Minerva was trying her best not to perturb her sophisticated composure but deep inside, she was bursting with inquisitiveness. She was there with them, but it wasn't what it looked like. They were still gleefully dancing, as Edmund held that girl's slender waist to pull her up into mid-air, whilst bursting with laughter.
Invisible and slowly drowning - that was how she felt. That was how they made her feel.
Her face hardened at the sight of a man who offered her something worth to think about. However, by merely looking upon him in someone else's arms, it made her decide to keep her mouth shut. It seemed like she felt something odd deep within. A throbbing heart and a curious mind, it was too plain to see that their worlds wouldn't collide. There was no such thing as mutual affection between them. Even the friendship that he offered, she doubted it, too. Edmund helped her because he was insanely fascinated with her existence. She could make him famous in a split of a second. After all, Dr. Edmund was one of the greatest researchers that ever lived.
She couldn't bear that scene. As much as she tried to act as if nothing seemed wrong, her subconscious was not in the mood for being a good mermaid. Her blood started to boil as she secretly watched Edmund's handsome face, full of delight, and it wasn't because of her. She felt a slight pain at seeing the bitter truth firsthand - he never looked at her the way he looked at that young woman.
Every nerve in Minerva's body wanted to seek for an answer, wanting to ask Edmund about this young woman, and yet, no words came out of her dry mouth. Her smile faded instantly as she watched them both, cheerfully embracing each other. Like lovebirds. Like a lover. And she was their outcast.
His life would still go on even if she cease to exist. She knew that, too. He would still live it to the fullest. And one day, he would wake up, thinking that she was nothing but a product of his fantasy. That was all she was to him - a beautiful daydream. No matter how painful the truth was, no matter how it felt like it was stabbing her heart, and no matter how it killed her to know such poignant reality, Minerva needed him. She still needed him for her mission on the surface. She needed him to survive. But he didn't need her as much as she needed him.
Knowing that she had an excruciating point, she chose to fix her gaze unto the cold wall, right behind them. In this huge garden, where there were lots of flowers wanting to conquer peacefulness, she was hurting in silence.
Minerva stood there, realizing that she didn't belong in this place; she should not get attached with anyone... with Edmund.
Before she could do any damage, Minerva decided to leave them both and put some distance between them. Distance was all she needed to breathe. The more she walked with a heavy heart, the more she tried not to make her tears fall. No turning back, she didn't dare to know how they would react after this. It was no love. It was a fact of knowing that no one gave her any worth.
She stopped, finally, when she'd caught herself in the other edge of Edmund's garden. She sat on the ground, her head down, as luminosity coming from the sun slowly embraced her cold skin. It touched her in a way that it brought warm sensation to her wounded heart. It felt like, any moment now, her heart would turn to stone and no one would even bother to care. No one gave her any concern, except Ayden.
She wished that her big brother was here, giving her a tight squeeze of her hands, kissing her forehead, and whispering some words to calm her. Ayden always did that whenever she whimpered in her room. He knew her too well. He was her knight who protected her no matter how he suffered from her childish actions. In every idiocy that she did, Ayden never left her side. Though Ayden was only half-Atlantean, they were inseparable, then.
She flinched at that heartbreaking thought. In all honestly, she still loved him. She couldn't stop loving her stupid brother who just left her behind, and never returned. Ayden chose to protect that snake monster, Fate, instead of her. He never even dared to know what happened to her after that day. A day when Ayden abandoned her...
It was already two years ago, but the wound was still fresh. Her pain didn't fade as time went by. Loneliness still crawled up to her fragile body, down to her yearning heart, towards her desperate soul. That day was like a nightmare to her. It changed her life in a dreadful way. It changed her destiny.
It changed her.
***
"Why are you protecting her, brother? She killed your twin!" Minerva gave Ayden a warning that the Gorgon woman he had loved was nothing but a monster. She was dangerous. If Fate turned Kinos, Ayden's twin brother, into a stone, then there was a big chance that she would turn Ayden, too. After all, Fate was Medusa's descendant.
She couldn't afford losing another brother. She couldn't bear the pain of losing Ayden from her very eyes. She only wanted to protect him. But he didn't see it that way. And it hurt her.
Her brother loved Fate so damn much. It was a kind of love that even her, who protected him since the very beginning, was no longer important in his life anymore. He was intoxicated with Fate's poisonous love.
"You have no right to interfere with my decision," he said with his eyes so fierce that Minerva's heart shattered into pieces. This was no longer her loving brother. This was the man who was blinded by a love so foolishly that he forgot the difference between right and wrong. "She is my world and I will destroy everything that can hurt her."
That was the very first time she saw him with too much hatred in those silver eyes of his. And she couldn't understand him any longer. It was like Ayden was no longer his brother that she had loved throughout those years. Those intense and hurtful stare made her world crumble in that short moment of time. She never expected to see those eyes looking at her like that. There was no love, only hatred.
She tried not to cry while uttering those words hoping that he would change his mind, "If you will go with her and protect her from our Atlantean law, then you are no longer welcome in Atlantis, ever!"
She damn hoped. Her tears fell down freely from her eyes. Her cheeks were already wet. She didn't mean it to be this way. She loved him.
"Then consider me, little sister, dead from now on," he said, completely breaking the last piece of her heart, "Treat me like that, like they always do."
***
"Are you alright?" Edmund's concerned face yanked her back into her dull senses. She tilted her head to face Edmund, standing in front of her. Anxiety marked on his expression which made her eyes narrowed as she faced him. He was here and it didn't make sense.
He bent down to his knees, leveling to her gloomy face, "Are you okay, your Highness? You left me all of a sudden," he asked her again. His voice was soothing her in a way that she didn't understand. Minerva was pleased but at the same time, his presence made her wanted to weep for more.
"I am fine," she lied, wiping her tears away. She wasn't fine and never would be. It broke her to know that Edmund was here and it broke her more for he was only here because she was the queen. She wanted to say that she was alright, or to just push him away, but Edmund touched her cheeks, wiping her tears using the back of his hand. She froze at his touch, knowing what she'd felt a while ago. Her hatred for him faded along with her tears.
"You're a bad liar, you know."
She pushed his hand and looked at him with coldness. There was nothing between them. He didn't have to be this affectionate. She didn't know that she was weeping all along. Damn these tears for betraying her; damn this man for making her feel this way.
"Let's get you inside, your Highness. There's someone I want you to meet." She didn't have to ask him. She knew that he wanted her to meet that young woman, which she just couldn't do, for now. Blankly staring at the peach rose beside her, she knew that it was better that way. A queen must hide her real emotion, and replace it with such great façade that one soul would have a difficulty identifying the difference. A queen shouldn't act like this and must be brave enough to face bitterness and pain. A queen's heart must be made of stone with cold walls to protect it, so that no one would even defy hurting her.
But, Minerva wasn't just a queen. She was far more than that. And no one, not even Edmund, knew her real value as much as her elder brother did; her brother who abandoned her, too. It ruined her heart. They broke it all over, leaving her shattered. No matter how she tried to be tough for herself, and for her kingdom, still, everything was too painful. She had nothing to lean on...no one to hold on to.
There was no one out there that could understand her, or would just try to know what she felt. Humans or Atlanteans, they were all the same.
A taste of repugnance, her pride ruled over her senses, "I'm not interested to meet her. Leave me alone, Dr. Edmund."
"C'mon, your Highness. Please, don't be this cold. She is waiting for us. In fact, Claire wants to see you, personally," he smiled, "My niece is a pretty tough, young lady, but she's sweet."