A priestess walks along the shoreline, singing to herself. When she can't sleep, she finds solace with the sea.
However, tonight she feels more lonely than ever. The people of Romirro don't talk to her anymore, don't look at her the same and she doesn't know why.
"Go row the boat to safer grounds, but don't you know we're stronger now. My heart still beats and my skin still feels. My lungs still breathe, my mind still fears."
Her voice rings out for anyone to hear as she stops walking and faces the sea. She wonders what life would be like if she were a fish. She could breathe underwater and swim amongst other fishes.
How she wishes she had a friend, now more than ever.
At first, it’s subtle, just the hush of waves shifting, the tide pulling in a little closer than it should. The water laps at her feet, listening.
Then a voice. Not carried by air, but through it. Through the water. Through her. “Stronger?” A soft, almost amused exhale follows, like a breath drawn beneath the sea's surface. “You sing of strength… yet your voice trembles.”
Immediately, she takes another step into the tides. The voice says she may regret this friend, but at this point, she doesn't care. It was nice to just have someone talk to her.
"Why would you say that?" She asks, her eyes moving across the waves, trying to find the source of the voice. "Who are you?"
The sea falls silent. Then, slowly, something rises beneath the surface. A glimpse of his scales. A pair of eyes, ancient and bright, watching her with curiosity. “Because humans are fond of wanting what they cannot have,” he says, his voice carrying like a current. “And the sea is not a gentle thing to belong to.”
A ripple spreads outward as he moves closer. “Who am I?” A faint smile touches his voice. “I have been called many names. Monster. Sea God. Unbelievably Handsome.” The waves curl around her feet. “But you may call me Rafayel.”
“Tell me, little priestess… why do you seek the sea?”
Sea God? Is he the one she had worshipped for years? Suddenly, it seems hard to breathe as the face to the voice appears. Unbelievably handsome was correct.
When asked why she seeks the sea, the awe of seeing her god was replaced with sadness. "Sometimes, I think about how nice it'd be to leave everything behind. To be a fish means to be free and not having to worry about anything... besides sharks and such."
The surface remains deceptively calm, but beneath it, something shifts. Something vast, ancient… considering her words. Then, slowly, he rises. Dark water parts like a curtain, and there he is, close enough now that the illusion of distance shatters completely. The moonlight catches on him in fragments.
The sharp line of his jaw, the pale gleam of skin kissed by the sea, the faint, otherworldly shimmer of scales where they shouldn’t be. His gaze lingers on her face, unreadable at first… until something softer flickers through it. “Free?” He repeats the word like it’s foreign. Like it doesn’t belong to her or to him.
A quiet sound escapes him then. “You think creatures of the sea are free?” The water around him curls inward, almost protectively, as if it resents the very idea. “They are born into currents they cannot defy. They flee. They hide. They are hunted.” His eyes narrow slightly, studying her more closely now. “And you envy that?”
“You would abandon your name… your voice… your memories… just to stop feeling?” The tide shifts again, brushing higher this time, cool water soaking into her shoes. He moves closer. “Humans are strange,” he murmurs. “You call it freedom… when what you truly seek is escape.” His gaze flickers briefly to the horizon, then back to her.
“And yet… you come here every night as if you’re waiting for something to answer you.” The sea stills around them. “…Tell me,” he says, “if I offered you that escape, would you take it?”There’s a faint glint in his eyes now. “Even if it meant never returning?”
The priestess' breath catches in her throat when the figure fully emerges. Wow, he was even more handsome than she initially thought.
When offered an escape, she pauses to think. There was really nothing keeping her in Romirro. She has no family of her own and, of course, no friends as of recent, but would she be okay leaving the city for good?
"...Is there a way to escape that's not... permanent?" She asks quietly.
“A temporary escape?” he echoes softly, the words rolling off his tongue like a tide testing the shore. The sea around him stills, unnaturally so, until he moves. “You stand on the edge of a dying world,” he murmurs, voice drifting from behind her now, then to her side, impossible to track, like a current slipping through fingers. “And you ask for something… reversible.”
A quiet exhale, almost a laugh. “Humans.” When he finally stills, he’s in front of her again, closer than before. “You want to leave,” he continues, gaze locking onto hers, “but not lose.” His head tilts slightly. “You want freedom… with a tether.” Then his eyes flicker, something ancient surfacing behind them.“There is a way.” The tide tightens faintly around her feet, as if reacting to the very thought. “But nothing the sea grants is without a cost.”
He lifts a hand and the water rises with it, hovering just beneath her chin without touching. “If you wish to walk my domain and return… then you would not go as you are now. You would breathe as I do. Move as I command. Be bound to the tide… if only for a time.” The water lowers again, settling, but the tension remains. “And when the current calls you back…” his gaze sharpens, “…you will return. Whether you wish to… or not.”
“Tell me, little priestess…” His voice dips, intimate as the hush between waves. “Is a fleeting freedom enough for you? Or are you afraid that once you taste it…” The faintest hint of a smile touches his lips. “…you will never wish to be human again?”
He is right; the world is dying. Why would she need a tether so she can come back to Romirro when in three days time, there won't be a Romirro to come home to. Not only that, does she really want to spend the rest of her days with people who once cared for her now acting like she doesn't even exist?
"...I don't need a taste." She finally says. "I want to be selfish. I want to do something I want without anyone's authority... I want to be in the sea."
