A/N:
Well, just gonna do this fast and upload a better AN later.
It's my story for the LibertyPen WritersChallage.
After a lot of different ideas I ended up with this one, so yeah.

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Disclaimer:
I don't own anything but the main character and the plot in this story.

Ripples of my heart

Thadea Nedakh splashed at the water with her foot, watching the circles being born out of her impact and widen until there were no knowing there had been one. Sitting by the water had become a habit of hers. Growing up, her mother, the queen of Atlantis, had her told many stories of her grandpa. He had been king for so many years, protecting and keeping the people safe from the harm of others.

The young girl looked down at her hands, spread her fingers and let her eyes follow the bright blue symbols running across the back of her hand and up her left arm. The symbols were old and as mystic as the culture itself. There were not many that knew the old teaching of the language. For a long time it had been lost and it had only recently, in the Atlantic way of putting it, been given back to the people.

A strife breeze made her white hair dance before her eyes, blocking her view and making her unable to study the markings. It was not long ago that a lot of lost knowledge had been brought back. The technology, the history, even the power of the crystals had been rediscovered – but not their hair. Thadea had often asked her father why his hair was different from the rest of the people, making him stand out quite a bit. He had then put her on his lap and told tales of the outside – a world far different from her own. As she'd grown, her questions had too. She'd been asking around and gone to the nice tavern lady for more stories. The woman was known as a great performer as well as a story teller, and Thadea had ended up spending hours in her company, listening to tales of lions and penguins, of festivals and fireworks. The artistic woman's words painted hundreds of beautiful images in her mind, making Thadea long more and more for the surface world. Well, until that one day.

Thadea had been on her regular visit to see the woman in the dead time after the workers went back to work after lunch. Normally there would be nobody left but as she entered that day she'd spotted an old crock by the fireplace, his snores roaring throughout the tavern. The owner came in, bearing with her a tray carrying two cups of warm milk one of which Thadea started drinking as soon as they'd sat down by the fireplace. Today the women told her of a great adventurer that had discovered a new continent.

"Wow, I wouldn't have dared to do that! Was he a very brave man?" The woman nodded and put her cup down.

"Indeed child, he was brave," she smiled at the princess "but so are you."

"Well, let's just pray she isn't as stupid and murderous as them." The old man in the chair grunted. "Smart they might not be, but their bloodlust and treachery is something to beware off."

A puzzled look filled Thadea face as she looked at the man.

"A bit harsh, don't you say, Knaghetus? They are not that bad." The strict voice of the owner smacked through the air, aimed at the man. A foul smile spread on his face and he continued on his tirade anyway.

"Ah, so we're telling fairy tales, are we? Sweet stories of the humans of the outside." He snorted. "Well, you should tell her the whole truth if anything. They are animals. They kill for pleasure and to gain more and more. They don't care for anyone besides themselves." He glanced at the lady. "You're denying this? You're denying the truth?"

"They are not all like that and you know it! You yourself claimed that her father was fit to live in the city with us. Have you gotten too old and forgotten that he's one of them? Are you saying that our wise king is a treacherous animal?" The lady protested, her voice loud.

"Well, I wouldn't say he was the finest of their selection. Or maybe he was and that is why I endure him. He's a good man – so good that he's considered an outcast. They didn't let him stay here, no, they left him. He'd served his use and they had no further interested in him. They left him because they only cared for themselves and their personal gain."

The lady opened her mouth but closed it again in defeat. Thadea looked at the grown-ups, confused by this new piece of information.

"Is it really true? Are all of them bad except my dad?"

"Aye, little one. They're all infested with an evil seed that make them more rotten each day of their life. Pyh!" He spat on the floor in disgust before laying a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Trust me, princess. You'd be happier if you'd never heard of them. Trust me. All they bring is misery." Then he gave her a squeeze before leaving the tavern.

