Everything You Are - Orm Marius/Ocean Master

Prologue - Destiny

Jules Verne once wrote, 'Put two ships in the open sea, without wind or tide, and they will come together." In other words, if two things that are meant for each other, are destined to meet, then they will eventually meet. This was how my parents met. Like two ships destined for each other. They were from different worlds, two seemingly separate ones - at least to some people. But life, like the sea, has a way of bringing people together. Unknown to them, this was their destiny.

My father was a lighthouse keeper, Tom Curry, and my mother was a queen, Queen Atlanna of Atlantis. She had fled an arranged marriage to the king, left her whole world behind. She washed up on the shore during a vicious storm, and my father found her and nursed her back to health. Talk about romantic.

Their meeting got off to a bit of a shaky start, with my mother being injured and eating one of Dad's goldfish, and then threatening him and trident-spearing his TV set. But once the initial shock wore away, they instantly charmed one another.

They fell deeply and rapidly in love. With him, my mother found a loving marriage so different from the one she had fought to escape and prevent. There in my father's lighthouse, she found something unexpected. And they both found the loves of their lives.

I was the result, the first of my kind, half-human, half-Atlantean. My mother said that I was proof that our people could coexist peacefully and happily, and that one day I might unite our two worlds, bring them together as they were meant to be, land and sea, as one. That was quite the destiny set for baby me.

And for a short time, we were a happy family, just the three of us, Tom, Atlanna, and Aurelia Curry.

But Atlantis's memory is long. Their two worlds were never meant to meet, and I was the product of a love that was never supposed to be. The king refused to let my mother go, despite having already moved on, taking a different wife and having a son, but he wanted to punish my mother for her desertion, and when he found out about my father and I he wanted to punish her for us as well. He eventually tracked her down, sending armed guards, nearly killing my father and I in the process. My mother sensed the danger to us her presence brought, and made the ultimate sacrifice: she left us to go back home, in order to save us. Before she left, she reminded us that she was doing this to protect us, and promised that she would return one day, that one day we would all be a family again. I was three years old.

Dad and I are still waiting.

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Being half-Atlantean granted me with some exciting abilities. Atlaneans were super-strong, super agile, had highly-durable bodies equipped with thick skin and bones and adapted for high pressure and extreme cold. We also had hydrokinesis, and the ability to see and breathe under water. Thanks to my mom, I had gained all these abilities, as well as one unique to myself: the ability to communicate with sea life. This made its first big impression on a field trip when I was nine.

Our class had gone to the aquarium to learn about the evolution of life under the sea. A bunch of classes had gone as one big group for a day-trip, including Arthur's class. Arthur was my dad's only nephew, my cousin, but he was basically my older brother. And when you're different than everyone else - half-Atlantean different - you have to deal with a lot of pushing and shoving and insults and teasing, so Arthur helped me through it all.

A couple of boys in Arthur's grade were pounding on the glass of the large, floor-to-ceiling tank we were viewing, trying to catch the fish's attention. Even from across the room where I stood examining some starfish, I could sense the fish's distress.

"Stop!" I cried, pushing past the boys and standing between them and the glass. "They don't like that! You're hurting them!" I then turned to the fish who were hovering close to the glass, their eyes thankful. "Hi fishies," I said, waving to them. "Hi! It's okay, I won't let them hurt you. My name's Aurelia, what's yours?"

I heard snickering behind me. "Hey, check it out: fish-freak is talking to her friends." This was closely followed by me being shoved into the glass by the two boys.

"Stop it! Let me go!" I tried to struggle, but it was no use. They shoved me to the ground, laughing as the contents of my bag spilled all over the floor.

I think that Arthur's superpower is sensing when I'm in trouble, for suddenly, my big cousin was hurrying over. "Leave her alone!"

Before he could intervene, however, there was a crashing thud! which grabbed everyone in the room's attention. They were all staring at the tank behind me in horror.

Getting to my feet and turning to face the tank, I saw a shark was smashing its nose into the glass. The next time it did so, it caused a huge crack in the thick glass. People gasped and screamed and huddled at the other end of the room.

"Kids, get away from there!" one of the teachers yelled, but we were too frozen, some in fear, me in awe.

I placed my hand against the glass, concentrating to create sound-waves towards the shark.

We won't let them hurt you either, he told me, and all the other creatures swarmed around and joined him, backing me up from behind the glass.

Everyone - my classmates, teachers, and the aquarium staff - all stood and stared at me, Aurelia Curry, who had just summoned an army of sea creatures.

That was just the beginning. And the next time I used that trick, it wouldn't be at an aquarium, but in the middle of a war between all of land and sea.

(I just love that little smirk young Arthur gives when all the sea creatures are surrounded him at the aquarium in the movie ;) So, there's the first little bit, pretty similar to the movie so far, but I will diverge soon. I hope you enjoyed, thank you so much for reading! (We'll meet up with adult Aurelia in the next chapter!))