor erupts with sand and uproots sea life everywhere they look, tumbling them every which way and sucking them deeper into the circular waves beneath the hurricane raging above.

Motoya tries to lash them together with the seaweed rope on his belt so they don't get separated, but misses in the frothing water. Kiyoomi stretches his arm to the limits trying to grab hold of it, but it's no use, and his heart leaps into his throat as he's tossed so far away

that he completely loses sight of Motoya. Kiyoomi strains his flexible body and tail to the limits steering around jagged rocks to prevent getting smashed, but then the current swirls upward so dizzyingly fast he can do nothing but be carried along,

until he crashes through the surface and is flung through the air into the deluge of rain and wind, lungs shocked by the sudden lack of water—

And then /smack/. He hits the surface again and sinks, stunned from the impact, terrified beyond comprehension and choking on saltwater.

Kiyoomi flails weakly, caught once more in the violent current, vision going black before he finally expels the air from his lungs and his gills start working again. He loses sense of direction and is tossed mercilessly through the water for an eternity.

Time becomes meaningless, as murky as the angry waves pushing him to and fro, and just as unconcerned for his well being. He's hard pressed to try to match the flow around him, but his body's so exhausted he can hardly keep up.

Kiyoomi can feel his muscles failing,

the sense of helplessness unbearable. Like that he's dragged through the sea until /wham/—he hits a wall of solid rock with his shoulder, bonking his head before he starts to float upward.

The urge to pass out is strong, but Kiyoomi fights it, seeking any kind of tether to latch

onto when he knows there isn't one.

His vision starts to cloud again, but not with blood from his injuries—this time with a strange haze of gold liquid so pure and beautiful, the only explanation is that he's about to die. His brain must be exploding, and that's why

he's seeing such an ethereal, golden light.

/Pretty/, he thinks, for it to end like this. His body goes limp, and then he gives in, and everything goes black.

👑🌊

When his consciousness resurfaces, Kiyoomi's entire body feels heavy as an anchor, gravity crushing his limbs and tail to the unforgiving sand beneath him. It's so painful he doesn't dare move beyond a weak flop of his tail, and even that small act tears a whine from his lips.

Then something pushes into his mouth, forcing his teeth apart, and a cool briny liquid trickles over his tongue and into the back of his throat so quickly he chokes—then hastily swallows, spluttering.

"Easy, /easy/," comes an unfamiliar voice.

The trickle lessens to a dribble that Kiyoomi can consume more easily, feeling strength suffuse him enough for his eyelids to flicker partway open.

He's surrounded by gold again—blinding yellow sunlight that stabs through his eyelashes, and haloes a face with blonde hair and

eyes that glow like embers.

The merman has hooked two fingers into Kiyoomi's mouth while he pours a nourishing sea broth from a large conch shell over Kiyoomi's tongue.

Kiyoomi glares. How /dare/ he be touched in this way? He promptly tries to knock the hand away,

but in his current state it's no more than a pitiful tap on the merman's wrist.

"Oh ho," the merman grins, cocking his head. "Feisty, aintcha?"

He doesn't move his hand though, and continues to pour the broth into Kiyoomi's mouth. Kiyoomi glares, even as he gulps it down.

When the shell is empty, the merman releases his hold. "That should do it," he says, putting the shell aside.

Kiyoomi licks his swollen, chapped lips. The merman pushes Kiyoomi's curls off his forehead, thumb brushing over his twin moles. It's uncomfortably familiar and Kiyoomi

shies away, glaring, and starts to tell this impertinent man to fuck off, but his throat is raw and nothing comes out but a raspy growl.

The merman smirks, and then has the audacity to give both of Kiyoomi's cheeks light slaps. "If yer this prickly, yer prob'ly gonna

pull through jus' fine. Kinda worried me there, yanno?"

Kiyoomi growls, trying to sit up—the pain throughout his body is so acute he's not able to do more than writhe on the sand, which is so frustrating he's /furious/.

He's also not used to the sun, which is relentless.

The merman simply watches him struggle, propped on his elbows, brows lifted and an amused smile on his plush lips. Kiyoomi lifts a hand to block the sight—and the sun, too—before he commits murder.

Then the merman hums, and suddenly the sun isn't burning Kiyoomi's eyes anymore.

A gorgeous, sparkling tail is shielding him from the sun, curved up and over the other merman's body in a glittering, golden arch. The delicate tail fins form a perfect screen for the sun's rays, but what steals Kiyoomi's breath is the effortlessness of the difficult pose.

To hold his tail like this, on land, displays an enviable strength and flexibility, especially with a tail of such massive length and girth, far larger than typical for merfolk.

