A/N: I apologize for the reposts, I had a few edits to make, but we are now on track! The Ariel chapters are coming. I get a little closer every day. Do let me know what you think! I will respond to any/all reviews in A/N's and reviews.

I'm excited to take you on this adventure. More to come, soon.

Chapter 13 Adin

This current was feistier than the last, pulling them hard into a spiraling vortex for several minutes before calming to a more helpful, tolerable slipstream. The trench was dark and frigid even though Joe provided little glowing lights to follow them that he conjured from little vials in the pouch he always kept at his waist, something about how the shadows lingered and seemed to move in the corner of his eyes unnerved him.

Although, Adin thought bitterly as they plunged onward, the vortex at least matched how he was feeling.

It hadn't been wasted on Adin that despite Ariel's….irateness, she still found Joe's lights absolutely magical.

But, of course she'd be irate, he reasoned. She's been kidnapped on the eve of her engagement. This week is supposed to be all balls and fancy lunches and swims through the garden talking about her illustrious royal future, not…not tumbling down a slipstream into an empty trench—or at least, he prayed to Poseidon it was empty.

The stinging current made him miss his helmet and visor, but he didn't regret leaving it behind. If there was anyone to find where they'd plunged into the trench, then at least his helmet would mark it—assuming that if they were followed, the guards who found it didn't just assume it was a careless lost item.

He mentally hit himself. It had been so stupid to come out here alone with no other guards—no one even to send for help, or to carry information! It was only the slightest chance, but it was possible that the clues he left behind would be found.

Please follow us, he hoped silently. If I could get her away from him alone, I would have!

At the tentacle statue, he'd left another piece of his uniform—nothing too noticeable, in case Joe decided to be more observant than usual—but the bit of sash he'd fastened at its base pointed the way they'd gone, just in case if they were followed, the guard couldn't do whatever it was that Joe had to make the statue turn and point toward the uncomfortable current they were in.

He had to admit that Joe seemed like he was being…well, he didn't know what he was being. Over-concerned came to mind.

Ariel was acting different, but not so different as to be cursed. Adin would have closed his eyes against the confusion headache starting to form in the back of his head if he didn't think that the current would toss him out if he didn't pay attention.

Ariel had vented her anger at Joe before on days when she thought he was too far away on post to hear, and it had never once sounded like this. Ariel could get frustrated at her studies, at being bested—again—by King Ezra in his tactician games and how he mercilessly teased her for it, and she would even occasionally get annoyed at Joe himself for being too rough with clients, or for how little he seemed to take care of herself. What Ariel never was, was as bossy or demanding as her sisters, although she occasionally seemed jealous of how they always managed to get their way with their father—or anyone, really. As far as Adin was concerned, it wasn't a trait to be envious of.

It seemed as though her new engagement had awakened some sort of royal trait in her that she herself had been waiting to embrace, and he was happy for her for that.

He grunted silently, keeping watch of Joe's tentacles flying up ahead of him, still pulling Ariel bound and gagged behind him. Adin hated seeing her like that. It was undignified. It was humiliating. It was everything Ariel had never been to Joe, though with her station, she could have.

If he could be happy for Ariel; for her engagement; for the change she wanted to make; for the change that he disliked, too, then why couldn't Joe? Wasn't he supposed to be better than this? He'd certainly always seemed like he thought so. Why treat her like this?

It's wrong! Something inside him screamed, every time a flash of her fins passed before his eyes. So wrong!

After what felt like half the day, the current at last spat them out on another sandy bank, much like before, except that this time, the tentacle statue was directly at the end of the water's force.

"Oof!" he grunted, when his speed carried him right into the stone, and his ribs hit a detailed carving of one of the suckers on its underside with an uncomfortable smacking sound.

Here wasn't any lighter here than at the last tentacle, but at least it wasn't any darker. The last faint glimpses of light could be seen touching the tentacle's tip, and if possible, this one was even more ambiguous than the first. His heart sank when he at least had the presence of mind to realize that if they'd been traveling that quickly for so many hours, they'd have been carried several leagues away from Atlantis.

How many, he wanted to ask. How far?

But, this time, knowing wouldn't make him feel better. Raised by the palace, Adin had never been outside the city border, and had never much thought about what lay outside, beyond the tasty foods or colorful fabrics that came in from outside.

