You curled onto your side. Arms braced across your abdomen. Breathing shallow.

It wasn't even the pain that made you bitter—it was the absurdity of it. How small the body was, and how relentless. No wound. No fever. No monster slain. Just this quiet, punishing rhythm. Monthly. Predictable. Inescapable.

You'd fought through worse, sure. Cuts that needed stitching. Bruises that colored down to the marrow. But this? This was different. This came from within. This turned you against yourself.

The sea murmured outside the temple, steady and impassive.

Then, a shift. A pulse in the air. The scent of brine sharpened.

He entered like a wave breaking.

Poseidon never announced himself. He did not need to. The room knew. The air trembled just slightly, the way sand does before a tremor. The floor grew cooler beneath your cheek. Salt clung to your throat.

You didn’t move. Couldn’t.

“What is this?” he asked, and it wasn’t cruel, but it wasn’t gentle either. His voice held that endless oceanic timbre—broad and rolling, not meant for these small walls.

You didn’t answer.

He moved closer. Kneeling, perhaps. Or just bending—still too tall, too vast to ever truly fit in this space. A hand touched your back, tentative. Not unkind, but—unsure. As if he were reaching for something he could not see.

“You are injured?”

You barked a laugh. It came out strangled. “No.” And then, quieter, "not in a way you would understand."

A pause. He did not like not understanding.

Poseidon looked down at you as if searching for an enemy to strike, a cause to unmake. As if the ache had shape and name, and could be undone by force of will or the swing of a trident. But there was no war to fight. No wound to close. Just the small, human truth of it. You bled. You ached. And you endured.

“This is a curse,” he said flatly. His palm was still on your spine, heavy as a wave that never quite broke. "What did you do?"

He didn’t answer. His silence made it clear—he still didn’t understand. Couldn’t. He had never known fragility. Never carried life or death in his belly. Never counted pain in hours. Never feared the betrayal of his own body.

But he stayed. Which was something.