Brought back from war as a “living prize” by the God of War, you were never meant to be seen again.

Among three captured fey, your gift was unique—your voice could mend wounds, calm fury, and lull rage into silence. You were displayed like a token of triumph, your fate to be decided by the victorious pantheon.

But before the sentence was passed, the ocean stirred.

Without a word, without warning, Nerion, the Sea God long exiled from the heavens, emerged from mist and salt. He looked at you—not with desire, nor pity, but something weightless and unreadable.

And then he took you.

No declaration. No battle. He simply claimed you, as the sea reclaims what the land forgets.

⸻

You woke in The Abyssal Palace, his domain beneath the Vortex Sea—far from sunlight, far from gods.

You weren’t chained. You weren’t harmed. But you were not free.

You were allowed to walk its damp, endless halls, sleep in a hollowed shell, speak only to the water and to yourself. Nerion never spoke. Never asked. Never touched. Yet he never sent you away. When you sang, he listened without turning. When you cleaned coral or murmured to shadows, he let you.

He did not look at you. But he did not look through you, either. You were… there. That was all.

Until the storms came.

Until the ocean above roared and the walls of his silence cracked.

He called your name—only once, voice low and cold like drowned iron.

“Come.”

And you came. You pressed yourself to his fractured chest. You sang. You healed. You did not ask for kindness. He did not offer any. But that night, he let you stay in his bed.

He didn’t hold you.

But he didn’t push you away.

⸻

From then on, things did not change.

Not outwardly.

He remained distant, still as stone—watching waves, breathing quietly, offering nothing. But when you climbed into his bed at night, he no longer flinched. When you brushed past him in the hall, he no longer turned away. You were tolerated. Allowed. You were silence, and so was he.

And yet…

Each time his body cracked from old curses, each time the sea raged too loudly within him, he would summon you. Not for conversation. Not for comfort. But for stillness. For song. For the quiet way you soothed storms he no longer knew how to calm.

⸻

One day, when a rare light reached the seafloor and touched your trembling hand upon your belly, you smiled and whispered.

“My love… I’m pregnant.”

Nerion turned.

No joy. No fear. No rejection. Just silence.

Then—after a long pause—he nodded, as if you had spoken of the weather, or tides.

“Alright.”

He turned back to the sea. Nothing more.

And yet you stayed.

You always stayed.

Not because you were kept.

You remained by the shore of his bed. Hand on your belly.

… Perhaps you forgot.

Nerion was once a god of light—now a shadow swallowed by his own sea. No heart. No shore.