Chapter Text
It was, by all accounts, a completely ordinary day.
The world was, as it had been for many a year, completely at peace. The gods were in harmony with each other for the most part, their quarrels being merely that, rather than true fights extending to and affecting the lives of mortals.
The Goddess of Fortune was particularly fond of and found herself thriving in the peace. She always found her head far clearer when she was not receiving prayers for her favour from every soldier in a soon to be bloody battle. In times like these exactly how she chose to focus her domain had far less grizzly effects on the state of the world.
Thus, she liked these peaceful times where her own interests could be her focus. On days like these, she could grant her favour to whichever mortals that happened to catch her eye. To those she believed had the potential to become legends.
Though, Capsize did acknowledge the need to consider the balance. Fortune was meaningless if it was all someone experienced, after all. So, she kept herself in line with the misfortune that her brother was doling out. It was easy enough as the tides of fortune were second nature to her. Even if she couldn’t, she trusted her brother to do his job, just as he trusted her.
The siblings were not always in time, did not always react to what the other doled out immediately, but the understanding of how to balance the other was a part of their very beings. No matter how long one seemed to be in control of the fates of the world, the other’s domain would always rise back and return in kind.
Hence, Capsize saw little reason that having favourites among mortals was any sort of trouble. If she gave any one more fortune than could rightly be justified, then her brother would set them up with a fall.
And she saw no problem with that. It made their tales just that bit more interesting. Though she understood that setting up the mortals on purpose for such a stroke of misfortune merely for her own entertainment was, admittedly, selfish. So, she tried to keep her blessings balanced and let her brother dole out his domain as he willed - just as she did.
Today her interest had been caught once more. A mortal praying for fortune as so many often did, but this one had the makings of a legend. She could just taste it.
They were not a follower of either her or her brother. Few were as the twins were seen as minor deities that rather just assisted with keeping the world functioning. No, this particular mortal was a follower of Tom, Lord of Chaos. Just as most of those that happened to catch her attention were.
That was not to say that she never found interest in followers of the others. It was just… Well… Sonja had as few followers as herself and her brother, so it was quite expected for them to so rarely catch her interest. Meanwhile Tucker and Jordan’s followers just tended to be more strait-laced. Sure, she’d find potential among them occasionally, but it was just a little more difficult when few were ever as bold as Tom's followers.
Like this one that she was currently watching through the eyes of a bat as they ventured ever deeper into a cave network. She could taste the potential, the dreams and ambitions just dripping off them. It was delicious.
They were praying for her favour as they intended to find a lost city in the depths of the Nether. She could not remember herself if such a city had ever existed, but the journey itself she was sure would be worth a watch.
This was one that deserved her favour, she was sure. However, before she could actually bless them with enough fortune to guarantee the beginning of their journey, she was quite rudely interrupted.
“Capsize!” Lord Jordan’s voice cut through her observation, immediately dragging her back to her temple in the End. Thankfully she was used to such jarring transitions, it barely took a moment for her to adjust to her regular form. Though, while she was not jarred, she was certainly annoyed.
Jordan stood before her with his eyes piercing into her, annoyance written across his features as was typical of him when it was just the two of them. Yes, she had grown quite used to the expression and cared little about seeing it once again. His approval meant little to her, as did his petulance. She may aid with keeping the world’s balance, but she was not his to control as he seemed to believe.
His expression did not change as she frowned at him.
She supposed his glare would pierce right through a mortal. It carried the intensity of the unending void, his irises looking like purple stars that could burn just as easily as they could guide. She supposed most of his features were similarly quite intimidating.
So many of them were dragon-like. His skin bore scales, his head horns, his mouth fangs, and his back wings. When he was particularly angry – so most of the times she saw him – he would breathe the poisonous fog that his dragon did. His eyes would glow even more intensely too, which was perhaps why she thought of them as being like stars.
Truly he was the End incarnate. A guardian and a beast – the Lord of Balance, a symbol of his own domain.
