✦ entry

[squeegi]

this is my entry for captain's kalon readopt. this form is for lovely number 7!
i apologize in advance for the length of this entry; i got a bit
carried away and really got into fleshing out the story, though
i hope regardless you enjoy giving it a read. <3

[squeegi]

The warm light of the sun filtered through the water from above, and Kairos raised a webbed hand to let the shimmering, dappled reflections dance across his palm. Even this deep below the surface, he could feel a bit of warmth sink into his scaled skin, and the sensation brought a smile to his face. The city of Navalis was a bustling affair, with the light from midday shining beautifully down upon the spiraled coral structures that made up the city’s center. In the nooks between large overhanging rock and coral where light did not reach, bioluminescent algae painted the scenery in glowing blues and greens.

Kairos swam down the pathway, a netted bag slung over his shoulder— it wriggled and jostled with the current, but he paid it no heed. The fish struggling within it had already exhausted themselves, so the thrashing had mostly come to a sluggish halt. As he made his way deeper into the city square, the currents carried with them the sound of bustling activity.
Shopkeepers advertising their wares and haggling; the laughter of children as they weaved in and out of shop stalls; the clink of coin and shell as currency was exchanged for goods. An old shepherd, looking peeved as he navigated his school of fish through the crowded city street. Above it all, he could hear the distant, melodious song of the tidecallers, as their magic weaved within the currents and danced through the city’s walls.

Kairos passed through the city market without much trouble, floating towards the edge of the square, where the bustle quieted to a low hum. His tail flicked lazily as he swam towards his home, keeping the netted bag filled with fish steadily in his grasp.
He passed a group of young merfolk, chasing each other as they swam in circles by one of the coral home structures. As he swam by, the current brought the sound of slightly off-kilter singing, and he glanced back at the group with a wistful smile. They were practicing their magic— somewhat unsuccessfully, judging by the way the water around them swirled half-heartedly at their beck and call. He could remember his younger days, where he’d spent more time chasing eels and searching for conch shells than practicing his magic.

“Kairos!” came a voice, snapping him from his nostalgic thoughts. He turned to see Venus, a broad-shouldered warrior with an infectious grin and a laugh as deep as a marine trench. Kairos smiled and called out a greeting, giving a quick flick of his tail to come to a stop before his friend.
Venus greeted him with a clap on his shoulder.
“You’re supposed to be helping the recruits with their tidecalling,” he said, stern, as though he was entirely oblivious to the cheeky grin on his own face.
Kairos rolled his eyes fondly. “I passed them by,” he said, with a shrug. “They’re doing just fine. A bit off-key, but nothing that won’t be fixed with time. Besides, you know my magic is weak. You’d be better suited to guiding them, Venus.”

In a gesture of goodwill, he lifted the netted bag from his shoulder, letting it float above his head as the fish within wriggled weakly. Their scales flashed, and Venus’s eyes flicked to the bag with unconcealed interest.
“Hm. I declare you hereby forgiven,” Venus declared, grinning sharply, and Kairos laughed in turn.

“You’re the worst,” he groused good-naturedly, letting Venus take the bag from his grasp. “Aren’t you one to talk! You were supposed to be on patrol, weren’t you?”
Venus shrugged, unapologetic. “Finished up early. Thought I’d come see what you were up to— you’ve been quiet lately.”
With a sigh, Kairos let his gaze drift back to the group of young merfolk he’d passed on his way here. His expression turned wistful.
“I’ve just been thinking,” he said, after a moment of silence. “Feels like just yesterday we were the ones swimming around, chasing our tails. Now look at us.”
Venus shook his head. “You think too much, Kai. Try not to get wrapped up in that big head of yours.”

Kairos laughed, unable to maintain his quiet wistfulness in the face of Venus’s straightforward nature. He was probably right, anyway.
Shaking off the thought, he raised a cheeky brow, and gestured to the bag of fish held in Venus’s grasp. He opened his mouth to speak, lips turning up in a grin, but the moment was shattered by a sudden, frantic commotion near the city gates.
Kairos and Venus exchanged a worried glance, their banter forgotten as they turned toward the source of the commotion. The sound of shouting and thrashing tails grew, and the two of them were quick to swim towards the gates to see just what was going on.
Suddenly, the gates parted with a thundering of the current, and a group of armored merfolk surged through the opening, bloodied and disheveled, faces drawn pale with fear. The water around them was quickly saturated with red, and the smell of copper stung Kairos’s nose as he approached.

One of the guards— Taryn, a seasoned warrior, with exceptional control over his tidecaller magic— collapsed the moment he passed the gates. Merfolk crowded the wounded, crying out worriedly in askance, tending to their sluggishly bleeding injuries.
When Taryn opened his mouth to speak, his voice came out hoarse, barely audible over the growing panic.
“We couldn’t stop it,” he stammered, clutching at a deep wound at his side. His gills fluttered weakly. “A leviathan. We barely— barely escaped.”
At his words, Kairos felt his stomach drop. Taryn was one of the strongest guardsmen in Navalis; he’d faced countless dangers, taking them all in stride. Kairos had never seen him so.. terrified. So helpless.
Around the wounded, Kairos could see his neighbors, his friends. A woman holding her daughter to her chest, using her free hand to stem the bleeding of an injured soldier. A local shopkeeper, who always tossed his spare fish to the kids that swam by. A teacher. Another guardsman, who had been on duty within the city, looking wracked with grief as he tended the injured. These were all merfolk he treasured— merfolk he loved like family. He’d protect them, whatever it took.

So he swam closer, voice steady despite the unease growing in his chest.
“What happened?” he asked, fighting to keep the fear from his tone.
Taryn shook his head fiercely. When he looked up to meet Kairos’s gaze, his eyes were haunted.
“It tore through us,” he mumbled, gaze far away as though he were reliving the terror. “Like we were nothing.”
Venus was uncharacteristically silent at his side, brows furrowed and lips downturned.
“How many..?” he asked, voice low, and the meaning was plain.
Taryn did not respond— the dead, haunted look in his eyes was enough of an answer.
“We need to evacuate the city,” Taryn finally replied, voice breaking. “We don’t have time to go back for them. The leviathan is coming.”

Yet, before any of them could so much as move, a low, guttural sound reverberated through the water, so deep it seemed to shake the very foundations of the city.
The sound grew— louder, closer, until it became unbearable, an ear-shattering screech that sent shoals of fish scattering in every direction.
Every merfolk froze, eyes wide and terrified.

Kairos’s heart pounded as he turned to look past the city gates. The water was dark, murky, and churning unnaturally— nothing like the soft, beckoning movement spurred by tidecaller magic.
This was something entirely other.
After a moment, Kairos saw it.
A massive, indistinct shadow, moving towards them at a terrifying speed.
Beside him, Venus stiffened, likely seeing the same thing.
“Get everyone to the inner city!” Venus snapped, his booming voice cutting through the growing panic. “Now!”
Kairos wanted to protest— he wanted to fight, to do something, but he knew Venus was right. They’d be no use here, on their own; their best bet would be to get the civilians safe, then regroup with the rest of the city’s guard. All they could do was hope that their combined efforts would be enough to drive it off.

