#neutralwaters

  Tethys gulped nervously as she walked down the row of cells in Tartarus; this was not where she expected herself to be...let alone her fiance. Cronus must have enjoyed watching his eldest brother being thrown in jail and for what? The cruel sick pleasure of knowing an “enemy”  would no longer bother him? Oceanus only ever wanted to help his brother but Cronus targeted him the day the elder titan rejected to join the coup against Ouranos.

  The crown turned Cronus mad and anyone was at risk to be guilty of treason against the crown as he called it. It was just an excuse to make others suffer and Oceanus was truly suffering being torn from his source of power and life: his river. The air was thin and hot even the heat was bothersome for immortal deities. But Tethys pursued on for she would go to the ends of the earth and go through anything and anyone to just see Oceanus again.

 And there she found him: he looked weak and dull. She almost didn’t recognize him since he looked so lifeless. His blue eyes didn’t have that light in them that she loved to admire and it scared her. He didn’t deserve this punishment.

  “Oh gods,” Tethys muttered as she fell to her knees. Steel bars separated them or else she would have thrust her to him so she could hold him in her arms. Was it even possible for her to enter in his cell even for just a moment?

  Rhea thought of possible options to hide and raise her son in secret while he grew in strength so he could defeat Cronus and save his siblings. Her son, conceived in sea water, would fit perfectly into Oceanus and Tethys’ family. Theirs was large with a new child born quite frequently that no one, not even Cronus, would assume anything out of the ordinary. At least with Oceanus, her son would have a good father figure unlike his true father. If only Cronus could be like Oceanus...or if she had married another, she wouldn’t be a childless mother.

  “Oceanus,” Rhea called out, seeing her eldest brother from a distance. In her youth, she would joyously run to him and even try to jump into his arms, but that was then. If even she wanted to, she was heavy with child and too worried about his well being. The stress of losing her children and planning to save another took its toll on the queen and her pregnancy, making her even more tired and exhausted than her others in the past. Was this her body warning her of something wrong?

  “Oceanus, I must talk to you,” She spoke again once she finally reached him. A hand rested on her back and the other sat upon her growing belly. “I need to sit first though. Can you help me please?”

    ❛     might i ask you for a bit of advice?     ❜    if one were perceptive enough, they would have seen beyond the cool exterior zeus had built, noticing the slight tremble of his fingers, the tension in his jaw, the look of fear in his eye.  but zeus had nearly perfected his mask, and it would have taken a keen eye to see beneath.    ❛     i know i shouldn’t be here, not when you have declared to stay out of this war, but i...  need a bit of help.     ❜

Killian had been up for a better part of an hour trying his best to get Lia to calm down. She had been crying and he already fed and changed her. She only just started to calm down after swaddling her and then rocking her as he walked up and down the hall. He didn’t know why that calmed her down, assuming the extra bit of movement helped to start to lull her back to sleep.

He wasn’t used to anyone else being up at that time of night so he was a bit surprised when he saw another man in the hall. “I’m sorry, she didn’t wake you did she?”

░▒▌╳▐ ᴅ ʀ ᴀ ɢ ᴏ ɴ ʟ ᴏ ʀ ᴅ

      IT MATTERED NOT the turmoil, the vie for power between the higher dragonlord houses back in the capital—When Vaedar traveled south to Draconys, the place he was born, all of those struggles simply fade, blown away by the breeze of the Summer Sea. Only arriving to his family's palace, dismounting his crimson dragon, already filled the lord with much needed and welcome RESPITE. Once he had the opportunity to visit the shore of the small beach nestled at the bottom of the cliff upon which the palace stands, that sense of solace was complete. The place was ever rarely visited by others, opting for the prettier sight just farther down the coast line where the waters were more tame. But the silver-gold haired man found beauty in the raging waves—Perhaps the noise drowned out his restless thoughts.

It was unexpected to realize that he was not alone. By the small shoreline, the silhouette of another stands, and gives the valyrian some pause because from a distance, he cannot recognize the individual. Not worried by the other presence, however, Vaedar approaches and his voice addresses the stranger in a calm and curious tone.

      “It should say ‘welcome lambs’,” she spoke quietly to the young man beside her. “’To your slaughter’.” The heavy gold banner hung down from the ceiling welcoming the tributes into the inner sanctum of what would become their home before their already short lives ended. Fox glanced at him briefly, remembering him from the reaping. How could anyone forget? He had volunteered. Almost no one ever volunteered. “ -- I thought what you did, in your district, I thought it was very brave.” Someone else might’ve said foolish.