POV - MORGANA
I awoke before dawn.
Not because I needed to; sleep is a luxury that beings such as I rarely require, merely tolerating it when convenient. But because Bilgewater never truly sleeps, and the sounds of the city penetrate even cheap lodgings managed by philosophically frustrated cephalopods.
Sounds of a city that knows no peace: screams that could be celebration or agony, in Bilgewater, frequently both. Drunken laughter mixed with sobs of despair. Timber creaking under the weight of bodies, cargo, or violence, distinctions that become irrelevant here, as all three frequently coincide. And always, always, the metallic clanking of chains.
Anchors. Prisoners. Souls tethered to choices they cannot undo.
I understood chains better than most.
And beneath all this human cacophony, the ocean.
Everlasting. Ruthless. Existing with a vast indifference that was simultaneously comforting and terrifying. Its waves beat against the docks in a rhythm that whispered an ancient truth: 'I was here before your civilisations. I shall be here after your cities turn to dust. Your importance is temporary. Your pain is fleeting. Your judgement is irrelevant.'
It should be humbling.
Instead, I found it soothing.
I have lived long enough, too many millennia, perhaps, to appreciate reminders of impermanence. To understand that even justice, even truth, even I, was merely a temporary wave in an eternal ocean.
Kayle would never understand this.
Kayle believed in absolutes. In permanence. In eternal and immutable law.
I had learned, painfully, that nothing was immutable. Not even wings.
I sat up in bed, a straw mattress that Tahn likely considered 'premium' by Bilgewater standards, which said more about the city than the mattress, and did what I had done every morning since the choice:
I stretched my wings.
They were normally hidden beneath layers of 'glamour', woven so carefully that even Azra'il, perceptive as she was, rarely noticed when the magic faltered momentarily.
But I always felt them.
A familiar weight. Purple-black feathers that were once a symbol of fallen divinity, now simply... fallen. Not magnificent. Not glorious. Just present. Real. Mine.
And across every joint, interlaced with a precision bordering on obsession: chains.
Dark iron. Forged by my own hands in a moment of painful clarity when I realised: the freedom that wings offered was an illusion. To fly meant distance. Distance meant a distorted perspective. Judgement from above could never be fair because it would never be amongst those being judged.
So, I had chosen. I bound my own wings. I forged shackles that no one else could remove because no one else had placed them. Kayle called it self-destruction. I called it commitment.
The symbolism was not subtle. It was not meant to be.
Wings = Divinity. Celestial freedom. Separation from imperfect humanity.
Chains = Choice. Commitment to the earth. Intentional grounding in a world that held no easy answers.
I chose the chains. I chose the weight. I chose to walk where others walked, stumble where others stumbled, bleed when others bled.
And I did not regret it.
Even when they ached, and they always ached, a constant throb that never completely faded. Because pain was a useful reminder: choice has a cost. Commitment demands sacrifice. Compassion is not an easy path. It is a path that hurts. Daily. And you choose to walk it nonetheless.
I adjusted the glamour with a practised thought, magic weaving illusion over reality in layers so complex that even master mages would struggle to trace them. Wings and chains vanished from mortal perception, leaving only a woman.
Beautiful in a way that made people look twice, yet never quite able to explain why. A presence that suggested something more without revealing what. But mortal. Mortal enough.
Good.
I rose, moving through the morning ritual with the efficiency of centuries. Dark clothes, always dark, Kayle had monopolised the light, practical, without unnecessary adornments. Nothing that screamed "Ancient Ascendant walking amongst you pretending to belong".
In the room next door, I heard movement. Azra'il, waking as well, or perhaps never having truly slept. A child viewed the world as an infinite jigsaw puzzle demanding a solution, and sleep was an inconvenience that delayed the process.
No. Not a child. Not anymore. My daughter.
The thought still caught me off guard sometimes. A small jolt of recognition: I had a daughter. I, who never expected to have anything other than a cause. I, who had spent centuries fighting for abstract justice for abstract people.
And now I had a specific person. With specific needs. Specific vulnerabilities. Specific love. Terrifying, quite honestly. But also... anchoring. Like the chains.
I left the room and we almost collided, her emerging from hers at the same moment, a synchronisation that happened too frequently to be coincidence.
We paused. We looked at each other.
"You're up early again," she observed, blue eyes cataloguing me with precision.
