Chapter Text
Removed from the city, but too close for comfort, they heard the dull hum of muffled machinery. The city was just a spot of glowing opulence in the distance behind them as they trekked out to the very edges of the country. Just beyond the western canyon, past the sentinel-like Black Mountains, new machines, heavy and cumbersome monsters, squatted on the virgin soil of their forefathers. The machines blindly groped through the dirt, searching for something, upturning reefs and caves, leaking foul-smelling chemicals and exhaust like a cloud through the area.
For the longest time, the heir watched the large machine, observed the cable moving and the drone that came to adjust the tubes and wires when they get caught somewhere as the machines whirred and thundered along. For two days she stalked them, debating what was to come next.
Much like the thinker, she sat on the edge of the cliff and peered at the device the size of a great white, twirling her spear absently while her mind worked at the problem at hand. Never one for too many words, she did not waste them debating like her accomplices, nor did she listen too much to what they said. Instead, she ran through all of the lessons of her training, all of the things imparted upon her, and she tried to decide as rulers are meant to do.
“Tonight,” he decided as she led her friends back to the city. “We rid ourselves of the surface tonight.”
“The King said to wait.”
“The King is protecting our home from the threat above,” Roan tightened his jaw, still slightly bitter to be left behind yet again. “We will take care of this ourselves. It is our way.”
“You may avoid jail time for disobeying the King,” Anya grinned as they made their way back toward home. “But I think I’m about two exploits and a few years past his forgiveness.”
“The treaty is clear on this,” the heir’s cousin argued, his words growing more agitated, as he was known to be. “Those primitive air-breathers are not allowed to mine without explicit permission from the King.”
“We breathe air,” she reminded him.
“You know what I mean. Those vile creatures don’t care about anything. They deserve everything Neptune does to them.”
“The gods are never wrong, but they suffer often for the actions of a few.”
“Not often enough,” he snorted. “Let them all drown after what they try to do to us, dumping trash, oil leaks. And then, to think that the King bows down to their laws is atrocious.”
Quiet as they made their way back, Lexa nodded politely to the guard who opened the door. The argument took a pause as the water drained from the entry chamber. She heard their words rattling around in her ears, and she knew already, deep down, what the proper choice was supposed to be, the one her father would have picked, the one that some of those who still ascribed to the old way of thinking wouldn’t understand. She was not pure enough in their eyes, and this wouldn’t help any.
Like children, they bickered and she pinched her eyes over the bridge of her nose, exhausted by it.
“Enough,” she said as they reached heightened volume levels. She didn’t have to yell. Her voice carried itself. “My father’s word is law. We will make him aware of what has happened when he returns, but for now, nothing is to be done except monitoring. We have bigger enemies right now than those things.”
“And if they pass the territory line?” Roan challenged, standing tall and firm.
“We do what we always do,” Lexa sighed.
“I’m going to sit at that line and wait,” he decided, stalking away, bitter at his own lineage. “Those air sacs are going to ruin us, and you’re going to let them.”
“Well, that went… exactly as I thought it would,” Anya nodded to herself as she watched his form disappear around a corner. They heard a crash a bit later, the inevitable tossing of his helmet fueled by his own disgust.
“I understand his dire need to protect us, but he doesn’t want to cohabitate. He wants war. He wants the old ways.”
“Your father would be proud of how you’re thinking.”
“My father would tell me to keep a better eye on Roan,” Lexa sighed, tugging off her own helmet as they walked down the hall. “I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t let Roan worry you too much.”
“On my list of worries, he is surprisingly low lately,” she assured her friend, gripping her forearm and squeezing with a small smile.
“Let me know if you go out,” Anya offered. “No sneaking again. Your father will have my head. And I know I joke about that, but one day he’s going to be pretty serious.”
“One day,” Lexa teased.
The Castle was her home. She knew every inch of it. Every entrance, every tunnel, every room, like the back of her hand. She knew the streets, the lands, the houses, the buildings of her city because it was her duty and she felt it in her bones. She felt all that it was in her blood.
Too many thoughts rolled around in her head as she made her way down the hall, toward the library. Up above, on the surface, her father was busy with larger threats, all of which many on the council, many in the palace, many in the city did not understand or care to acknowledge.
Lexa made it three minutes in the library before her body was too anxious and she moved to the sparring room, stopping near the entrance to say her words to the statue at the front.
