I am back by popular request! For the first time, this fic has garnered more views than my other one about Hades and Persephone. I am pleased with this. Thank you so much for everyone who stuck with me, I promise the chapters are going to be a little more frequent now!

AND THUS CHAPTER FOUR BEGINS!

Amphitrite made her home there. Sitting alone in the fallen keep of the Titan Atlas in the middle of the woods, though it would have seemed uneventful to most, was a fine adventure to Amphitrite, a goddess who'd never stepped beyond the boundaries of her father's kingdom before. She made her main camp in the corner she had curled up in her first night there. She ate fish and plants and other creatures that lived in a nearby stream, and occupied a vast majority of her day, besides watching the woodland creatures around her and becoming acquainted with them, soaking in the stream. What she didn't know was that this stream connected directly to the ocean.

But she was steadily becoming aware of a very important fact- she was a creature of the salt waves, and she needed them to stay alive. Her separation from the sea, which was a flat blue glimmer on the distant horizon (how inhospitable, how ugly her home looked from this vantage point) was slowly leaching away her strength, her beauty. Her hair had lost its dark glisten, her skin it's pearlescent sheen. She felt brittle and crackly, like dried seaweed. She lacked energy, and the smallest tasks of finding food and consuming it tired her. When she soaked in the steam, she felt a little more rejuvenated, but she knew that without salt water, and soon, she would fade away.

Months had passed, each day exactly the same as the one that passed before it. Amphitrite supposed that Poseidon would have forgotten about her by now, perhaps even married someone else. So, she reasoned, it should be perfectly all right for her to make a short trip back to the sea, to restore her strength so that she could return to the fortress and stay put until she was absolutely certain it was all right for her to return. And, she thought, smiling grimly as she picked her way down the mountainside, precarious and slow and wondering how many bones she'd break if she fell in her new, fragile state, even if Poseidon hadn't forgotten about her, he certainly wouldn't want her the way she looked now.

Amphitrite did not know this, but Poseidon had not forgotten about her by any means. Indeed, his curiosity had only been sharpened by the long months he had been unable to locate her. She was clever enough to pray to Artemis for help and then hide herself away and keep herself wherever she was for as long as she had. He had been searching for her himself, when his kingly duties weren't occupying him (which took up an alarming portion of his life), his voice echoing lonesomely all throughout his watery world, searching with single-minded devotion for the one girl who had ever defied him.

He had also created an emissary specifically for the task of helping him in his arduous search for his missing queen. He had given the creation sleek skin and smooth flippers and bright black eyes. He christened his creation Dolphin and gave it the ability to travel freely between salt and fresh water, so that he could liaise with the Naiads of the fresh water springs on land, in case Amphitrite had been seen or harbored by any of them. But Dolphin had been bringing back increasingly negatives reports from these Naiads, who had apparently heard lots of things about Poseidon from the Olympians, who presumably had heard unflattering things about him from Artemis and Zeus. Though they honored him as their lord, as they were all females of the same mindset of Artemis and Athena, his newest niece, they believed that women should be free to choose their own spouses, or at the very least have a say in their father's choice for them. None of them would tell Dolphin (and therefore him) a thing.

But eventually, a Naiad of a small river gave in under the pressure. She went to Dolphin and promised him good information about Amphitrite for the ability to keep her stream safe and free no matter what transpired in the future. Poseidon had given Dolphin the power to grant requests such as that on the spot, which he did. The Naiad, nervously braiding and plaiting her flowing brown hair, made good on her promise, and Dolphin rushed back to the sea to tell his king. "The Lady Amphitrite, fiftieth daughter of Nereus and Doris, has been camping in the ruined fortress of Atlas, further upon the mountain, out of my Lord Poseidon's reach. She had plans to stay there until you forgot all about her," Dolphin said cautiously, hovering respectfully before Poseidon, who sat on his throne of coral and pearl. "Then what am I waiting for?" crowed Poseidon, leaping from his dais, a radiant smile creasing his face. "But wait!" Dolphin continued. "Lady Amphitrite's' life force is slowly dwindling away- she needs the sea to survive, and without coming back soon, she will perish." Poseidon's face fell, into confusion and worry. "Then I must bring her back all the sooner! She would truly rather dissolve into a pile of green dust than be mine?" He shouted. "I must first go to Olympus and petition Zeus on my behalf. Once he gives me consent, I can flood up the mountainside and bring her home at once!" He mused. "That's just the thing, my lord," Dolphin said. "My informant said she was already on her way down the mountainside, back to the sea. My informant had no idea how long it would take her to reach the shoreline in her weakened state, but that she was not yet there," A slow smile stretched across Poseidon's face. "Well, then, we will just have to be waiting to welcome her home,"

