Time passed again, but Poseidon had stopped noticing days the way mortals did. Each moment he spent near Amphitrite stretched long and sweet like honey. He no longer thought in battles or storms. He thought in glances. In lingering silences. In the way her voice softened when she spoke to sea creatures. In how her laughter seemed to ripple through the tides.
But Amphitrite was not easy to win.
She was wary. Reserved. Just as ancient as he was if not more, a daughter of the primal sea god Nereus. Poseidon understood now: she had seen too much. Titans warring, gods rising, oceans boiling. She had watched empires crumble beneath the waves. So what could one god's affection mean to her?
Still, he tried.
Not with force, as he once might have. Not with power. But with presence.
Their first true moment alone came beneath the surface, far from Olympus or land. There, in a valley of glowing coral and sleeping leviathans, Poseidon invited her to a banquet.
The table was formed from a spiral shell the size of a whale, gleaming with nacre. The food was nothing a mortal could imagine Ambrosius and nectar, the divine food of the gods that for Amphitrite tasted of sunlight, oysters that opened to reveal perfectly salted cream, sea grapes bursting with flavor. And they sat atop living sponges, soft and pulsing gently with the rhythm of the current.
Music drifted in from singing whales. Lantern fish blinked like stars.
Amphitrite had raised one eyebrow, amused. "A romantic dinner. In the trench of lost kings."
"I thought it was poetic," Poseidon replied.
"Or desperate."
He grinned. "Why not both?"
She hadn't smiled back—but she hadn't left either.
---
A week later, he took her above the waves.
On an island that didn't exist on any map because he had raised it that morning.
The sands shimmered with silver dust. At its heart stood a single olive tree, gifted by Athena herself, the only thing he'd ever requested from his wise niece.
They watched the stars together. She reclined on a bed of moss, her hair trailing over her shoulder like riverweed.
"That one," he said, pointing. "Is the shape of a hippocampus."
"It looks like a goat."
"You wound me."
"You name every starfish after yourself."
He chuckled, unbothered.
"Why do you do this?" she asked suddenly.
"Because I love you."
She blinked. The ocean breeze was the only thing that moved between them.
"You don't know me."
"I know that when you smile, the kelp bends toward the light. I know that your silences say more than speeches. I know that you made a cave of silence for yourself, and I've been knocking for a long time."
"And what if I never answer?"
Poseidon leaned back, folding his arms behind his head.
"Then I will still wait."
---
It went on like that.
Dates carved from nature itself. He once brought her to the back of a sea turtle the size of a city. They danced on its shell as it glided across what would become th Mediterranean sea, waves glittering in their wake. Another time, he took her to a mountain peak only accessible through a tunnel of air and water, where frozen clouds sparkled like diamonds.
She never called them dates. But she kept coming.
And slowly, her eyes stopped being guarded. Her laughter became more frequent, even if she still teased him mercilessly. She accepted the small gifts he left a coral bracelet that shifted color depending on her mood, a harp carved from shipwreck wood that played when touched by tide.
Still, Poseidon was a god of impulse and fury. He was not used to waiting. And one day, he went to the only person who might understand how to move past hesitation:
Zeus.
---
The Sky King was in his throne room, polishing the Master Bolt.
"Brother," Poseidon said.
Zeus raised a brow. "You're not here to declare war, are you?"
"I want to marry Amphitrite."
Zeus blinked.
" And... you… want advice? From me?"
Poseidon scowled. "You're married. You got Hera to agree. That must've taken something."
Zeus leaned back, clearly relishing this. "Well. First, I stopped trying to impress her. I started listening. Then, I made a promise. One I kept."
"What promise?"
"That I wouldn't use my power to claim her. That I would rise to meet her, not drag her down."
Poseidon nodded slowly. That was more insight than he'd expected.
"Oh... And flowers help," Zeus added.
Poseidon rolled his eyes.
---
So Poseidon waited one more day.
He took her to the edge of the world.
A place no mortal or god dared tread a whirlpool that touched both sea and stars. There, on a platform of floating sapphire, Poseidon made no magic. No grand gesture. Just truth.
"You've known my rage, and my gentleness," he said. "You've seen me at war and at peace. I have bent the sea and sky to make you smile. But I do not ask you to love me for those things. I ask you to love me as I am."
He stepped closer.
"Not as a god. Not as a king. But as a man who is better with you beside him."
He knelt before her, a rare instance where a god as strong and prideful as he was knelt at all. And the he asked the one question.
"Will you marry me, Amphitrite?"
She looked at it. Then at him.
And for a long moment, the sea was silent. As she thought about all that happened, their dates, the Prometheus fiasco and also how Poseidon tried to rectify the situation to please her, she thought of all the times they met and only found fondness and true love in her thoughts for him.
Then she smiled.
"Yes."
Poseidon let out a breath that became a gust of wind.
The sea cheered.
Even the stars seemed to shift.
And far below, every creature in the ocean felt the moment their king found his queen.