To say that the Crown Prince had woken up with the wrong fin probably represented the understatement of the century. Ares was frustrated. For days now he had been held captive in his own room, tortured with lessons that could not have been drier and yet they were underwater, nothing around him was supposed to be dry. Anaya had not been allowed to see him since. Her parents had cracked down and grounded her for weeks. If Ares had been able to get out of bed on his own, he would probably have been banned from doing the same. Now that Phobos was no longer around, however, Orpheus and Attina no longer had to worry about him moving even a flipper beat out of their reach. It was maddening. Of course he realised that he couldn't get away without punishment, but it was completely beyond Ares' comprehension how his parents could torture their poor, suffering son like that without batting an eyelid.
"Your Highness, please translate this sentence for me," his teacher's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"I don't know," Ares snapped at his teacher and crossed his arms demonstratively in front of his chest.
"Your Highness, please," pleaded the teacher, who had now been speaking to the annoyed crown prince with angelic tongues for hours.
"I don't feel like it any more. Get out of here," Ares spoke freely, eliciting a resigned sigh from his teacher.
"We are nowhere near our learning goal for today. If only you were a little more cooperative, we would both get our well-deserved break," the white-haired merman pointed out.
"You might. I'm about to get busy with something else," Ares countered, adding gesticulated inverted commas to his words. After class, Sebastian would show up and force him to rehearse his latest piece. Once that was done, his parents would probably be waiting to eat with him and after that would come the doctor's daily check-up. Ares hated his current daily routine. This constant surveillance got on his nerves so much. How he longed now more than ever for the day when he was in charge and didn't have to be told what to do.
"Your Highness," the teacher reminded him again that he was not sitting here alone in his room.
Ares took the scroll held out to him, on which was the text to be translated. However, before he took even one letter that was written there, he let it roll up and angrily threw it against the wall next to his room door.
At that moment, his father stuck his head through the doorway and just caught the scroll sinking back towards the floor.
"What's going on here? What is this, Ares?", Orpheus wanted to know, stunned.
"I'm tired of all this!" he made his point.
"Your Highness, I'm afraid the prince is very displeased today," the teacher now intervened, earning an angry look in return. How dare he stab him in the back like that?
"Ares," Orpheus directed his attention to his son in a stern tone. However, the subliminal warning that was in his father's tone did not stop the crown prince.
"Do you think I don't realise what you are doing here? The lessons are getting longer every day. Even if I cooperate without grumbling. As soon as he is gone, another chaperone will come. You keep me under constant observation. I can't stand it anymore! I want my peace! Get out of here! All of you! Get out of my room!" it burst out of Ares.
"Get a hold of yourself, Ares. Your behaviour is not acceptable. You should be ashamed of yourself," his father retorted in his mother tongue. A clear signal to Ares that he had crossed the line. Only on rare occasions did Orpheus switch to the ancient language of the Aegean, which virtually no one here in Atlantica knew except his son. A reason why Ares usually even preferred to be rebuked by him in this way. Now, however, one of the few learned sea people was in the same room with them. The teacher understood exactly what kind of verbal slap Orpheus had just given his son. These circumstances finally moved Ares to back down.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
"You can go. I'll continue here," Orpheus dismissed the teacher.
"We're not doing this to punish you, Ares," Orpheus addressed his son again after the teacher had left the room.
"Oh, no?" Ares asked challengingly.
Orpheus weighed it up and came to the conclusion that a little concession on his part might lead to the desired result.
"Well, yes. It's a bit of a punishment, I suppose. But you brought that on yourself, young man. But for the most part, your mother and I worry about you immensely. We all have to learn to deal with this new situation. Admit a few mistakes to your mother and me. Have you done any fin exercises today?", Ares' father tried to smooth the waters and change the subject.
"No, as you should have noticed, I was busy cramming pointless vocabulary until just now," but his son put a spoke in his wheel.
He was really testing his father's patience that day. Orpheus reminded himself that the arguments with his own father had never led to a result once one of them had started to lose his temper. So he forced himself to continue making good arguments instead of raising his voice.
