Tether

She was gradually improving at managing her thoughts towards him. Although every interaction with Jess, or her boss, or a guest at the café was colored with the knowledge that she was living a double-life, she kept her footing. She was reframing her sense of "normal."

Without considering her situation too objectively, she was content to accept that she had found someone to confide in. She had found sanctuary in a stranger-turned-friend, which was a common enough occurrence, and readily acceptable. If she threw out the existence of Altantis altogether, he was just a handsome visitor from another town. And that was how she saw him, for the most part—especially when he was with her in person. But the one thing which kept her from gushing to Jess about him, or telling her mother that she might have found someone, was the thing she needed to ignore in order to fully live in the situation. He was completely impossible, but he existed anyways.

The transience of her grasp on the relationship was only heightened with the arrival of an envelope in the mail. Her childhood home address was printed neatly across the corner. It was a wedding invitation from her mother. (Y/N) had several months to spare before it would really be time to think about the wedding, but the certainty of the invitation added yet another element of the surreal to her own life.

For several days in a row, evening rainstorms prevented her from venturing onto the ocean, soaking the ground well into the next morning each time. Despite the muddy conditions on the construction lot, the hotel continued to expand. The diner continued to hum with visitors every day. It felt strange operating in a world that moved independently of him.

It wasn't long before a break in the sour weather gave her a clear night. Shortly after arriving in the cove, her moonlit prince joined her. For the first time since she had met him, he was wearing something other than a suit of armor. Not as tight as the bodysuits he had described to her—which were the main alternative to armor in Atlantis—he wore a longsleeve, navy-blue, woven shirt and matching pants. It looked almost like a tracksuit. The usual gold circlet remained on his head.

"So, I was right about the armor being heavy?" she teased, stepping from the boat into the shallows. He opened his arms to embrace her there.

"Maybe," he replied, pulling her into his chest. She hadn't been able to feel how solid his chest was through the armor. She hadn't been able to hear his quickened heartbeat before.

"I wish we weren't at the mercy of the weather," she sighed, pulling away after a few more moments of silence in his arms. "the rain has been awful." They started towards the shore.

"I came up here on the first night anyways," he said. "I could see the light from your house all the way over there," he paused to gesture towards a few short boulders that stuck out from the sea at the far end of the cove, "so I knew you wouldn't be out here."

They had reached the beach, but the sand was wet and sucked at their feet with every sinking step.

"I guess the cove is still waterlogged," she sighed. "I hadn't thought of that,"

"We could sit in your boat again," he offered.

"I sort of wanted to lay down and look at the stars," she said, realizing that she had left the green blanket in the boat anyways. "I think the boat is wide enough, though,"

"I guess we'll see," he replied. They trudged back to where the boat was anchored, finding it easier to move in the water than it had been on the wet sand.

Wordlessly, he offered his hand as she climbed into the boat. She took it, then stood inside the boat to help him gain his footing as he boarded the small vessel. They swayed as it lilted with the new passenger, free hands finding one another as they sought more reference points for balance. Their elbows stuck out like ballroom dancers as they tilted side-to-side against the rocking of the boat.

"I never learned the steps to this dance," he laughed, waiting for the boat to settle.

"You dance underwater?" she could imagine the coordinated bobbing of floating pairs in a lofty, blue-tinted Atlantis ballroom.

"Of course," he smiled. "I wish you could visit me the same way I visit you. Then I could teach you, if you wanted."

"That would be lovely," she admitted, lowering to her seat. He followed suit, sitting across from her. She stopped imagining the Atlantis ballroom—the spoken acknowledgement that she would never really see it left a bitter feeling.

Orm put the thought of it out of his mind as well, for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. Voicing the wish had not lessened its pull on him. He leaned back on the seat, craning his neck backwards so he could see the stars.

"This isn't an incredibly comfortable vantage point," he reminded her.

"Right, I think there's room for both of us to lay in the bottom." she rose to her feet slowly again, so as not to rock the boat. Pushing the middle seat back on it sliders so they could access the bottom of the boat more readily, she spread the blanket out on the wood and knelt on the hull.

"I don't think I've laid down in this boat since you interrupted my nap," she laughed, after a moment of thought.

"The night we met?" he laughed too, although less enthusiastically. "I'm sorry about that," recalling the handful of water he had scooped directly onto her face. It had been a childish prank, something he'd come to regret since he had known her.

"Oh, don't even think about it now," she reassured him. "I was the one trespassing, anyways. You can come down, by the way. I think you should get comfortable first and I'll join you once you're situated."

Tentatively, he knelt in the boat beside her, leaning back on his palms and inching into a horizontal position. She stifled a laugh at his overt caution. The boat rocked erratically despite his best efforts—he was still getting used to moving above water. Laying down came with its own challenges due to the heightened effect of weight up here. Once he was finally stretched out on his back, she lowered herself onto the hull beside him.

He slid one arm around her so she could rest her head on his shoulder. She wondered if he could feel her own rapid heartbeat now, where his hand rested against her back. The shallow V-shape in the bottom of the boat pushed their sides further together than the flat beach would have, and she was secretly grateful for it.

"It's a good thing I didn't wear armor tonight," he said. "This would be a lot less comfortable if I had."

"Are you sure you didn't plan this?" she teased.

"Oh right, I forgot to tell you, (Y/N,) but I'm prince of the rain as well as the sea. I guess you've found me out!" he smiled to himself, shifting a little sideways so he could look at her. Her eyes were already slowly tracing patterns in the stars, but she was smiling too.

Occasionally, she broke the silence to point out a constellation that she recognized, and he listened readily to the names which the Surfacers had given to the stars. Farther back than human memory stretched, before Atlantis sank, the names of the stars had belonged just as much to the Atlanteans as they had to the Surfacers. Below the depths, his people had forgotten the names of the old things which had drifted away, including the stars. But here, at long last, the names of the stars could be shared again.