Author's Note: Surprise! Two years is an ungodly amount of time between updates and I'm so sorry to anyone who's been with this story since it started way back in 2015(!), thank you for sticking around! I've just finished my undergraduate degree, so hopefully I'll be able to see this story to its completion now that I've got some free time in sight. I'm so glad to be able to get back to writing!

The throne room of Atlantica was quiet, but not empty. The king sat, his face like thunder, his grip on the throne unrelenting, his knuckles white. Five of his daughters floated before him, their heads lowered to avoid meeting his gaze. Had any had the courage to meet it, those cold eyes may well have turned them to stone. The guards had alerted him to the commotion in the dungeons, interrupting what he now realised was nothing but a distraction on Attina's part, a way of occupying his attention whilst her sisters undertook the unthinkable.

'Explain yourselves.' The King's voice was low, heated.

The silence intensified. The princesses shifted their eyes to one another, hoping and praying that someone would speak up and attempt to excuse actions that were, in their father's opinion, inexcusable.

'We… we're s-sorry Daddy,' stammered Arista, her words falling pitiably to the floor.

Triton remained unmoved. 'That's no explanation. What were you thinking? All of you!'

Attina had been in a state of turmoil all day. Deceiving her father did not come easily, and to do so with the looming certainty that she would be found out had been the ultimate test of her resolve. What she was coming to realise though—what her sisters were teaching her, for better or for worse—was that their father wasn't always right. It was their job as those closest to him to help him see that, and it was her duty as the eldest of her sisters to face the consequential anger that their actions had caused.

Bravely, she lifted her head. 'We had to help him. Father, he'd done nothing wrong.'

'And in that, you reveal your ignorance!' thundered the King. 'That boy is an enemy to this family Attina, I told you that!'

'You did,' Attina trembled but remained impressively calm, 'and for a long time I believed you, but it's not true. I see that now.' Stunned silence replaced the expected outburst and Attina took the opportunity to continue. She swam closer to the throne upon which her father sat, leaving her tongue-tied sisters below. 'You cast him out because you believed him responsible for Mother's death'—the King flinched—'but he was only a child. He was afraid… we all were. You can't reasonably blame him, Father. Had it been one of us, had Mother gone back for one of us, would you have treated us the same way? Would you have hated us as you hated him?'

The water hung heavy, tense; the calm before what had the potential to be a storm of epic proportions.

Attina allowed her query a moment of its own and utilised the pause to take a series of deep breaths. 'He was our brother and we loved him… Mother loved him.' The princess's voice broke then, and she touched her fingertips to her lips as though to stifle any further sorrow.

Alana swam to her sister and took her hand. A smile of encouragement touched her lips.

Quite disconcertingly, the King said nothing, moved not a muscle as the remaining princesses gathered in support around their eldest sister. He seemed to be looking at nothing at all, his eyes fixed on some distant thought or memory that only he could see. At long last he rose, casting his gathered daughters in shadow.

'I would have expected this from your sisters, but not from you,' Triton chided his eldest.

Attina could not meet his gaze, only anchored herself by taking a firmer grip of Alana's hand, she and her sisters huddled in a ball of tension beneath the towering form of the sea king. Had any the courage to look up they would have found, however, their father's eyes fixed not upon them but some faraway place. Some faraway time. It was a painful recollection and one which he had ere regarded with abhorrence and grief on account of the very individual his daughters now dared to defend.

A deep sigh escaped Triton unchecked and, though it pained him to say it, he addressed his daughters once more. 'But perhaps you're right.'

None dared speak.

'Your mother did love him, though I confess I never could. She was the better half of me and without her… suffice to say I may have lost my way.' The king sank back into his throne, his brow furrowed in painful consideration as he breathed life for the first time to his own limitations.

There was a new pain that laced his words, one never before encountered by his daughters. He had softened for Athena alone, vowed never to show weakness in view of any but her and in the privacy of their own chambers. For years now he had found only silence there. Loneliness. He revealed himself now and his daughters couldn't but notice. Here lay a double revelation; their father was not invincible—he suffered even under the weight of his own mind—nor was he omniscient. He could be mistaken, was mistaken, and accepted that openly now. What was there left to do but forgive him?

Arista moved first. Silently did she swim to her father's side and close her arms around him. Silently did the others do the same; did Attina plant a kiss upon that tortured brow. What followed was a period of quietude in which each made their own reflections. The silence was at last broken, the king addressing that most pressing concern which troubled them all.

'Where are your sisters?' he asked. 'Where have they taken him?'

The princesses looked at one another and, at length, Andrina admitted their failure to devise a comprehensive plan.

'They'll have taken him to the surface,' was the best she could offer. 'That's as much as we discussed. Wherever's closest I suppose.'

