The Assistant Secretary of Fear And Doubt
There are protocols for this kind of thing.
One doesn't just address the gods using whatever words come into one's mind. The gods are more important than that. A prayer is more than a request, and many a foolish king has discovered that the pantheon is not satiated by simple bribery. The forms and paperwork and ritual and hats that the Administration had developed for interacting with Father Poseidon were all well and good, but the Assistant Secretary had always maintained that when interacting with the Darkening Rainbow the most important ingredient to a prayer was fear.
The well was overflowing. The storm had flooded drainage systems not designed to handle weather, and one of the ways that manifested was in a well that was a lazy fat geyser of brackish water. The Assistant Secretary lifted itself over the side and dove in, dove deep, dove deep and dark. In the dark it did not speak its request to Grandfather Poseidon. Instead it simply took the augury. Mind-altering chemical stimulants were released from glands below its eye and rushed through the central brain, neutralizing its decision making processes. The tentacles, each as intelligent as the centre body, were left to their own uncontrolled devices and began to slash and squirm independently. Colour rushed along the Secretary's skin, its camouflage patterns - never once used to disguise its location but to proclaim it - ran riot with the fires of the Earthshaker. The Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt asked Father Poseidon what it was it should fear, and Grandfather Poseidon showed it.
Diamonds in blue and red and the dance of artillery.
An ark that carried the death of time.
Extinction in the form of ten thousand perfect gardens.
A tear in the universe stitched open with castles of white stone.
Intellect so mighty that the gods would regard it as hubris.
A planet freed by mad artifice from the tyranny of distance.
Markets of flesh and metal, warriors leashed and arcane.
The creaking voice of Aphrodite, that last terrible mutilated titan.
Agony and ecstasy to lie in the mouth of Poseidon Polychromatic like this. In this moment the Assistant Secretary was one with its god. In this moment it was the trueborn son of the Sea God, of it and with it and amidst it. And when it desired to see these terrors with its own eyes that was what Poseidon desired too.
So the storm changed.
*
Admiral Odoacer!
Perhaps there had been a way to cross this distance without spending so many lives. She would regret it if there were. The hungry graveyard had descended on her fleet, the hurled corpses of those lives she'd spent before, accusatory with their burned-out hollow shells. The hulks hurled at her as though bitter they had died for her glory.
With a gesture - a raised and outstretched hand in a sweeping motion - the order was given. Shouts went up from all around the bridge, and teams of sweating slaves hauled the massive cannons into position. Gunners ran the calculations with slide rules and mechanical abacuses and enginseers stepped back as the vast stellar furnaces they tended to burned too hot for even their transhuman skin. She watched as the void burned gold and then red. The galaxy was carved up by the fiery breath of a hundred thousand warships as they ate the ungrateful dead.
Still the corpses came, hurled about by Poseidon's winds. Impacts and collisions shattered all over the fleet, and with another gesture loyal commanders were sent forwards to break the iron winds. The carved, sharp beaks of the ships did much to shatter the hurricane, but there were cross-drafts that needed to be tended to. The politically suspect took care of those. After all, Poseidon was not her enemy here; she could not wage war against the sea. She was waging war against those who would deny her Imperial destiny.
She'd regret not finding a way to preserve her soldiers, yes. Their deaths, she thought as her fleet blew away the corpse-ships, would reflect badly on her. But then, she could hardly be expected to give her full attention to every skirmish. She was just human. She had off days. If she applied her full energy and effort every time a few thousand lives were on the line she'd never have time to relax.
And it was precisely her relaxation that enabled her to notice exactly when the wind changed. The great storm of Poseidon changed direction, no longer blowing the shipwrecks towards her but away. Towards the Eater of Worlds. And... it was moving too.
"Concentrate fire," said Admiral Odoacer. "Cut the Eater of Worlds open. Do not let it escape."
*
Bella!
You are fire. You are wroth. The world will do you this kindness, but only this one: It will burn to match.
The great esoteric weapons of the Armada strike the Eater of Worlds once again. Great fusion blasts tear into the mighty beak and skin, causing the earth to boil hot and red. Fires erupt in the mangroves and the ocean evaporates massive gouts of steam. The howling winds tear the roof from the palace and the building begins to fall apart all around you.
Above you, in the sky, looms a massive black silhouette shape. The razor sharp assassin cruiser Anemoi gifted to you by the Empress, larger than this entire city. Captain Lorventi, renowned for her boldness and aggression, has not only caught up with the Eater of Worlds but taken shelter inside its mouth. Yours. Your ship. Your sky.
Black smoke impacts against it - a solid projectile round. Another ship is in here. Redana's ship, the skeletal, ocean-rusted Plousios - it has taken shelter here against the storm. Even as the Armada's fury batters against the walls, the two cruisers circle and fire ragged volleys at each other above.
Redana!
Those eyes are made for softness; this coldness does not come naturally to them. It does come to the peacock eyes that surround them, though. Hera stands there, drab in leathers and resplendent in feathers. "Just like your father," she said. "You don't get to keep things you don't value. You don't get to own things you don't appreciate. You broke her, you lost her, and you will never get to have her back -"
Blood splashes your face.
Hera looks down in shock. There's a spear run through her breast - right through her very heart. She turns about and there in the doorway lit by the fires of Ragnarok is the wolf grin of Ares.
"Hello, mother," he snarled in his male-female voice, as he half-carried the blood-soaked Princess Epistia forwards. "May I ask what the fuck you think you're doing in my domain?"
The Queen of the Gods tried to speak, but blood drowned her voice. She stepped back once, twice... and then she was gone, leaving the taste of ambrosia and iron upon your lips.
Princess Epistia staggered forwards, Ares alternating between supporting her and roughly shoving her forwards. She stumbles and collapses in front of you, Thunderbolt still lodged agonizingly in her shoulder, crackling with lightning every time Ares gives a friendly shoulder-pat of encouragement. Soft hands and a sharp knife part silk and leather that holds your voice.
"Princess. You," she hesitates in saying it, but despite everything you are still somehow in worse shape than her, "okay?"
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