Seabreeze

When people talk about the Gods falling, it’s a dramatic thing—a vast streak of fire swallowing the sky in its ardour, the last vestiges of divine power burning away from a crashing soul in a brilliant display.

For you, though, it was instant. One moment, you ruled from your spot in the firmament, and the next… you didn't.

You awoke, laid face down… and drew your first breath in centuries. The scent of the sea, of the sand and the salt and the kelp and the fertile breeze of the forest not far ahead, a dizzying manifold unfurling into your mind. Your eyes shot open, and you jolted up, looking back and forth across the beach on which you’d washed up.

A full moon hung high over the Diamond Sea, the tide sweeping the shore at its behest. It felt as if the clamor of a thousand wars had finally died away, supplanted by the rattling of trees in the seabreeze. You started to lurch to your feet, and felt something unnatural—a sharp sting in your chest, burning… and you could finally feel that weight on your back.

You reached, slippery hands grasping for it… and you found the handle of a rapier, its blade buried to the hilt into your back. You knew better than to try and pull it out, but that sensation was almost too much to bear. You had forgotten what it meant to feel pain.

Two steps, shaking, barely stable, and you turned, gazing into the sky. You felt Erriyt’s gaze upon you, of all the souls that you and yours had sent to that moon. Judging you.

You couldn’t stand, not for long. You sunk back to your knees in the sand, folding under the weight of the night sky, a deathly realization setting in. You looked down and saw that the sand was stained black where you had evidently dragged yourself to shore, leaving a long trail.

You looked at your hands. Soaked in blood. Injured though you were, you knew that so much could not be yours alone.

Tears rolled down your porcelain face. Each breath brought new sensation. A different scent, a different jolt of pain. You could feel everything, the chill in your lungs, the breeze against your arms, the push and pull of the ocean, the ebb and flow of the world… you were mortal, again.

To think of all those you took this from, in your centuries of delirium.

Horror dawning into your mind, all of it came back to you at once. Every moment of your divine life and every moment of your mortal life, rushing in like the tide and leaving you awash in guilt and shame. You prostrated before Erriyt, silent tears turning into sobbing turning into agonized shouting, screaming into the unchanging sea for forgiveness, absolution, understanding, and finding no divine voice to answer you.

Just an empty sky and the mortal world itself.

You would have to make that absolution for yourself.