He turned towards the younger recruits, trembling at their posts by the city’s gates, clutching spears to their chests with quivering hands.
“Go!” he ordered, voice firm despite the fear harbored in his chest. “Follow the others. Don’t stop for anything!”
As the merfolk fled, Kairos turned back towards the gates. The water around them was growing darker still, clouded with red, and in the distance he could catch glimpses of shredded pieces of armor, or stray pieces of fins. Nausea twisted in his gut.
The shadow was growing ever closer— through the darkness, Kairos finally caught a glimpse of the leviathan.





It was larger than anything he’d seen, body a monstrously immense sprawl of scales and jagged spines. Even from this distance, Kairos could see the way its eyes glowed with bloodthirst. Its maw was open and gaping, lined with rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth. The sight filled him with a primal, instinctual fear; he shook off the feeling and turned to Venus, eyes hardened with resolve.
“Help me close the gates!” he barked, already swimming forward, despite the oppressive presence he could feel bearing down upon them.

Without pause, Venus surged behind him, tail thrashing against the water as he followed. They pressed towards the gates, grasping with clawed hands, fighting to close them before the leviathan was upon them.
The gates were ancient, with deep, intricate rune carvings running along the sides, glowing faintly with what remained of the city’s protective warding. They were heavy, designed for the sole purpose of withstanding rough, tumultuous ocean currents— good, for keeping monstrous beasts out, and entirely bad when a pair of two unremarkable merfolk wanted desperately to close them.

“Pull!” Venus barked, voice strained and low, hands gripping tight to the gate. At his side, Kairos did the same, muscles bunched and tense as he heaved against the weight. His tail thrashed violently, straining for purchase, and his efforts were not in vain.
The gates groaned, an old, ancient sound, echoing and rippling through the water like a whale’s call. Slowly, agonizingly, they began to close, and Kairos could barely keep his grip on the gate as it inched towards him.
He glanced through the shrinking gap between the gate, heart pounding as the sight of the leviathan’s enormous, growing shadow entered his vision. The approaching beast, once dark and indistinct, had begun to define itself in stark, terrifying detail— it was surely closer, now, and Kairos could make out the harsh, cutting lines of its silhouette, finding the sharp outline of its spines and fierce, glowing eyes. The water around it seemed to hum with an otherworldly power; it curled around him like a clawed grip, cold and chilling like the depths of a trench, and the sensation sent alarm bells ringing in his mind.

“Faster,” Kairos stammered; then, repeated himself, louder, voice cracking with desperation. “Faster!”
Venus grunted in response, face pulled up in a grimace as he pulled with all his strength. The gates inched closer together still, gap narrowing with agonizing slowness even as the massive shadow of the leviathan bore down upon them.
Kairos could feel the waters shifting as it approached— the light from the surface seemed to dim, blotted out by its enormous form, and the water itself grew heavier, tumultuous. It carried with it the scent of metallic copper, and the sound of the roar blaring form its wide, gaping maw was near-deafening, now. Guttural, low, and seeming to shake the ground below them.

“This is our last chance!” Venus cried, and the two of them threw their weight into their push. The carved runes running along the side of the gates began to glow and hum, as though sensing the looming threat bearing down on them, and they doubled their efforts.
“Now!” Kairos screamed, and with a final, thunderous groan, the gates slammed shut, grinding to a halt against each other as the runes flared to life— the wards had activated, with a jarring pulse of ancient magic that rippled outwards through the water.
Kairos watched with near-delirious relief as a shimmering barrier of dancing light erupted from the runes, sealing the gates and stretching up and out until it disappeared over the city horizon.

For a moment, there was no sound— even the ebbing, uneasy toiling of the currents ceased, and everything was still and silent for a long moment.
Kairos and Venus hovered before the closed gates, chests heaving as they stared up at the flickering magic wards dancing above their heads. He could feel the hum of the wards echoing against his skin, a steady reassurance that had a shard of hope growing in his chest.

It was painfully short-lived.
With a sound like a crashing tidal wave, the leviathan struck its massive, spined body into the gates, slamming against the barrier with a jarring, thunderous blast. The impact’s forceful shockwave sent Venus and Kairos rocketing back, fighting against the sudden flood of water pressure.
Before them, the runes had begun to burn brightly, near-blinding beacons in the darkening waters. They flickered and flashed, but held strong against the leviathan’s onslaught— at least, for now.
Kairos struggled to right himself, ears ringing as he watched cracks begin to spread across the shuddering length of the city’s walls. The leviathan let loose another thundering cry, and its enormous, lengthy body coiled back like an eel, then reared forward and rammed the barrier again.

Again, it threw its body into the shaking, shimmering wards.
Again, and again.

The cracks were widening, snaking along the aged, ancient surface of the wall, crumbling away in bits and pieces.
A hand grabbed his shoulder and tore him from his frozen stupor.
“We need to go,” Venus barked, eyes wild and desperate. “The wards won’t hold!”
Kairos nodded, unable to speak as he tore his gaze from the gates quivering beneath the onslaught. He followed behind Venus with a flick of his tail as they swam into the inner city, the sound of crashing impacts growing no less thunderous as they went.
The inner city was in chaos, panicked merfolk crowding the streets as they desperately searched for family members, or for some semblance of shelter that would protect them from the beast at their doorstep. Kairos and Venus weaved and pushed through the disordered crowd, eyes scanning the throng for the glint of armor and spears— the city guard would be gathering, and if they wanted to aid in the effort, they needed to find them and regroup, now. Time was running out.

They had bought a moment of respite with the warded gates, but the leviathan was relentless, every moment punctuated by the thunderous pounding. It wouldn’t last— the leviathan was coming, and when it broke through the barrier, there would be no stopping it.
Finally, Kairos caught a glimpse of pearlescent armor; what remained of the city guard had gathered farther from the crowd, and around them flocked what Kairos recognized as proficient magic users. Sorcerers, tidecallers, anyone with an above-average ability to wield ocean magic of any sort were hovering nearby, listening to the guardsmen plan out what would surely be their final stand.
Kairos tugged Venus in the direction, and they swam to the gathered group with fierce purpose. The water was thick and heavy with tension, echoing every beath with the sound of the leviathan’s relentless pounding.
At the center of the group, the chief guard was shouting orders, her voice strained and thin.
Beside them, the tidecallers worked to reinforce the wards with their song, but their voices were tainted with fear, and the rampant, uncontrolled emotion soured the water, setting the hair on Kairos’s arms alight. Even with his limited magic, he could feel the wards rapidly weakening— the leviathan was too powerful.
As Kairos surged forward to help, to do whatever he could to stop this beast from destroying all that he loved, his arm was seized in a firm, scaled grasp, and he turned whip-fast to stare.