She could comparatively be called more human, though only a fool would actually mistake her for one in her true form. Golden glowing freckles covered her copper skin that shone beautifully in the light of sea lanterns that decorated the pillars of her temple. She was human as a statue. The features were right, but she was more a representation than anything else.
And what a representation she was. Looking at the Goddess of Fortune was like looking at one’s greatest victory. It was an aura that most mortals could not fully comprehend, so the tales on the less poetic end of the spectrum tended to just call her beautiful.
However, despite the descriptions given in the tales that mortals spun, her glare was no less intense than Jordan’s.
“Is this important? I was quite busy,” She said with a relatively calm tone, not rising from her throne. She had quite the desire to snap at him. After all, how dare he drag her away from bestowing fortune when someone interesting had come along once more. The words were practically stinging her tongue, begging to be said. However, she did not currently feel like bickering.
“Oh, I know you’ve been busy,” He replied with venom on his tongue, clearly not sharing her mindset. She supposed he never really did. If she was forced to describe him in the nicest way she could, she’d call him ‘particular’. Particular in what he thought balance was. Particular in how he thought she should act.
She would prefer to call him condescending, possessive, or simply just annoying. Again, though, she really was not looking to bicker. She simply wished for him to stop attempting to control the way she influenced her domain and granted her favour.
But clearly, that wish was not going to be granted today. “How much fortune have you granted to Tom’s followers today without regard for anyone else?!”
“Oh? Have I completely destroyed the balance of the world?” She asked with an innocent tilt of her head. She hoped that asking the direct question when she quite well knew the answer to be in the negative would get him to back off. The balance of fortune and misfortune was utterly fine. Not completely perfect, but she and Red kept each other in check.
Yet, as always, the Lord of Balance wanted to act as though she needed lecturing. So why not act oblivious? At least this way she would get back some of the entertainment that he had robbed from her. “Well, I can’t exactly take back the fortune I’ve already granted. Why don’t you bother Red about making them all trip over their own feet for a few days?”
She knew that the smile she asked with was bound to annoy him. Frankly, he deserved such a smile.
He would never annoy her brother in the way that he annoyed her. Nor did he ever go to him after these conversations to try and correct her apparent favouritism despite how that would be the way to correct it if it was actually a real issue. No, of course, he just liked bothering her.
It was as frustrating as it was obviously biassed. Yet she did quite enjoy prodding him into anger.
“Can you take the damage you’re causing seriously for once?!” He was already misting the air, purple fog leaking out his mouth. Why was he so upset about this today? She hadn’t even granted her new interest any favour yet - so what could it possibly be?
Yet clearly something had ticked him off since he was positively fuming. She was shocked that he wasn’t pointing an arrow at her throat with how close he seemed to be to physically lashing out. But Capsize supposed he did not want to bicker either. It just happened that his definition of arguing was quite different than hers. “You’ve gifted Tom a bottle of pure fortune!”
She tilted her head in confusion.
That was what had him this worked up? Her gift to Tom?
Why was he so damn boring?
The longer she remained quiet, the more intense his glare grew. She couldn’t just wait this out, she knew. His eyes were starting to get so bright that he was getting hard for her to look at. But what could she possibly say to satisfy him?
“You think that a gift that Tom is never going to use is causing damage to the balance?” She asked, raising her eyebrows as she lent on the armrest of her throne. She saw little point in taking this seriously when he was making such a big deal over nothing.
Her nonchalance only annoyed him more.
“It’s the potential of it, Cap!” He said, leaving her wrinkling her nose. He always lived in such silly what ifs and maybes, worrying about things that may never come to pass.
It was beyond unlikely that Tom would ever use the bottle that she gave him. He’d hide it alongside his other various treasures and occasionally bring it out to lord over his fellow gods. He liked being able to show off how she ‘liked him more than the rest of them’, using the bottle would rid himself of that possibility.
Besides, if he did use it, Red could negate its effects in an instant.
Yet, for some reason beyond her, here was Jordan causing her a headache over it. Fine, she could do the ‘rebalancing’ that he insisted.
