Seeing Arthur looking unusually bashful, Clark, who had been there himself, understood at once. "Is it that princess named Mera you mentioned earlier? Your sweetheart?"
Arthur's weathered face flushed slightly. He nodded, then shook his head. "I think we can safely say we have feelings for each other, but Mera... she just won't openly acknowledge our relationship."
To be fair, Mera wasn't entirely to blame. The situation was a little complicated.
Mera was the princess of Xebel, one of the Seven Kingdoms of the Sea. Beautiful and brave, she had a striking mane of fiery red hair and excelled at Hydrokinesis.
Thousands of years ago, the Atlantis Empire, once at the height of its glory, had suffered divine punishment for its greed and desire, sinking to the ocean floor overnight. Over the long years that followed, the people of Atlantis had been forced to evolve into new races adapted to the ocean, splitting and developing into the present-day Seven Kingdoms of the Sea.
Among them, the former royal family of Atlantis had established the current Kingdom of Atlantis, the most powerful of the seven. Second only to the Kingdom of Atlantis was Princess Mera's Kingdom of Xebel. The inhabitants of both kingdoms looked much like humans on land, but Atlantis excelled in technology and martial skills, while Xebel specialized in fighting through Hydrokinesis.
There was also the Fish-Man Kingdom, whose people had evolved fish tails, revered art and philosophy, and loved peace; and the Brine Kingdom, whose people had evolved hard, crustacean-like exoskeletons and drastically different appearances. Though poor in resources, its inhabitants possessed formidable individual fighting strength and defenses.
Then there was the Trench Kingdom, whose inhabitants had devolved into savage sea monsters driven only by the urge to hunt, the Desert Kingdom, wiped out by environmental changes, and