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There was blood on his hands. Underneath his claws, soaking into his skin like warm sickly sweet water. It was in his mouth, between his teeth, the sharp, tangy taste of it thick on his tongue.
Red, warm blood. A color that he had only seen on the trips he and Eden went on to the reefs.
The blood of a human.
A human that he hadn’t even known. One whose face was unfamiliar and indistinguishable from the blood. He’s never seen a human before, the taste of them still in his mouth as he stood in the undersea once more.
His sword was pristine, unused as it sits on the floor in front of him, just out of reach. Only his claws and teeth, bloodied. The signs of a dishonorable fight are displayed for everyone in the room to see. Tritons are an honorable kind.
He doesn’t remember what happened. As if his memory had completely failed him, or he had blacked out before waking up covered in the blood of a person that he doesn’t know.
He remembers feeling angry.
He’s never felt angry before.
It was as if there was something else controlling his movements, speaking his thoughts and indulging in actions he’d never indulge in before.
In the trial, none of this is said. He thinks he says nothing as the elders discuss of him. Eden is there with their parents, she looks scared. But she, too, says nothing, he knew that if she did, it was likely that she would suffer the same punishment that he would. Gillion’s gaze doesn’t linger on her for very long. He can hear his heart beating with a slow, steady rhythm. He’s calm.
Everything is numb, not even the cold waters register, or the bruises that bloom across his skin. He feels Pretzel moving in her small orb at his side. She rolls to the left, then to the right, and does it again. He can tell she’s not happy. He can feel the pressure of chains around his arms, pinning him in place. They rub against his fins painfully.
It feels as if he’s floating in nothingness, not even the water holding him steady. He can’t hear anything around him, it’s like he’s looking through a lens of fog. He digs his claws into his sides. There’s things crawling across his skin, he tears at them with little remorse for the pain he’ll feel later. The chains dig into his wrists, they jangle when he moves.
He’s still angry. He doesn’t know why.
His shirt is constricting in the undersea, a tight collar used to remind him not to breathe with his gills when above the water, used for first-time visits. It makes it difficult to breathe now.
The elders were still talking amongst themselves. They look towards him with a displeased expression and Gillion stares at them blankly. His thoughts were working sluggishly as he tried to unravel the events of the past few hours. He doesn’t even remember the original reasoning for the trip overseas.
He couldn’t hear what the elders were talking about as they spoke in hushed tones. They’re speaking in primordial, he knows that much. But the familiar language escaped his understanding.
Their voices hush, they all turn their heads to him.
“Gillion Tidestrider,” one of them said, Gillion’s eyes darted towards them. He sees Eden tense. Pretzel is rolling back and forth in her orb.
He stood there and said nothing.
“For attacking a Naval officer…” their glare doesn’t waiver, “we have decreed for your banishment from the undersea.”
They said nothing else after that. Staring at Gillion and waiting for his reaction, he heard Eden gasp and saw her throw her hands over her mouth from where she was sitting. But he gave them no reaction, he didn’t say anything.
The words didn’t sink in right away, Gillion wasn’t even sure he processed what had happened until after the trial. When the chains were released, and he was escorted out of the room. The numbness was starting to fade and he could feel the stinging of pain from his own claw marks, the uncomfortable stickiness of the blood that had begun to wash off his hands.
Eden met him in the next room as soon as she could. Gillion didn’t even know how long he had waited there, waiting for it to be officiated. He rubbed his wrists, his gills flexing. The room he found himself in was completely silent, it was empty apart from a few chairs and a window barred with bones. He could sense another Triton standing outside the door, and after a few minutes, he heard voices.
His sister swam in, she was crying, her ears pinned back towards her skull. Eden gathered him in her arms, tucking his head underneath his chin and holding him tighter than she ever had before. She was shaking so hard it was making him shake.
It was in Eden’s arms when the reality of what had happened finally set in. He slowly wrapped his arms around her, leaning into the embrace. He let out a mouthful of bubbles, the tension draining from his body as he practically slumped against her.
“Why did you do it?” Eden asked him, her voice barely a whisper. Her voice was shaky and hoarse, Gillion could hear the tears in her tone.
“I…” Gillion opened his mouth, his throat hurt, his tongue tasted of blood, “I don’t know.”
Eden made a mournful sound, pressing her face into Gillion’s hair.
His entire body ached, and he found himself unable to pull himself out of Eden’s arms. He didn’t want to, he couldn’t move.
They stood there for what could’ve been hours, but only seemed like a few minutes. Eden rocked him back and forth, crying and whispering reassurances. Gillion held her just as tightly, trying to take what comfort that she could give but he said nothing.
What was there to say after you had just been banished? What words were there to comfort the people you’ll never see again? What could be said to mourn for the past and to regret taking action?
