Recollections

Nighttime brought an imposing visage to the seaside cliffs along the coast. During daylight hours, the faces of these promontories were marked with distinguished outcroppings and even the odd cave every few miles, but nighttime rendered the cliffs featureless. In such a rural part of the coast, the darkness of the earth stood out against the less-intense darkness of the sky; it created a solid black band between the starry heavens and the moonlit, twinkling ocean. The impossibility of navigating such a cliffside at night could not be understated.

Perhaps night sailors might fool themselves into thinking there was no land in front of them at all, hallucinating extensions of the stars down onto the land. But there were no major sailing routes in this part of the country. The only lighthouses that had serviced the cliffs in previous years were no longer in operation, having reached futility. However, if someone had been out on the sea that night, they might have seen the handful of lights in the far cove and thought that perhaps something was happening there. If this observer had drawn closer to investigate, she might have caught a glimpse of two figures on the sand, huddled towards one another, leaning over another fist-sized lantern on the sand. If the couple were fortunate, this observer would leave quietly, understanding that their presence was unnecessary. In fact, the couple was lucky enough that no observers had followed either of them to the cove, and that no potential observers were out on the sea that night. They could be left in peace.

At their last meeting, a few nights ago, (Y/N) had asked if they might visit the far cove on her last night before leaving town. Orm had no reason to object. He'd left the tiny lanterns there since their first visit to the cove, so it would be easy to find the place again. She arrived several minutes before him tonight, and marveled at the fact that the lanterns were still glowing as brightly as ever. When he arrived, after greeting him with an embrace, she asked how they were still operating.

"These are actually groups of living organisms," he replied. "Some kind of bioluminescent colony. They can survive above water, although they don't thrive as well here. In a few months they'll have burned out. But as long as they're alive, they'll glow."

"How are they sustaining themselves?" she asked, immediately rushing to the rock face to inspect one more closely.

"They probably absorb minerals in the rock face, or from the spray of the sea," his tone lilted upwards at the end, sounding more like a proposed idea than a definite answer. She picked one up and turned it about in her hands. The little lanterns were spherical, but not perfectly spherical, and had the appearance of a coral fan rolled into a ball. Amorphous holes in the shell-like structure seemed random in size and shape, which had been less noticeable at a casual viewing distance. She thought she could distinguish tiny nodes making up the creature, although the glow that emanated from its surface made it hard to look at the surface in any level of detail. It had become clear that these were not the same thing as Orm's lantern: while Orm's lantern glowed from within and cast light through its holes, like a surface lantern, these living lanterns emanated light from their entire bodies.

"This makes absolutely no sense," she mused, laughing to herself.

"You could probably make more sense of it than I could," he replied. "You never ran across a creature like this when you were studying…"

"…biology?" she found the word he had failed to recall, and broke her gaze from the object long enough to see his nod in confirmation. "Never." she shook her head, placing it back on the rock shelf. "I've never seen anything like this."

"One of Atlantis' well-kept secrets, then," he said. "I'll try to get more information about them for you, if you'd like—" it was her turn to nod in confirmation, "—and I'll tell you about them when you come back." With a pang, he realized that he would have more than a week to hunt down information before they saw one another again. Before he could drift further into the sad realization, she had reappeared at his side to kiss his cheek.

"I would very much appreciate that," she smiled at his flustered reaction. He cleared his throat, feeling tempted to lean in and kiss her back, but inexplicably disarmed by the sweet expression on her face.

"So, are the lanterns why you wanted to come back here…?" he ventured, grasping for a conversation topic.

"I just wanted to see this place again," she replied, after a moment of thought. "I don't think I had a reason why—besides that I like it."

"I'm glad you had a good first impression of it," he responded. His word choice struck her as being an odd and possibly veiled statement. After a moment's thought, she decided to probe for more information.

"What was your first impression of this place?" she kept her tone neutral and sat on the sand, patting the space beside her for him to occupy.