Venus was beside him, holding tight to his arm, and without a word he pulled Kairos aside before he could move towards the gathered guardsmen.
“Listen to me,” Venus started, giving him no chance to speak. “You need to run, Kairos.”
Kairos was stunned silent for a second, then blinked himself from the shock in a fit of indignant fury. “What? No! I’m not leaving you—”
“Not— not like that, Kai, just listen to me,” Venus hissed, face drawing up with nerves, and his harsh tone stole the words from Kairos’s lips.
“Do you remember,” Venus began, tone pitching up oddly, “the old cave we used to hide from your dad in?”
Kairos stared back at him, confusion clouding his gaze. He shook his head, and fisted his hands in his hair with a stifled sound of hysteria. “The— yes, Venus, I remember the damn cove, but what does that have to do with—”
“There’s an altar there,” Venus interrupted, more serious than Kairos had ever heard him. “A stone statue, with the face all worn down. Kai, that thing was made for an ancient goddess. You— you need to go there. Beg, plead, do whatever it takes to get them to stop this. I— I hadn’t thought of it, until now, but… Please, Kairos.”

Kairos’s chest tightened painfully, and he shook his head at the words coming from Venus’s mouth.
“No, Venus, I can’t. I won’t,” he began, stumbling over the response, but Venus doesn’t let him finish.
“You have to!” Venus urged, cutting him off again with a sharp snap. Then, his voice softened, and Kairos couldn’t help the way his heart ached at the sound.
“I’ll stay with the guard,” Venus said, resolve and resignation filling his gaze. “We can buy you time. But you have to go, now.”
Kairos screwed his eyes shut, as though he could block out the horrible expression painting his friend’s face.
“This is insane,” he pleaded. “You want me to abandon you— abandon everyone— while you—”
“While I do what I always do,” Venus’s face broke into a weak, wan smile, and he brought a hand up to squeeze Kairos’s shoulder. “Protect the people I care about. And right now, that’s you, Kai.”

Kairos’s vision blurred, and his chest heaved. He couldn’t find a response that would speak to the vice grip on his heart, the heat pooling behind his eyes, the tightness in his throat— he wanted desperately to refuse, to shake his head and stay, but Venus wasn’t asking. He was begging.
“Don’t look back,” Venus said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Just go. Please.”
Kairos turned and swam, head bowed into the current and tail thrashing behind him, shoving down the despair clutching his heart in its grasp. The leviathan’s pounding grew louder, still, more frantic, sending vibrations reverberating through the water. But he didn’t look back— couldn’t.

The city blurred around him; he passed crumbling homes and abandoned market stalls as he weaved through the streets. In the distance, he could hear cries and screams of merfolk, barely audible over the roar of the leviathan, growing louder and louder with every passing moment.
Then, with a sound like thunder, the barrier shattered.
The thunderous roar was followed by a sudden, violent rush of water, as the beast’s enormous bulk surged forward, tearing its massive body through the streets. Kairos could only swim faster, and shut out the sound of destruction that seemed to follow him through the city’s streets.
Even then, he did not look back.

Kairos reached the outskirts of the city heaving and panting, muscles burning with exertion. Just ahead, he could see the entrance to the cave, partially obscured by a curtain of kelp and seaweed, looking just the same as it did ten years ago.
Despite the burning in his chest and tail, he plunged forward without pause, shoving past the kelp and into the narrow passage. As he pressed further into the cavern, the water grew dark and cold, and the sounds of destruction he could hear were stifled into a dull hum.
The cave looked just as he’d remembered— his head turned, towards the corner of the farthest passage, where the water was unnaturally quiet and still. At the far end, there stood a statue with worn-down features, stone surface covered with moss and thoroughly covered in rune etchings. Before the statue, there was a simple altar carved of the same stone, its surface painted with fractures and a thin layer of silt.
Kairos wasted no time, and swam up to the altar with a heaving chest and quivering hands. His head lowered, and he clasped his hands together, unsteady and hesitant, yet reverent all the same.

“Please,” he pleaded, wrenching his eyes shut, lips ghosting over the barely audible words. “My people— my city— they’re all going to die if you don’t do something. Please, help me.”
The cave remained stubbornly silent, despite the way his voice tightened with desperation; the echo of his words bounced back in the enclosed chamber, and he couldn’t help the whimper that slipped past his lips. He prostrated, kneeling before the altar, and pressed his hands and forehead to the cold stone.
“Anything,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I’ll do anything. Please.”
For another moment, the water remained still; the statue stared down at his with its blank, cracked features, callous and uncaring.

Then, the water around him shifted, churning and rumbling restlessly. A voice— deep, ancient, impossibly unknowable— stirred to life in his mind.
“Are you willing to give up that which you value most?”
Kairos froze, heart leaping to his throat. The question hung in the water, pressing down upon him like a physical weight, and for a moment, he was unable to speak. His thoughts raced— images flashed through his mind, sharp and jagged like broken glass.
A wide, knowing grin; a strong hand on his shoulder, warm like the sun’s light filtered through the water; deep, bellowing laughter, breathless gasps at some distant memory of youth. A broad-shouldered figure, always at his side.
The image shifted, and with it, Kairos’s chest seized with tight, cloying despair: that ever-present grin, replaced with a wan, resigned smile. The figure was swallowed by the sounds of thunderous roars and unstoppable destruction.

Pain cut through his mind like a knife, sharp and piercing. The thing he valued most—the person he valued most— was surely gone already.
What else could he possibly have to lose?
Kairos looked up at the statue, eyes burning with despair and, yet, stoney with resolve.
“I’m willing to give whatever it takes,” he whispered, hoarse. “Anything.”
As if responding to his words, the water began to stir around him, currents shifting and thrumming with power. The statue before him seemed almost to tremble with the water’s movement, and the runes etched along its stone surface began to hum— it was melodic, soothing to the point that Kairos could almost allow himself to get lost in it.

Again, the voice spoke. It was louder, this time, resonating within his mind with such force that he felt his head might burst.
“You shall have the power you seek, child. But power always comes at a great cost. You’d do well not to forget that.”
There was no time to process the words as the trickle of power hovering around him coalesced into an enormous flood— it surged through Kairos like a tidal wave, drowning him in a blinding flare of light and sound and pain.
He tried to speak, but his body was no longer his own. He was a mere vessel, filled to bursting with something ancient and untamed; filled with that which did not belong to him.
His mind fell into a hazed fugue, memories flickering like scales in the light— for a moment, he could almost hear laughter, deep and bellowing and painfully familiar, but then there was nothing.

Just darkness, and the weight of the ocean pressing down upon him.

He closed his eyes, and then the world shifted.