Eden was forced to leave eventually, the guard coming in to take her away. Eden grabbed his face in her hands, her entire face blotchy and darkly flushed. She pressed kisses to the top of his head, to his cheeks, to the corners of his eyes. Gillion held her wrists, finally feeling the sobs build up.
She was dragged away and Gillion was alone once more. He would be escorted out of the city by tomorrow morning.
His parents didn’t even come to say goodbye.
The last image he has of them is his father’s cold, disappointed look from the stands, and his mother’s distant sadness.
Gillion sat in the room by himself, there were bioluminescent algae that cast a soft glow over the room. He let Pretzel out of the orb and she swam around in circles, there were stains of ink against the glass.
Briefly, Gillion wondered if she would be allowed to come with him. What would he be allowed to bring with him as he left? Would he be able to come back?
What would happen if he didn’t leave?
Gillion curled his knees up to his chest. He pressed down on his fins, flattening them against his leg and letting the pain radiate up his limbs, feeling the pins and needles. Pretzel chittered and chirped sadly, nudging Gillion’s hand when he began to draw blood.
What worth was his blood compared to the officer that he had injured or even killed?
The night dragged on slowly and he was left in that room for hours, nowhere to sleep and too restless to even try. He sat on the floor, contemplating his actions.
Pretzel held onto the end of his tail as he swished it back and forth, he focused on her instead of the deep empty pit that was forming in his chest threatening to swallow him whole. At least Pretzel didn’t seem to be sad anymore, she chirped happily as she played.
Minutes passed by. Then hours. Gillion heard movement from the other side of the door occasionally. Electricity thrummed just underneath his skin as his magic coursed through his veins, he was restless, he was upset and he wanted to get the leaving part over with.
Pretzel curled back in her orb and slept while Gillion stayed up. He paced the room for a while, then laid down to maybe get some sleep, found that he couldn’t, and got up to pace again. There wasn’t much in the room to explore so Gillion found himself tracing the patterns of algae near the ceiling.
When morning finally arrived, no one was allowed to see him as he was escorted away. A burly Triton kept a firm grip on his arm as they swam away, his face contorted into a look of tense seriousness. Gillion was exhausted, he had spent all night pacing or staring at the ceiling and after the previous day's events, his energy was completely spent.
So the swim was dreadful and slow, the other Triton pulled him along gruffly with no more than a frustrated click. Gillion’s sword was strapped to the Triton’s back and he was thankful that there was a chance he was allowed to keep it.
He had no other items besides the things he already carried on him. Which wasn’t much.
They swam until the darkness of the trench no longer protected them. They swam until the light from the sun was enough to shimmer through the thick layers of water.
Gillion had no idea where they were going.
Then, after almost half a day's worth of swimming, the other Triton stopped. He wrinkled his nose as he turned to address Gillion for the first time in hours. He unstrapped Gillion’s sword and handed it to him with a tense grip.
“Do not return,” he said, voice thick and angry, “if you do there will be consequences.”
Gillion opened his mouth to say something, but the Triton was already swimming off in the direction that they had come from. Gillion sat there in the water for a while, staring at the way that he had swum.
He hadn’t felt this small since he was a guppy when he had gotten lost in the reefs.
Spinning around, using his tail to keep himself from sinking, he tried to distinguish where he was.
All around him was empty water, apart from a few fish that swam by that paid him no mind. He couldn’t see the floor below him, the darkness consuming any light that dared to reach that far. It was bright up here, and when Gillion looked up, he realized that he was incredibly close to the surface.
Pretzel rolled around in his orb as he swam upward, peeking his head above the crashing waves and squinting as the sun shined down on the water with a painful brightness. He blinked a few times and found that his eyes refused to adjust. The sounds of the water crashing against itself were almost overwhelming compared to the near silence of the undersea.
Gillion swam for a few hours, not knowing where he was going and a part of him not caring. He kept himself just below the surface, close enough that when he flicked his tail, the end of it rose above the water.
Those few hours sapped what little energy he had left and soon enough, Gillion found himself laying on his back, his face upturned towards the sky. He couldn’t even appreciate the beauty as the sun was harsh on his dark adjusted eyes. His hair fanned out around his head and he moved his tail back and forth only to keep him afloat, letting the waves carry him.
He missed Eden already.
He missed his home and the people that he had met in his past.
Apart from Pretzel, he was completely alone, and completely, and hopelessly lost. The Triton that had escorted him told him not to return, not that Gillion would be able to find his way back anyway. He had always been poor with directions.
Hours of floating turned into the rest of the day. He stared up at the night sky, feeling the relief at the darkness. If he closed his eyes and let the chill consume him, he could almost pretend that he was still in the trench.