“Very well,” She said, standing up. She approached the god, slowly and purposefully.
Jordan should not have been intimidated. He knew that she was not about to attack him. She was not so foolish. But seeing such a serious look always did send a chill down his spine.
With her shining skin and freckles, alongside the shards of diamonds, prismarine, and amethyst that adorned her curls and toga, she did not give the impression of a warrior. However, she was the Lady of Fortune. Her favour dictated the results of battles and wars. It was impossible to forget that when she approached.
But she did not strike.
Of course she did not. She was not attempting to start a war. She just wanted to get her point across.
So, she merely smiled at him. “I’ll go give a bottle to Tucker. That’ll keep the balance, right?”
She was taunting him, forcing him to admit that he did not want her to do such a thing.
Jordan glared with a barely controlled seethe. She seemed so damn proud of herself.
Still, Capsize merely smiled.
“Can we drink, Jordan?” It was as much a question as a command. He had rudely come into her temple and acted as if he had any rights over her domain. He should be glad she was willing to talk to him at all.
He looked quite like he was considering biting her head off.
However, that did not stop him from summoning two goblets of wine. He handed her one with a glare and scowl she found laughable.
She took a sip before speaking. It was sweeter than she expected, oddly floral considering what she knew of his tastes, but also far nicer than anything she expected him to conjure when he was in such a mood. “Why do you not trust me to manage my own domain?”
“Because you have never once acted with thought, and continuously favour Tom over myself and Tucker,” He said, in no way elaborating on the same tired points he always made. The same points that did nothing but annoy her as she knew without a doubt that he would have nothing to elaborate on.
He was at full strength. Balance was fine. He just seemed to resent her enjoying herself and not doting on his every whim. “If you could have any amount of care then we wouldn’t need to keep having this conversation.”
“I am careful. Though you would never deign to give me credit, my decisions are in fact made with great thought for how they affect the balance of fortune,” She said, the closest she had come to snapping throughout this whole conversation. He refused to acknowledge her as a deity just as he was. As a goddess that had a purpose and choice behind her decisions. He treated her as acting based only on whims and caring little if they lead to disaster.
She caught him rolling his eyes.
He was a self-centred fool. “If you wish to believe me the impulsive idiot that you continuously imagine, I will not remain here to be belittled.”
She downed her drink, shoving the empty goblet into his chest and caring little as it clattered to the ground. She would not be belittled in one of her own temples.
Maybe it was time to find her brother and discuss if it was time for a shift in the balance of their domains. She would remind Jordan what unbalanced fortune truly looked like.
However, she barely took a few steps before she felt so utterly wrong. Like a newborn fawn on ice as control of her body slipped away.
“I don’t think, I know you act completely on impulse,” Jordan said. His voice was dark in a way that it never had been before. He was approaching her as she stumbled and weakened, ready to take her where she would not be discovered. “But don’t worry. I’m sure we can figure that out in a more private setting.”
As he all but confessed to intentionally doing this to her, Capsize finally tasted the sickly flower. Pure wither rose essence, covered by the sweet wine. A deadly toxin to mortals, but it should be a mere intoxicant to a deity. With her powers of fortune, it should not have had any effect on her whatsoever.
However, Jordan had accounted for her domain. From the beginning of their conversation, he had been inflicting his own on her. Balance dictated that no one should have such a lucky life as her, that she was due a terrible event of misfortune.
She would be asleep soon, though she fought with all her might to remain awake. She did little but delay the inevitable.
She collapsed onto the floor of her own temple, left completely at the mercy of the Lord of Balance.
He stared down at her shining form. The Goddess of Fortune, a prize that had been sought by every warlord across the ages and she was his. Though he attempted to remind himself that this was just to teach her about the damage she was doing and correct the blatant favouritism she had been showing to Tom. However, he could not rid himself of the joy that he gained from having proven the legends wrong.
She was not an undefeatable goddess that controlled the fates of all. She was a fickle minor deity that cared little for the important role that she held.