All too soon, her body overpowered her mind, blanking it out as the muscles moved and flexed and stretched. It was easy to sweat, to feel the salt, to return it back to the world, as it was what she was made of, what built her.
“Another trip to the edge of the border?” A soft voice interrupted her movements, though they did not stop them, merely brought her back from the edge of solitude.
Lexa finished her form before she stilled and tried to catch her breath. The practice trident eventually dropped as she grinned and met her mother’s eyes.
“Any word yet?”
“He’ll be back soon, I’m sure,” she promised, twirling a practice trident around in her hand gracefully. “How is the Eastern front?”
“Busy.”
There was always this nagging part of herself that she wanted to be like her mother– fierce, loved, beautiful, passionate, kind, loving. She was adored by all and feared by just as many. There was something to her soft smile and her quietness that just left her a mystery in the best kind of way. Lexa rarely felt like any of the things her mother was, and yet she always sought to be more like her than her father, which most people would never see. Both her parents were regal, but her mother was perfection. Her father would eagerly agree.
“Don’t worry about it too much. Your cousin hasn’t come to see your father’s way of thinking of the outside world.”
With a little flourish, the queen weighed the trident before giving it a nice heave across the room and into a dummy.
“Father said you were the best with a trident.”
“Taught him everything he knows,” she chuckled, her smirk all mischief. “But he taught me that the hardest thing to do sometimes is nothing.”
“He says patience isn’t a virtue I possess, but one that a good ruler does.”
“No one has patience. You just have to know when to do something and when to do nothing.”
With a huff, Lexa sat down and toweled the sweat on her shoulders and neck. She had studies and she had a cousin she had to watch, but more than that, she was awfully worried about her father.
“There’s so much happening outside of here, and no one cares. And now with this,” Lexa shook her head and met her mother’s eyes. “He’ll never let me experience land.”
“You’re needed here. Your duty is here.”
“I know,” she flexed her jaw.
“I think you know what that means you have to do.”
“I’m not going to get him. There’s a storm heading south.” The queen gave her a look and she knew she’d lose. “If he wants to sit out there, it’s his problem.”
“Lexa.”
“I’m a princess. I shouldn’t have to–”
“Lexa!”
As soon as she started the sentence, Lexa regret it. She wasn’t allowed to say things like that. So she snapped her mouth shut and she nodded again before standing.
“I’ll go,” she finally decided.
“You have to learn to temper your anger.”
“I’m not angry. Just annoyed.”
“Men have a tendency to do that.” The queen picked up another trident and smiled to herself, familiar with her daughter’s tempestuous moods. “You’re next to take over, Lexa. Your father had a hard enough time being from land. He’s protecting you.”
“I know. I wish he wouldn’t.”
“One day he won’t be able to, and you’ll think of this moment,” her mother promised sagely, earning an exhale and smile from her daughter. “You know where you went wrong today?”
“Waking up.”
“Not enforcing your will against Roan when he went back out. You knew he could cause trouble, and still you let him.”
“I know.”
“Try to make it home in time for dinner, love.”
There were certain things that Lexa was raised with that weighed on her heavily. They followed her around as she set out in search of her cousin, as she moved through the familiar walls of her home and past the familiar faces of the fellow Atlanteans she grew up knowing and learning.
Her mother was fiercely supportive of her father’s methods of uniting the land and sea, though his initiatives were slow to gain favor at home. Lexa grew up with that awe of being untrusting of the surface dwellers, while at the same time struggling with her father’s desires. They protected their own, they protected their home, they protected each other, and that was all she knew.
Still, some part of her wanted to know more, though her father wouldn’t allow it. The king would come home and tell her about some of his exploits, but for the most part, he could not risk the world knowing her, not until he deemed it ready. She was to know Atlantis and become its protector and ruler, without the imposition of his birth, and she understood the love he tried to install in her. She was to be distrustful of the world above, but not as much as her cousin.
“Storms coming in from the channel,” Lexa muttered as she finally found him back on their lookout. “Looks bad.”
“You are just as weak as the king,” he shook his head. “You’re here to bring me back.”
“My father is putting his life on the line for them, and for us,” she corrected. “Don’t forget who you are addressing, dear cousin.”
“For them, not for us.”
“Weakness was leaving you out here because I just didn’t want to deal with you, but if now is the time that I finally do, then so be it.”
