Zèklè

Just like that, everything goes to shit. Turns out this Kisamoa character was kind of a dick.

Like everyone else, you heed the call (but what if you hadn't?), marching with your precious family toward the epicenter, the chaos, the fall (but what if you's gone the other way?). You keep a hawk-like eye on the boy, Sparky and the Little Mountain constantly in your sight, but your attention is halved as you mill through the assembled mass. Where are your sisters? Your friends? Isopia? Your Ma? You look for them frantically, and relief escapes you as your sunbeam eyes catch a glimpse of your best friend, your Mountain, your anchor. You open your mouth to call to her.

Then, as stated, everything goes to shit.

The first bolt of light startles you. You jump, your wings spreading, your attention flashing back to Iskra and Mauna. "Stay with me!" you snap, confused, alarmed, talifeathers raised and body on edge. The next flash and the screams that accompany it leave you perplexed, dizzy, confused (is this a dream?). The third one brings a lump to your throat, as the reality of this situation settles in.

The fourth one makes you scream.

You recognize their bodies as they tear apart, and the rage and pain that rises in your is visceral, terrible, worse than anything you've felt before. "GRUSHA! TAE!" you scream into the carnage, and you want to run toward them, you want to cradle their fallen forms, but you have Mauna and Iskra and you cannot leave them, you cannot move. "Don't look!"  you instruct the boys sharply, your voice panicked and shaky. A sob rises in your chest as the massacre continues around you. Five more flashes, five more fall - you know some of them, recognize them -

- and then your world falls apart.

You hear her. Her voice is a familiar, piercing scream, and in an instant you know, you know, and the horror that consumes you is overwhelming. You want to vomit. You want to scream. You want to run toward her, to stop her, to plead with her to stay, but your body is rooted to its place and all you can do is watch, devastated, destroyed, as your heart is torn from your chest.

You don't scream this time. You don't look away. The world is a pinprick, a moment, a still instant in which your youth flashes before your eyes. You remember everything - the warmth of her skin, the joy in her tales, the harshness of her voice, the comfort of her embrace. You remember the bad times, too- the loss of her, the pain, the yelling, the fight. You remember the last time you saw her, that horrible altercation, her flying off in rage. You were unable to reach her, unable to follow, grounded and broken. You were never able to be the things she needed, because she always needed so much - but you would relive every horrible moment, every cutting remark, every pang of guilt, if only you could keep this moment from happening.

"MA!" you wail in desperation, your voice breaking, a child abandoned, a son seeking absolution, every moment you've ever shared tied up in this single word - but Ampere is already gone.

There's more death, but you don't see it. It's a blur, it's pointless, it's nothing. There is a war going on inside of you, a battle to maintain some semblance of functionality, even though your stomach is boiling and your knees are shaking and you can feel yourself falling apart at the seams, the stitches tearing and the sheer weight of your grief clawing its way through your skin. The world revolves around you, but you don't move, don't breathe, don't feel.

Then the Gods appear, and you feel the faintest hope.

You turn back to Iskra and Mauna, praying they're still there, trying and trying to keep the sucker-punch of agony from your voice, your face. They are destroyed, too- you know this, because who wouldn't be? and you must be strong. Now, more than ever, you must be strong.

"We're going to go through the portal," you tell them bluntly, your voice surprisingly steady, your face surprisingly calm. The emotions are tamed, boxed away and kept for later - the need of your family trumps the weight of your grief, for now. "It's the only way. Sparky, you'll go first, then Mauna, and I'll come through last." The instructions are clear, a single sensible thing in an increasingly maddening world, and you nudge them on with wings and nose and, if necessary, teeth. The world is spinning around you, a toxic waste, and there is only one point of relief. You can only pray Isopia made it through already - and as you rush toward the portal you look for her, but you cannot see her, can't find her among the chaos, until...

No.

If your heart was broken by the loss of your mother, it is now to be thrown on the floor, trampled, steamrolled, and eaten. Isopia raises to the sky - beautiful, brave, focused Isopia - critical, calculated, curious Isopia - your first friend, your best friend, the mother of your child - and you stare, unable to comprehend, unwilling, denying, refusing, as she joins the Gods in their defense. "No," you whisper hoarsely, your sunbeam eyes pleading, your soul aching. "No, Iso, please, no-" but there is no one to hear your pleading, no God to pity you, no miracle to be had. You can only watch as the person who rests closest to your heart is devoured, her body bleeding into the portal, the light you've always seen in her finally finding its way out, in her death.

She did it for us, you think hollowly. You don't feel anything. Numbness has overtaken you - the pain is so great you fear it will snap your mind, and so you've closed it up, denied it, for the sake of your son and for the sake of his mother. This is her sacrifice, her gift so you will live - and you owe it to her to keep yourself together, to survive so you can raise her child, to carry her forever immortalized in your heart.

"I love you, Iso," you whisper to demigod's evaporating form-

-and then you step through a portal to another world, never to see this one again.

And in the sea that's painted black,
Creatures lurk below the deck
But you're a queen and I'm a lionheart