One moment, he was fighting the flood of the goddess’s power, mind a blurred, shattered haze of light. In the next, he was standing in the center of the city. Or, at least, what remained of it.
The city he had grown up in was a ruined wasteland of shattered coral and crumbling spires. Around him, the water was clouded with dirt and debris, current sluggish and still as though the ocean itself was mourning.
Then, he saw it.

Before him loomed the leviathan, with its massive, serpentine body coiled and writhing like an eel ready to strike. In its dark, beady eyes, there lingered a cold, calculating malevolence; its gaping, crimson maw hung open widely, thick, razor-sharp teeth gouging out from the flesh of its mouth.
The creature roared— the sound snapped through the water with a crashing thrum, and past the ear-piercing ringing in his ears, Kairos could feel the boiling power curled in his chest surge in response, a wild, untamed thing that threatened to tear him apart at the seams.
Jerkily, his hands raised.
Around him, the water churned and roiled violently; he struggled against the all-encompassing weight within him, fighting to gain control. The power was like a furious, sentient force, writhing within his ribcage and trying to wrench control of his body from his grasp.

Kairos thrust his palms forward, and a wall of water surged toward the leviathan, slamming into it with enough force to send it reeling. The effort left him gasping, his chest heaving as he fought to keep the magic under control. It felt like trying to hold back the tide with his hands.
The leviathan roared again, body writhing and curling as it recovered from the blow. Its eyes narrowed, and it looked down to study Kairos— in its gaze, there was intelligence; its movements were calculated and deliberate as it peered at him, head cocking as though in mild curiosity. It seemed, almost, to recognize the power he wielded.
Its enormous mouth parted— instead of another thunderous cry, though, it gave a shuddering, clicking hiss that sent the scales on its sides sliding and thrumming.

Then it struck out, tail whipping through the water with enough force to shatter coral and stone.
Kairos managed to dodge, but his movements were frantic and too unsteady. He could feel his borrowed power slipping, the magic surging out of control.
Desperately, he tried to hold on, to focus, but it was too much. Too much—
And then, just as the leviathan lunged for the finishing blow, something inside him snapped, and his vision exploded into blinding white.


When Kairos came to, the water around him was still and dark.
The leviathan was gone, but in the distance, he could catch a glimpse of its fleeing shadow; the water was thick and cloying, stained black and saturated with the stench of oil and metal. There was a horrific screech echoing faintly in the distance, growing fainter and fainter as the enormous shadow disappeared across the horizon.
In his fractured memory, past flashes of white and surges of blindingly hot power, he could remember tearing a gash along the side of the beast’s flank, rending deep into the scales with claws imbued with unthinkable power.

It was gravely wounded, surely. Not dead— couldn’t be. But Kairos could feel its ominous presence fading with every second that passed, a distant thrum of malice retreating to the deepest depth from which it hailed.
He floated among the devastated ruins of Navalis, his chest heaving and body trembling with exhaustion. The goddess’s power still pulsed within him, a constant reminder of the bargain he had struck, but it was fading now, leaving him weak and sending his head spinning.

After a moment, he felt them.
Faint, pulsing flickers of life. At first, he didn’t know what it was— a trick, perhaps, of his battered, exhausted mind. But he realized, after a moment of the soft flickering lights brushing his subconscious.
It was the goddess’s power, lingering within him, connecting him to the ocean in a way he’d never experienced— he could feel, with vivid clarity, every crashing wave, every draw of the tide. Even, too, he could feel what was surely merfolk, their presence a faint, distant hum in the water; their life force pulsing like tiny stars among the dark expanse of the sea.
It was not simply a vague awareness of their existence, their survival. He could sense their fear, desperation. Their hope. They were hiding, scattered throughout the ruins of the city, lodged between gaps in the standing coral, or in the deepest parts of a cave— and their hearts beat in time with the rhythm of the ocean’s movements.

Despite everything, relief washed over him. It was a brief, fleeting moment of respite, settled soundly amongst a destroyed, devastated city of ruin.
In that moment, everything— the weight of the goddess’s power, the exhaustion, the sheer enormity of what he had done— it all came crashing down on him at once.
His vision blurred and the world spun around him as he fought to stay conscious. But it was no use. The darkness closed in, and he felt himself sinking, the water pulling him down into a cold, silent embrace. The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was the ruins of Navalis— the shattered homes, red-tinged water, and the sprawling expanse of destruction. And then, nothing.

[squeegi]

Kairos awoke to the gentle, rhythmic tumble of waves against his skin, the warmth of the sun soaking into his skin. It was warmer than he’d ever felt before; the heat pressed him in a way that was unfamiliar in its all-encompassing brightness, though not entirely unwelcome.
His throat was dry, aching. The skin at his neck felt hot and uncomfortable, itching like molting scales or an overly sensitive injury.
Slowly, he managed to blink heavy eyes open, only to immediately wrench them shut against a sudden onslaught of light. The sun was blinding, sharper and more intense than anything he’d seen before— even just below the surface just past midday, he’d never seen it like this.
For a moment, he wondered if he had died.

But then the waves crashed against him again, and saltwater stung at his eyes and filled his mouth, and the idea was quickly shattered. He sputtered and gasped, coughing violently as he pushed himself upright on trembling arms, barely able to support his own weight.
The coral beneath his palms was sharp, biting into his skin with rough, jagged edges as he struggled to sit up. His body felt wrong— unbalanced, foreign, as though he were floating and sinking at the same time.
He looked down, glancing at his surroundings through slittered, narrowed eyes, and his gaze fell into his lap.
His heart stopped.
His.. tail.
It was gone.

In its place were two strange, unfamiliar limbs— slender, pale, dotted with scales and yet smooth in a way he couldn’t comprehend. He stared, struck uncomprehending at the sight, struggling to make sense of the image presented before him.
Legs. The kind he’d only seen in stories; tales of sailors and pirates or miserable land dwelling wretches trapped beneath the waves in sunken shipwrecks.
Panic surged through him, twisting into his ribcage and gripping his heart in its hand. It was a primal, terrified fear, looking down at a body too unfamiliar and foreign to be anything but the product of a vivid nightmare. His lips parted and he made to cry out, to yelp, to scream, but no sound came from his slack jaw.

His voice was gone.
He tried again, desperate to tear a sound— any sound— from his hoarse, burning throat, but the only thing that escaped his lips was a strangled, choked gasp, barely more than a pitched exhale.
Kairos brought a shaking hand to clutch at his throat, brushing the pads of his fingertips featherlight over the aching expanse of skin on his neck— recoiled, with a silent cry, when he skimmed a raised, inflamed spot, branded across the column of his throat.
He shoved past the pain, and ran his fingers shakily along the skin. If he followed it slowly, it almost seemed to form some kind of mark, etched into his skin with broad, easy strokes. Whatever is was, it pulsed faintly, a glimpse of dim, blue light just below his chin that he couldn’t quite get a look at.
It must be the work of the goddess— this, wrenching his voice, his body, taking it from his grasp— this was the bargain he’d struck. The price he’d paid.
That which you value most.