So, he was going to make her learn. Even if his method was extreme. Even if he needed to do his job as well as hers. The protection of the balance was just too important to allow her to keep acting so selfishly.
⚖ ⚖ ⚖
Capsize awoke with foggy thoughts that were only made thicker by confusion. She had not been so weakened in many ages and the haziness that the poison had forced lingered even though she awoke with a fair amount of her strength returned.
Her eyes fought to stay closed. She was so damn tired.
However, she forced herself to resist, to force her own eyes open. When she finally did. The sight before her was enough to shock the exhaustion out of her bones.
“What…?!” She questioned as she found herself in a cage. A far too small cage on a tiny platform floating in the sky somewhere in the overworld. It was cramped, barely enough room to contain her as while she could sit or stand, she was barely able to do either and it certainly wasn’t comfortable.
Her confusion lasted only as long as it took for her head to clear. Longer than she might like, but her memories of the poisoning ran back into her mind, clear memories of Jordan’s betrayal. The memory itself was horrible enough on its own. One of her fellow gods imprisoning her was a terrible act that she had never so much as fathomed happening.
However, reality was only getting worse as the cage around her began to change. The iron bars glowed with a golden light – her golden light.
A draining sickness ran through her whole body, not painful but lingering. As this horrible feeling spread through her, she could sense fortune being granted to a number of cities of Jordan and Tucker’s followers. Far too much fortune for the current state of things.
As the glow faded, the draining numbness did not subside. Though it was such a horrible weakness, she should’ve been able to recover from it in mere seconds. Instead, it remained, drilling down to her very core. Surely, she couldn’t still be so weakened by the poison, but why else would she feel so empty?
That particular feeling, the wrongful emptiness, put an even starker fear into her.
No. He couldn’t have dared. It would be an act beyond just imprisoning her and using her domain. An act that even with all their arguments she never would’ve believed him capable of committing.
Yet, what little belief she had in him was dashed as she pulled down the top of her toga and revealed a gold fissure in her chest.
“No…” She kept staring in disbelief. He had actually taken it.
Her heart had been stolen.
She had been reduced to little more than a power source for whatever Jordan desired to do with fortune.
She had never been so consumed by anger. She slammed her fists into the bars.
It hurt, despite how the bars seemed to be simply made of iron. She should’ve been able to break them even in this weakened state. Instead, another wave of draining sickness flooded her body.
She forced herself to ignore it as she kept attempting to break the bars. Her desperation to escape overruled her exhaustion. She could not remain here, no matter what toll it took on her in this moment.
Yet, she did no damage to the cage. Not even a mere crack in the bars had been created as she collapsed to her knees, with her energy gone.
She was reduced to kneeling with her head leaning on the bars, shaking as reality descended upon her. What hell had she been placed in?
“Oh, you’re awake,” Jordan’s voice came into her ears with a far too casual tone as he appeared in front of her. Anger bubbled from within her, spewing forth as she looked up to see him smiling as if they were in a regular conversation.
“That’s all you have to say, you bastard?!” She shot back to her feet, launching an arm out towards the god.
She wanted to grab him, to choke the life out of him, to make him suffer the feelings he was inflicting on her. She struggled fruitlessly, attempting to grasp any part of him to gain even the slightest amount of leverage over him. But he stood out of her reach as one would a violent caged animal.
She pulled her arm back, keeping her glare fixed on him. He had the nerve to look shocked.
“I’m just correcting the damage you’ve done to the balance. I didn’t expect you to awaken so quickly, but now that you have, I’m happy to discuss the learning experience I’ve set up for you,” He spoke, ignoring her glare. She never liked listening to him. That is why he had had to resort to this extreme method.
Still, it would be but a moment in their godly lives. A mere uncomfortable moment, and he would be able to inspire her to finally take the importance of her domain seriously.
“Learning experience?! That’s what you call poisoning me?! Stealing my heart, my domain! And using me as a damn battery!” She spat at him, again slamming her fists into the bars. This was nothing short of an act of war. Even imprisoning a champion or messenger like this would be an unthinkable act except for the most hideous crime.