Another movement swished in the shadows in the corner of his eye, and this time, he didn't have the churning current moving around him to tell himself it was just the moving streams.

Had someone followed them? He hoped. His inner fears whispered a different thought: had something followed them?

Adin scanned the shadows, visibility starkly limited around the rising tentacle monolith that seemed to be the only structure or irregularity there was for miles around down on the plain sandy banks of the trench floor. Nothing moved or approached them, but he could have sworn…

"It's past midday," said Joe, the sound in the emptiness making him jump. "We should rest. We have six more of these to go once night falls, and I for one, would rather do it with a group fully possessed of their sensibilities."

At that, he gave a weary glance Ariel's direction.

"What, you mean sleep?" Adin blurted. "Sleep here?"

"Why not?" Joe answered wearily. "The sand's soft enough."

"But…" Adin paused, debating whether or not to tell Joe what he'd thought he'd seen, but eventually decided that voicing it would only make things more real. If his contingent were following them, then he would want them to have every advantage, but if it was something else, or even if it was nothing, then he decided it would only make the dark shadows down here creepier to hear the possibility aloud.

Joe was waiting for him to speak.

"Nothing," Adin decided to say. "Nothing, that's fine. I'm tired."

Joe only grunted in return, and Adin could easily see that he was tired, too. All that swimming would take a toll on anyone, but Joe had done the work for two. Adin might have felt sorry for him if he hadn't been taking Ariel away against her will.

"I'm going to let you stretch out for a bit of relief, Princess," Joe said, his voice full of such obvious, bone-weariness, irony, and brine, that even Adin couldn't miss it. "At least, it'll give me the space I need to make us a warmer."

"That hurt, Joe!" Ariel whined more dramatically than needed when he took his arms off her long enough to stretch out himself. "I helped you solve your puzzle; now why aren't we going back to the palace?"

As Joe went about making a flameless fire at the base of the tentacle, Adin couldn't resist watching. He'd seen the cooks start the boilers in the kitchens before, but this was so neat. So contained. Only certain species of fish and mer were allowed in the kitchens during cooking—typically those who had been bred to withstand things like volcanic vents and lava-outshoots. Regular mer were banned from going anywhere near for the sake of burns, but this 'warmer,' as Joe called it, was localized enough to warm just the space at the base of the tentacle-formed monolith, and despite the pressurized cold and shadow all around them, it made the smallest bubble around them feel cozy.

"That's…impressive," Adin mumbled begrudgingly. As usual, Joe didn't turn away from his work until it was done, but he gave a quiet grunt to let Adin know he'd been heard.

"Now my guard is complimenting my kidnapper? You too, Adin?" Ariel snapped at him with a hard edge to the line of her mouth. "How do I know you're not helping him take me? I can't count on you at all, can I?"

With that, Ariel turned tail, and tried to flee back into the current where they'd came. Adin was too shocked to follow her, but Joe traced her path calmly, waiting for her to reach the current.

"Joe!" Adin balked when she disappeared into the churning shadowy water just above them. "Aren't you going to go after her?"

Joe lifted his chin ever so slightly in a motion of indifference, not taking his eyes off the spot where she'd disappeared. "Aren't you?"

"Well, even I know she'd going to—"

Then, with a spitting, sucking sound like a limpet being popped off a rock, Ariel came flying back out of the current, right toward the tower. Joe caught her before she dashed her fins on the rocks with a weary sigh, and pulled her back down next to his flameless fire.

Apparently dizzy from her little adventure, Ariel stayed plopped where he put her.

"Please try not to get your head bashed in before we get there, Princess," Joe said dryly, taking the seat across the warmer—farthest from her.

Hesitantly, mostly because he didn't fancy placing himself in between their glares, Adin sat between them, a little farther back, trying to shove the pebbles fallen from the monolith far enough that they wouldn't dig into his scales.

"We wouldn't be in this mess if you'd just come to the ball like I'd asked, and I'd been able to say a normal goodbye instead of…of whatever this is!"

For a moment, Joe looked as if she'd slapped him, and even Adin, who thought that Ariel was probably right about it all, couldn't help feeling a little bad for him. Apparently, Ariel had neglected to mention that her invitation wasn't just for a fun night out. And then, Adin felt worse. He'd actually had time to prepare for the news, but Joe, Joe had probably been dumped with the information the day, or even the night of the event—not that he hadn't already had years to prepare, but even Adin knew there was a difference.