Lexa didn’t budge as he moved closer, standing up along beside her, glaring and malicious from his crooked nose and small, black eyes to his pointed jaw and angular cheeks. He was every bit a product of the old guard, the very active voice of the city which vied to rid the planet of any outsiders from the land. He was rarely quiet, but he was often louder when her father was not around to keep him in line.
Now it was up to the princess, the rightful heir, the true inheritor of the crown of Atlantis.
“Daddy isn’t here, Lexa,” Roan reminded her, shifting his stance slightly.
“He isn’t,” she grinned and twirled the spear behind her back. “But my mother was the one that trained me.”
“If you want them to love you, you have to protect them.”
“From you.”
Chest to chest, weapons clutched tightly, they stared back at the other, waiting for a movement, for a reason.
“You can go back to the palace now,” Lexa finally managed. “Or I can have you arrested and held for treason.”
“What treason? I haven’t moved past the line your father drew in the sand,” he sneered.
“For disobeying the crown of Atlantis, which I represent.”
Above the waters churned and the currents shifted with the impending storm. The machines stopped their movements and the wires danced in the distance. Lexa felt all of it happening because she was attune to it all, she was more connected she was made of more salt than Roan could even imagine.
She watched him debate for a few seconds before the waves grew violent and a wire snapped and an explosion erupted above them.
“The sea knows its enemies,” he smirked and brushed past her. “And she has her own revenge for outsiders.”
Despite the swirling and mess happening above, despite the machines shifting because of the storm, Lexa hovered and watched Roan dart back toward their home, and for a moment she was almost disappointed she didn’t get the chance to finish it. There was a nagging part of her that new the gentle peace between them wouldn’t remain for much longer.
With Aquaman now a hero to the world, with the world shrinking into itself and getting to know the others that lived in entirely different galaxies, the future was speeding toward them, crashing into them like a barge with no lighthouse.
She should have gone home, but there was the outside world, right above her. Even with a storm, she wanted to see them. Unlike her cousin, Lexa was just curious about what her father kept away.
With an apprehensive, and slightly guilty, look back in the direction of her home, Lexa swam up toward the rocking boats and the choppy waves of the surface. She made it halfway before an explosion pushed her back and nearly blinded her.
In all directions, debris began to sink toward the bottom, wires whipped and fire burned, illuminating the darkness above. Wide-eyed and still infinitely curious, Lexa finally breached the top, to see what it all was about.
Her father was a legend, her grandfather and his and his and his were all myths that were worshipped by those on land. They were worshipped because they helped to calm the sea and save those who respected its well-being, who paid homage and who only wanted to exist. It wasn’t until she saw the bodies floating, did Lexa understand what that all meant.
The final ship that was just starting to smoke and tip was full of people yelling. Lexa hovered and watched them. She caught the large red cross on the side of it and inherently understood it. It hadn’t been there an hour ago, and must have been blown off course because of the storm.
The explosion didn’t take her off guard this time, and she ducked her head and waited. She kept coming upon bodies and watched them sink. The ocean would have its due.
The rain pelted and the waves grew so high and intense that she dove down and surveyed the wrecks, grateful that they were gone, and Roan didn’t have a chance to start any problems. Lexa believed in their gods, and was rewarded for it.
Lexa made a final note of the debris that would need cleaned and the bodies that would need returned, an act of goodwill that she hoped the land would appreciate. She would wait until the anger was washed away, and they would clean the border of their lands.
With a final glance at the churning, Lexa turned back toward home.
But a flash of red shot up into the sky and she tried to follow the point of origin to a pair of kicking legs.
Cautiously, she approached.
Wet and barely holding on, blood tinging the waters, the burned and wounded woman clung to a half inflated life raft. The flare gun still smoked in her hand before she lost consciousness and began to slip into the water.
Unsure of what she was doing, Lexa caught her, tugging her back above a few huge waves. Carefully, she pressed her fingers to the pulse point on her neck and found her alive.
Her grandfather’s grandfather was once revered for helping the land-walkers. He walked among them himself, just as her father walked among them. There was no staying away.
The choices were bleak; she could let her die or she could save her. Either way, she’d be hit with something, but one choice would leave her free of the feeling of murder.
With a sigh, she took off her helmet and placed it over the bleeding girl’s face, making sure it was snug.
“I hope you’re worth it.”
There was no answer, just the crash of thunder and the roar of the sea.