"It was…not so good." He sighed, opting to sit across from her rather than beside her. He nestled his own handheld lantern in the sand so he could watch the light cast on her face while he talked. "I first came here when I was looking for my brother," he began, and she did her best to hide her immediate concern.

"I didn't hate him then," he continued, and she eased a little. "Not yet. When we all first learned of his existence, the reactions were mixed. Orvax—my father—of course, was enraged. He was devastated; my mother had tarnished not only herself, but also his own honor, in choosing to have the half-breed child. But I was afraid for him." Orm paused for a moment, unsure how to continue. He had never told this story; he had never needed to. Despite the throne's most desperate efforts to scrub all memory of this scandal from history, he was acutely aware that many of the ocean-dwellers he had met until this point in life were already well-acquainted with the painful saga.

"I was young at the time, and had heard only frightening accounts of this place. I knew the surface to be a hostile and toxic place, especially towards my kind. And, despite my best attempts to control my emotions, my attachment to my mother…made it hard for me to easily dismiss someone she must have loved. Of course, he was older than me, and a threat to my own power, but I wanted to rescue him from the monsters that were poisoning our ocean." She had nodded quietly this whole time, encouraging him to continue. He paused for another moment, and she reached across to rest her hand on his. He did not withdraw.

"I felt that he was alone; a total object of hatred. In the days following this discovery, my mother was banished to the trench, and my father was determined to silence any talk of the matter. I begged the only advisor I knew to be reasonable—Vulko—to consider sending a dispatch to rescue my brother. He was indifferent to the idea, immediately demanding my silence. I think he feared Orvax more than he hated my brother. After that, I took matters into my own hands."

"You looked for him on your own?"

"Yes, eventually. It took me a long time and several close calls before I could leave the palace without drawing attention. It took even longer to make sense of navigating outside of Atlantis. All this time, I was collecting gossip and secretly digging up old reports made by the captain of the guard at the time of my mother's disappearance, searching for clues as to where she might have gone. After years, I was finally able to reach the coastline—and I was met with the sight of these cliffs." His gaze turned towards the imposing rock face for a moment, and she turned to look at the cliffside as well.

"I can't imagine that would be very welcoming," she conceded. "They've always kind of given me the creeps."

"It was nighttime when I arrived, and these giant, imposing monoliths of rock were what greeted me. I was terrified." He continued. "I thought, there's no way I can scale these cliffs. How am I supposed to reach my brother now? I thought the whole surface was like this. So I headed in some direction—whether it was north or south, I no longer remember—and I swam inches beneath the surface and peered above the waves every few seconds, searching for any signs of life. When the cliffsides got lower, I felt more comfortable looking at the coast. Eventually, I spotted light far ahead of me. As I approached it, I could make out little structures, and I knew I had reached some sort of settlement. That realization was somehow even more terrifying than the sight of the barren cliffs. I had been out a long time. I decided to leave, and try again the next time I could leave Atlantis."

"I wonder if it was my town," (Y/N) mused.

"If it was your town, I wish I would have known not to fear it. We might have met earlier."

"You've been searching the coast for a long time, then?"

"At least a year before I met you," he replied.

"And how long have you hated your brother…?"

"As soon as I drew the courage to actually investigate your people, it became apparent to me that you are not bloodthirsty and powerful monsters, as the rumors of my childhood had led me to believe. Forgive me for saying this, but it became evident that you're just…wasteful, thoughtless, primitive—"

"—now hold on, Orm," (Y/N) interrupted. "We're not all that way,"

"I mean, you're not. But I realized that my brother was in less danger here than he would be if I brought him to Atlantis. And I realized that he was…one of you, for all intents and purposes."

"So you decided to hate him because you made assumptions about what he was like?" She huffed, barely able to keep herself from sparking a full-blown argument. She had never expected such shallow conclusions from someone as calculating and observant as him.