"You know very well that this is not pointless, Ares. Later, when you sit on the throne, you will be glad for any language you can speak and thus not have to rely on an interpreter," he pointed out to Ares.
"Of course," Ares groaned, unimpressed, "as if anyone would dare lie to me while swimming opposite the Trident!"
"They will, Ares. Perhaps even for that very reason. You must not rest on his power," Orpheus remarked. He didn't at all like the direction their conversation was drifting and certainly not the devastating attitude his son was displaying.
"Come on, let's eat something first and then we'll take care of the exercises the doctor told you to do," he tried to convince Ares again.
Letting out a resigned sigh, Ares finally agreed to the suggestion.
Orpheus swam up to him and lifted him out of bed to carry Ares into the dining room where Triton and Attina were already seated around the large table.
Now that Attina's younger sisters all lived in other places, the long table was always mostly empty. Unless there was a feast to celebrate, only four place settings were laid for the royal family and the choice of food was also drastically reduced. Unlike other rulers, Triton thought nothing of lavish status underpinnings. So on this day, too, they had only one plate in front of them, at which the four of them graciously feasted.
More important to the ruler of Atlantica than any delicious meal was spending time with his family. This had always been neglected in all his duties. In the past, he had always liked to go for a morning swim with his daughters before the ruler's daily routine started and he no longer had time for private things. He had always enjoyed this time, even if his youngest had often not been able to understand it. A fond smile crept onto Triton's features as he thought back to Ariel's escapades. Sadness followed immediately, however, as he remembered that he would probably not see his youngest daughter or Melody again any time soon. They would have to catch this sea witch! And that was how quickly his thoughts returned to the business of the state. He admonished himself in his mind to leave the subject alone with the other three for at least the next few minutes and pushed them aside.
"Here we are!", Orpheus' voice finally snapped him out of his musings altogether.
Ares' expression showed how much he disliked being carried by his father.
"I'm glad you made it here after all. I was afraid I'd have to bear father's brooding wrinkles alone," Attina joked.
"Enjoy your meal, my dears," Triton stopped further jokes at his expense with an inviting gesture.
Orpheus set Ares down next to his grandfather and then joined his wife's side.
The three adults wished each other a good appetite and then helped themselves.
"Ares, aren't you going to have something too?" his grandfather asked as the prince simply slumped in his seat with his arms folded.
He got no reply.
Attina gave Orpheus a questioning look.
"Bad mood," he whispered softly to her in response.
"Sweetheart, look, your favourite pies are there too. Don't you want any?", Attina tried and put one of them on Ares' plate.
"No," he said, pushing the plate away from him provocatively.
"Someone's getting to a difficult age," chuckled Sebastian, who didn't leave the ruler's side even during Triton's midday rest.
"If only it were," Orpheus muttered, buffeted by the last few days that had brought one discussion after another.
"Ares, you must eat something," the grandfather now tried in a kind tone.
"Not hungry," Ares replied tacitly.
"You need your strength to do your exercises, darling. At least eat a little bit before the doctor comes," Attina asked solicitously.
"They're no good anyway," Ares replied gloomily.
"I guess the magic word in this case is patience , Ares," said Triton, winking at his grandson, "give it some time and you'll see it gets better."
Ares looked at his grandfather thoughtfully. He was not convinced. Couldn't they all see it, or did they just not want to understand?
He didn't know, but what he did know was that, apart from the pain subsiding, virtually nothing had changed in his situation since then. He did not see what the others were trying to tell him.
Wasn't it better to face the truth than to give himself false hope? They pampered him and treated him like a raw egg. Didn't that alone testify to his poor general condition?
His gaze wandered, lost in thought, while the adults eyed him anxiously.
His eyes finally fell on the trident. Would he still recognise him as the rightful heir to the throne when the time came, now that he was so weak?
Triton followed his grandson's gaze and could immediately guess what was on his mind at the moment. Without further ado, he rose from his seat and took the trident out of its holder.
Uncertainly, Ares followed every small movement of his grandfather.
