Seaside

“Hey, Cam?” my girlfriend called from inside the house.

“What’s up, Lynn?”

“Did Damos ever say if he was coming today? He’s still not here, right?”

Oh, whoops. Better check.

I pushed myself off the wooden lounger next to the beach.

The spot he usually sent his messages was fairly close to our place, but last week, a storm had blown through, and his calibration had gotten all messed up. I opened my wings and took to the sky. It was a short trip to the temple in the tide pool with my aspect.

As I approached, I saw a sparkling blue fin poking out of the foam. Flying down, I hovered just above the water.

“Hey,” I called in.

A spectral blue swordfish poked its head out of the waves and blinked at me.

“Sorry I'm late,” I apologized.

It blinked again, then shook its bill around. Jammed on the end, like a stick picking up trash, was a piece of parchment.

“Thank you very much,” I leaned forward and plucked the note from the sword. The swordfish blinked again, then nodded, its bill ridiculously splashing in and out of the water. Then, it disappeared back beneath the sea.

I unfurled the note.

Hell yes! I’m there. See you then!

“All that for seven words,” I muttered, shoving the note in my pocket. Still, it was good to know that he would show up.

It wasn’t long before I landed back on the beach. Sitting back in my lounger, I called out to Lynn, letting her know Damos would be in attendance.

We were going to have dinner with Erasmus and Theio this evening. School skewers, Phoebe’s favorite.

Lynn and I had plenty of free time, what with our rewards from completing not one, but two challenges of ascension. In fact, we were basically set for life. We spent our days enjoying a quiet life by the sea, and sparring against one another on the beach. Of course, whenever a monthly reward payment came in, we made sure to send a healthy portion back down to The Bed, to Phoebe's family. Damos usually hand-delivered it, since he was always going back and forth between land and sea, thanks to the loosened restrictions on champions’ ability to travel between regions. Oddly enough, we had Sylvia to thank for that — the other goddesses bullied her into making it happen. There was still a long way to go, but it was a start. Damos had a room at the house, obviously, but he was only in it 50-60% of the time thanks to his travels.

He used a lot of his own reward money to help people on the outskirts of the city, actually, just as he had been that first day I awoke in this world. Last he told us, they were really getting some great roads built out there with it.

Lynn and I had considered moving back down to The Bed, since it felt like home to both of us, but…

Well, we simply couldn’t bear leaving Phoebe. Or her house. So we settled in, the only other building on the beach — or anywhere within a mile, for that matter. It felt right, too, living next to Erasmus and Theio. With just the four of us, it was a strange little neighborhood. Queer, if you will.

We had one other frequent visitor: Aurea, my mother, the goddess of the sky. Empress of the Blue, as she called herself. Once or twice a week, she would come down from her rule above to chat.

Our relationship as mother and daughter was somewhat strained. We were doing our best to mend it, as best as a mortal and a goddess can. Though I loved her, it took a great deal of effort to come anywhere close to forgiveness for everything that happened. But I’d learned my lesson about wasting second chances; I didn’t want to live life with any regrets. Having been given another shot with my mom, I wanted to do it right this time. Bit by bit, we grew closer.

I was in no rush. I knew it would take time, and I had all the time in the world.

As I reminisced on my strange reunion with my mom, I saw a glint in the distance on the ocean’s surface. “Lynn!” I called back. “He’s here.”

The glint grew in size until it was just barely visible as a glowing blue fin, leaving a trail of mist. Suddenly, it burst forth from the water, revealing Damos hanging on for dear life to the back fin of a big spectral swordfish, grinning like a maniac.

“Hey, Cammy!” he shouted as he soared through the air. The aspect dissolved into magic and dissipated as he landed in the sand with a roll.

“Anything to experience flying again, huh?” I joked.

“You’ll take me up again one day, I know it,” he laughed.

“Come here, dummy,” I said as I patted the chair next to me. “We’ve got a few hours.”

He took me up on the offer, sitting down to my right. A few moments later, Lynn emerged from the house with four wooden cups.

“I made juice,” she announced.

“Oh, awesome! What kind?” Damos asked.

She set one of the cups down on his chair. “You’ll have to drink it to find out.”

Lynn handed one to me, too. I held it, watching as she shuffled behind Damos, and left a cup on the empty chair to his right. She then returned to my left, sitting down in her lounger with a cup of her own.

Together, we drank Lynn’s mystery juice as we watched the sun slowly dip into the sea. Just the four of us.

A whole lot had gone wrong on the way here. Nothing could ever fill the hole left in my heart, after all. But watching the sun set with the ones I loved, listening to the gentle splash of the tide; in that moment, it seemed like things would be okay. It wasn’t exactly how I imagined, and most certainly not what I would have preferred, ideally.

But I’d learned, through it all, that no matter what life threw at me, there always would be one.

A way forward.