"Bilgewater offers no peaceful sleep."
"True." A small smile touched her lips. "I heard three brawls, two possible murders, and what was either enthusiastic sex or creative torture. The line between them seems thin here."
"Sometimes the line does not exist."
"Disturbing, but empirically correct." She studied me, with an attention that made me feel like a specimen under glass. "You are tense. More than usual."
Denying it was futile. Azra'il read micro-expressions like academic texts: carefully, completely, with mental footnotes.
"Bilgewater is..." I searched for the word, "...challenging."
"An impressive euphemism for 'witnessing daily atrocities that celestial instinct demands to correct, but mortal pragmatism forbids'."
Direct. As always.
"Something like that," I admitted.
She considered this, head tilting at an angle that signified active processing. "In the Flesh Market. When we saw that Marai being carved up..."
My jaw clenched involuntarily. The visceral memory returning.
"You didn't say much that day," Azra'il continued, voice carefully neutral, a neutrality that cost effort, I realised. "But your hands were glowing. Shadows leaking between your fingers like ink in water. And the chains... The chains on your back grew hot enough for me to feel the heat three paces away. Even through the glamour. Iron protesting so loudly it almost had a sound."
Of course she noticed. Azra'il always noticed.
"Control," I said. The word coming out tighter than intended, muscles in my throat tightening around a rage that never completely dissipated.
"Remarkable control," she corrected, tone gaining an edge of something close to admiration. "Because likely Kayle would not have hesitated. She would have incinerated the butcher. The market. Probably three blocks surrounding it to ensure the message was received. Cleansing fire without discrimination between the guilty, the accomplice, and the innocent bystander."
"Kayle does not tolerate nuance."
"And you were literally seconds away from doing the same." Eyes fixed on mine, without accusation, only factual observation. "I saw it in your eyes. That purple glint that appears when you are calculating whether righteous violence is worth the consequences."
Silence. Because she was right. Completely, painfully right.
The Marai. A sentient creature. Intelligent. Capable of complex language, abstract thought, emotional bonds. A Person. Being sold as meat. Cut into pieces, methodically, casually, with an efficiency born of practice. It wasn't just murder. It was absolute dehumanisation. Objectification elevated to grotesque art. Treating a person as a product, life as a commodity, a soul as irrelevant.
And the butcher had laughed.
He had cracked jokes. "Exotic flesh, best fresh!" "Unique flavour, worth every penny!" "Hard to come by, they fight so hard! But worth it for the quality!"
Customers had haggled prices. Had debated which cut was superior. Probably had asked him to slice it thinner so it would cook more evenly.
Normality. Complete, banal normality in the face of horror that should make the universe stop. But the universe did not stop. Bilgewater carried on. The market carried on. Life carried on. And my power had responded before conscious thought could intervene.
Shadows forming in hands, not metaphorical, literal, the substance of ancient magic coagulating into chains that could bind, judge, punish. Chains on my back heating until iron burned through clothes, through glamour, through control painstakingly built over centuries. A physical protest against the restraint I had imposed upon myself.
"Release us," the chains whispered. "Release us and let us do what we were made to do. Justice. Retribution. CORRECTION."
And I... I had looked at Azra'il. She stood beside me. Completely motionless. Face drained of colour until her lips were nearly white. Jaw so tight muscles jumped. Eyes, those blue eyes that usually shone with curiosity or sarcasm or life, fixed on the Marai being dismembered.
Disgusted. Deeply, visibly disgusted. But not intervening. Not speaking. Not suggesting action. Just... witnessing.
Cataloguing the atrocity with the same meticulous attention she used for everything, except this time, attention was a defence. It was a way to process horror without breaking. It was how she maintained control when every fibre likely screamed to do something, anything, just to make it STOP.
And in that moment, that specific moment when power was a breath away from explosion and justice was a thought away from manifestation, I realised:
If I exploded now... If I released the power accumulated over centuries and destroyed the butcher and the market and likely half the district in a righteous fury that would appear so clean and clear and right...
I would put her in danger. My daughter. Who was just as revolted as I, but trusting that I was better than impulse. Better than blind rage masquerading as justice. Better than Kayle, who never learned the difference between punishment and correction, between retribution and restoration.
Trusting that I would choose humanity over divinity. Even when humanity meant swallowing the fury. So I had swallowed it.
