53 when a god is born

The world reformed beneath her feet—not all at once, but in pieces.

A damp wind swept across her skin, thick with salt and sorrow. The rhythmic creak of wooden beams echoed from somewhere overhead. Ropes groaned. Sails snapped. And the sky—gray and endless—pressed low over an angry sea.

Marisol stumbled forward, her boots striking slick planks.

The shadow-cat slipped from her arms with a sudden squirm, landing gracefully beside her with a soft thud. Its crimson eyes flicked up at her, then ahead—toward the center of the deck.

There, bound to the mainmast with rusted chains and cracked leather cuffs, a girl no older than Marisol knelt. Her face was streaked with tears and rain. Her long, dark hair clung to her cheeks. She didn't look up. Didn't speak.

She just shivered, her thin frame racked with sobs too exhausted to rise into screams.

"W-Who is she?" Marisol asked, her voice barely a breath.

Garrison stepped from the shadow of the mainmast beside her, hands tucked in his jacket pockets like he'd always been there. "She's called many things. But most know her as Pocahontas."

Marisol's eyes widened. "But she's just a—"

"A child," Garrison said gently. "Yeah. Not much younger than you."

He didn't look at the girl. His gaze was set far out over the sea, his voice rough. "They kidnapped her after they saw what she could do—how she could understand anyone, speak any tongue. They thought it was magic. Thought it could be controlled. She wasn't a person to them. Just a weapon."

The wind howled. Somewhere below deck, a heavy chain clattered.

Marisol turned away, her arms folding protectively around herself. "This is too much," she whispered. "I don't want to see any more of this."

"Don't avert your eyes," Garrison said, softly. "Without these girls sacrifices, your story could never of begun."

Marisol clenched her teeth, eyes wet with fury.

"This isn't just some story," she said. "They all felt and breathed… this is just cruel."

"Yeah," Garrison murmured. "Life is cruel. Sometimes it can be survival of the fittest, and the weak are the first to be pruned."

A low meow pulled her attention.

The shadow-cat had moved again—padding lightly down the slick deck to a small door in the hull. It paused, looking back at her. Waiting.

Marisol hesitated, her breath shallow.

The cat moved again—silent, steady—and before she knew it, her feet followed even as Garrison called softly after her to come back. Not out of courage. Not out of resolve. But because it was easier to follow shadows than face one more victim of this vicious cycle.

The cat slipped through the doorway like a wisp of smoke.

And Marisol stepped into the dark after it, leaving the storm behind.

Marisol staggered. The visions blurred, bleeding into one another.

Marisol followed the shadow-cat along a winding root—thick as a bridge and pulsing faintly beneath her bare feet. The air darkened around her. No sign of Garrison now. Just the low hum of memory and the cat's quiet pawsteps.

Up ahead, the path opened to light.

And in that light—she saw them.

Aiden and Lila. Just kids, really. Eighteen? Nineteen maybe? Sprawled on near thr fountain in their favorite park, sketchbooks in their laps. Lila laughed at something Aiden said, her face lit by the sun. He flushed and pretended not to care, but his fingers never stopped drawing.

Marisol smiled faintly—until the wind shifted.

The sky flashed.

The world trembled.

Then—silence.

The explosion rolled through like thunder underwater. The blast bloomed across the horizon—a monstrous mushroom cloud that swallowed buildings, trees, and dreams.

Lila's laughter died in an instant. Aiden turned, reaching for her.

White light.

Then darkness.

The branch beneath Marisol's feet cracked with grief. She dropped to her knees, the cat pressing against her side.

"So much death," she whispered. Her voice trembled, carried only by the emptiness. "So much death… and nothing changes."

The cat meowed once, its tail curling around her arm.

Another root reached upward from the dark.

It pulled her forward—and she followed.

Aiden awoke in the Otherworld, alone.

Marisol watched him stagger through the fog of shattered timelines and floating ruins of his own city.

Sylva appeared—light and divinity wrapped in one beautiful being. She asked for his aid before gifting him the quill-sword. Aiden gripped it like a tether to who he was.

Then came Rowan.

Kieran.

Amara.

One by one, they walked beside him, pieces of a shattered world rebuilding their own path as the core's darkness wavered within him.

Another vision flared.

Aiden stood beside Emrys beneath the twisting branches of Yggdrasil, reshaping the quill into something new—the Ring of Vows. A circle forged not from power, but from love.

He carried it into battle—against enforcers, against nightmares, against the doubt that took shape in the form of dark abilities.

And then—

The Titanic.

Frozen winds. Crimson sky. The Sentinel looming.

Marisol's breath caught as Aiden shed his fear, his form glowing with both darkness and light—balanced, burning, unstoppable. He didn't fight to destroy. He fought to protect.

And finally—

The Core's sanctum.

Marisol's feet slowed on the root. The memory grew colder.

She saw Aiden—bloodied, panting—as he stepped through her final defenses toward Lila's possessed form. The Core writhed through her like black ink. But Aiden didn't strike.

He knelt.

He held her.

He listened.

Even then, even in that moment—he gave Lila a choice.

And when he drew the Core's essence out of her and into his ring—tears in his eyes—and she had found the strength to speak, choosing to live. Not as a part of slyva or the Core, but herself. With that Slyva had her answer and acted using lila as a conduict to funnel the core into her own being.

She didn't just devour the core. Slyva once again became one with it.

She took its darkness into herself. With her help, Aiden had succeeded in saving his true love.

The image frozen in light. The form of Lila still held in Aiden's arms.