The truest thing about divinity is that it
cannot hardly separate itself from pride,
and for Triton it was no different. Though
his wound was already closing, he felt the
pain of it steadily growing. Like a lunatic
blood poison it traveled through his veins,
bypassing his vena cava and heading up, thirsting
not for his heart but his mind. Slowly upward
did it flow, and even as Joanna was heartened
by the apparent regeneration of his Divine health
his mind grew closer and closer to insanity.
And so they swam on, she unaware of her dire
peril, he unable to do anything about it.
Some time along, the poison now very near
to Triton’s brain, he stopped, seemingly needing
to catch his breath. The nymph, still unaware
of his degeneration, happily obliged and the
two of them sat on a rock. Triton looked
up into the sea and the sky above that, and
spoke to the naiad, lost somewhere deep
inside his slowly twisting mind. “Dost thou
see the stars far up? Dost thou see them?
Mine eyes can pierce those heights, and
to me they seem to waver. Fleeting and
inconstant, whose were they before
they gave themselves to the Olympians?
Zeus made them not, and neither did that
glorified smith, Hephaistos. They were there
flickering before Ancient Kronos and likely they
will long survive me and thou. Why do they
waver so? Do they mock me in my
frailty?”
“Lord, do not speak so, it makes no sense.
Thou art strong as thou hath ever been. The
stars do not waver, ‘tis merely the watery
filter through which thou see’ests them.”
“Nay, they waver, and they would
do so for me even were I to see them from
the solid earth. Has thou ever known a
god to die? I think it must be possible. Does
our power come from ourselves? Clearly not
entirely, for what power had Zeus before
he took it from Kronos?”
“ Enough to fight back the Titans. But wait,
why do you even ask? What a morbid subject
for one so mighty...”
“My might bled out of me when that boy
smote me with his weapon. So much
strength, and so inconspicuous! From
whence has he descended that he
should have grown so strong so soon, and
without anyone knowing?
Yet Zeus hadn’t lightning bolts before they
were gifted to him, and even Gaia
came out of Chaos. We are nothing in
ourselves.”
“But thou are so much to us! Didst thou
not feel the sea’s wound as it reflected
thine? If you died would the sea die
too?”
“My fair nymph, I may be the sea while I
yet live, but was there not a sea before
there was me? Were there no waters
before I was born to Lord them?
Nay! The ocean breathes not through
my lungs, rather I breath through the
ocean.”
“ All the same, what is a city without
a king, and how could we survive your
death. Our love for thee would dissolve
our bodies! (But how could thou die?
Thou are Triton, king of the sea...)
“ Am I so great as to deserve such devotion
from thee? What do I do, save take offense
and subsequently revenge for the actions
of mortals? Does the water love me for
my abuse of it? Does any mortal love me,
or do they merely show respect for fear
of me? Death would be a gift. Would thou
die with me?”
“ So thee is intent upon dying? It seems that
thy wound penetrates far beneath thy mendable
skin. Could no words persuade thee?”
“ My eyes are growing dark and I fear that
the shade is death.”
“ Then I would go with thee. Whatever you
say, I love thee, and a sea devoid of thy
presence would be for me too salty by
far. How could I discern the water
from my tears?”
“ All is well. On this trident let me
take what the Arbiter left behind. Hades,
thou shall not have my spirit, for it belongs
to the sea. Here, Joanna, let me soothe
thy pains with a gentle edge... The cut is
true... Now for me... It’s not as cold
as I had thought it would be.... With my
blood, I make peace. Now let it run forever
in the waters of my ocean... peace...”
And so, almost in sight of Poseidon’s great
palace, for it was beyond only the next rise,
Triton took his life along with that of his loyal
nymph and surrendered his immense soul back
to the sea. Before his eyes closed for the last
time, the haggard gleam therein went out, and
for a moment there were flowing lines of peace
graven upon each iris.
Seconds later his body and that of the nymph’s were
consumed in a startling blaze of ultramarine, and
a blinding light sped out of the ocean and up into
the air, racing for a little grove of trees nearby. The
moaning of the waters ceased, and where two godly
bodies had lain only a brief flash earlier, no trace remained.
(BLEAGHHH, SUCKS)
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