I don't usually do aus, but here's a mermaid au, oops 👀

"Pardon me your majesty, but I'm the architect coming to renovate your room. I hope I'm not intruding." Grian bowed low, tail flicking nervously. He was more than friendly with the king, but he had actually never met the prince before, so his stomach churned nervously as he waited for the reply.

"Oh right, uh, come on in!"

"Thank you." Grian swam past quickly, not making eye contact. He scanned his blueprints again, identifying the walls he needed to fortify and where it would need new coral molding. He pulled out his marking tool, and began scoring the walls and ceiling where work needed to be done.

Grian couldn't help but overanalyze his short talk with the prince- Prince Mumbo was his name. His voice was smooth like chocolate, but higher than the king's voice- kind of like a white chocolate. King Iskall definitely had a dark chocolate voice. Hopefully he didn't seem too pushy when he came in; it would suck to offend the prince in their first meeting.

"What are you doing exactly?" Mumbo's voice pulled him back to reality.

"Ah..." He looked down at the marking tool in his hand to find he had nearly ground it to dust against the wall, the particles floating through the water slowly. Grian followed its trail all the way down, where it landed in the princes hair, who was watching from below him. Grian also noted with embarrassment the bed was also covered in the white chalk.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry! I'll get that cleaned up right away, that's my mistake!" Grian swam out of the room quickly, face flushing. He made a fool of himself within five minutes of meeting the prince. Great.

Grian returned with a small clean towel, and began scrubbing the bedsheets vigorously. The small dust motes were stubborn, and Grian's tongue poked out as he worked.

A gentle hand on his shoulder froze him. "Don't worry, we can just get a new set of sheets."

Grian turned around, finding himself face to face with Mumbo for the first time. He had shimmering black eyes, and a gently curling mustache. Most notably at the moment however, was the white dust covering his hair.

"I'm so sorry for the mess, let me just-" Grian reached up, trying to rid his hair of the dust without mussing it up. Mumbo sat awkwardly as Grian unconsciously held his arm for support.

"Uh, how long have you worked here?" Mumbo managed to choke out.

"Oh, nearly eight years now. We haven't run into each other very often."

"Yeah..."

Grian lowered the towel, frowning at how much dust was still in his hair. "You may want to ask a servant to wash this out. It's enchanted to stick to any surface, and I can't get it out of your hair."

"Well thank you for trying. I'd better, uh... Go do that." Mumbo swam out, and Grian collapsed, groaning.

"What was that, Gri? You get close to people all the time, and that wasn't any different! Besides, he probably didn't even think about it like that. Nothing happened! Ughhhh, emotions are so stupid.." Grian chattered to himself as he busied himself with his work again. Grian didn't see Mumbo again that day.
—
"Hello Mumbo, I'm here to finish your room!" Grian beamed as Mumbo opened the door.

"Come on in! Haven't you been 'almost done' for two weeks now?" Mumbo chuckled.

Grian giggled. "Hey, who's the architect here, huh?" He teased.

"Fine, fine. How have you been?" Mumbo sat on the edge of his bed, and Grian promptly joined him.

"Oh, fine! Sorry I haven't been able to stop by lately, Iskall- er, the King has been keeping me busy lately." Grian elbowed Mumbo cheekily.

"Hm.."

"Hey, why the long face? You're not secretly a hammerhead, are you?" Grian playfully tugged Mumbo's cheek, which seemed to pull him out of his trance.

"Oh nothing. Just been missing our talks lately." Mumbo glanced at Grian and couldn't help but smile.

"Me too."

Mumbo sighed, lying down. Grian joined him, resting his head on Mumbo's arm. They lay like this for some time, enjoying the faint sounds of busy merfolk around the castle. Grian nearly fell asleep, but his head jerked, waking him up again.

"I guess I'd better actually finish my work this time," Grian sighed. "Someone's bound to get suspicious soon."

"I guess you're right."

Grian swam up to the ceiling, where he'd been 'working' on the same ceiling tile for the past two weeks.

"Is there anywhere we could meet up that wouldn't make anyone suspicious?" Mumbo mused.

"I can think of plenty of places, but we need to find the right time," Grian countered.