Thadea had left just a few minutes later. She couldn't get her mind around what she'd just learned. All the stories she'd been told by the lady had been so peaceful, as if the others were just like them – another people in harmony with their surroundings. Now she knew better. As she thought about it, a lot of her unasked questions got answered. How had they gotten money to the expedition? How had the monarch managed to expand his land? It was all probably a result of greed and property gained by dishonesty and murder. She now understood what she'd been unable to grasp before. She now understood why her grandpa had decided to hide Atlantis from the rest of the world - a world that had caused so much pain to her people over the course of time. Her people, no… not her people but the Atlanteans.

Letting out a sigh, Thadea flipped her foot upwards, letting small drops of water rain down in the water.

"Thadea"

The young girl didn't turn her head. She didn't need to. His voice was too well-known to be mistaken. A warm and familiar hand rested on her shoulder as the tall man knelt down to join her.

"It's the ancestors, isn't it?" His voice was warm and comforting.

Thadea nodded and carefully nudged her feet again, creating two opposing circles. She studied their growth, watching as they made ripples across the water on their way to the opposite shores. Once again she moved her feet, this time studying the clashing of the two.

"The balance is what's destroying it. The powers are equalizing each other, leaving nothing. Just nothing."

A sorrowful expression filled Milo Thatch's face as he looked down and studied his daughter. When marrying the queen of Atlantis, his beloved Kida, he'd been the happiest man alive. A year and a half later his happiness had grown to a new level when his daughter was born. Never before had Milo thought of himself as a father figure, but as the fragile bunt of clothing was placed in his arms, and as gentle hazel eyes met his own, his had heart melted. For the second time in his life he'd found something that was greater than life itself – something that he would protect at all cost.

Life hadn't been easy for the girl, he knew that. You would have thought that when the exploring team left after helping saving Atlantis, the people would gained a more open minded view of the people of the surface. Officially there was, of course, a friendly tone towards the eight visitors – the general and lieutenant were, unlike the others, not seen as anything but intruders, but there had been murmuring in the city where people had not been pleased by their presence. Milo had grown to know that it was mostly the older generations that felt that way. Many of them had fought off numerous attacks from the outside when the island was still floating, and quite a few of them seemed to have received some emotional scars from the battles. The king hadn't cared for these rumors, being the subject of many jokes from the people at his old home, but as his wife gave birth to their beautiful baby girl, he'd tried to stop the talk – not for his own sake, but for his daughter's.

"Am I some sort of monster?"

The expression of the King's face was one of complete horror.

"What? No! Absolutely not. Where did you get that idea, sweetie?" he struggled to steady his voice but eventually he gained control of it as he spoke..

The girl tilted her head up so that their eyes met. Milo suddenly knew what it all had to be about. His daughter was being born with the skin tone and hair of a true Atlantean, but her eyes were his. As she was their princess, the people couldn't do anything but respect her, but Milo could still remember the time they first presented their princess in public. The masses had cheered as they saw her hair, but when her eyes opened, they had subconsciously distanced themselves from her. At first he had wondered why they didn't seem to trust her when they trusted him. She was the daughter of their queen and nothing less – despite where her father had come from. When finally discussing this with his interpretation assistant, he had been told that he was a rare case of the overcoming of the evil seed, and that many of the people were unsure if this gene was passed on to his daughter.

Milo took Thadea's hands between his own before looking into her eyes with an honest expression on his face.

"Listen, if they believe I'm not a monster how can you be one? Well, I guess you could say your mother sounds like one from time to time, but other than that there's no way you could be one." He bent closer and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. "Besides, you know Auntie Audrey and the others, do you think of them as monsters?"

The young girl wrinkled her nose and thought of this new perspective.

"No?"

"No, they aren't, and neither are a lot of other people out there."

"But the old man said…" Thadea hesitated but got cut off by her father.

"Well, he's just a silly old goat."

Thadea's face cracked up in a big smile as she imagined the crook as the clove animal she's seen plenty of pictures of – heck, even his beard was the perfect goat beard – long and white as it was. She started laughing, and soon after they were both laughing their worries away.

"What is going on here?" a mild female voice asked suddenly. They stopped laughing and turned to face the queen.

"Just talking about goats," Thadea replied, trying not to giggle. Kida shook her head smiling.

"You really can't get enough of those strange surface animals, can you?"

Thadea looked over at her father and smiled.

"No, I really can't"

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