The Sea Itself noticed when an individual of power stepped onto ocean waters.

Of course, gods and demigods crossed these waters quite regularly to travel back and forth between the Summit of Ascension and the mortal world. These voyagers always consisted of the same, typical people. One trip into the mortal world resulted in one return trip back home to the Summit. It was mundane.

Just as well, new arrivals always tended to be unremarkable in nature. The waters of the sea had grown accustomed to the same boring persons of power crossing over to its shores. Why should Tavras take notice in immortals so far beneath him?

Thus, when fresh blood arrived—and powerful blood, at that—the surface of the ocean shuddered. There was a pointed change in the ocean’s mood. Its waves rippled from excitement.

As the embodiment of the Sea Itself, Tavras could almost always be found within the bounds of his realm, the ocean. On this night, he had lounged across a thin layer of sand at the top-most part of a shoal.

All it took was that one footstep over the water, onto a boat for the ocean to react viscerally around him. From here, Tavras could feel the arrival of this new demigod too.

He sat upright, alert at once. A wide smile rose to his face. His teeth must glint in the moonlight, much like the glittering waves which reached up towards the nighttime sky in celebration. This had been the moment that they had waited for these past two months, Tavras and the sea. “Soon we will meet you, young, traitorous child!” He continued to smile with such glee.

Without a doubt in his mind, Tavras was able to identify this new individual as the traitorous child that they sought, thanks to his ability of Read Blood and the demigod’s similarity to the one who had come before them.

Three months ago in midsummer, an individual of a similar genetic makeup had crossed over the sea.

At once, Tavras sprung forth from the depths of the ocean to breach the surface. His eyes felt as wide as the moon that night, staring up at the dazzling blanket of stars above him as he launched into the sky. He twisted himself around in the air to better orientate himself in the direction of the Old First Pier where the source of this new, powerful demigod had come from. The disturbed water attempted to trail after him in a few, thin tendrils.

From his explosive rise to the surface like that, the water cascaded all around him and twinkled with moonlight and starlight alike. It was a beautiful night, in accordance with the glorious thing that had just happened. The droplets fell to rejoin the ocean.

The jagged plane of water still needed to recover from the disturbance of him having come to the surface. In his own shock and surprise, Tavras had crashed the water in such a way that would develop into a tsunami if left unchecked.

These days, Tavras was enjoying the isolation and serenity of his sea—or so he told himself. Even a god had limits, and Tavras was forbidden by the current God Supreme to send tsunamis against certain, profitable parts of the world. It would be unfair to attack the nations outside of the God Supreme's influence, so Tavras saw no reason to send any such catastrophe to any place in the mortal realm.

Naturally, he dismissed the wave with a Bend of Water and settled himself atop the surface for himself, stricken with awe.

This person who had just entered his ocean held neither the blood of Balduino nor Kierla, but it contained aspects so close to both of them. This blood seemed to be a combination therein. The two traitors were rumored to have had a child in recent years—two children in fact—but the state had failed to recover them before Kierla had disappeared with them like she had never existed.

Soon after those traitors’ spawn had set foot on the Summit’s land, the next rainfall had come down with the mourning of tears. Tavras listened to the whispering sobs of each droplet against the surface of the sea. He simply sat there and listened, though he wished to mourn along with the rain.

That individual of power had been captured by the state. The natural world despaired at this loss, for the blood of traitors had been a flicker of hope for it.

Tavras felt miserable too, on behalf of his rain and his ocean. His dearest friend disliked the current reign of Suvier as God Supreme. So too, he must reject the God Supreme as well.

For the sake of his realm though, Tavras endured under the regime. First and foremost, he needed to see to the purity of the rainwater, the integrity of the ocean, and the protection of all of its lovely creations deemed sea monsters by lesser beings. Else, the destruction that Suvier would wreak upon his beloved waters made him imagine an existence that could simply never come to be.

Whereas Tavras had been merely sad for a day at the loss of the first traitorous child, the ocean had been inconsolable. The very sea wanted to rise up against Suvier, send tsunamis against his walls, and set the young traitor free. All of these waves, Tavras had been required to quell as well. There would be no tsunamis yet.

As far as Suvier knew, he had Tavras’s loyalty and therefore the sea’s undying support. The idiotic dictator thought that the ocean’s waters answered to Tavras, as if he could possibly be more than a servant to his beloved. Rather than ruining their carefully earned trust in their overlord, Tavras had done his best to calm his dearest friend.

“There are supposed to be two children of the traitors’ blood,” Tavras whispered to the ocean below him. His Water Tongue allowed him to communicate directly with water like this. While he laid atop the water, his hand drew along its surface in a caressing stroke. “We must bide our time. Soon, we will see the second of the traitorous children. This one, we will not simply celebrate when they pass through our waters. This one, we will ensure the safest of arrivals to the Summit of Ascension.”

The sea had agreed to this with a humming of the wind and the gentle lapping of waves.

Tavras gazed up at the dark horizon.

The waters were ever shifting like the gentle rise and fall of a living breath.

When that second traitorous child had indeed appeared today, it was almost as if the ocean had forgotten his promise. The wailing of the sea cried out in desperation, begging for Tavras to do something.

“Shh,” he hushed the agitated waves. “Remember the promise that I have made. I will always act on your behalf, so I shall make good on my promise.”

Last time, when the first traitorous child had crossed his realm, they had been captured by the enemy soon afterwards. Tavras had done nothing then. This time, he would do something different. This child, he would protect from the dangers of the Summit of Ascension until they had proven themselves worthy of entering the realm of the gods.