"Here," with this word Triton held out the golden weapon to Ares in a prompting manner.
"What do you want me to do?" asked Ares, flabbergasted.
"Put your hands around the handle," Triton encouraged him.
Ares hesitated, but then carefully reached out his hands for the trident and finally closed them. Tensely, his parents watched the action. Attina had never seen her father allow anyone else to touch the trident and Orpheus also unconsciously held his breath.
Soberingly, both had to realise that nothing seemed to happen when their son touched the powerful artefact.
Ares' eyes remained unwaveringly on his fingers, which were wrapped around the trident. After some time, he sought eye contact with his grandfather. He, in turn, eyed him knowingly.
To outsiders, the situation appeared highly unspectacular, but the current regent and his heir to the throne perceived what remained hidden from the others.
The trident answered and not only figuratively. Ares could hear him. He called out to him. Although the prince did not hear his name, he sensed very clearly that it was so. He heard a low, harmonious hum that seemed to echo only in him and his grandfather.
"Have you calmed down a bit now?", Triton's voice snapped him out of his almost trance-like state. The power Ares felt pass through his fingers was incredible. No wonder so many had tried and were still trying to acquire the trident.
Ares finally nodded silently to his grandfather. Reluctantly, he loosened his hands and immediately regretted the loss.
The trident belonged to him, in his hands, and that was exactly where it would end up. It would give him power and compensate for his present and future weakness.
Orpheus watched the whole spectacle suspiciously. He did not at all like the way his son was fixating on his grandfather's artefact. He seemed to be resting far too much on being able to call it his own one day.
"Ares, please eat something now, the doctor is probably already waiting," Orpheus directed his son's attention back to the here and now.
The crown prince now complied with the request and took the pie his mother had prepared earlier.
"Very well, let's have it," said the Olympian and rose when Ares had finished eating. Attina followed his example.
Wasting no further time, he carried his son back to his son's premises where, as expected, the doctor was already waiting for them.
"Good afternoon, Your Highnesses," the octopus greeted them.
"Good afternoon, Doctor," the royal family returned the greeting.
"How are you today, Prince Ares?" the doctor immediately wanted to know.
Ares didn't know what to answer. Every day the same question. Every day the same answer. What were they all expecting? A miracle? Surely the doctor should know best how he was and that this would hardly change from one day to the next.
"I think he is physically unchanged, but in the circumstances
according to the circumstances. He is making progress even if he doesn't see it that way himself. What worries me at the moment is his attitude, doctor," Orpheus finally answered the question, earning a horrified look from his son.
"I see," said the doctor, giving Ares a thoughtful look, "do Your Highness have enough distractions then?"
"Oooh yes, sure. Boring vocabulary, other soporific lessons and not to mention a crab chewing the ear off everyone around him," Ares vented again about his daily routine.
"That doesn't seem very helpful to me. You should try to keep the prince occupied with more entertaining things for the time being," the doctor spoke out what Ares wanted to hear.
"Goes badly if they won't let my best friend see me and banish my new friend," Ares pointedly prodded.
"So it's still about that cursed ray," his mother also responded immediately as expected.
"Yes, it is!" replied Ares provocatively.
"We've talked about it enough now for the last few days, Ares. Enough now. Forget about him and concentrate on your duties as Crown Prince," Attina refused to be moved.
Ares just looked at her angrily. Not another word did he want to exchange with his stubborn mother. No matter what he did, no matter what promises he made, she stuck to her opinion and it was impossible for Phobos to return to him. Otherwise, he had always received everything from his mother that he really desired from the bottom of his heart, but now she denied him friendship with the ray. Ares did not understand and he felt an unprecedented anger towards his mother that grew day by day.
"I hate you!"
Ares' words hit Attina harder than any weapon could have. Her breath caught and everything inside her contracted convulsively. Tears formed in her eyes. Finally she rushed out of the room.
"How can you say such a thing to your mother, Ares! You will apologise to her immediately!" now Orpheus thundered.
But Ares had not the slightest desire to take back his words.