Everything You Are - Orm Marius/Ocean Master

Chapter Thirteen - Painful Truths

AHHHH!" With a scream, in one swift motion, she spun around and launched the trident behind her.

Vulko, quick as ever, swerved out of the way and caught the weapon sent his way in fury. Aria gave a startled cry.

Aurelia was still shaking with rage. "There anything else you're hiding from me? Cause I want to know it now."

"Aurelia-"

"How dare you! How dare! You have such nerve! How could you even look me in the eyes all these years knowing full well that I'm betrothed to that asshole and that my mother is dead?! You told me she was exiled! You lying bastard!"

"She was. To the Trench. But anyone who has been cast out and sent there has never returned."

"Then don't say 'exiled'! Just say 'dead'! Don't get my hopes up! Mine, or my fathers!" She looked to Aria. "Even you, her adviser and friend? How could you?"

"How were we supposed to tell you that your mother would never be returning to you? How could we destroy that hope?"

Tears were threatening to fall, but she fought back against them. "Better than giving me false hope. Any hope at all." She pushed past them. Vulko held out the trident to her, but she refused. "Get that thing out of my sight. And for the last time: leave me the hell alone."

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It was dawn in Amnesty Bay. Aurelia knew for certain that a certain lighthouse keeper would be waiting on the docks watching the sunrise, waiting for his beloved to return to him. She now also knew that Atlanna never would.

Aurelia was so upset and so homesick that even the heart-wrenching and heartbreaking sight of her father waiting for the woman he loved to come back when she couldn't was so familiar it still made her smile.

"Hey!" Tom's solemn face lit up when he saw her.

"Dad-" Moments later she was in his arms, face buried in his shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent. She never wanted to let go.

"Hey, Kiddo - you're back. You okay?"

She shook her head awkwardly as she was still pressed against him. "No."

"Hey, what happened?" Tom pulled away and brushed the hair from her face.

"It was awful. I hate them all so much." Thank god she was out of that terrible place.

"Did they hurt you?"

"No." Such a lie.

"You want to talk about it?"

"No, I just want to go home."

"Well, we can do that." Tom put an arm around her and led her back to the lighthouse. He didn't say anything about cutting his usual morning sunrise-watch short that day.

Once back home, Tom put on some coffee and began to fry some eggs on the stove while Aurelia curled up on the couch.

Her dad had the TV on, but she wasn't paying any attention. Her eyes were instead locked on the framed family photograph sitting on the side-table - the original frame had been cracked when the Atlanteans attacked to take her mother away all those years ago - but Tom had preserved the photo. It was of him, Atlanna, and baby Aurelia, snuggled together on the couch - together as a family.

"Ah, I love that photo," Tom sighed, leaning against the doorway and smiling fondly and longingly.

Aurelia couldn't tell him. Not yet. "Yeah, me too."

"When she comes back, I want to recreate it, then put the two photos side-by-side. Then and now."

Then and now.

Back in the kitchen, the coffee pot beeped, and Tom went to tend to it. While he was gone, and checking to make sure he couldn't see, she, still wrapped tightly in her favourite blanket, knelt before the picture, gaze locked on her mother's smiling face.

"I'm so sorry, Mom," she whispered, feeling the tears returning and willing them not to fall. "I'm so sorry."

Part of her wanted revenge, while the other hoped she could hit her head and forget that Atlantis ever even existed. Wishful thinking.

Then she remembered the war, the whole reason she had gone there in the first place - or so she had originally thought. Oh, it would come, Orm and Orvax's war, it would come to the surface, of that she was sure. But she would be ready, for it, for them. She would be ready.

Let it come.

And when it did, she would show them the same mercy they had shown her mother.

(And that's the end! :) Book one of three complete! Thank you so much for reading!

I am so eager to continue that I have already started writing the next two books, so expect to see it continue soon! ;)

Thank you all again so much and I hope you enjoyed! :) Please let me know what you think! Bye for now!)