A sadness that he had never felt before seized up his entire being and he felt tears—for the first time—run down his face as droplets dried in the air. The feeling only made his anxiety spike, he cried harder.
The moon set and the sun once again took its place in the sky. Nothing disturbed Gillion as he floated along, unsure of what he was to do at this point. He had no home to go back to, no places that he knew the direction to. Just an empty ocean that he was supposed to know.
The water doesn’t feel so big and expansive when you’re beneath the waves.
Gillion didn’t even react when he felt something shift in the water that late afternoon while larger ripples and waves moved him up and down. He heard something approaching and his ears twitched.
He squeezed his eyes shut to quell the urge to look. He didn’t want to know, he just wanted it to be over with and gone.
“HEY!” An unfamiliar voice shouted, muffled by the water covering his ears. Gillion shot his eyes open, squinting in the fading sunlight.
A shadow was cast over him, a large vessel looming above him.
For a second, Gillion thought it was a navy ship and panic coursed through his veins. He sat up in the water, his gills flexing and water running out of his mouth and nose.
But the side of the ship was rickety, the ladder that led up to the deck even more splintered. The sail that hung was worn out and black, completely unlike the one that he had seen before.
This boat looked unstable. It had the poor look, unlike the few navy ships that he had seen in his time in the overseas.
A man was hanging off the edge of the boat, one hand gripping the ladder. He stared at Gillion with furrowed brows, his hand outstretched. A mop of brown hair blew in front of his face with the ocean wind.
“What are you doing?” The man called, shouting to be heard over the waves. Gillion opened his mouth to speak but found his voice hoarse from the water draining. The man gestured with his hand again, he didn’t seem to care about what Gillion’s answer would’ve been if he gave one.
“Get up here before you get eaten or something,” he looked worried.
That was odd. Gillion was sure that he had never met this man in his life, there would be no reason for him to be concerned about Gillion’s safety. Gillion swam closer to the ship and reached up.
The man grabbed his hand, skin warm and so unfamiliarly dry. And then Gillion was abruptly pulled from the water, stumbling to cling onto the edge of the ship as he was dragged onto the deck.
Gillion stumbled, his tail smacking against the floor and his balance being thrown off-kilter by the rocking of the waves. He gurgled and landed flat on his stomach the moment the man let go of his hand.
He coughed, shivering at the sudden pressure of the air around him. Gillion reached up to pull his collar down, letting water drain from his gills as he choked.
“Are you okay?” A second voice asked, and Gillion heard footsteps approach him. He wiped his face, pushing himself up to see a taller woman, red hair cascading down her shoulders.
“What were you doing floating in the water like that?” The man asked, he saddled up next to the other human, elbowing her in the side, she grumbled and pushed him away, “I thought you were a dead body.”
“I…” Gillion stopped, he didn’t know what was safe to tell these people. What if they were with the navy, what if they told the navy, what if the navy told the elders.
“Anyway,” the man shook his head, he held out his hand again, helping Gillion to his feet, “I’m Chip. This is Jay.”
“Hi…” Jay waved awkwardly. Gillion had to grip the railing to keep from falling back to the floor as his knees shook, unused to holding his own weight like this.
“Who are you?” Chip barely gave him any time to respond to his questions or process the information given before he was moving on. He jumped around in his sentences with energy that Gillion regretfully couldn’t match.
“I am Gillion… Tidestrider,” Gillion said, he told himself to start small, “...champion of the undersea… hero of the deep…”
It was a hesitant, small rendition of the titles he had previously taken great pride in. But Gillion didn’t know where he stood or if he still held the right to claim those titles.
If he still had the right to the Tidestrider name.
“Well, Gillion Tidestrider,” Chip grinned, he seemed to chuckle at his own joke that only he understood, “welcome aboard.”
Gillion cast a glance down at the sea below, Pretzel was rolling back and forth in her orb excitedly. His chest rattled with every breath that he took and it reminded him far too much of what happened a few days ago—how long had it even been?
Gillion was pulled away from the railing as Chip led him around the small ship, displaying what they had and talking nonstop about things that Gillion supposedly needed to know.
Jay trailed them for a bit but quickly moved back to the helm where she steered the ship in whatever direction they were meant to go.
Chip didn’t ask where Gillion was from, he didn’t ask any more about what Gillion was doing in the ocean. He didn’t ask any questions that Gillion would have to hastily brush off in an attempt to keep what little credit he had with them.
Just like Chip didn’t pry, neither did Gillion. As far as Gillion knew, the two of them were complete strangers and one just happened to be showing a bit of kindness.
The two of them were enamored by Pretzel who soaked up the attention like a sponge, chirping, and chittering happily as she sat on a table sat on the deck.
Watching them silently, Gillion hoped that maybe they’d let him stick around for a while.