Chapter Text
The night is quiet, the sounds of the waves hitting the shore comforting to Seonghwa while the sea God walks along the coastline. Solitude has never bothered the God. Instead he feels such quiet times are the times when he’s able to think the most, clear his head and analyze his own thoughts. As a writer, these are also the times when he’s able to write more. It’s the reason why he frequently retires to the small island when a deadline is getting closer.
Stopping in his tracks, he allows his toes to sink into the sand as the water washes over his feet. Letting out a pleased sigh, he closes his eyes momentarily. The salty air is refreshing, the pull of the ocean around him has something comforting nestling in his chest. This is his element, his domain. The sea is both his home and his birthplace.
He’s at peace right now and he’s thankful for these moments. The times are different now. The past still lingers in his memories, the feelings that often attach themselves to those memories are bittersweet and yet Seonghwa does not regret any of his actions, not when they’ve shaped the God that he has become now.
That doesn’t stop him from missing those he’s held dear, but he knows he cannot dwell in the past. So he writes about them in ways that humans don’t quite understand, but there’s familiarity in the feelings of love and longing. It’s enough for his readers to relate even when they will never know the true extent of the emotions that he tries to portray as earnestly as possible.
Opening his eyes, he observes the dark sky, watching the crescent moon and the stars around it. As the deity of the oceans, he’s always been captivated by the moon. There’s something beautiful about it, gloomy at times and at others so imposing that even he as a God wonders just how much pull the heavenly body has.
It's while he's staring at the moon that a scene suddenly enters his mind, the details and words starting to flow easily. He can suddenly picture his characters so clearly. Like always he knows that he needs to write it down before he loses the train of thought. Excitement bubbles inside him, the scene he's imagining is strangely melancholic and yet there's something purely hopeful about it as well. He's not sure where these sentiments come from, but he doesn't ponder about it. Instead he's already turning around, clearly wanting to write those words down as quickly as possible.
Yet he doesn't get too far, his thoughts are quickly wiped away when he feels the violent shift in the air. It comes without any warning, the air itself crackles forcefully with power. The hairs on the back of Seonghwa's neck stand on end. He knows he’s not the one who commands the sea at the moment, but even so the water becomes violent, wild, pushing and pulling with the power that seems to grow and grow until he has to forcefully stop himself from reacting to it. His instincts are telling him to reclaim his territory, to show his dominance. It’s an innate desire that Seonghwa hasn’t felt for so long, but that has always been there. It makes his eyes change to an endless blue and without a thought he steps forward.
His steps are confident and the waves easily welcome him. The unknown power is all around him, he can even feel it in the sea but even so he doesn't stop. The God is not sure what he wants to do, but he's suddenly determined to find the source. It's similar to the current in the sea, he's being pulled deeper and deeper. He’s waist deep in the water when he feels the power recede just as quickly as it came. It doesn't just vanish, there's another feeling that quickly fills the air.
Death is in the air.
The death of a God is something painful and sad. It's something ingrained in them, a recognition that is never easy to accept.
Seonghwa feels the way the feelings burrows inside him. He tries to ignore it in favor of focusing on that energy that it still present. He knows better than to let his guard down. Not when he can sense a hint of power still in the air. It’s faint, but it’s still there. The sea God instinctively braces himself for whoever is out there, because he recognizes the power. He knows that whoever is still there is the only one who has survived, their energy is still there. There’s only the faintest hum of power still in the air. It pulses in his chest until his lungs are filled with the sickeningly sweet scent that permeates the night now.
A God’s blood…
For a moment the dark haired God almost thinks that whoever is out there will succumb to their wounds before reaching his little island, but he’s proven wrong. Seonghwa’s eyes widen when they settle on the man who seems to practically appear out of nowhere a few feet in front of him. He's so pale compared to the dark water that surrounds him, small and strangely delicate looking when the waves lick at him hungrily.
There’s no denying what he is though, his energy feels completely untapped now, his power blanketing the area. Seonghwa isn’t aware of when his own power rushed forward, the waves around him becoming bigger, the sea a little less calm but he notices when the other deity becomes aware of him. The stranger stops in his tracks and gazes straight at him.
That same feeling beats once again in his chest. The need to claim what is his, has Seonghwa taking a deep breath only for the taste of copper and honey to settle heavily on his tongue. It’s only then that he realizes how much blood there is. Unlike a mortal’s, a god’s blood is gilded and there’s a golden pool surrounding the unknown male. The scent of copper is so strong in the air, but it’s faint compared to the almost sickeningly sweet scent that only a God’s blood will have.
The unknown God takes a step forward. There’s the briefest stumble in his steps, but the God braces himself and suddenly Seonghwa feels frozen to the spot when those moonlight colored eyes settle on him again. He looks away for a moment and instead glances at the younger God's wounds. The way he’s holding his arm reminds Seonghwa of a bird’s broken wing.
Similar to a bird, the face that looks at him is young and vulnerable. There’s something in those eyes, maybe it’s regret and sorrow that has the sea God swallowing hard as if he can taste the pain himself. He has a feeling that the choice to take another life has never been an easy one for this deity. It should never be easy but to some it sadly is. There are those of them that have gotten a taste for these killings, but Seonghwa has a feeling that this isn't the case with the small deity not when he's looking at Seonghwa the way he is at the moment. There's a strange fragility to his features, something that hints at being easily crushed even when there's still so much power present.
Power is not everything though...
He's snapped out of his thoughts when the other finally speaks, his voice is light...almost airy.
“Are you here to kill me too?”
There’s exhaustion heard in that light voice, something almost like defeat before the shorter deity straightens up, defiance blanketing whatever other emotions has been present until that moment on his face. It's a quick reminder of where he's standing and how easily everything can tip to a certain side.
The night feels quieter all of the sudden, the tension palpable. Seonghwa knows that he has the upper-hand here and deep down he knows that he can take this God’s life so easily. The other male knows this too, it's in the way he looks at Seonghwa, it's in the way more gold pools around the other and it's in the way that Seonghwa feels the power around him waver. There would have been a time when he wouldn’t have hesitated...but now it’s different.
He's not sure why, but a foreign feeling flares to life in his chest when those same moon-colored eyes darken and a shuddered breath leaves the other's lips. At the same time he can hear that heartbeat that until then had been beating like a trapped bird, slow down in the unknown deity's chest.
All of the sudden there's another pull now, something that feels almost foreign to Seonghwa.
Yet it's not...
So it's Seonghwa who draws everything back inside him, wills the water around him to obey him and tries to order his own heart to calm down.
And just like that, the sea dies down around them, becoming just as silent as the night...