The sea was quieter at the edge of Atlantis.

Here, beyond the glow of the coral towers and the bustle of the court’s golden domes, the water dimmed to a gentle twilight. Kelp swayed like slow dancers in the current. Schools of silverfish turned in unison, glittering for no one.

Medusa floated just beyond the coral ridge, hidden as always. She had never entered the city’s heart—never crossed the barrier of respectability and bloodlines that kept her kind on the margins. But she had come close over the years, always in secret, always when he was alone.

And now he was alone again.

King Triton stood near the Moon Pool, the sacred place of reflection, his trident plunged into the sand beside him like a broken flag. He stared into the water, his shoulders bowed under weight no current could lift. His long white-blue hair flowed around him, haloed in moonlight drifting down from the surface.

Medusa hadn’t seen him in years.

Not since the coronation, not since the whispers about her had grown louder, not since she'd turned away from his world and tried to build one of her own.

She clenched her jaw as she watched him, heart aching. Three years since his queen left. Everyone in the deep knew—rumors swam faster than sharks. Some said Thalassa had grown tired of his compassion. Others whispered she had left to pursue a darker throne beyond the eastern rift.

None of them knew the man Medusa remembered.

She still saw the boy who once gave her a ribbon woven from sun-dried kelp, who swam with her into trenches forbidden to nobles, who called her beautiful before anyone told him not to. She still felt the sting when he stopped meeting her eyes, stopped answering her tidesent messages. It wasn’t his fault—not really. The sea had claimed him for its throne, and there was no room on that seat for a girl with serpent hair.

Her fingers twitched. Even now, she dared not get too close. The myths of her kind had long become law: don’t look a Gorgon in the eyes, lest you never look again.

And yet… she was tired of looking from afar.

She drifted closer, slow as a ghost, letting the shadows cling to her. The sea remembered her well—it always welcomed her back, even if its people didn’t.

“Triton,” she called softly, her voice threading through the current like a song only he could hear.

He turned. And for the first time in decades, their eyes met.

He didn’t turn to stone.

Triton didn’t speak at first. His expression didn’t shift—no smile, no anger, not even surprise. But his hand tightened slightly on the shaft of his trident.

Medusa hovered at a distance, just above the sea floor. The light shimmered off her skin like fractured glass. Her hair floated behind her in slow, serpentine waves, more restless than she was.

“I didn’t expect to see you,” he said at last. His voice had changed—deeper, heavier—but it still carried the same low warmth that used to make her chest ache.

“I didn’t expect to come,” she replied. “But I heard about... things.”

A pause.

He looked back toward the Moon Pool, where the surface above shimmered like a broken mirror.

“She left,” he said simply.

“I know.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

He gave a small, humorless laugh. “Are you?” he asked, turning his eyes back on her.

Medusa’s pulse quickened. She’d spent years hiding from the sea’s judgment, from rumors and stories that painted her as cursed. She didn’t expect Triton to be cruel—but she also didn’t expect him to still be hurt.

“I know what it’s like,” she said carefully. “To have someone... leave. And leave you with something heavy.”

Triton studied her. “You married Varkas.”

The words were more observation than accusation, but they still hit like a harpoon.

“I did,” she said. “A long time ago.”

“You had a son.”

“I do.”

“Is he like you?” Triton asked, with the same measured neutrality.

Medusa’s throat tightened. “I don’t know yet.”

He was silent again. The weight of their shared silence stretched between them like a deep rift.

And then, softly: “You were always watching. Weren’t you?”

Medusa blinked. “What?”

“I’d feel it sometimes,” he said. “When I was younger. When I was alone. A current, a gaze. I thought it was my imagination. I told myself you hated me.”

“I could never hate you.”

“Then why did you leave?”

She looked away, her eyes scanning the coral ridge, the distant city lights. “Because I was turning into someone I didn’t want you to see.”

He stepped forward—just a little.

“I still see you,” he said.

Her eyes snapped back to his. And for a moment, in the quiet of the sea, nothing moved between them but old truths and unanswered questions.

Medusa felt it first—the shift in the current between them. Not magical, not summoned. Just something raw. A stirring.

“I still see you,” he’d said.

And suddenly, she wasn’t the sea witch anymore, or the girl who watched from the shadows. She was just Medusa. The child who used to race him through eel fields and laugh when she won. The woman who buried her love like treasure no one would ever dig deep enough to find.

“Triton,” she said, her voice uneven, “do you ever wonder what might have happened if things had been different?”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Every day.”

She swallowed hard. “Then why didn’t you—?”

“Because I was a coward,” he cut in gently. “Because I thought I owed the sea something. That my crown demanded it. That love for someone like you... someone the court feared... would unravel everything.”

“And now?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

“Now I see what I lost.”

The silence that followed was sharp, fragile. Neither moved. The water around them shimmered faintly, stirred by ancient emotions that refused to die.

Then Medusa turned her eyes to the Moon Pool again. The surface above was quiet, but her instincts hummed.

“I shouldn’t have come,” she said, backing away slightly. “Your court will smell me. They’ll know I was here.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should.” Her voice turned brittle. “You’re still king. And I’m still a myth with teeth.”

“You’re more than they ever deserved,” he said.

She froze.

No one had ever said that to her. Not even in her dreams.

Suddenly, her body tensed—not because of his words, but something else. A flicker in the current. A pulse of shadow, like a storm cloud drifting through her chest.

Her eyes narrowed, and Triton noticed the change instantly.

“What is it?” he asked, straightening.

“I need to go,” she said quickly, already turning.

“Medusa—”

“My son,” she said, voice distant now. “Something’s wrong.”

And with that, she vanished into the dark, faster than he remembered her ever moving, her silhouette swallowed by the sea’s eternal twilight.

Triton stood still, the trident humming softly beside him.

He didn’t know what she had sensed.

But the ocean suddenly felt less safe.