Forcing the power to recede was not easy, it never was, like pushing the tide back into the ocean with bare hands. I let the chains cool gradually, iron protesting every degree of lost temperature, singing pain into my bones that I ignored because pain was preferable to the alternative.
And I turned. I walked out of the Flesh Market.
Azra'il followed me without a word, understanding without explanation that if we stayed a second longer, control would fail.
"I wanted to kill him," I admitted now, here in the hallway of The Choking Serpent with the pre-dawn light filtering through filthy windows. Voice lower than intended, carrying the weight of an admission that cost more than violence would have. "I still do. I woke up wanting it. I shall go to sleep wanting it. He exists in my mind as an unresolved problem demanding a permanent solution."
"I know... I wanted to as well."
That made me look at her, really look, not just see.
"You?"
"You told me that Marai are sentient. Sapient. Morally significant by any philosophical metric other than arbitrary speciesism." Her voice was controlled, but there was a sharp edge that cut. "Killing them for meat is not hunting. It is murder with additional processing steps. And doing it publicly, casually, turning atrocity into commerce as if it were normal..."
Breath. Controlled. Deliberate.
"Yes. I wanted him to cease existing. Preferably painfully."
"But you said nothing."
"Because there was nothing productive to say in that moment. Strategic analysis indicated that intervention would be counterproductive. And because..." she looked at me, a rare vulnerability crossing her face, "because I saw you holding back. I saw how much it cost. The strength of will. And adding my verbal rage to your literal rage would not help either of us maintain the necessary control."
"So you stayed quiet. To help me stay quiet."
"It seemed pragmatic at the time. Still seems so, in retrospect."
"It was pragmatic. And horrible. And insufficient. And..." I paused, choosing words she deserved, "and more mature than the majority of adults I have met in millennia."
"Adults frequently confuse emotional response with effective response." The sarcasm returning, familiar armour. "I prefer effectiveness over catharsis."
"Even when catharsis seems very attractive."
"Especially then."
A small smile touched my lips despite everything. "You are going to be terrible when you grow up and become an adult."
"I shall be effective. If that manifests as terrible, it is a function of the observer's perspective."
"What a diplomatically evasive answer."
"I learned from the best."
We descended the stairs together, falling into a synchronisation born of months of travel. I adjusted my stride to accommodate shorter legs; she quickened hers slightly to avoid looking like a child being led.
Pride and independence. Always with this one.
The common area of The Choking Serpent was surprisingly populated for the pre-dawn hour. Apparently, pirates, assassins, and other varieties of morally questionable humanity were morning people. Or they had never slept. In Bilgewater, the line between these states was also thin.
Tahn was in his permanent position behind the counter, polishing a glass with a tentacle that was definitely making it less hygienic.
"You two are up far too early," he observed, immense yellow eyes fixing on us with an interest that could be concern or merely curiosity about how long we would survive. "Trouble sleeping? Nightmares? Guilty consciences chasing you through the wee hours?"
"Bilgewater is acoustically challenging," I offered.
"Bilgewater is Bilgewater. If you want silence, go back to Demacia. Or a grave. Both equally quiet and similarly boring." He paused, a secondary tentacle reaching for a new glass. "Going out again?"
"We intend to explore cultural aspects."
"'Explore cultural aspects'." A gurgling sound that was his version of sarcastic laughter. "Academic tourists are worse than regular tourists. At least the regulars only want weapons and alcohol. You lot want meaning. Pathetic."
"We have adequate defensive skills," Azra'il said, tone perfectly serious.
"Little one, you are thirteen."
"Fourteen in ten months. And the correlation between chronological age and functional competence is weak at best."
"In Bilgewater, age is viewed as 'how long you survived without dying violently'. You are currently at 'not yet impressive'."
"An honest, yet disheartening assessment."
Tahn looked at me with an expression that might be respect or pity. He then slid two plates across the counter, a breakfast that defied culinary definition but technically qualified as food. Bread that had lost the will to live. Something that was once a fish but was now more of a concept. Fruit fighting a losing battle against entropy.
"Courtesy of the establishment," Tahn announced. "Because you paid and didn't cause chaos. Yet. Emphasis on 'yet'."
"What a warm endorsement," I murmured.
"In Bilgewater, 'haven't caused chaos yet' is the highest compliment. Accept it with appropriate gratitude."