"Then Ariel really did invite you?" Adin said quietly, when after a few minutes, no one said anything.

"You thought I lied to a whole contingent of Triton's guards?" Joe sounded amused, although it didn't touch the shadows being cast under his eyes.

"That's certainly how it looked," he pointed out. Ariel didn't deign to comment, still looking anywhere but him and Joe.

"The door guard kept the invitations she'd given me when I asked for entry. I was…late," Joe said finally.

"If she invited you, then why didn't Krill come?"

Joe's face grew cold, and any amusement vanished. "He couldn't," he said simply, and something about the way he said it, Adin was afraid to ask further.

"Adin," said Joe, so abruptly that Adin had to fight the instinct to salute at his tone. "I know you may not believe I'm doing this for Ariel's own good, but should she choose the eel when this is all done, I will still stand by her decision. As for my appearance at the ball, or anywhere near her, if she, her, not this…" Joe didn't have to say it. Adin wouldn't fight him that her behavior that day had been different. "If Ariel did not want me, I would not come."

Adin heard the truth in his voice.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, and found to his surprise as much as Joe's that he really meant it, even if Joe was still the cause of nearly all his troubles this week. Ariel wasn't wrong. Things might have gone much more smoothly had Joe not had to sneak in. He might have even had fun, and the placement of so many more guards in the main ballroom would have kept his meddling to a minimum. Truly, he didn't know what the door guards had been thinking—unless the ones on guard that night had been Earl and Brawn. Those two never thought at all.

As the sound of Adin's voice, the shadows around them were suddenly shaking with the deafening sound of grinding stone. The monolith at Ariel's back ground into movement, and began to turn on its stony pivots, sending her jumping back. With a rougher scraping sound than the first—almost as though this tentacle was far less used—it turned to point a direction to their left, and a bead of faint light pulsed from its tip, presumably guiding the way to the next current.

"Well, that will save us a bit of time, come nightfall, Joe muttered, looking from Adin to the monolith with a small amount of pleased awe.

Even as huffy as she was, apparently Ariel couldn't resist her own curiosity in any state.

"Sorry? 'Sorry' was the password here? What was the riddle, then?" she asked, wide-eyed.

With a groan, Joe pushed himself up from the sand stiffly, and swam up to where words were glowing the color of the pulsing light, and read down to them:

Grant to me unfeigned a token.

Mend the break where bonds are broken.

I begin where pride ends,

A threaded tie to make amends.

"Interesting…" Joe mumbled, almost so he couldn't hear it. "Something that has to not only be spoken, but meant. What absolute dumb luck."

"You're bloody welcome," Adin grumbled, feeling foolish.

"I'm not complaining," Joe retreated back to the warmer wearily. "I'm starting to get nervous, frankly. That's the last word that would have come to my mind, and Poseidon knows what it would have taken for one of us to get it right."

In the state we're in, he seemed to say.

Adin didn't know whether to feel pride, or shame. On the one hand, it was nice to be appreciated. Poseidon only knew that his contingent didn't.

Yet! He reminded himself headfastly.

However, if help was coming, he'd only furthered them along.

Before Joe could get the idea to swim on, Adin yawned loudly. It didn't take much to fake it. Ariel, who was still pretending not to look at them, yawned too, followed shortly by Joe.

Joe and Ariel settled into the sand, and Joe reached one tentacle around the warmer to wrap around the base of her tail. Adin didn't like it, but he didn't argue. If Ariel got it into her head to swim off again, they'd never find her in the dark, and if she went back to the current she could actually hurt herself if it spat her back at the stone without Joe to catch her.

"I'll take first watch," Adin offered, more out of habit than anything.

"Sleep," said Joe, eyes already closed. "If anything approaches, believe me, I'll know."

For the first time, Adin really believed that Joe was telling the truth—but that didn't mean that he believed Joe. He hadn't said anything about the moving shadows earlier, and while it could have been a trick of the light—or lack thereof—he certainly hadn't said anything. Nevertheless, Adin knew that if he was to be of any use, he needed the proffered rest badly.

As Adin fell into an unsettled, he couldn't shake the feeling of eyes on his back.