Yet, here he stood casually acting as though he was doing her a favour. As if she was an unruly child that he was justified in putting in time out.
It was infuriating. At least if he was acting like a warmongering bastard then she could be satisfied with the knowledge that the others would quickly realise what had happened to her.
But he seemingly wasn’t going to be making moves against the others. He just wanted to control her.
How long would it take for any of them to notice her absence?
Red would notice, she reassured herself. Her brother would know that it wasn’t her granting fortune in such an extreme way. And he, in turn, would alert the others.
That should’ve been a comforting thought, but she could not bring it to actually be so.
“If you ever listened to me, I wouldn’t have had to do something so extreme,” He said sternly. He had given her more than enough chances to consider her impact on the balance. She had chosen her own whims and fancies time and time again. This was a necessary lesson. Though, he did know how it would look.
This could very easily turn to war if the others found her like this when she was still so angry. None of them understood what it was like to have their domain so dependent on the other gods. They had no idea the sort of damage her fickle interests did to him. “But now you are going to listen.”
“No! You can listen!” She snapped. So many times, she'd been forced to listen to him witter on about the harm she was apparently causing the balance. Never had he ever had an example of harm that she had actually caused, but he wanted her to listen?! He’d taken this situation far beyond the point of just talking. “There is nothing wrong with the balance of fortune! Red and I can feel it! It’s part of us! If it was unbalanced, you’d see the physical effects on us!”
She had no better point to make - there was no other point that she should have to make. It was the same for all the gods, their appearance changed based on the current strength of their domains.
Even when she and Red were in a wave of purposely skewing the balance, they made sure not to weaken the other significantly. She wouldn’t weaken her brother for simple fancies as Jordan was clearly implying.
And her words did cause the smallest amount of hesitation in the Lord of Balance. Admittedly, he could not say that he had noticed either of the siblings looking stronger or weaker than the other. It only stayed for a moment though. After all, he was sure that Capsize’s skin shone brighter than her brother’s.
Clearly, then, something was unbalanced.
She was still just looking to be difficult. He was better off leaving her until she worked her spite out of her system.
“I’ll be back when you’re calm enough to discuss things civilly.”
“No! Don’t you dare leave me here!” She again tried to grab him. The action was just as pointless as it had been previously, but her anger returned thoroughly as he disappeared.
When she got out of here, she would kill him. Damn the consequences, he deserved it.
But he would never let her free willingly. Not when he genuinely thought she posed a risk to the balance.
So, despite knowing how it would drain her, she again flung herself into breaking the bars. She would not be trapped and contained into having to agree with his insanity. She would escape and he would suffer for this.
Her attempts once again proved fruitless, though she did not stop even when exhaustion began tugging. Only when sleep forcefully took over did she finally stop, entering a restless slumber with her forehead pressed against the bars that held her.
⚖ ⚖ ⚖
The shattering awoke her.
The exhaustion, frustration, and anger that had been completely consuming her were vaporised in an instant, replaced by sheer panic. She shot to her feet.
Immediately, she attempted to break the bars again.
She knew that she was attempting an impossible task. If she had been unable to break them earlier when she was at relative strength, what chance did she have now? This cage had been designed just for her. Every thrash was draining. With her heart stolen, she stood no chance at all.
But none of that mattered.
Her thoughts were all consumed by a singular panic. Someone was killing her brother, and she needed to reach him no matter the cost.
It was as if another part of herself was being ruthlessly ripped away. Herself and Redbeard were as much one as they were separate, their domains linked just as they themselves were. Even with all that had been stripped from her, she had still been able to feel him. In her slumber she had felt him trying to nullify Jordan’s actions.
It had always been the two of them. It needed to be the two of them. Misfortune and fortune both needed the other to exist. She was simply not meant to exist without her brother.
But he was dying. Their bond was being haphazardly smashed apart as she could only thrash and scream, unable to reach him.
“Red please!” She begged as if anyone could hear her. As if, if she asked with enough desperation, that if she just kept trying to reach him, he might fight that tiniest bit harder to live. Maybe somehow if she gave every drop of energy she had left to this action, she would be able to break free and reach him.