Kairos collapsed back against the coral, chest heaving and eyes wide and frenzied at he stared up at the sky. The sun, an enormous, blinding hollow cutting a hole in the sky, peered back, beaming indifferently from its position overhead.
He squeezed his eyes shut, hands trembling as he pressed them harshly into the hollows of his eyes. The sun was too bright, the air too dry, the waves too loud. He felt exposed, helpless, like a fish flung to the surface and left to gasp and thrash for breath.
Memories played in a flickering static through his mind. The cave. The statue. The voice. Power. Venus. (Venus.) The leviathan. A city in ruins. Then, nothing.
He didn’t know where he was. How he got here. What to do. All he knew was that he was horribly, awfully alone, and the weight of panic threatened to swallow him whole.

The sound of splashing water ripped him from his thoughts. His head whipped to the side, hair slipping over his eyes, but the sight that greeted him had his heart leaping from his chest. He could see, just below the surface, the outline of familiar shapes— slender, powerful tails slicing through the water; long, flowing hair that curled with the waves. Merfolk. Members of the city guard, at that. Surely, they were here to rescue him. To bring him back home, to help him find a cure for the curse that had befallen him.
They were alive.
For a moment, he could only feel a breathtaking sense of relief. They had survived. Everything he’d done— everything that had been sacrificed, it had all be worth it.
Yet, as they drew closer, breaching the calm surface with bright, relived gazes, taking in his disheveled form, their expressions shifted. The relief in their eyes turned, first, to confusion.

Then, horror.
Disgust.
The man at the front froze, face twisting and lips peeling back in a grimace. His expression darkened, jaw tightening as he looked Kairos up and down. Behind him, the other guards had frozen, too, eyes wide with fear and disgust.
Kairos opened his mouth to speak, to explain, but no words came; the mark on his throat pulsed violently, and he uttered a strangled whine. He reached out with a trembling hand, desperate, but the merfolk recoiled back, as though he were a monster.
His chest tightened; his heart twisted with despair. He watched as they turned towards each other, lips moving and melodious voices carrying across the water, but the sounds were unintelligible— clicks and hums, bereft of meaning or reason.
He couldn’t understand them. The goddess had taken that from him, too.

The guardsman glanced back at him, brows drawn and expression dark. His eyes fell to the mark on Kairos’s throat— the rune that glowered and flickered with every attempt he made at speaking, lips moving soundlessly.
He shook his head, and for a moment, his gaze turned pitying. It was quickly replaced with the same burning disgust, and he hovered for only a moment longer before gesturing to the rest of the merfolk. Together, their heads disappeared beneath the tossing waves, sinking down and out of view with only a few powerful kicks of their tails.

Kairos watched them go, head lowered with despair as the weight of their rejection pressed heavily upon him. He’d given up everything— his voice, his body, his identity— to save them.
He was left alone on the reef once again, with only the company of the waves at his side. Collapsing back onto the reef, body trembling as waves lapped consolingly at his skin, he could only lay silently beneath the sun’s glare.

For what felt like hours, Kairos lay unmoving atop the reef, letting the salty waves roll over him, uncaring through the fugue clouding his vision. He didn’t have the strength to move, to think. To feel. To let the dam of welling emotions finally crumble and swallow him in its enormity. The world around him was a blur of light and sound, but he just let it pass over him, numb. All he could feel was the aching hollow tearing him apart from the inside-out— the gaping hole gouged in his chest, nestled easily within his ribcage.
Power always comes at a cost. The words echoed in his mind over and over, overlapping and intertwining until they were unintelligible.
The cost had been too high.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, listless and unmoving, before the immense sound of creaking wood and splashing waves pulled him from his thoughts. Kairos turned his head where it laid against the rough coral, clouded, lifeless eyes blinking uncomprehendingly up as an enormous shape blotted out the sun before him.
The sound of voices pulled him from his stupor. Heads peered over the side of the massive vessel— a ship, identical to the ones laying in the depths of the ocean that smelled of rot and oak, unique in the fact that it was at the top of the ocean, rather than the bottom. It was an immense, creaking thing, with endless swaths of fabric billowing in the wind, unmoving despite the crashing of waves against its hull. More figures moved into view atop its surface, voices sharp and accented in a way foreign to his ears.

Kairos tried to push himself up on trembling arms, barely able to support his weight. His legs twitched uselessly beneath him, movements clumsy and jerky. He’d never walked before— never stood, even— but the sound of clamoring voices sent an odd, primal fear into his gut, and he felt the sudden, urgent need to get away.
The voices grew louder, somehow, and then a smaller wooden vessel was lowered into the water, and Kairos’s heart sank as it approached. The humans within rowed with practiced ease, and they came to a stop before the path of surfaced coral reef that Kairos was huddled upon.
“You speak?” one of them barked, and Kairos was so shocked at the words— his understanding of the words— that he could only stare, uncomprehending, back at the gruffly spoken man.
“Tch.” The man clicked his tongue, and Kairos nearly jumped back. There was a gesture; a flicker of eyes, a nod of the head. Then another man was reaching over the side of the vessel, grabbing him suddenly in a firm, calloused grip and hauling him bodily into the boat.
Kairos’s lips parted in protest, face drawing up in a furious scowl, but no sound made it past his throat. The man shoved him into the corner of the rowing vessel, shaking his hands off with a scoff.

“What in the depths is that? Thought it was some poor shipwrecked sod, in the middle of the sea as it was,” one said, as they began their rowing once again. “But sure as hell ain’t no human.”
“Dunno,” another replied, a younger man with a scar across his cheek. “But it’s got scales. Never seen anything like it.”
The first man leaned closer, his gaze sweeping over Kairos with a practiced eye. “Looks like some kind of merfolk,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “But I’ve never heard of one with legs before.”
The man closest to Kairos cocked his head and peered down at his trembling form, brow raising. He brought a hand down to brush over the scales that remained on Kairos’s legs, and he hummed curiously.
“Dunno,” he said, uncaring of the way Kairos flinched away from his touch. “But he’s a pretty one, ain’t he? Bet he’d fetch a good price with the nobles or some freakshow.”

The boat returned swiftly to the ship, and Kairos was hauled unceremoniously onto the deck, rough hands gripping him on either side with unyielding grasps. Then their hands fell away, and Kairos collapsed onto the wooden planks, legs buckling beneath him even as he tried to stay upright. The men watched him with a mix of pity and curiosity, their voices low and murmuring as they discussed what to do with him.
“Can’t even stand,” one muttered. “What good is he?”
“Don’t need to stand,” another replied. “Just needs to sit and look pretty. He’ll do fine, once we get ‘im cleaned up.”
Suddenly, a sharp voice cut through the murmurs, commanding and unyielding. “What’s all this, then?”
The rowdy crowd quieted and parted quickly, making way as a man stepped forward. He was tall and lean, with sharp, angled features, and a pair of dark, narrowed eyes like flint. His hair was tied back loosely, and his clothes were finely made, though clearly worn and well cared for. He carried himself with an air of authority; his presence alone commanded the attention of everyone on the deck, and they lapsed into silence before him.