We found a table in the corner where the wall offered protection from at least two directions of potential sudden violence. Azra'il examined the concept-fish with scientific interest. "Is this theoretically supposed to be cod?"
"I wouldn't ask questions about breakfast in Bilgewater."
"Astute." She took a bite regardless, processing. "Definitely not cod. Possible eel. Probably better not to speculate further or risk uncomfortable revelations."
We ate in relative silence, The Choking Serpent was never truly quiet. Conversations. Arguments. The occasional knife striking wood closer to vital anatomy than seemed prudent.
"So," Azra'il said eventually, "plan for today?"
A good question.
Yesterday: Abigail Fortune's workshop. Firearms. Sarah, the gunsmith's daughter who had clearly made an impression on Azra'il, one she was determinedly not analysing yet despite mentioning "scent of apple and cinnamon" three times and "interesting hair" twice. I noticed these things.
"I thought," I said carefully, "we might explore the spiritual dimensions of Bilgewater."
Interest piqued immediately. "Specifically?"
"The Temple of Nagakabouros."
Eyes lit up with a curiosity that was half academic, half something deeper. "The Serpent Mother. The Buhru deity of perpetual motion and direct spiritual testing."
"You have read extensively."
"I read everything before we arrived. Nagakabouros is philosophically fascinating: a deity who rejects stagnation as spiritual death, values action over contemplation, tests souls directly without bureaucratic priestly intermediaries. Completely orthogonal to the Aspect religious structures I've studied." A pause to chew the supposed 'cod'. "And before you ask formally: yes, I wish to go. The opportunity to observe non-Celestial religious practices is rare and valuable."
"This is not an educational holiday."
"Everything is educational if you apply appropriate rigour. It is a productive philosophy of life."
"What an exhausting philosophy."
"But empirically useful."
I couldn't argue.
We finished the breakfast of dubious credibility. Tahn provided surprisingly detailed directions:
"Go up three levels to the district smelling less of marine decay and more of ritual incense. Turn left at the bar with the skeleton-half hanging externally, it's not decoration, it's a warning about unpaid debts. Ignore it, but remember the lesson. The Temple is a massive structure of dark stone and wood, impossible to miss unless you are blind or incompetent, and you are only one of those things."
We stepped out into the morning Bilgewater. The city under sunlight was... transformed. Not better. Definitely not better. But different in a way that mattered. The Light revealed details that darkness had mercifully hidden: bloodstains on cobblestones showing recent violence. Obscene graffiti on practically every vertical surface, some artistic, most merely rude. Scarred faces and empty stares of people who had seen or done or survived things that left marks deeper than skin.
But it also revealed life.
Markets opening with efficiency born of practice. Vendors shouting about their wares, some legal, most not, all honest about it at least. Children running, some on legitimate errands, the majority on illegal ones, all in survival mode. Sailors dragging cargo. Harlots returning from night shifts. Drunks waking in alleyways, confused about how they arrived there.
Life.
Dirty. Violent. Desperate. Chaotic.
But life nonetheless.
Movement.
The word echoed in my mind. Appropriate for the destination. Nagakabouros. The Serpent Mother. Deity of motion, change, spiritual testing through action. Not my deity. Not close to what I represented.
Aspects, well, half an Aspect now, post-schism with Kayle, were order. Structure. Justice as a codified concept. Transcendent law applied universally.
Nagakabouros was... something else entirely. Chaos as sacred. Change as necessary. Life as perpetual motion. Stagnation as spiritual death. A philosophy that should offend me. Should contradict everything I had represented over the centuries.
But it did not offend. Perhaps because I had questioned enough of my own philosophy. I had already left rigidity behind when I bound my wings and chose compassionate imperfection over cruel perfection.
Or perhaps because Bilgewater was forcing me to confront an uncomfortable reality:
That absolute justice was impossible in a place that rejected absolutes.
That context was not an excuse, it was everything. That sometimes not acting was not cowardice. It was wisdom. And I hated that realisation as much as I could not deny it.
We climbed through the vertical levels of Bilgewater, a city built defying Euclidean geometry and safety codes equally. Staircases that could not agree on the appropriate angle. Suspension bridges swaying in ways that violated physics. Platforms connected by planks that felt like a structural insult.
Azra'il navigated with the grace of a genetically optimised mountain goat, leaping over cracks, gripping ropes without hesitation.