Poseidon reached the shore later that day and floated there among the flotsam and jetsam. He had told Dolphin not to come along, as this was something he wanted to do by himself. But he also did not want Dolphin to see that his confidence had been shaken. Poseidon, no matter how many other people said he would, did not think he could ever be so callous as to forget someone he had once pursued. And never would a day pass by where he wouldn't remember that it had been his fault that such a lovely and radiant creature would have been gone. He wondered if she was in pain, and if it had really been worthy barter for her paltry few months of bought time? He fancied that he would have sensed instantly when she had returned to the sea, when the breakers had closed around her once more, and would have swum out to greet her, to bring her back to his palace like the queen she was born to be.

For two days, these thoughts and others chased each other around and around inside his head. But on the third day, his patience was rewarded. Amphitrite staggered out from the scrub that lined the beach looking positively exhausted. Even with thinned hair, in dirty robes of wool like a poor shepherds wife, and dull eyes, she still was beautiful. But there was a furtive guile in those dull eyes that none of her sisters possessed. Or maybe that was result of spending the past few months in a radically different environment, fending completely for herself. She scanned the beach quickly, and determined that she was alone. She dropped her dusty pack into the sand, shed her torn, worn sandals and rough outer drape, showing off the nearly artistic lines of her legs and slender arms. The thin under-drape clung to her torso, the bones of her hips pushing the fabric outward. Forgetting all the fatigue and loneliness and exhaustion and worry that had replaced her sisters as her constant companions, she sprinted to the waves. They instantly closed around her, welcoming her home with loud crashing and frothing whitecaps. She dove and splashed, reveling in the feeling of her strength returning. Her beauty was restored, and she was so, so much more lovely than her sisters. Poseidon's memory had not managed to do her justice. Had it been six months earlier, Poseidon would have swum out and embraced her right them and there. But her respected her now, for her cunningness and endurance in evading him for so long, and so remained hidden by the protruding crags of rock jutting into the ocean. She moved him enough as she leapt through the clear, green-glass water to create a whole host of animals that took whatever shapes he saw in the froth that followed in her wake.

Poseidon continued to wait for her to slip down into deeper waters, to let the mournful songs of her sisters, lamenting her loss, pull her home, but she didn't. Her feet stayed where she could brush them lightly against the white sand at all times. When she turned around and began making her way back to shore, Poseidon made his presence known. For, floating there on the tide that sunlit afternoon, he realized that he did not want her just for her pretty face, or for her resourcefulness, but because she was the perfect complement to him, because she brought a completeness that was all-consuming to him. It was as though he had unexpectedly found a very great treasure that he hadn't known he was looking for. He realized that because she was herself, there was a very good chance that she actually could hold out against him for as long as she had to. And he realized her didn't think he could have lived with himself if he had gone home now, having been so close to her and done nothing.

Amphitrite found the small army of curious creatures that Poseidon had created from the water that had buoyed her, and she knew something was afoot. She wanted to believe it was just the sea, wordlessly welcoming her back to where she belonged, but she couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something wrong. She then saw a head of black hair rising from the water, between her and the shore. As the face, neck and shoulders followed, she saw that it was Poseidon, having finally come to claim his long-awaited prize, and he was blocking her only viable escape route, a smile as wide as the day is long decorating his face, victory shining out of his eyes. So, like the previous times her had uninvitedly cornered her, she did the stupid, cowardly thing and took flight, swimming as fast as she knew how out into the deeps. Though she had the advantage to over twenty years swimming in these waters, Poseidon had spent two solid days here, and had learned fast.

He was right on her tail, her pale feet only a fingers length away. She was swimming deeper and deeper into a dark abyss, obviously hoping to lose him in the inky murk. Poseidon felt smug and excited- in but a few more moments, she would run into the bottom and realize there was nowhere she could possibly go but back with him. Spurred on by this thought, he put on an extra burst of speed. He had just clasped his arms around her- her shriek was piercing- when she disappeared, her cry still ringing through the trench.

There we go, cliffhanger ending! I hope everyone enjoyed!