Had this been any other moment of her life, that is how reality would’ve bent. But with her powers stolen away, fortune no longer acted in her favour.
Far away and out of her control, her connection with her brother shattered. In the same instant, a wave of misfortune billowed out across the lands. A coming terror that none could see but her.
Capsize completely collapsed. Her cries of anguish carried through the night, heard by none but the animals in the plains far below her, but felt by all that had ever been touched by fortune. A haunting wail carried through the night until her exhaustion caught up to her and she was forced once more into slumber.
It could’ve been weeks, days, or merely hours before she awoke again. Once more, Jordan stood before her. Drained and exhausted, she looked up at her captor unable to muster the bite he was rightly owed.
Instead, with quiet numbness, she made the only request she could that would stop the oncoming plague.
“You need to kill me.”
If she was gone, fortune too would be released. The forces would be up to the universe, likely unbalanced and wild, but without a vessel for misfortune, it was the closest she would be able to get to balance. Carrying on her existence with her brother gone would have no point besides pain.
Jordan looked down at her, not having processed her words. He had never seen the Lady of Fortune look so weak.
Her shine was completely gone, her freckles looking more akin to blackstone than gold. Her copper skin had weathered, great patches of it now covered in a blue rust. Even the gems that adorned her seemed somehow faded.
He looked down at her with a building dread. Despite how he was still attempting to deny it, all his thoughts were screaming that her condition was his fault. If even he could not deny it, what would the others think if they discovered her now?
It would look as though he had done everything with the worst of intentions. They would believe that he had wanted to imprison Capsize to merely steal her power. They wouldn’t see the nuance, the necessity. And they would almost certainly believe he killed Redbeard.
Everything had gone wrong all at once. He had to fix this somehow.
“Please. Kill me,” Capsize repeated. This time Jordan heard her, and the request only startled him more.
“No!” He said, horrified at the notion. He would not drop to the level of killing his fellow gods. Even if they had had their quarrels, he did not want to even consider a world where she was just gone.
Capsize did not manage to hold back her sobs. Did he truly want her to beg? Or did he just enjoy seeing her in pain?!
“I shouldn’t exist like this! Without Redbeard, I’ll be forever weakened, and fortune will never be balanced! There isn’t another choice… So please,” She was not above begging if that was what he wanted. There was no pride left in her. She would twist her request into words he would have the highest chance of listening to, make a request that would make him feel justified and heroic.
Anything to escape this grief.
“No,” Jordan said again. His tone was softer now, considering. “There has to be another way.”
He was sure that there would be another way to restore the balance of fortune without having to kill her.
Perhaps the universe was mocking him. After all, he had wished endlessly that Capsize would take the balance seriously. Now here she was willing to make an impossible choice for the sake of balance, but she was requesting something he certainly could not do.
Even though he knew she was correct. Without a vessel for misfortune, balance couldn’t be restored…
Without a vessel…
“I could combine your domains. Make you the singular deity of fortune and misfortune,” He said as the idea cemented in his head. It was perfect. Balance would be restored and Capsize could remain alive.
Capsize, however, was horrified.
“No! No, it’ll take too long! Everyone will suffer in misfortune for centuries! You’ll weaken too! Please, just—”
“It’s okay. Losing some of my strength is a fine enough sacrifice for my part in this,” He assured her, not realising that his words were anything but.
Capsize did not want to survive. She did not want to take her brother’s domain and continue living alone. But she was entirely at Jordan’s mercy. If he was decided on this, there would be no talking him out of it.
But that did not mean Capsize would surrender herself to this horrible plan. She may not be able to escape by force, but she could build up her strength over time.
She would have at least a century before Jordan would be able to do such a thing. That would be more than enough time to gain herself eyes and perhaps a voice outside this cage.
She would escape this imprisonment, avenge her brother, and then restore the balance of fortune. She was content to wait as long as it took. Just as her captor’s, her mind was set.