The man’s boots clacked on the wooden deck as he made his way through the parted crowd, eyes falling upon Kairos’s kneeled form with something like vague interest.
Standing before him, the man lowered himself to one knee, gaze sweeping over Kairos as they met eye-to-eye. His hand reached out, fingers gripped beneath Kairos’s jaw to lift his chin and inspect the details of his face, and the mark settled boldly at his throat. The touch was firm, but not unkind, though Kairos detested it all the same.
“Well, well,” the captain said, his voice low and thoughtful. “What have we here? Anythin’ to say for yourself, lad?”
Kairos’s face paled beneath the man’s sharp, calculating attention. He wanted, desperately, to speak, to beg and plead and explain himself; tried to, mouth moving frantically and soundlessly, despite knowing it was useless. His voice was gone, and he was struck silent and helpless at this man’s mercy.
The captain’s eyes narrowed at his silence, and he released Kairos’s chin with a furrow of his brow.
“Mute, huh?” he mused, thoughtful. Expression unreadable, he turned to two men standing on the deck. “Take him to the brig. We’ll figure out what do with him when we reach port.”

The pirates murmured their assent, their voices low and obedient. The captain turned to one of them, a stout, gruff-looking man with a patch over one eye and a perpetual scowl.
“Garrick,” he said, tone sharp. “Tend to him. Make sure he doesn’t die before we get to land.”
Garrick groaned, scowl deepening.
“Why me?” he grumbled, voice thick and accented.
The captain’s gaze hardened, and his tone soured.
“Because I said so. Now move.”
Garrick muttered under his breath but obeyed nonetheless, grabbing Kairos by the arm and hauling him to his feet.

When Kairos’s legs buckled beneath him, body trembling as he tried to stand, the man sighed. His expression softened slightly, and he moved to sling Kairos’s arm over his shoulder.
“Come on, then,” he said, his tone grudging but not unkind. “Let’s get you down, lad.”
Garrick managed to drag Kairos down the narrow staircase at the center of the deck, the air growing colder as they descended into the deeper level of the ship. The cloying smell of salt and wood rot filled Kairos’s nose, and his stomach churned with disgust and fear as they neared a cage pressed tightly against the ship’s wall.

The cell was small, the metal bars damp and cold, and the only source of light was from a small grate in the ceiling. Garrick pushed Kairos inside without a word, expression unreadable as he locked the door behind him.
“Don’t cause any trouble,” Garrick said, his gaze sharp as he pocketed the cell’s key. “I’ll bring you some grog in a minute. Try not to die before then. Captain would have my ‘ead.”
When the man had made his way up the narrow stairs and was fully out of view, Kairos collapsed onto the floor, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Above him, through the grate that filtered dim light through its slats, he could hear the pirates’ voices echoing into the cell, their laughter loud and curses aplenty.

He laid down on the damp floor, his body curling inwards as he tried to block out the harsh sounds of boots on wood, of cackling and jeering, of waves crashing against the hull. Despite his best attempts, the loud conversation above filtered through the grate, and he furrowed his brow at the foreign accents and phrases. They spoke of “sails” and “rigging,” “ports,” and “taverns,” and Kairos had to wonder what the strange gibberish could possibly mean.
He was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of footsteps nearing. Wearily, he glanced upwards, and caught a glance of the man from before, Garrick, descending the stairs, a narrow bowl in one hand and what looked to be a lump of rock in the other. The man’s face was as gruff as ever, painted with a scowl, but there was a glint of curiosity in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Here,” Garrick said, his voice rough as he shoved the rock and bowl through the bars. “Drink, and food. Don’t choke on it.”
Kairos stared at the offerings without taking them, his face drawing up in confusion. He was expected to eat this? His eyes narrowed as he peered suspiciously at the brown lump presented to him. He took both offered objects, but did not move to eat them.
Garrick watched him with a mix of curiosity and impatience.
“What, never seen bread before?” he asked, tone incredulous.
Kairos looked up at him, his brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to give a snippy response, but, of course, no sound came. His throat burned with the effort, and he quickly closed his mouth again, cheeks flushing bright with embarrassment.
Garrick sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Right. Mute. Forgot about that.” He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he studied Kairos.

He cleared his throat.
“You’re meant to eat that,” he said, gesturing to the lump. “Bit stale, but it’s decent.”
Kairos stared back at him for another long moment, before the rumbling of his stomach won out against his suspicion. Truly, he had nothing left to lose. Begrudgingly, he brought it to his lips and bit down— after an initial unpleasant hardness, the exterior gave way to a slightly softer, dense interior, and he blinked wide eyes at the taste.
Garrick laughed; it was a low, deep bellow. “Better than fish, I bet,” he said, when Kairos had finished it in a few large bites.
Garrick’s expression softened, slightly.
“Strange one, aren’tcha? Scales, legs, and.. that.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of Kairos’s throat. “What happened to you, anyway?”
Kairos’s lips thinned. If he could have answered, his voice would have broken, eyes would have dimmed. His heart would have twisted at the reminder of his mistake. As it was, he stayed silent, glaring down at the crumbs laying in his lap, and Garrick seemed to gather he wasn’t feeling very talkative. (Hah.)

The look in his eyes must have been enough of a response, because Garrick just shook his head, muttering under his breath as he turned to leave.
“Sit tight and behave, lad,” he called over his shoulder, tone gruff yet not unkind. “Brig really ain’t all that bad. We’ll be at port before you know it.”
Kairos watched him go, chest tightening with a mix of emotions. Garrick was gruff and blunt, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes— empathy, perhaps. At the very least, pity. It was more than Kairos had expected from a human.

[squeegi]

That night, Kairos drifted into an uneasy sleep, the dim moonlight from the grate above his head casting long shadows along the wooden belly of the ship.
Plunged into the dark, cold embrace of unconsciousness, he found himself back in the cave, the statue of the forgotten god looming over him. The statue’s face, once marred with erosion and cracks, features lost to time, had shifted— it was still unrecognizable, hazy as though viewed through a screen of silt and dust, but if he squinted, he could almost see the pale, ghostlike outline of piercing, white eyes.

The goddess’s voice echoed in his mind, ancient and resonant.
“You have done well, child. But the ocean is not yet healed. The leviathan was simply the beginning; something far older, far darker, has awoken. You must find the source of the imbalance, or all will be lost.”
Kairos tried to speak, to ask what the goddess meant, but no sound came. The goddess’s eyes glowed faintly, their light piercing sharply through the darkness. There was a wry sort of humor to her voice, when she spoke again.
“The cost of power is eternal, child. But the cost of inaction is far greater.”

