The world tilted to the side and threw everything in that direction, rudely and unceremoniously.

Everything included her own body which was a most disorienting experience to happen first thing in the morning. Her mind was still dazed from sleep. For her first time at sea, Val woke up to the rollicking waves tossing her onto the floor.

"How rude," she said in a sluggish tone, though her crabbiness washed away immediately.

Her life’s dream was coming true at last—this ship was headed straight for the Summit of Ascension, the place where any gods and demigods worth their divine blood belonged. As a demigoddess, Val indeed belonged there, and one day, she would ascend to the status of a goddess. The first step to her dream was coming true, yet, apparently she was not allowed to have any dreams in her sleep.

“Ugh.” With a moan and a scratch at her head, she picked herself up with the only hope that it would be morning. In the absence of Internet or cell service on the ship, at least her phone functioned as a glorified clock. From this, Val got to know that it was morning and a reasonable time to wake up at that.

She stumbled on the slanting floor and set to waking up her dog. The majestic Doberman Pinscher, Foofy, managed to stay asleep somehow, all curled up at the foot of the cot. “Come on, Foofy. Get up. Good morning!”

Foofy stirred at her goading. His pointy Dobie ears perked up, the happiest doggy face to see her in the world. Foofy completed a sequence of doggy stretches and then set to gobbling up the kibble which she set down for him in a disposable bowl.

Everything that Val had taken with her on this journey was located in her backpack off in the corner. All of Foofy's necessities, she had purchased along the way because she had not exactly been prepared to take a dog with her. He was her very own dog for almost two full days now, which felt like quite the accomplishment.

Before this, Foofy had been on death row at her local animal shelter. Two days ago had been the day that he was scheduled to die, yet here he was, alive for yet another day.

"Let’s take a look around!" she said, smiling down to him.

Foofy followed her outside of the cabin with trotting steps.

Above deck, the morning sunshine glittered off of the waves all around them. It was a flawless day, not a cloud in the sky.

“Wow.” She had never been at sea before, so she took all of this in with amazement. Val went running up to the railing and rose onto her tiptoes, taking in the ocean as far as the eye could see.

“Hey Val. Good morning.” From behind, the idiotic demigod that she had met yesterday named Percy, approached her and joined her alongside the rail. “Are you on the lookout for sea serpents?”

“No.” The prospect of merely going into the Serpent’s Circle where this ship traveled sent shivers up her spine. The last thing that she wanted was to see one of those monstrosities in the flesh.

“Are you scared?” His voice mocked her in a high-pitched tone, followed by a clipped laugh.

Val put on a brave face and gave a nonchalant shrug. “I know that sea serpents won’t actually attack... the... ship.”

As she spoke, a snaking black shadow moved through the water. The length of that ominous form spanned many times longer than the size of the ship.

“Uh, what is that?” Val pointed downward. If anything would turn out to be a sea serpent, that had to be one.

In addition to its massive size, the creature moved fast. Its shadowy tail disappeared beneath the boat by the next time that she blinked.

“Wait,” Percy said, leaning over the rail, “Did you think that you saw one just now? We are in the Serpent’s Circle, so sometimes you can see them swimming beneath the water."

Meanwhile, Foofy moved away from her side in favor of darting into the middle of the deck. At apparently nothing, he started up a racket of alert barks.

Between what she had just seen and the observation of Foofy’s instincts, Val’s heart started racing well over a mile per minute. Instinctual fear coursed through her at the potential of a sea serpent lurking nearby.

Naturally, when Percy saw nothing but the peaceful surface below, he burst into laughter. "You really are scared! There's nothing in the water. Even if one is slinking around the ship, you’ve got no need to worry. They won’t attack. They never even surface—”

An eruption of a splash sounded behind them, large enough that Val could feel the spray on her back from across the ship. Cries of horror began all across the deck. At once, Val tore herself around, placing both arms on either side of the rail to brace herself.

“Serpent!” yelled a man somewhere on deck. The announcement was entirely unnecessary for anyone with eyes.

A tremendous column of a monster rose up. Its draconic head blocked out the sun from her view. Water dripped from its shining scales which curved with the lithe form of its body. Thin jaws opened to reveal teeth larger than any adult man. A raspy shriek tore from its throat, the sort of sound that could carry through the depths of the sea.

Out in the open air, everyone winced or doubled over from pain as the screech ripped over their ears.

Val tried to cover her ears but to no avail. So far, her aching eardrums made for the greatest wound caused by the appearance of the sea serpent. “You said that it won’t attack, right?” she asked, maintaining an even voice.

When she turned to Percy for an answer, she very much received one. It was not entirely unexpected, but apparently these sea serpents which 'never surfaced or attacked' were more dangerous than he had let on.