With the sun out of his eyes, Kiyoomi is able to fully take in the man's appearance, noting details

like the abalone clasps that hold half the man's blonde hair up in a messy, attractive bun, while the rest hangs long around his shoulders and dangles over his muscular chest, his bronzed nipples peeking through the strands.

The rest of him is as golden as his tail, smooth skin

and well definied musculature, ears pierced along the edge with rows of dangling pearls and polished sand dollars that tinkle in the wind.

Around his neck hangs a deep purple scallop shell with milky calcite crystals formed in a spiral shape like a coral flower, nestled in his

cleavage. Kiyoomi's eyes travel across the man's collarbones and sharply defined chin, back to his grinning mouth, that long tongue of his lolling playfully from the corner.

"Like whatcha see?" he taunts, and Kiyoomi automatically stiffens.

The merman sparkles in the sunlight,

all of him glowing golden, every part of him strikingly beautiful, like a dream, or a spell.

It finally dawns on Kiyoomi that he might not just be golden, but one of the /Gilded/, the rarest of all species of merfolk and believed to be extinct—only heard of in old fairy tales.

His frown deepens. While he's fairly sure by now that he's still alive, he has the sense that he's hallucinating, which is a big concern.

Kiyoomi coughs past the sandburn in his throat, and tilts his chin up. "/What/ are you?" he rasps.

"/Rude/." The merman chides, tilting his head. His smile doesn't change, but his eyes tighten. "But I'll give ya some leeway seein' as yer banged up an' must've lost yer manners. Name's Atsumu. Never seen merfolk with such garish scales—what obscure coral reef are ya from?"

Kiyoomi bares his teeth. /Coral reef?/ How insulting! This guy's got a hell of a lot of nerve—how /dare/ he? He's so furious that for a few moments he can only splutter angrily and attempt to flop his tail.

"Easy now," Atsumu's brows draw together in concern. "Yer prob'ly far

from home after getting caught up in such a terrible storm. Found ya by accident when you crashed into the rocks under this island an' brought ya to the surface to treat ya, but it seems yer gonna need a few days to heal up 'til ya can swim properly again. Since I caught ya,

guess I'll stick around and tend ya 'til yer fit to be on yer own, an' getcha back to yer family. Would help if I knew yer name, or should I just call ya /Double-Dots/ for now?"

Atsumu grins, and points to his forehead—as if Kiyoomi hasn't heard /that/ one before.

Kiyoomi grinds his teeth. He can't help that the unique set of moles he was born with are so prominenty placed, making him a target of light teasing all his life (mostly from his siblings). But he won't hide them either—they mark him as one of the Royal family, after all.

Ahh, how cruel to be indebted to someone so obnoxious who also doesn't know when to shut up. Talk about rude!

With great effort, Kiyoomi clears his through enough to croak out a whispered, "/Prince/..."

"Eh?" Atsumu leans closer, tilting his ear towards Kiyoomi. "Say again?"

Kiyoomi takes a deeper breath and puts a bit more force behind it, repeating, "/Prince/, Prince Kiyoomi... Sakusa kingdom..."

"Oho," Atsumu smiles, eyes sparkling. "A Prince, huh? Hmmmm! That's a lot more interestin' than I thought. No wonder yer manners are so terrible!"

Kiyoomi splutters again, glowering and twitching his tail as angrily as he can.

Atsumu laughs, and there's something unfairly beautiful about it between his sun-kissed glow and tiny hints of dimples that gets in Kiyoomi's craw.

Then Atsumu has the audacity to /bop/ him on the nose. "Okay, Prince, if ya can tolerate the sun for a bit, I'll go fetch us some better grub. This island's pretty deserted, but mind the seagulls, 'kay? Might think yer a tasty morsel!"

With that, he lifts his tail which had been

shielding Kiyoomi from the heat and brightness of the afternoon sun, and leaves him there in the sand to disappear into the ocean waves lapping the shore. Atsumu waves once with his ornate, dripping tail fins, and then he's gone in a splash of golden sparkles.

Kiyoomi sighs, and turns his head away from the sun's glare. It's pitiful enough to be so critically injured that he can't even /swim/, something merfolk can do easily from birth.

He hates to be helpless, and that makes him even more worried about his cousin—

/Where/ on earth is Motoya?

Kiyoomi presses his lips together, hoping that Motoya is uninjured and somewhere safe so they can be reunited as soon as possible. He's suffered losses before, but he couldn't stand to lose his cousin too.

So he waits, determined to heal from

his injuries and then find his cousin, /pronto/.

👑🌊

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