previous part: https://jordynsaelor.com/2026/01/08/meet-me-at-my-homestead/
all parts: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
My realm has two sides,
the voice said,
entirely deeper and softer than the voice in the room
where they put a truth spell on me,
so that voice
must’ve been a salamander
or a Mrflfip thing–
my Keep,
the voice said,
is a fragment of this side
switched into the other
and this land you stand on
is the only place you can stand
here–
and I said
my people
once lived in the sea
I don’t fear
mountains of water
–though by all accounts
I should’ve;
I’d never learned to swim.
But something about these waters
called me
like a sea god
who knew my name–
Who are you, Percy?
I shouted
to the ever-falling rain.
Come face me.
Give me my bone-hand back,
and my shoes,
and the dress
with my memory runes.
Lightning crackled
and a head
of light
appeared above the dust,
then two arms
and four legs
and the eyes
glared
and thunder
came from its heart
and it said
like a breeze,
I gave you shelter
in my Keep
and you’d ruin it
for fun?
No, I said, I’d ruin it
because you have a dumb cult
and I just want to find somewhere
to call home
and I don’t know where that is
but I already know
it isn’t here.
Percy laughed
like peltering hail
chewed in the mouth of a wind
and said
his home
was the only home
I’d find
in the Dust Seas
and these Mountain Seas
unless
I could withstand the drought
like the trees
so I said
make a portal for me then
to another realm
and Percy
squinted
and said
nothing
but
sorry–
so I
frowned,
hissing,
I’ll leave
and never return,
just make me a door out of here.
Sorry, Percy said
again,
but I can’t.
And I glared
into the vacant eyes
in the lightning face
and realized–
you actually can’t
make
me a
portal,
can you?
You don’t know how.
I,
Percy said,
believe in truth so I will speak frankly: I can move things
between Mountain Seas and Dust Seas, but I’ve spent
a long time
studying that flickering door
in the desert
wondering how to make it leave our land
but there seems to be no way to banish it,
nor any way to open it
from this side,
but demons sometimes
stumble through
and rarely
someone like you does too
and the trees and salamanders
guard the door
to imprison the demons
and deliver the mortals to my Keep
where they live
the rest of their short lives
among the clayturns,
and you
are not the first
to use those foul prayers here
but you are the first
to ask about a portal
so I’m sorry
but your options are
stay with me,
die in the desert,
drown in the sea here
or join the demon prison.
***
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Jordyn Saelor 