"True. Well, when is your schedule open? I'm free just about whenever. Being prince has its benefits," Mumbo chuckled.

"I'm on a pretty tight schedule for a while; Iskall is having me redo a lot of the castle halls right now. They've been neglected for too long, unfortunately." Grian stuck his tongue out, twisting a nautilus until it suited his taste in the ceiling pattern.

"Can I help you work?" Mumbo perked up. "I'd love you help you if it means we can see each other!"

Grian turned away so Mumbo couldn't see the blush spread across his cheeks. "Yeah, that'd be great."

"Hey, what's wrong? You don't seem that excited!" Mumbo swam up, grabbing Grian's shoulders gleefully. "We can make this work!"

Grian pried himself from Mumbo's grip bashfully. "Make it work?"

Mumbo's face fell. "Oh, I'm sorry, I just thought- I'm, I just kinda thought we kicked it off well, and that maybe you'd like to hang out more. Outside of work, yknow?" He fumbled with the gem hanging on his collarbone nervously.

"Yeah, I would like that."

"Then why are you acting so weird? Is it something I said? Help me out here, I haven't talked to real people my age in my entire life, and I'm really trying here," Mumbo was practically pleading at this point. He tucked a hair behind Grian's ear, which made him look up.

Grian smiled and melted into Mumbo's touch. Mumbo pulled him closer by his chin, and they softly kissed. Mumbo pulled back, gazing gently into Grian's eyes.

"I hope I'm not forcing you, but... your eyes are stunning, did you know that? I would get lost in them every day if I could."

"You're the most gentle royalty I've ever met."

"Yeah? And just how much royalty have you met?" Mumbo teased gently.

"More than you realize," Grian winked.

"Should I be jealous?"

"Only if you think there's someone you should be worried about."

A flash of doubt crossed Mumbo's eyes, but he quickly smiled, running a hand through Grian's hair. "I'm not worried."

"Are we going to keep swimming on the ceiling, or would you like to go somewhere more relaxing?" Grian teased as he slowly floated down.

"Hey, I was gonna say something about that but you distracted me!" Mumbo accused. "Do you wanna-"

The chattering of three merfolk passed the door, freezing both of them in place. The sounds faded away harmlessly, but their bubble of suspended time was broken.

"I guess I'd better get back to real work now," Grian conceded.

"Fine, but promise I'll see you tomorrow?"

"No promises," Grian winked.

Mumbo pulled him into a hug, and kissed his ear as he swam out the door. "Bye Grian, thanks for everything!"
—
"Hey Grian, how's everything coming along?"

Grian jumped out of his skin as Iskall spoke into his ear. "Ah, Iskall! Everything's on schedule at the moment, and the remodel should be done by the end of the year!"

"Perfect. I always knew you had something special," Iskall complimented, making Grian blush.

"Thank you very much sir."

Iskall frowned. "We're back to sir now? I thought we had more of a connection than that."

Grian turned away, pretending to be busy working. "Well, some people were questioning our relationship, and I-"

"Who? Who have you been talking to?"

"Well, I typically talk to Joe, and Ren- sometimes Doc if I see him, Mumbo when I work on his room..." Grian listed the names as casually as he could.

"Mumbo huh? And what does he think?"

"About us? No more than the normal person. You're royalty and I serve the king, that's all," Grian emphasized.

"Good, good. Well, I hope I'll see you soon, okay? We haven't spent much time together lately."

"Yeah, I've just been really busy, sorry," Grian trailed off.

"Well I hope to see you at the banquet on Saturday." Iskall kissed Grian's ear; the same place Mumbo did not an hour earlier. "Bye love."

Grian froze, a wave of heat followed by chills ran through him. He suddenly realized how much his meetings with Mumbo had affected him, and his mind swirled. He and Iskall had been friends- maybe more- for years now, and suddenly meeting Mumbo sent it all out the window. Since Iskall had become busy with his new kingly duties, Grian found that Iskall had changed, and they didn't spend time together anymore. Mumbo, however, had all the time in the world, and spent every moment with Grian happily.

Grian sighed, and returned to his blueprints. This was too much for one poor architect to handle alone...

Love you, my little stars!
-RaeTheStar