They say my birth and the violence which came before it was the cause of the fracture in the heavens, that my fate was written in the stars by the great painter the moment the sun decided it. That one day, I will either rise to great heights, or fall to great lows. But until I am grown, and until I am tested, I remain on this island, banished from the other gods.

But I have no hatred of this place I call my home, the land of Maris Et Terrae. Cast away from my father the earth, yet also part of him, for I am land, not the sea. Surrounded by my brethren of my other father, the sea, and surrounded by him. My sister in the tides keeps me company on the shores, for I am young.

She tells me of the earth sometimes, that he was kind, but proud, and it angered our father greatly. But she always stresses that the sea became poisoned inside, and his crime was the greater one, rather than that of the earth’s pride. And although the sea says otherwise, I know the tides is correct.

Sometimes I dream of a man with brown hair and green eyes, telling me he will return for me one day, crying as we are torn apart by the sea, who holds me close and refuses to let me go.

But perhaps that is simply a false hope, that the earth will love me as he loved his other children, for he never wanted to bear me.

I am the unwanted child of sea and earth.

I am the son of the sea.

Son Of The Sea

Maris Et Terrae and Her God

The oldest of the three is the son of the sea and moon, a slender man with dark hair and pale skin. He is the great painter in the night sky, writing out the fates of those who have lived and died with the stars as his paint. He also watches over the gate to the beyond, and even he knows not what happens to the mortal souls who pass through it.

The girl is the next in line, the full sister of the great painter. She looks nothing like him. Where his skin has only the slightest hints of color, hers is dark like the rich soil filled with ash. Her hair, however, carries the same shade of black. She is most comfortable at the seashore, feeling at home as the sea moves back and forth, for she is the tides.

The youngest is the tallest. His skin is a light shade of brown, his hair the color of brown earth, and eyes like sea grass. He is the only child of the sea and earth who remained with the sea, all others choosing the earth over the sea. He claims his home between the two peaks the island forms, and none disturb him, for he is the very land of Maris Et Terrae, Sea and Earth.

Elsewhere in the world, they are minor gods in the great stories of humankind, overshadowed by the sea, earth, moon, and sun.

But in this land of Maris Et Terrae, they are the gods we worship.

Three

The Young Gods of Maris Et Terrae

dashboard: *distant cricket chirps*