Time passed on Olympus.
Decades. Centuries.
The mortals frail and fascinating things had begun to multiply across the world. It was Prometheus, the clever Titan, who had shaped them from clay. Athena, born from Zeus's own skull, had breathed life into them. They were small, clumsy creatures, but with bright minds and restless souls. There was something oddly magnetic about them. Perhaps it was their struggle. Their fragile lives. The way they looked to the sky, dreaming they could touch the divine.
Poseidon didn't think much of them at first. But he didn't hate them either. They were curious. Brave. Almost reckless. But not dangerous.
Zeus, however, disagreed.
"They are too much like us already," he had warned. "Let them struggle. Let them fear the dark. That will keep them humble."
And so, fire was forbidden.
---
Poseidon had taken to his realm with joy. The oceans surged and whispered at his command. Cities of coral and pearl dotted the ocean floor. Leviathans sang ancient hymns to their new ruler. In the dark places of the sea, where no sun reached, monsters bowed their grotesque heads
---
It was on the edge of a reef, under a sky of sapphire water and drifting light, that he first saw her.
Amphitrite.
One of the Nereids. Daughter of Nereus and Doris. She moved like a current made flesh, her hair trailing like kelp in motion, her skin kissed by starlight and sea foam.
Poseidon had known beauty.
He had seen goddesses form from light. Had danced with naiads under moonless waves. But this was different. Something in her eyes unsettled him. A quiet, gentle indifference. A grace that asked for nothing.
He was a god of storms. She was calm.
He wanted her.
---
At first, he watched from afar. Hiding in clouds of ink or behind the crests of waves. He sent gifts, pearls the size of fists, dolphins trained to sing, sea-glass shaped like hearts. She accepted none of it.
She did not run. But she did not stay.
Each time he approached, she would bow her head, thank him for his presence, then vanish with the tide. It maddened him.
He was Poseidon.
The sea roared for him. Islands trembled beneath his trident. Mortals worshipped his name. How could she a sea-born spirit look at him with kindness, yet no desire?
His obsession deepened. He grew quiet. Then unpredictable.
Storms rolled across the oceans, not out of rage, but yearning.
He began to appear to her more directly. Emerging beside her as she tended coral gardens. Catching her alone among drifting jellyfish. Speaking softly, not like a god, but like a man.
"What do you dream of, Amphitrite?"
She tilted her head. "Dreams are for creatures who wish. I have what I need."
"Then let me give you what you do not yet know you want."
She smiled at that.
But she left all the same.
---
It came to a breaking point.
A ripple in the waters. Something foul. A predator.
Amphitrite had wandered near a chasm at the bottom of the sea. There, among the black spirals of sulfur vents, something waited.
It was humanoid in shape, but only in the cruelest way. Its limbs were eel-like, its mouth split and barbed, its eyes slick with lust and hunger.
She did not scream. She ran.
It gave chase.
But before it could touch her...
The sea split.
And Poseidon arrived.
No words. No warning.
He struck like the wrath of the world.
The waters boiled around him, his trident flashing like a thousand suns. He didn't simply kill the creature he erased it. Shattered it across every depth, its soul torn apart by pressure and divine fury.
Amphitrite stood still, her body shaking. For the first time, she saw Poseidon not as a suitor, but as a god.
He turned to her, breathing hard. Not from exhaustion, but restraint.
"You are mine to protect."
Her eyes met his.
She bowed.
"Thank you, Lord Poseidon."
And then she left.
---
Something had changed.
She no longer avoided him. They began to speak. Briefly. Quietly.
She asked about the surface. He spoke of islands and ships. She asked about storms. He told her of rage.
She never said she loved him.
But she began to linger.
And Poseidon, god of the ever-changing sea, realized something new:
Even tides must wait.
And so, the courtship continued.
He would win her.
Even if it took a thousand waves.
---
But something happened, even though fire was forbidden.
Prometheus, ever the rebel, ever the dreamer, gave it to the mortals anyway.
With a stolen flame from the hearth of Olympus, he lit their torches. Taught them to cook. To forge bronze and iron. To conquer the night with flame.