The dream shifted, the cave dissolving into a vision of the open ocean— dark and lifeless water surrounded him on all sides, thick with rot and decay. There were no fish, no porpoises, not a speck of movement. In the center of the darkness, Kairos could see the leviathan’s massive body, coiled and lifeless, sinking down into the abyss, its eyes glowing with a pulsing, blazing light. And then he saw himself, standing on the shore, the mark on his throat pulsing faintly as he watched the waves crash upon the sand, colored gray with rot and decay.

Kairos woke with a start, his chest heaving and his body drenched in sweat. He opened his mouth to cry out, but a quiet, hoarse gasp was the only sound that made it past his parted lips. The dim light from the grate above him filtered thin moonlight through the darkness, casting faint shadows on the walls of the brig. Kairos turned his head towards the corner and nearly jumped out of his skin when a flash of movement caught his eye.
Garrick was sitting in the shadowed corner of the ship, with his back against the wall and his arms crossed over his chest. He had been watching Kairos, unashamed in his blatant staring, and when Kairos met his gaze, his expression remained unreadable.
“Bad dream?” Garrick asked, his voice low and rough from lack of sleep. How long had he been sitting there, watching?
Of course, Kairos didn’t answer. He just glared back pointedly, swiping the sweat-matted hair from his forehead with a dismissive grunt.

“Y’know, you ain’t what I expected,” Garrick mused after another moment of watching him, his tone thoughtful. “Thought you’d be… dunno. More of a monster, I guess. But you’re just a guy who got dealt a bad hand.”
Kairos met his gaze uneasily, his chest tightening. Garrick’s words were blunt, but there was that hint of empathy in his tone again— another flicker of humanity.

Over the next few days, Garrick’s visits became more and more frequent. He brought Kairos food and water, meager scraps but appreciated nonetheless. With every visit, he would linger, watching Kairos with that same curious glint in his eye. He would ask endless questions about everything under the sun, though he knew Kairos couldn’t answer. They got a bit creative, with their communication— Garrick was more patient than Kairos would have given him credit for, and smart enough to pick up on most of his vague gestures and movements.

“What’s it like down there?” Garrick had asked, on a muggy afternoon, when the day’s meal consisted of a particularly fragrant stew that had Kairos’s nose crinkling.
“In the ocean, I mean. Must be odd, living underwater.”
Kairos shrugged, bringing the stew to his lips and sipping gratefully at the warmth. It was more odd to live above the water, he thought. Much too dry, and at the mercy of the fickle sun. He conveyed this thought to Garrick with a single raised brow, and a roll of his eyes. Then, he pointed to his legs, then shook his head, annoyance evident.
Garrick laughed, and the sound echoed in the small confined space.

“Aye, right. Not used to those, huh? Must be hard, learning to walk.”
Kairos nodded again, smiling slightly. The brief moment of humor washed away after a moment, though. He wanted desperately to explain, to tell Garrick about the leviathan, about everything he had lost. Not for pity, or for sympathy. Just.. to get it out there. Have someone look at him with something other than disgust, or horror.
But all he could do was shrug good-naturedly, and let the moment pass.

Kairos blinked as Garrick led him up the narrow staircase, the sunlight hitting him like a physical force after so many days locked in the darkness of the brig. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, his legs still trembling beneath him as he stepped onto the deck— this time, though, he was able to keep himself mostly upright, with only minor assistance from Garrick. The air was sharp and salty, and the wind tugged playfully at his hair; he closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath, relishing the fresh air after being confined to the brig’s stale dampness.

After a long moment of just enjoying the feeling of sun on his skin and air in his lungs, he opened an eye and glanced at Garrick, brows furrowing in askance. Sure, he enjoyed the time above deck, but why?
Garrick guided him to the side of the ship, a smile curling his lips.
“Captain said it was okay,” Garrick explained, when Kairos cocked his head questioningly. “Didn’t want to deal with rickets, he said.”

Kairos had no idea what a ricket was, but his attention was quickly diverted from the topic when he caught a glimpse of the view over the ship’s side, and he nearly tripped over himself in an attempt to peer out across the horizon.
“Don’t fall overboard,” Garrick chided, his tone gruff yet warm with humor. “I’m not jumping in after you, lad.”
Kairos barely heard him. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, where the sun reflected off the endless blue expanse of water, its light piercing and blinding. The ocean stretched out before him in every direction, blue, rippling surface extending far past the horizon. He leaned over the railing, his hands gripping the wood tightly as he stared out at the sea, as Garrick wheedled him to be careful, damn it at his side.

It was beautiful. Devastatingly so. The way the sunlight danced across the endless expanse of the sea’s surface; the way the waves crashed noisily against the ship’s hull in a spray of water; the way the wind carried the scent of salt and sea— it was everything he had lost, everything he could no longer be a part of. Everything he had yearned for, in the dark nights he spent surrounded by metal bars, locked in the cold depths of the brig. His gut twisted, joy and grief warring inside him.
Garrick stood beside him, his arms crossed and his expression unreadable. He watched Kairos carefully, his sharp, one-eyed gaze missing nothing.

“You miss it?” he guessed, his gruff tone hesitant.
Kairos nodded silently, eyes still locked on the horizon.
Garrick hummed thoughtfully. “I think I get it. Must be hard, being stuck up here, when you belong down there.”
Yes, he thought. He belonged down there. But, even then— turned out, the view wasn’t so bad from up here.

Eventually, their moment of quiet introspection was interrupted, when the other pirates began to gather, curiosity piqued by the sight of Kairos on deck. They kept their distance at first, watching him from a ways off with wary, narrowed eyes, but as the minutes passed and he made no move to cause trouble, they grew bolder.
“What’s he doing?” one of them asked, a young man with a patchy beard and a nervous grin. “Just… staring at the water?”
He was loud enough that Kairos could plainly hear the conversation, but he paid it no heed, eyes trained on the fin of a porpoise as it ducked above and beneath the waves in turn.
“Looks like it,” another replied, his tone skeptical. “Odd, if ya ask me.”

Garrick shot them a glare, his voice sharp. “Back to work, the two of you. He ain’t a spectacle.”
The two men grumbled but obeyed, though a few others lingered, their eyes fixed on Kairos. One of them, a balding, older man with a missing tooth, stepped forward, expression curious.
“Are ya really a merfolk?” he asked, his tone blunt and heavily accented. “Or just some poor sod cursed by a seawitch?”
Kairos tore his gaze from the waves and turned, slowly. He glanced at him, brow raising. What was it with pirates and asking questions to the only person on deck who couldn’t speak? Slowly, he gestured to his legs, then to the water, and finally to the mark on his throat.

