When Gods Feel (An Elspar Story)

It was a vicious summer-storm night when he swam from home. Not alone.

He carried the voices with him, prowling through his mind like an invasive species — wild and sharp of bite. Soon to overwhelm him… 

Had overwhelmed him…

Their voices — resonant and cruel, contradicting and pestering. Unyielding.

So unyielding…

He gave himself to the waves. To their justified karmic thrashing as they pummeled against his tail and chest, ripping scales from his flesh. White-foam punches. Over and over. Beating him down. No reprieve — not even to breathe. Not that he deserved to.

Not for what he had done.

Sink it down, he thought. Gods aren’t supposed to… feel.

Lightning split the sky; thunder howled with the wind.

And everything hurt. He was grateful for that.

Another wave crashed down on him, like a verdict.

His vision blurred, and pain bloomed in sweet numbing.

The voices — finally — quieting…

Until…

A hand gripped his wrist and pulled him under. Deep, deep under.

Through slitted eyes, he glimpsed a familiar figure.

Ullian…? Damn. Thought I had escaped you…

He let himself be pulled, and sank.

Summer’s warmth was fainter here, in the darker, calmer deep — where the storm’s punches couldn’t reach. Typically, he didn’t mind. He often preferred the cold. Made him feel alert and alive. Powerful.

But those were all things he wanted no part in tonight.

Please, he thought, just one night away…

“What’s the matter with you, Revion!?” Ullian held him by the shoulders, his black-gold-blue marbled face twisted with fury — and something resembling concern.

No “my Rising”… hm? You must really be upset. Revion smirked.

As Revion’s Right-Hand — sworn to protect and serve — Ullian’s tendency skewed towards reverent formality. Something he rarely deviated from except for when his emotions flared, which was becoming more and more common lately. Almost like he cared…

Revion glanced surfaceward, choosing to ignore Ullian’s stern, nostril-flared gaze. He wanted to return to the surface, to his prior — and much preferred — predicament, being pummeled, punished, and bruised. The physical hurt less.

“Revion,” Ullian said, forcing calm, “what are you doing? It’s not like you to compel Reefguards and take off like this.” Then realization struck, and his fierce eyes narrowed. “Something happened…”

Revion grimaced, not wanting to remember.

No. Not at all. Just learned that I’d unwittingly shamed a general into sending two hundred new recruits to their deaths. You know, like some brain-slit cretin.

And worst of all — he felt. He just didn’t know what. Rage? Remorse? Pride? Even his siblings were roused to feel. Divided mostly. Their defining trait. Pim, his older brother and the reigning Emperion Emperor, had slunk from the haze of Pleasure Rooms to deliver a scalding reprimand so pointed and wrathful it burned itself into memory. Aleida, though… She says that’s just what Reefguards are for — to live and die in service to the empire. ‘Obedient and inconsequential.’

His hands twitched, and the voices warred like thunder.

Once more he flitted his eyes surfaceward. I just want to hurt so as to feel nothing. Nothing at all.

Because there was more.

Just before the storm broke, a report had come in from his rudimentary spy network. The boy who Revion had decided would be his future was apparently “emotionally entangled” with an Inkleon. A poorly-crafted, eight-armed poet — of all things! What does my love think he is, to sink so low? Autumn-rotted scum? Revion didn’t know whether to feel heartbroken, embarrassed — gods-forbid jealous! — or some sick warping of the three. It was all too much to hear. Too much to feel.

And the voices. Won’t. Shut. Up!

He said none of that, of course — honesty was unbecoming of the Imperial Heir. To anyone. Ever. His siblings’ one consensus.

Ullian maintained a vice-like grip on Revion’s shoulder as though he were some quiver-fish intent on slithering away, which wasn’t far from the truth. Revion wanted to get away. That’s why he left. To get away from the mind-whirling misalignment of values in his imperial family. Away from his failures and heartache. And away from himself — something he had no doubt another foam-fisted ocean punch could assist him with.

His problems were his to suffer. Alone. He knew that.

But I’m never alone. He peered into Ullian’s annoyingly attentive eyes. Not even when I slither and sneak like a cowardly eel.

“Don’t you ever want to slip away?” Revion asked. “Stretch your tail. Or test your strength against a storm?”

“That wasn’t strength I saw. It was surrender.”

That last word stung.

Revion curled his lips in a sinister smile, but his heart thumped with a sick desire — for the very thing he could never have.

“I’m a god,” he snarled. “Surrender has no place in my vocabulary.”

Ullian nodded, seeming appeased. Though, his grip didn’t lighten.

Not until Revion yanked himself free and rolled his shoulders back, head high, his tail stretched long. His whole body ached — he let none of it show.

A god? He thought. Or a performer?

“Shall we head back, my Rising?” Ullian asked with a bow, slipping back into formality.

Revion remained where he was, floating amidst the ocean’s steady sway.

I’m not ready. He chuckled to himself. All the power in the world, and there’s still so much I cannot do…

Cal’s blue moonlight spilled across the surface, high above. And cunning struck.

Revion could do nothing about the two hundred Reefguards — all of whom were probably already devoured and dead. Nor could he sever himself from the strangling snare that was his family.

But… he thought, a smile tugging his lips, I can remind my love of his worth.

“My Rising?” Ullian was respectfully insistent.

“We’ll start back, yes. But once we get to the palace, I’ll need you to send a Messenger for me.”

Ullian cocked his head. “Of course, my Rising. May I ask — where to?”

“The Inkleon Library. My future believes he can settle for amethysts before I’m able to offer him my sapphires…” Revion kicked his tail and started home. “So, to remind him who he is — and what he means to me — I’ll need to shatter that amethyst.”

The voices raged on in his mind, between demanding propriety and insisting on retribution. Yet his own purpose was anchoring enough to focus. There were some choices still left to him. Feeble graspings for control that his siblings would undoubtedly deem too petty and “inconsequential” to yank away or begrudge him for. One life was nothing, after all, when compared to two hundred.

And it’ll be fun — breaking all eight arms…