I followed more cautiously, remembering that chained wings offered no safety net.
"You could fly," she commented without looking back.
"Wings chained, remember?"
"You could break the chains. Technically. If necessary."
"And announce to all of Bilgewater that an Ascendant is present? Questionable tactical planning."
"Point conceded."
We climbed higher. And then I stopped. Not intentionally. I simply... stopped.
Because on the platform below, visible through the gaps in the planks serving as the floor, I saw:
A child.
Perhaps six years old. Possibly seven. Difficult to tell with the malnutrition.
Chains on wrists too small to bear the weight of iron. Being dragged by a large, scarred man exuding casual ownership.
A slave.
A child slave.
Power touched my hands before a conscious decision was made. Shadows forming. Shackles materialising. I could project them from here, ten feet down, no obstacles, clear line of sight. I could bind the man. Free the child. Do something right in a city that had forgotten this concept existed.
"Morgana."
Azra'il's voice. Quiet. Firm. Without judgement. Just... anchoring.
"You expect me to do nothing?"
"I expect you to think." She turned, looking at me with eyes too old for a young face. "Analysis: you save this child. Excellent. What happens afterwards?"
"She goes free."
"For how long? Until the master buys a replacement? Until another owner snatches her off the street? Until the system that created slavery produces ten more? Are you going to save every slave child in Bilgewater? There are hundreds. Conservatively. Possibly thousands."
"So I do nothing?"
"I didn't say that. I said to think." She chose her words carefully. "Like in the Flesh Market. Intervention now, here, with witnesses, without planning, without a safety net... you create a bigger problem. It exposes you. Exposes me. And the child likely suffers more when other masters become cautious and creative with restraint."
I knew she was right. I hated that she was right with physical intensity.
"So we observe the atrocity and simply walk..."
"We observe. We catalogue. And we do something effective when we have resources and planning. Perhaps we find people who work with organised liberation. We find a way to free many, not one. Or at least minimise abuse systemically."
I breathed. Slow. Controlled. Every breath costing strength of will I didn't know I still possessed. The power receded gradually. Shadows dissipated. Chains on my back that had begun to heat, cooled back to ambient temperature.
"When did you become the voice of reason between us?"
"I always was. You only occasionally notice when convenient."
Sarcasm. Familiar armour. I allowed it because I recognised: she was just as disturbed as I was. Only better at functioning through the disturbance. We continued climbing, but the weight remained.
The weight of witnessing injustice. Of having the power to correct it. Of choosing not to use it because the timing was wrong, the context inadequate, the consequences too risky.
This is Bilgewater. This is why I am going to the temple. Why I need to understand a philosophy that accepts chaos without trying to force order. Because my form, the Aspect form, of absolute law, of imposed justice, does not work here.
And if I persist in applying it... I become Kayle.
Absolute force deciding what is right without considering context, culture, consequence. I become a well-meaning tyrant. I become exactly what I swore never to be. And that... That would be a failure worse than any injustice I witness.
------------
💬Author's Note
------------
This chapter was… hard to write. Not because I lacked ideas, but because Bilgewater is not a place that allows easy answers, and I didn't want to pretend that they exist.
Here, Morgana is not "failing" by choosing not to act. She is choosing not to become Kayle. And that choice hurts. It hurts because she has power. It hurts because she sees the injustice clearly. And it hurts because sometimes doing nothing feels like cowardice, even when it is strategy.
Bilgewater isn't a villain you defeat with a righteous speech or a burst of divine justice. It's a system. A place where horror has been normalized, commercialized, turned into routine. And that forces characters like Morgana (and Azra'il) into a conflict that isn't physical, but moral.
Azra'il, especially, takes on a role I really like here: uncomfortable lucidity. She isn't cold because she doesn't feel, she's cold because she feels too much and needs to survive without breaking. Not every emotion needs to become immediate action. Sometimes acting without thinking just creates new monsters.
None of this means things will stay as they are. It only means that action without context can be just as destructive as never acting at all.
The Temple of Nagakabouros doesn't appear right after this by accident. The Serpent Mother doesn't promise comfort. She promises movement. And sometimes, movement begins with the hardest decision of all: not acting yet.
Thank you to everyone walking through Bilgewater with me, this arc isn't easy, but I promise it isn't empty. 💜🐍