The older man frowned, his expression thoughtful, and Kairos really couldn’t tell if the man understood or not.
“Ain’t think they really existed,” he muttered. “Strange world we live in, aye?”
Another pirate, a slender, sharp-eyed woman with a scar across her nose bridge, stepped forward.
“Can you still swim?” she asked, her tone curious. “With those legs, I mean.”
Kairos hesitated. He.. didn’t know. Now, surely not— his legs were still too weak to stand for long, so swimming was definitely out of the question. But.. he hadn’t really thought about it. Maybe one day, he’d be able to swim again.
The woman’s expression softened slightly, at the constipated expression he wore, clearly without a proper answer.
“We’ll getcha on Cap’s exercise regiment,” she said, voice lilting with stifled laughter, and the pirates who remained on deck burst into bellowing laughter. “You’ll shape up in no time, lad!”

Kairos nudged Garrick’s side, where the man had begun to doze off leaning against the ship’s bannister.
“Hm?” he said, blinking awake with a grumble. “Whaddya want?”
Kairos gestured unapologetically over the side of the ship, widening his eyes pointedly.
“What, you want to go for a swim? Not happening, lad.”
Kairos’s expression turned sour. He gestured, exaggeratedly, jabbing a finger over the side of the ship— Garrick’s brow furrowed in confusion, but he leaned over the bannister and looked down at the crashing waves without complaint. His gaze fell to what Kairos was pointing to; after a moment, he leaned back from the railing, his expression darkening as he studied the rotted, blackened fish floating in the water. He scratched the back of his neck, gruff demeanor replaced by a rare flicker of unease.
“Aye, been happening more and more lately. Fish turning up dead, with scales black as tar. Even the ones we catch— sometimes they’re fine, other times they’re rotted out before we can even haul ‘em aboard.”
Kairos frowned, his brow furrowing. This.. must be what the Goddess had meant, when she spoke to him in the dream. Something worse to come.

Garrick shrugged, taking Kairos’s pinched expression for confusion.
“Dunno, lad. The sea’s been… off, lately. Like it’s sick. Strange currents, unpredictable winds, the like. Even the seabirds, flying inland, like they’re running from something.”
“I’ve been sailing these waters for nigh on thirty years, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like the ocean’s gone mad.”
Kairos’s emotions turmoiled, gaze flicking back to the rotten fish, now far in the distance. He could feel the weight of Garrick’s words, the unease in his voice.
The goddess’s power still lingered within him, a faint hum in the back of his mind, and he could feel the ocean’s pain, its desperation. Something was wrong, and he might be the only one who had a clue about why.

[squeegi]

As the sun began to set, painting the sky in brilliant, warm orange hues, Garrick lingered by the side of the ship, his arms crossed and his gaze fixed out on the horizon. Kairos stood silently at his side, arms resting against the banister, his gaze, too, locked where the sun reflected out upon the waters surface. The mark on his throat pulsed faintly, thoughts occupied with rotten fish, unnaturally still waters, and the looming threat on the horizon.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. The only sound was the ship creaking and the gentle crash of the waves against the hull. Then, Garrick sighed, breaking the silence as he turned his gaze towards Kairos.
“You know,” he said, his voice low and thoughtful, “Been out on these waters for a long time. Seen a lot of strange things. But this… this is different. Never felt like this before. Like the sea is… dyin’.”
Kairos looked at him, his chest tightening. He wished he could speak, could explain what he knew, but all he could do was nod slowly, eyes hooded.

Garrick glanced at him, his expression unreadable. “You know something about it, don’t you?” he asked, though his tone was not accusing.
Kairos hesitated, then nodded again. He gestured vaguely to the mark on his throat, then to the horizon, his hands trembling as he tried to convey the enormity of what he knew.
But words— even if he could speak them— wouldn’t be enough. How could he explain the leviathan, the goddess, the bargain he had made? How could he make Garrick understand that the ocean was dying, and that he might be the only one who could save it?
(That he didn’t know if he wanted to save it?)
Garrick studied him for a long moment, gaze indecipherable. Then he sighed, turning back to the setting sun.
“Whatever it is, we’ll keep an eye out, but there’s not much we can do. Not our job to fix the ocean.”
Kairos looked at him, considering the heavy, stifling weight of obligation that had been settled upon his shoulders. It’s mine, he thought. If not mine, who else?
Garrick turned towards the staircase that led down into the depths of the ship, but he hesitated. He glanced back at Kairos, his expression softening slightly.

“We’ll be at port soon,” he said, his tone low, barely audible above the crashing of the waves. He hesitated, again, this time longer.
“Best to keep your wits about you,” Garrick began, slow, purposeful. “Ports have a way of being… real chaotic places. Lots of people coming and going. Easy for someone to slip away, if they’ve a mind to.”
Kairos froze, breath caught perilously in his throat. He stared at Garrick, his mind racing as the words sank in— was it an offer? A test? Garrick’s face gave nothing away as always, his single eye steady and unreadable, but there was something in his tone— something deliberate. Meaningful.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Garrick stepped closer, his boots heavy on the wooden deck. He reached out and clapped a hand on Kairos’s shoulder, the gesture firm yet conforming. His grip lingered, for a long moment, as if he were trying to convey something words couldn’t express.
Somehow, Kairos thought he understood.
“You’ve got a choice to make, lad,” Garrick said, voice low. “Whatever you choose… make sure it’s yours.”
Then he turned and descended the stairs, his footsteps fading into the creaking of the ship and the rush of the waves; giving Kairos a moment of privacy to linger, if only just a moment, before he would return to the dark brig.
Kairos watched him go, his chest heaving as he tried to steady his breathing. He was thankful, for the time alone, and his eyes once again fell upon the horizon. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and the soft blues of dusk had begun to paint the sea’s surface in turn. His mind turned the day’s conversations over and over, replaying Garrick’s words on repeat. He cast back briefly, to the voice of the goddess lingering in his mind, and what it all meant for him.

The ocean was still out there, vast and boundless. Yet, it was no longer his— at least, not in the way he was accustomed to. Despite that— despite everything— for a moment, he had felt a flicker of hope. Maybe there still remained a place for him in this strange, unfamiliar world.
The endless blue of the ocean stretched out before him, its surface shimmering faintly in the fading light.
It was beautiful. And, it was dying.
The goddess’s power hummed within him still, a faint, yet stubbornly insistent presence. In the back of his mind, like a weak, pulsing ache, he could feel the ocean’s pain. Its desperation. The leviathan’s appearance was just a surface wound. The sea was bleeding, from a deep, lethal gash. He didn’t know if he could heal it. He didn’t even know if he wanted to.

But the choice was his to make.

Kairos closed his eyes, the sound of the waves filling his ears. The ocean was calling to him, as it always had. And, for the first time since he’d woken on that shallow reef with his life stripped from his grasp, he felt something other than despair.

He felt hope.