Shining Star//Dimming Light (VOL.2) (Felix X SKZ ONE-SHOTS)

Part of Your World (HwaLix)

Pairing: Seonghwa & Felix

Genre: Fantasy AU

!!TW!! : angst, war, racism, implied genocides, corpses, minor character deaths

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Felix had just turned seven when he first heard of the merfolk. As the second son, and the youngest, he was allowed to live a much more sheltered life than his older brother Chan, and so talks of the war with the merfolk never reached his ears before then.

"They're vicious creatures, Lix," had said Chan, flipping a book open to show Felix drawings of the terrible beings that roamed under the waves. "They'll tear you to pieces the moment you stray too far from the shore. They're violent and scary – absolute monsters. They sink our ships and kill our people. That's why we're fighting them."

Felix hadn't questioned it much at the time. Hurting people and killing them was bad, so he knew for a fact that his brother was right. The merfolk were bad, and that was that, and Felix never even dared step foot on the beach after that talk with his brother, too scared of being dragged under despite there being iron nets and deadly traps protecting their shores.

Felix was a little under twelve when he actually developed a sense of curiosity and began browsing the library by himself in the hopes of finding answers. He knew Humans and merfolk had been at war for decades, but why? Why couldn't they somehow reach an agreement? Surely the ocean was vast enough for everyone... 

But their history books were biased, and Felix didn't gain much knowledge from them. And, when he tried asking Chan about why a peace treaty hadn't been attempted, the older had simply brushed him off with a cold "you can't make peace with monsters" before getting back to work.

However, it's only when Felix celebrated his seventeenth birthday that he fully came to realize that something was wrong.

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"Felix, the weapon worked! It worked!"

Chan had been working very hard in trying to develop a new weapon that could possibly turn the tide of war in their favor. Felix had never asked too much about it, not one to enjoy violence or any means to spread it, but it was the first time he saw his brother so genuinely happy.

"Really? That's amazing!"

"I know! Come on, I'll show you!"

"Show me?"

Chan dragged him out of the palace and up the cliff that overlooked the sea. Felix was always scared of going there alone because of how high and steep it was, and how strong the wind blew up there. A fall from that height probably wouldn't kill someone, but the strong currents that'd crush their body against the rocks at the bottom after the fall undoubtedly would.

However, Felix had no time to think about that when he caught sight of what his brother had accomplished.

Horror filled his veins as he saw a dark mass slowly growing under the water, a few kilometers away from the shore – not, not under the water, in the water. It kept on spreading, and there were some things floating amongst it, glimmering under the sunlight and bobbing up and down with the inky-black waves...

Merfolk, he realized, feeling sick. There's dozens of them...

"This is going to change everything," grinned Chan, looking overly excited despite the mass genocide he'd just instigated. "They won't stand a chance against us!"