On the final night of their stay on the Preserve, Val wanted to make the most of it. She had every intention to confess her feelings to Tavras, god of water, the Sea Itself. He was out of her league in every way, but she had to try.

The man of her figurative (and literal) dreams stood with his back facing her atop the rocky shore. Meanwhile, he faced out to the ocean. The waves broke against the overhang, sending a spray of sea mist into the air surrounding him. His long hair, which reached past his lower back, flowed with shades of blue like a rushing river to join the sea. To her, he appeared as the picture of natural beauty, existing in his element like this.

Val almost hated to disturb him. This sentiment compelled her to stare at him and just watch, appreciating the presence of one of the most powerful gods in the entire world. As she gazed upon him, her intentions to confess her feelings to him only further steeled within her.

She would lay her heart out to Tavras at last--she really would. This was a good idea, she told herself.

Val stepped onto the rocks with slow, timid feet. “Hey Tavras, could I talk to you?”

Even as he turned back to her, he said, “Request denied." The light in his eyes sparkled along with his joke. He watched her and waited politely for her to speak.

Val laughed more so to humor him. Actually, he had said one of the few things that could ratchet up her nerves more. Tavras was better than her in every way--so much so that she hardly deserved to be in his presence and speak to him, much less receive all of the kindness that he was showing her as a mentor. Nonetheless, she had to at least try to express some of these feelings that bubbled within her.

How ought she best express the depth of her affections and gratitude to him? “Tavras, I like you,” she stated plainly, yet emotion filled her voice.

“I like you too, Val,” Tavras agreed. “You're a good kid."

Val clenched her teeth, trying to order herself to stay calm. By the inferno of Suvier, how red must her face look? “I meant that I like you romantically,” she murmured.

“Romantically?” Tavras echoed slowly. The word almost sounded foreign to his tongue. “Uh….”

“Sorry,” Val said hastily. “I just thought to tell you in case, you know.... I just wanted to make sure that you knew, at least.” She had the audacity to peel her gaze up and look at Tavras through her shame. Did she dare to bother with looking hopeful, even?

Tavras shifted awkwardly in place. His eyes flitted out to sea. “Trust me. I knew already.”

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat but it refused to go down. “How did you know?”

“How could I not know? You were very… obvious.” In addition to being uncomfortable, Tavras also seemed sad by the remorseful tone in his voice. “I was trying to reject you more subtly than this. Everytime that you started acting flirty, I always did something to ruin the moment or divert your attention. Did you never notice that?”

The time that they had swam together with dolphins seared in her mind, for one. She did not need any ability like Insights of the Past to relive the moment, because it already resurfaced vividly.

When he had pulled her to swim alongside him and she had nestled herself onto his chest, Tavras had decided to dump her over into the ocean all at once. That had been the least romantic thing to do in that situation, but Val had just chalked it up to his playful demeanor. Easily, he could have been unable to resist the joke but still had feelings for her at the exact same time.

Her lips wavered. “What about all of the times that you teased me?”

One hand rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sorry about that. It’s just kind of fun--hard to resist, but it means nothing. I’m just a flirt.” Of all things, Tavras winked at her right now, in this conversation.

That cut at her, and more so, her pride. Val had nothing to say except a mumbled, “Sorry.” Her stupidity bore down on her. Why had she only seen the possibility that Tavras could like her, never picking up on all of the cues where he had tried to communicate the opposite?

To drive home his point, Tavras laid it out quite cruelly. “I don’t like you romantically, and I will never like you romantically. Do I need to blatantly explain that to you or has this been enough of a rejection for you?”

Her teeth leveled together so that her jaws ached. “Explain it to me.” She just wanted to hear what he would have to say.

Tavras turned back out to sea, unable to bother with looking her in the eyes for the duration of this conversation. “I am a couple thousand years old. Even I have lost track of my age. Eternal youth may have kept my body looking young, but I’m just about the oldest man in existence.”

“It’s different,” Val tried to say. “We have divine blood. Both of us are immortal. I’m an adult too!” She had turned eighteen a few months ago in September. It was not like Tavras acted all old and crudgemungedy that reflected his literal age. He actually acted young and playful, so at heart, she believed that they could get along well in a romantic relationship just as they did in their friendship.

With a heaving sigh, Tavras said, “Our age gap is no less disgusting. You are a child to me and you will always be a child to me. I mean, unless a couple thousand more years pass to make those years between us seem trivial… I would hope that you would have moved on by then,” he added with a raucous laugh.

Did he have to crack jokes and laugh at her at a time like this? In addition to her clenched jaw, Val also curled her hands around into fists. The least he could have done was show her a modicum of respect.

Val felt angry. Her first crush had been, well, crushed. Tavras had made sure that he had done so quite thoroughly, at that. His disrespect offended her in such a way that she knew without a doubt that he needed to be put back in his place.

Some whiny part of her conscience warned her against this, but she ignored that and called upon Divine Judgement.