The Atlantean Angle: Post Mortem

Alanna sat up quickly and turned to face Thomas. "He was here?? Namor came... here? Why? What did he say? How was he?"

Thomas never lost his gentle smile as he looked at his wife and nodded. Slowly she allowed him to pull her back down to snuggle beside him. Far too many years had passed with the two of them being far apart for her to waste time now on things which could not be changed.

"From what I gathered from what little Namor allowed to slip out, he came here not long after it was decided that Arthur would ascend to the throne. He wasn't exactly angry about it, but something was bothering him. He stayed almost six months but never said more about it than that." Namor had left just weeks before Alanna had arrived.

Alanna nodded. "I think I understand. The ruling of Atlantis has always been a patriarchal role. There have been queens in the past but only until a suitable male heir was found. Due to Arthur's mixed heritage, being half drylander, it was thought Namor would take the throne once he was deemed ready."

Thomas cut in, "he wasn't deemed ready fast enough?" This was not a jab at Namor. Anyone who knew him knew he had little patience. If anything it was a straight-forward recognition of knowing him well.

Alanna paused before her answer. Thomas could feel she was struggling to walk the path of this particular conversation. "No, it was found out that Arthur wasn't the only son with half land-dweller blood."

Two of Alanna's three children had been conceived of her without her knowledge, much less any desire to be unfaithful to Thomas. He was full of questions but his wisdom held them back, certain Alanna would answer when she was ready.

When no questions -no accusations- came from Thomas, Alanna continued. "One of my last memories before the mind-fog set in fully, wiping almost a decade from me, was of my old mentor, Vulko, giving me something to drink. I remembered it was to remain a secret but nothing more beyond that. It seems that Vulko knew Orus was going to attempt to create an heir with me to tie himself to the throne so he beat him to it."

Thomas stiffened at the immediate implicaton.

Alanna sat up and face him again, wide-eyed. "No, no-no-no-no! Nothing like that, my love! In some manner I do not wish to think on he had seed obtained from some surface-dweller. The man was the lone survivor of a shipwreck on a mount... 'island'... somewhat near Atlantis. A man named 'Mckenzie' who died a year later."

Thomas relaxed a bit and nodded as Alanna once again snuggled back into his embrace. "That makes sense, then." Alanna looked up at him as he continued. "While he stayed here with me Namor was full of questions about the surface world. The recent war, the technology, the different races, the different cultures... he found it amusing, or as amusing as Namor can find anything, that surface-worlders often define boundaries by water features of geography."

"When he left," Alanna began, "he refused to talk to but to, very formally, tell Arthur he was leaving Atlantis to 'see what is to be seen'."

"He left to find himself," Thomas added.

Alanna continued, "Namor always held himself above others but did so by constantly striving to be the best at what he did. When he learned languages, he drove himself to learn them faster and speak them more naturally than any others. When he learned to fight, when he studied diplomacy, everything to him was a competition that he must win. Namor always envisioned himself in being the best Atlantean he could be so he could therefore be the best King of Atlantis ever to sit the throne. I believe his having a father like Orus, one with so many egregious failings, had a lot to do with that."

"Namor was embarrassed by him, you think?"

Alanna pondered on this for a second then went on.
"More like ashamed, and deeply so. It's why he never one grieved after killing him."

Thomas considered that. "That makes sense as well. I got the feeling from him that he sees much of the world in black-or-white terms. Very little is gray to him."

Alanna nodded her agreement while Thomas continued his thought, "I guess that's part of why he has such a quick temper. Being a perfectionist like that, someone who sees things if clear striations of right or wrong with very little wiggle-room in between, has to be frustrating when you live in a world that is the exact opposite."

Alanna nodded then reached her hand up to turn Thomas's head downward to face her. "Enough talk about others for now, let's talk about us."

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Posted by Bard

Definitely NOT an admin

Member since Oct 2008

51816 posts

Posted on 10/17/20 at 5:48 pm to Bard

It had been twenty-five years since Alanna and Arthur had left, twenty-one years since Namor had come to stay with Arthur for a time and twenty years since Namor had left and Alanna had finally come home to stay for good. During those many years Alanna had come back to visit Thomas when time allowed while preparing Namor then Arthur for the throne. As Arthur's coronation drew nearer and then was completed, she was able to spend more and more time with Thomas until one day she no longer leaving Atlantis to visit Thomas but rather she was leaving Thomas to visit Atlantis. That revelation still made her smile.

She was smiling and thinking on that as she watched Thomas move around the small kitchen. He was still as warm, wise and kind as ever but age came upon drylanders far faster than it did those from the waters. Alanna looked the exact same as she had the day Thomas had found her on the rocks outside his island home, meanwhile Thomas' skin had wrinkled and his hair had greyed considerably and he needed a cane to keep his balance when he walked. She knew she had less than a decade or two left with him, an eyeblink of time for an Atlantean, but instead of dwelling on losing him while he still lived she focused on how much she loved him while she still had him.

Thomas had just turned off the radio, some news about goings-on in Europe, when someone knocked at their front door. Normally any visitors would come during the day, the rare few who had shown up at night had done so during storms. The waters had been uncommonly quiet all evening.

Before Thomas could fully open the door a group of men burst through, their momentum hurling Thomas onto his back. The men were armed and they fanned out across the entryway as they entered the room, there were at least a half-dozen of them.

One of them, Alanna assumed him to be their leader, pointed his gun at Thomas, "you will unlock the lighthouse and show us how to use the controls."

Thomas attempted reason, "look, we don't have much..."

The man fired a shot into the floor near Thomas' head, Alanna screamed. The group's leader shouted at Thomas, "the lighthouse! NOW!"

One of the men said something to the leader, the language sounded like German. The leader seemed to consider what he said, nodded then raised his gun from Thomas to point at Alanna. He looked down to Thomas and calmly reiterated, "now".

Thomas hesitated. During that moment the leader sighed, retrained his weapon on Thomas then shot him three times.

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