Poseidon wasn't angry.
But Zeus was.
"He has broken the order," Zeus declared, voice sharp as lightning. "One Titan defies Olympus and emboldens mortals to think themselves gods."
Poseidon had argued, briefly. "They are small, brother. Let them have their warmth."
But the King of the Sky would not be moved.
"We cannot allow Titans to act as they please in our world. Today it's fire. Tomorrow they rise against us. Do you wish for a second war with the titans?"
There was silence then one that Poseidon could feel in his chest. And though he cared little for power or vengeance, he understood the point.
So they punished Prometheus.
Chains, unbreakable, forged by Hephaestus. A mountain peak where no mortal or god would dare climb. And an eagle, monstrous and divine, sent daily to feast on Prometheus's liver, which would regrow again and again.
It was barbaric.
But Zeus called it necessary.
To make the punishment complete, the gods decided that man, too, would suffer for their disobedience.
And so Pandora was crafted.
A perfect woman, sculpted by Hephaestus with golden skin and eyes like polished glass. Each god gave her a "gift" and Poseidon remembered well what each of them placed inside the sealed jar she would carry to Earth.
Aphrodite gave longing.
Apollo gave madness.
Hermes gave lies.
Demeter gave famine.
Hera gave pride.
Poseidon, after some thought, added something stranger: the fear of the deep.
"What does that even mean?" Hermes had snorted.
"It's the memory of drowning before one ever swims," Poseidon replied simply. "It will sit in their bones."
They laughed. But Poseidon knew: even the land-bound would always dread the sea.
And it wasn't so cruel that it would bind his mind.
With the jar sealed, Pandora was sent to Epimetheus, Prometheus's impulsive, foolish brother despite Prometheus warning him not to trust anything that came from Olympus.
But Epimetheus did not listen.
He saw the beauty. Heard the honeyed words. And when Pandora opened the jar…
Everything spilled out.
Plagues.
Betrayal.
Firestorms and floods.
All the divine curses were released into the world. Humanity, who had once only feared the night and the cold, now faced suffering born from the very gods they worshipped.
Only hope remained, trembling and small, trapped at the bottom of the jar.
---
When the news of Prometheus's torment and the mortal curses reached Amphitrite, her anger was cold and cutting.
"You did this?" she asked Poseidon when next they met.
He stood near the shore, the sea behind him churning with emotion. "I didn't bind him."
"But you didn't stop it either."
He lowered his gaze. "I argued."
"That's not the same."
He said nothing.
Amphitrite turned, her sea-foam hair brushing against her shoulders like waves. "You claim to love me, yet you do not even flinch when your kind chain my kin to a rock for eternity."
"Prometheus defied Olympus."
"Because he loved the mortals. Because he gave them light in the dark."
"I gave them fear," Poseidon admitted bitterly. "Because Zeus was right. They are like us. And if they grow too bold too fast…"
"You punish them for dreaming."
That stung more than he expected.
For three days, Poseidon did not leave the coast. The waves trembled with his unease. And then, unable to bear her disappointment, he returned to Olympus. He went to Zeus and, for the first time since their father fell, begged.
"End the eagle," he said. "Let the fire remain their gift. The punishment has been enough."
Zeus raised an eyebrow. "You're arguing again, brother."
"No," Poseidon said, "I'm asking."
Zeus stared long and hard. Then he nodded once. "Very well. But if Prometheus ever acts against Olympus again…"
Poseidon left before the threat could finish.
The eagle vanished from Prometheus's mountaintop.
---
Amphitrite found him at the edge of the sea again, this time alone.
"I heard," she said quietly. "You convinced them."
"I did."
"You would do anything I ask, wouldn't you?"
He gave her a sideways glance. "Yes."
She laughed. Not mocking. Just soft and strangely knowing.
"You're a god," she said. "And yet I moved you so easily."
Poseidon smiled faintly. "Love isn't about power."
She tilted her head. "Isn't it?"
And then she walked away, leaving Poseidon alone beneath a violet sky.
But this time… she looked back once.
Only once.
But it was enough.