Chapter Text
“Exile. To the surface.”
Arthur’s words made Orm’s heart stop. The world around him slowed almost to a standstill. The pressure in his chest grew to the point where he could barely take in a full breath. On his knees, in front of Arthur, he was helpless. Chained up like some animal, his arms were extended out, his shoulders burning every time he tried to hold himself in a more comfortable position. He truly was at the mercy of his half-breed brother.
“Orm? Say something, buddy.” What could Orm say? The world he’d given his life to protect, to defend… to rule… exiled him. “Orm?”
“O-okay.” Orm’s voice was silent. Resigned. He hung his head, sagging as much as the chains would allow him.
“Okay?” Arthur breathed, shaking his head. “Okay?! That’s it?! After everything you put the kingdoms through, that’s all you have to say?!”
“What more can I say, Arthur?” Orm asked quietly, remaining prone. “I cannot change anything.” He looked up, and as soon as his gaze met Arthur’s, he dropped his head again, defeated. “You won.”
“I didn’t want to win, Orm! Not like this! I wanted to talk! I wanted to do it the non-violent way! Your war did this! Attacking the Briners like that wasn’t the way to do it. Talking with the surface world would have done something.”
“They’d have killed us all,” Orm said quietly. “You know that as well as any other person on the planet. Land and sea do not mix.”
“Then I hope your time up there proves you wrong, brother.” Arthur moved to him and took him by the shoulders, hoisting him up. He took the chains down from the wall, but left Orm’s hands bound. “Because there’s a hell of a lot for you to learn.” Orm didn’t reply as Arthur passed him to three guards, who took him along the corridors of the prison he was kept in and out towards a release area. Arthur took over from there, guiding him out towards a ship. “Get in.”
Orm complied. He sat down, Arthur climbing into the driver’s seat. They took off, leaving Atlantean seaspace quickly.”
"We’re… not going home?”
“No. The Council is still there. If they see you, they’ll kill you.” Arthur pressed his lips together. “I’d say I’m sorry, Orm. But this was the best scenario I could get for you.”
“What… what about mother?”
“What about her?”
“I want to see her.”
“And you will. She’s waiting at the drop-off point.”
The ride towards the surface was silent. Arthur left the ship in the care of the Atlantean guards, who took over as Arthur pulled Orm to the surface. Orm, unused to breathing air, struggled at first, but after a few seconds his powerful body adjusted, and he swam with Arthur to a beautiful seashore, where they walked out.
Atlanna and Mera were already waiting for them both when they finally arrived. Orm stopped a little way away, the seawater up to his ankles. Once he stepped out, he knew that would be it. He would never be able to set foot in it again. Arthur turned, sighing.
“Come on, Orm. Out.”
“A moment?”
“No.” Orm looked down. He stepped out fully, following Arthur to where his mother and traitor Mera stood.
“Orm, my darling,” Atlanna said gently, embracing him. Orm returned it, pushing his face into her neck. He sniffed loudly, hiding his face entirely in her hair. It took Arthur a moment to realise Orm was crying. “My sweet boy…” Atlanna murmured, as Orm’s shoulders shook with sobs. “You’ll be alright, my darling boy. I know you will.”
“Twenty years without you, and now this,” Orm whispered, breaking the embrace. He looked down at her, towering over her, yet still entirely submissive. She cupped his face and stroked away the tears which mixed with the seawater dripping from his hair.
“I know, my darling. But your actions were not good… war was not the way. It is not the way. I know you wanted to save Atlantis, but it was not the right way to do it.” Orm looked down. “Orm? I will always love you. You know that?” He nodded and stepped forward again, encasing her in another embrace. Atlanna closed her eyes. “And I’ll be able to visit you, too. Tom, my husband and Arthur’s father, lives in that lighthouse over there.” Orm looked up and turned, jaw falling slack.
“I’m to be exiled right where I can truly feel like an outcast?” he breathed. Anger boiled inside him.
“It was either this, where you can have some form of contact with home, or a deserted island somewhere in the pacific.” Arthur gave a shrug. “I chose what I thought would keep you most sane. But, if you’re not gonna be grateful –“
“I’ve been exiled, Arthur. But this is just cruel.” Orm sniffed, eyes red from tears. “And you? I hope you’re happy with yourself.” He addressed Mera, who smirked.
“Why wouldn’t I be? I don’t have to deal with some maniac King with an over-inflated ego hell-bent on causing as much destruction as possible.” Mera shrugged and smiled at him. “We never loved each other, Orm.” Orm looked at her. Now, with how tired he was, and how truly beaten down he felt, he couldn’t hide his emotions so well. His lips parted, and he glanced down. “Oh… my god… you actually felt something, didn’t you?”
“You betrayed me for a half-breed,” Orm said quietly. “For what it’s worth, yes, I did love you. Why else do you think I asked you to be my queen?”
“Duty to the throne? Unification of our kingdoms?” Mera was genuinely perplexed. “We agreed –“
“We agreed nothing, Mera.” Orm’s tone was sharp. Before she could speak again, he turned to Arthur. “Where do I go, then? I’m to live with your father and play pretend?”
“Not at all. The world’s your oyster. Go where you want to go, do what you want to do. But this is my home, right here. The bay, the lighthouse. It’s all here for me. My pops is in that lighthouse, which is where I’ll be when I come back here every now and again. You’ll be welcome too” Arthur took a step towards his brother, and slapped him on the shoulder. “But there’s a lot for you to learn, Orm. The surface way of life is vastly different to Atlantis. The basics are the same. You’ll need a place to live, money, maybe a job… but the customs, the values… that’s what you need to learn.” Arthur smiled at him, but his eyes were serious. “I won’t help you find your way here. I want you to learn it all by yourself. See how good the people of this side are.”
