Broken realms produced broken people.
Rest in pieces and pisces, Salacia blissfully thought. No more flaunting of whores from her philandering, wooden-headed husband.
The Three Pillars of Kaen, Wisdom, Sea, and War, were either dead or exiled and Salacia was free to roam her realm and repair what their wicked ways had broken.
The death of her husband Kaen, the catalyst for all this massive incoming change, emboldened her to start making a real difference. Once a tsunami shattered a shore, there was no putting it back. A tsunami had shattered her life, too; she saw no reason to allow that shore to heal.
The god's sister squirmed on the ocean floor. Salacia brought her to Point Null where no fish, Meiren, no man-made vessels swam or sailed, just to be sure Gorgo would perish. Finally, there would be no seahorses buzzing in her ear about propriety and she could be free of the Three Pillars. It was a place designed for oblivion.
"I really liked you, you know," Salacia said. She had brought Gorgo under the pretence of a final farewell; instead she coiled around her sister-in-law and, with a ruthless twist of her hair, severed the long, iridescent tail that marked Gorgo as her kin.
"Go die in a hole," Gorgo said.
Her body convulsed, blood diffusing into the dark water like a blooming cloud. Pain lanced through her like knives of ice. The salty water stung as it flooded into the wounds, and Gorgo clawed at Salacia's arm, but the queen only tightened her grip.
In a way, it felt like killing her husband all over again, deep satisfaction soothing her pain.
Gorgo's body sank. Her blood thinned in the cold currents, and her green, vibrant hair floated like kelp around her. Consciousness flickered as the cold took hold, the pressure squeezing her lungs. Her tail stump throbbed; her thoughts scattered. Images flashed before her: her brother Kaen's laughter, Salacia's triumphant smirk, and the distant shimmer of sunlight far above. She swallowed water, coughing, choking—and just when the dark pressed in, something warm brushed her shoulder.
Strong hands slipped around her torso, pulling her upwards. A shadowed figure swam out of the murk, dragging her towards the faint line where sea met air. Gorgo wanted to turn, to see the face of her rescuer, but her strength failed her; her eyelids were lead. She could only feel—the firm grip, the warmth against the encroaching cold, the sense that she was being carried by someone who knew her, who loved her. She broke the surface, the sudden rush of air burning her lungs. She coughed and sputtered, curled over on the shore as waves lapped at her. When she finally looked up, the shore was empty. A single set of footprints led from the water to the dunes and then vanished.
Gorgo clenched her fists in the sand, her body trembling.
Without a tail, she had been severed from the sea, but she didn't have legs to call herself human either.
From a princess to a pauper in one single cut. From glory to despair in one second. She coughed again. Aazor was close, but who would help a fish who wasn't a fish, or a woman that wasn't human?
Gorgo did not have any friends on land. She only had herself. Once her eyes cleared of salt water, she noticed a cave not too far from where her savior had dropped her off. She crawled until she reached its cold, yawning mouth.
Her brothers … One in exile and the other dead … It was the end of the Age of Kaen.