"I didn't want to make those assumptions at first," he reassured her. "But there was one more thing. I learned something, which has the potential to send an acquaintance of mine to the Trench itself, which I have kept secret from all other living souls until right now." He paused to swallow, and then resumed.

"Concerning the advisor I told you I had once trusted, Vulko: I caught him once, leaving the palace moments before myself. I followed him from a distance. Somehow, I was able to evade his notice. As I shadowed him, it became clear that he had gone this way many times before; he had an air of purpose about him. There was also something odd about the situation. He had recently received a new mount as a gift, which was still housed in the stables, while he rode on the back of his old shark. This, I assume, is because the creature already knew the way. That is the only logical explanation I can offer. At length, he reached the surface, and we had appeared in a place I did not recognize. I had been so focused on trailing him at a safe distance that I hadn't paid attention to the landmarks on the way; I had no idea where we were. But Vulko did. There was a tower on the shore, and a dock emerging from it, and light shining out of the top of it. After a few moments of hesitation, I watched him approach the shoreline and dismount, leaving his shark by the dock. I watched him walk towards the tower, and noticed a huddled structure beside it—some sort of house. I watched him linger at the door, fist raised, as if he were going to knock on it. But he just froze there. He never knocked, but he didn't need to do that for me to realize that this place must be where my brother lived." Orm's eyes had begun to well with emotion, and he blinked back tears.

"Vulko had known where my brother was. For a long time, he had known. And he had never bothered to tell me anything about it. I hid, waiting for him to get back on his shark, and eventually followed him home. In my shock, I barely noticed anything on the way back. I'm certain I nearly followed him too closely, was nearly detected, but somehow I made it back to my room. I didn't sleep that night. In the following days, I searched for a moment to confront him, but it never came. After a few weeks, I found an opportunity to enter his quarters unnoticed. The old fool had written some things in a personal journal about visiting my brother years ago, and training him to take the throne—my throne—only for my brother to reject his Atlantean lineage. Even then, Vulko had never given up hope that the half-breed might come around." Orm sighed. "That's when I knew that I had been betrayed. By both of them." In the gentle light, she could see his eyes brimming with tears.

"Orm, I'm so sorry." Placing the lantern off to the side, she moved forward on her knees to embrace him. He collapsed into the hug, pressing his face against her neck, and gripping her tightly.

"You're not the one who owes me an apology," he whispered into her neck, voice faltering. His attempts to suppress the tears were beginning to fail. "You don't even owe me your comfort."

"You trusted me enough to tell me your story," she replied, running a hand over the back of his head. "Maybe I don't owe you any comfort, but I want to give it to you regardless."

"I don't know how to thank you," he said at length, eventually pulling away from her embrace.

"Don't shut me out now that you've let me in," she replied firmly. "That's how. Keep seeing me after I come back. And come back for me after you're sent away."

"I wish you weren't leaving in the first place." he sighed, voice deep with emotion.

"Me too," she said. "But I'm coming back. I'll see you again," she spoke gently, coaxing him to have hope. She knew, in the back of her mind, that he was afraid of the same thing as she was—what if he was sent away as soon as she came back? And how long would it take for him to return to her? In an instant, she thought of a way to reassure him. "Listen, I know you're worried it'll take longer than you think, but you take risks every time you come here to visit me. I'll be grateful to have you out of harms way and staying in the palace for a little while. You deserve a break from the stress of sneaking away, Orm. Please try to think of it that way."

"You're worth the stress," he smiled a half-smile. His eyes were tired, but there was only genuine appreciation in his expression.

"I feel like I'm not," she countered, "but you seem very sure of it. So I won't argue."

It had gotten late, and she needed to bid him goodbye if she was going to wake up in time to catch a ride with Jess to the airport the next morning. They embraced once more and she left him with an extra kiss. Orm remained on the small beach for a long time after that.
If an observer had been out on the sea late that night, and had noticed the lone prince sitting in the glowing cove, they might have caught a glimpse of the tears he'd worked so hard to hide from those around him.