“Right.” Orm looked down. He wanted nothing more than for his brother to drop dead then and there, so he could go back to doing what he’d spent his entire life training for: King of Atlantis.
He barely listened as Arthur and Mera said their goodbyes. He paid his mother attention as they parted ways, but it felt like seconds before he was on his own, only the crashing sounds of the sea for company. A sea he couldn’t go in… Arthur had explained that one foot in the ocean would mean execution. Public execution, no less… How, then, was he supposed to eat? Or drink? What was he supposed to do? He collapsed backwards onto the sand, sitting down with his head in his hands. This was a nightmare, and he wasn’t about to wake up from it.
**
Amelia cut a solitary figure, running along the beach that morning. The sunrise was beautiful, as always, the orange light glittering across the sea. She enjoyed the feeling of her legs moving powerfully beneath her, her breathing even and regular. Strong and steady, she was unstoppable. As she ran along the edge of the water, dancing with the waves that almost touched her, she saw two women pop up out of the waves and walk onto the sand. Skidding to a halt, she caught her breath and crept into the rocks, listening to them talk.
“He’ll be safe here. It’s a good area. The people are kind and accepting – they accepted Arthur.” The blonde woman seemed to be upset, fretting about something. “I feel so guilty, Mera. That I couldn’t help him earlier. That I couldn’t be there for him… that my teaching wasn’t enough to stay the hate in his heart.”
“His father gave him an overly-inflated ego, your highness,” the red-headed one said gently. “His father is to blame, more than anything. Before you were banished, Orm was different. His father ensured he felt only anger and resentment to you, your family here, and the surface world.”
Amelia curled into the rocks and frowned.
“Still… does he deserve such a fate? Perhaps I can convince the council to reconcile their differences… maybe he could come home after a few years.”
“Let’s see how he fares on the surface, your highness.” Mera pressed her lips together. “They should be arriving soon, anyway.”
Amelia watched still as, a little while later, two men stood from the waves, a brunette wearing a gold and green outfit, and a blond in a navy, scaled bodysuit. The blond didn’t want to leave the sea, it seemed, since he hesitated quite a while. But eventually, he did. And Amelia watched as he embraced the blonde-haired woman tightly several times, and then was left to his own devices as they descended into the waves and vanished. Her heart was in her mouth. What had just happened?! What had she just bore witness to?!
The man sank down onto the sand, and curled forward, crying. Amelia stood up and climbed up the rocks, turning back to watch him from a little further away. Strange, indeed. She had a feeling that things were about to get a little more interesting in that little bay. She made her way home, back to her little house in a clearing in the local woods, away from everything else, and started making breakfast.
**
Only after the sun rose again the next morning did Orm bother to move from his position on the sand. A huge part of him had hoped they’d return for him and offer an alternative to exile, but they didn’t. He stood up, looking to the skies as seagulls wheeled around overhead. They were loud. Everything was loud. The sea was quiet and gentle, the ocean’s pressure a gentle reassurance that he was safe… secure. Here, every movement he made was too strong, too powerful. All the subtleties he hadn’t noticed last time, when he’d been fighting Arthur, were now glaringly obvious. But perhaps that’s why Arthur had triumphed – because Orm had overshot every single move he’d made. Even if it had been by a small fraction, it would have been enough to throw him off his game entirely.
Orm ran a hand through his dry hair. It was wavy and tangled. He hated it. But he had no other option. He couldn’t stay wet in this dry world. Besides, he had work to do. He needed to find a place to live, and food, and water. The basics. Even though he knew he could withstand the cold and the heat, it was the noise he wanted to block out. Living outdoors perhaps wouldn’t be ideal… and he had to fit in. And humans didn’t live outdoors.
He walked towards the bay slowly, some of the locals driving past him honking their car horns and jeering at him out of the window. Some of them called him an asshole, but he couldn’t work out why. He walked along the road, meeting the edge of a small town after an hour. The smell of raw fish freshly-caught from the bay made his stomach turn. He was starving – after all, the rations he’d been thrown in Atlantean jail hadn’t been much. Even a disgraced king didn’t get any preferential treatment. Orm found the source of the smell: a huge vat of fish on ice outside a small shop. He leaned over the edge of it and took a deep breath, reaching in to take one. He lifted it to his mouth, but before he could take a bite…
“OI! Thief! Put that back!” a fishmonger had caught him.
“One fish,” Orm said, still holding onto it. “I need just one.”
“I don’t care what you need, put it back or pay for it like everyone else has to!” the fishmonger rounded the vat of fish, ready to fight him.
“I cannot pay.”
“Then I can’t help you. Put it back and get out of here, or I’ll call the sheriff.” Orm glared at him. He put the fish down, stomach turning with hunger.
“I am hungry,” he said quietly, straightening up. He was much taller than the fishmonger, who didn’t back down. “And I do not know the ways of your people.”
“What?” the fishmonger asked, frowning. “Look, I don’t have time for this – go away, take your bullshit elsewhere, or I’ll call the sheriff and he can come take you to wherever your crazy ass has come from.”
“I – I’m trying to learn your ways –“
“Our ways?! Look here, pal. You want something? Food? You pay for it. That’s the way of our people whether it’s here or Timbuktu. Got it?” Orm pressed his lips together.
“How do I acquire money?”
“GET OUT OF HERE!” The fishmonger lost it. He went back inside and slammed the door. Orm, seeing a chance, reached into the vat and took three fish, running off away from the town. Clearly, these people didn’t want him to learn anything about them! But he had learned one thing: if he wanted to eat, he’d have to be a little smarter about when he got his fish.