Triton paused, ran a hand pensively over his beard. 'Attina and I will look for them, the rest of you are to remain here where it's safe.' Here he looked to his eldest, who readily nodded her assent. For him to go alone would not do; somebody needed to modulate, to ensure an understanding between both parties when they found one another.

The king agonised at the prospect of returning to the site of such torment and with his daughter no less! After so many years of striving to protect his family, was he truly asking so much? Images of that day haunted him still. Images of Attina struggling and helpless beneath ropes black as death. To put her at risk again… he shuddered to think it. Then again, he sighed, Ariel and Aquata were already there, risking their safety for the very boy to whom Triton had always directed blame. For them to do so was unimaginable and yet they, all of them—his daughters—possessed the same innate kindness that he had loved so much in Athena. Their mother may be gone, but she shone in this moment through them all. Pride overwhelmed the sea king. They had defied him and saved a human—the very same one—despite his differences, as their mother had done all those years ago.

He looked at them, huddled close beside him, ever finding strength in numbers. He was glad they had each other, for he had been no father to them since the death of their mother.

'We have much to discuss when I return,' he told them, rising from his throne. To wait any longer would not do. He must find Ariel and Aquata. Must find Eric, though the thought sent ripples of doubt through him and, dare he acknowledge it, guilt. How to face a young man who he had been so willing to condemn to death; whose life he had disrupted so heavily? How to face a young man he had loathed for so many years, the sight of whom may easily bring back that lingering hate? There was, he decided, nothing for it but to try. If for nothing else than for the sake of his daughters.

'I'm so proud of you all,' said the king, battling his emotions. 'Your mother would be too. Stay together, I hope we won't be long.'

As he turned away a quite different voice called out and forced his attention downwards.

'Your Majesty.' A guard had entered and bowed stiffly. 'A woman to see you.'

'Now's not convenient, you must ask her to return another day, and I will need two escorts for an immediate departure.'

The merman bowed again and left the throne room. The dismissal which followed was indistinguishable, but the resulting commotion could not fail to be heard. Seconds later another entered the room, and the King took a sharp intake of breath.

'Your Majesty, I insist on being heard!' This was Nastasya.

The dark rings around her eyes—only enhanced by her pallor—belayed her distress and her sleepless nights. Triton understood them to a degree. He had spent many a night in a state of restlessness, worrying for one daughter or another. Never this though; never had their lives been in question, never had he been forced to consider that they had been lost to him forever. It was hard to meet those anxious eyes, yet he knew that he must.

'Nastasya—'

'Has he been here? Have you seen him?'

She clasped her hands before her, pleading, her features scored. She dreaded the affirmative, for she knew well the king's resentment towards her boy. She dreaded the negative more. It had taken courage for her to come here, to jeopardise the agreement that meant her daughter was provided for so long as she remained in exile, but she had no other option, nobody else to turn to. She would negotiate with the king until he smote her down, if necessary, but she would leave no stone unturned in locating Eric. If it was here that he had come in search of answers she needed to know. It was the not knowing that was worst. The guessing. The possibilities.

At the king's response, all her breath left her at once.

'Yes. He was here.'

'I beg you, please don't treat him too harshly. It's my fault he came here, all my fault, I should have spoken to him, should have listened to him. Your Majesty please I'll take him home immediately, you won't see us again I swear it—'

'Nastasya!' The king cut her rambling short and continued as she paused to catch her breath. 'I said he was here; I don't know where he is now.'

'But—'

'My daughters have taken him to the surface, I'm going to look for them now.'

'Your… the surface?' Nastasya's mind reeled, unable to piece together the sequence of events that could have led to Eric's being accompanied there by the king's daughters. He would never have allowed it. She couldn't however, in her precarious position, afford to question this. She needed to be as acquiescent as possible if she was to ensure a positive outcome for both of her children here. The king must have no further reason to scorn her.

'I see,' she replied meekly, 'I'll come with you, I'll take him home at sunrise.'

Triton was surprised by this, this willingness to accept such scant information, so uncharacteristic was it. She was afraid, he realised, afraid of him. She wanted to spend as little time here as possible so as to create the illusion of having never been here at all. He couldn't blame her for that, such memories as she had here, and of him. He wanted to deny her, to instruct that she return home; that, with any luck, he would send Eric back to her. Compliant as she appeared, however, he could tell that that wasn't an option, and he hadn't the energy or time to argue. Perhaps her attendance may prove useful anyhow.

'Very well, you may come.'

He turned from her then, bid goodbye to his daughters once more, who had watched this exchange in silence and with growing bewilderment and who would speculate over this into the small hours of the morning. Then, guards assembled, he, Attina, and Nastasya began the journey to the surface.

The possibility that they wouldn't find them lurked, a dark, unwelcome thought in the back of their minds, though they tried not to heed it; tried to remain optimistic. They couldn't know that by the time they got there, Ariel and Aquata would already be well on their way to Ursula's lair, and Eric tucked away among his own kind within the walls of the palace.