"I see." It wasn't just the Fae who could command a cold atmosphere. To appear in rags was one thing, to arrive late to dinner was another-- but to simply refuse the food all in the one day... Yao was starting to disdain his own hospitality. Perhaps it Amanti had attempted to eat a little more, the Emperor wouldn't have felt such scorn. Slowly did the middle aged man rise from his seat, fingers drumming ever so impatiently on the table edge. "I'm sure you are in need of resting. Go." A dismissal, one that took a terrible amount of self-discipline not to bark as he so wanted to. When his son decided to slowly covet the bao and push his chair away from the table with a quiet snicker, a finger accusingly pinned his movements. "You stay, until I say you may leave." Whatever the bond between Father and Son was with Emperor and Prince, it was never over-ruled by the latter's boyish rebellion. Jin-Wei sat obediently, his hand dropped the dumpling onto his plate wordlessly, with little emotion given to the gesture. Long seconds ticked by, moments of rising influx until a heated, sharp sensation broke the silence. Silent and infuriated, another swift smack saw the Prince's head whip in the opposite direction, blood rushing to cheeks for all the wrong reasons. "..."

There was a hierarchy to hatred, you see.

Guess who was under Jin-Wei, in that regards?

Sandled footsteps hastened out the door-way within moments, fists balled tightly in frustration of teenage years. How many years had it been since he was assigned his father's punching bag? How many backhanders to the face was a lad supposed to take before he did something drastic? Occasionally, he wondered if he could truly do away with the old snake himself. Wouldn't get anything out of it-- it would be too obvious-- right? Well. The young hatchling made sure to shove their unwanted arrival out of his stride, too.

"I hope your fish dies."

Maybe he'd make sure such a thing happened.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The world felt so alien beneath his toes. Grass that was still a little damp, but grainy from the sand that had blown upwards from the beach. It encouraged him-- he could hear the waves dance with the shore, and despite his lacking sense of smell, he knew the air was salty. Every few, carefully placed steps gave way to a whole-hearted stumble, many a time did his palms meet with the ground and graze slightly from the impact-- but with a few glass shards in him and the strange feeling of clothing wrapped around his form, he wasn't for quitting over trivial matters. He would see who caused such rukus, tell them his good-bye's, and then return-- what if Prince Amanti had wandered to his room already? He did say he wouldn't be long, after all! 

Well, consider Sindre's uneven footsteps hastened.

The beach wasn't far away, though it felt as though miles had traversed with these clumsy appendages that land creatures called legs. Sindre quickly grew frustrated with them, arms splayed since he found that the best form of balancing himself. Just a few more steps-- who was that shadow before him on these shores? A fellow Mer?

"Ugh..." 

Something hit against his cranium. Hard. Dizzy shuffles found knees and palms stuck fast to the ground, his eyes struggled to focus on the dancing pictures they presented to his mind, the world spun uncontrollably on an axis, the cherry ontop being the pounding sensation in his skull. He was a run away mer-thing, after all, and, true to Yao's words, he hadn't gotten far. It didn't take any amount of brains to guess that something of his species would bee-line for the shore, and the guards had taken less time (being able to use their legs to a normal degree) in reaching the sands than he had. Sindre refused to lose himself to unconsciousness, though. This feeling struck him with an odd sense of Deja Vu... yes, this was how he had wound up in the palace, wasn't it? The seconds before he was dropped into a glass box... glass... box... Amanti must have thought him disloyal, running away the moment his back was turned! "Hnn.." No, no he couldn't let the Prince think that way of him. Another strike to the skull banished that optimism, all that was left was an albino boy, decorated in glass shards and ill-fitting clothes strewn across the sands, and a traditionally armoured guard with what appeared to be some form of baton.

Fish really were stupid, he must have thought. No wonder they were jokes of intelligence that paid homage to them.