Upon sight of the sea serpent, Percy went sprinting across the ship to get below deck along with the many other panicked people.

Val’s eyes widened at her stupidity for staying put against the rail. Even worse, Foofy remained in the center of the deck barking like mad at the serpent, as if that would make any difference. They both needed to follow suit and get below deck. Now.

“Foofy!” Val called. To start with, she unleashed her ability, Keep the Peace onto Foofy to make him give up on barking at the sea serpent.

He fell silent and stilled. His rigid, alert body relaxed, but Foofy stayed in place.

The serpent’s body formed an arch as it dove back to the water. The thick of its body contorted into a roll. The arch that it had made collapsed all at once with a slap back into the ocean.

The entire ship rose up with the water, uneven due to the wave. On the lowest part of the incline, Val leaned forward and relied on the railing behind her to keep herself on board. On the other side, the wave crested over the far railing and water poured onto the ship.

“Foofy,” Val tried to call out, “come!” If he could just get to her, she could hold onto him as that wave overtook them. Then, they could figure out what their next move would be from there, together.

With an arf, Foofy turned heel and darted away from the oncoming water. As fast as he was, Foofy was not fast enough to escape it. The water swept him up and swallowed him within the wave.

“No!” The wall of water would hit her next, so Val dove onto her hands and knees. The wave careened towards her and hit her twice as hard as expected, which was saying something.

The initial hit was followed up with an impact against the railing of the ship. Val found herself smashed between the two forces. If not for the water filling her ears, she might have just heard the wood groan. By some miracle, the wood held fast.

Beneath the rail, Val rammed up her shoulder to brace herself for any further battering. While one arm remained grasped around it, her other reached out blindly against the surge. She needed to grab hold of that dog, somewhere in these waters, if she could.

While Foofy had the advantage of a lower profile, he weighed less than Val and lacked any gangly limbs to grab hold of anything. Plus, he was just a mortal dog. A yelp of a puppy’s squeal sounded somewhere in the roaring water. The wave crested over the railing and swept a black and brown dog over top of it.

“Foofy!” That scream hollered from Val’s throat. If only Keep the Peace could work on water and make the wave stop, because Val activated the only ability that she could possibly use in vain.

A blast of invisible energy exploded from beneath her ribs, the strongest that she had produced to date. This swell of soothing energy, she used her desperation to direct it through the break in the water where the sea serpent had gone. While she could not stop the water, perhaps she could do something to placate the sea serpent within. Aside from that, she was incapable of doing anything to help Foofy.

“Ah!” Though she did make the conscious choice to do so, Val could hear herself screaming out from frustration more than anything else.

The water ran off of the ship deck through the gaps in the rails. The terrified shouts and screams of the passengers and crew dissipated along with the receding water.

Val could still feel the hollering shout in her throat. Her voice began to feel irritated and raw. She must sound crazy screaming like this, but she did not care at all what she sounded like to others. Even so, she quieted down and stood upright alongside the railing. Slowly, she turned to the water behind her.

The ocean rippled around the edge of the ship from where the remnants of the wave still cascaded downward. The motion of the sea was restored to its normal movement. Not even the shadow of the sea serpent could be seen skulking beneath the surface. No dog head poked out of the water in a struggle to paddle back to the ship. The ocean returned to its calm state as if reclaiming the sea serpent back to its depths. From the looks of it, it seemed that the ocean had claimed Foofy as well.

The water had been cold, but not cold enough to make Val feel as numb as she did. She stood there drenched and dripping, feeling nothing at all save for self-loathing.

Some gods and goddesses could slay a sea serpent. Some could do that without even getting wet by a single drop of water. Val could only bend over the rail of the ship, tears dripping to merge with the sea.

Why had she come so far, going to these lengths of bringing Foofy on this journey with her, just for him to meet his end here? He had been her dog for a whopping two days before she had lost him on the third day of their companionship. Here, she had thought that she was saving Foofy's life when she took him out of the animal shelter, but in reality, she had ended his life almost as quickly.

A raw gasp funneled down her throat. Apparently, she had just lost her dog Foofy to the sea and Val could not possibly express the extent of her rage for it.

Character Update

* All entries are based on what Val knows.

Valentine (Val) Title: None Rank: Demigoddess Attributes: None Abilities Name Class Description

Keep the Peace

tactical

- calm agitated creatures

- can sense the baser emotions of others

- works on animals up to the size of dogs, as well as mortal humans

- can manage multiple animals at once, according to their strength

Mind Blast

combat

- weak, physical blow from the mind

Past Insight

cognitive

- watch a replay of the past

- three pieces of initial information are required

- can stay in the tunnel of time for up to one minute

- real time passes slower in the vision

- can fast-forward through time in a vision

- one day cool down after a failed vision