The mountain did not feel like land anymore.
It felt like an island floating in an endless gray sea, its jagged spine rising just high enough to defy the flood that had swallowed everything else. Around it, water stretched in every direction, broken only by drifting debris and the distant, fading glow where Matsya had passed with the ark.
Ganesh stood at the edge, watching the horizon blur into rain.
Below him, the world he had walked only days before lay buried beneath restless waves.
Aneet approached quietly.
"The fires are holding," she said. "Barely. The wind keeps fighting them."
Ganesh nodded without turning.
"How many?" he asked.
"Fifty-three," she replied. "Alive. Injured, frightened… but alive."
Keral's voice came from behind them.
"And many more in the water we couldn't reach."
Ganesh closed his eyes.
"Yes," he said. "I know."
The first day on the peak passed in a haze of rain and exhaustion.
Aneet organized shifts: some to keep fires alive, some to gather what little dry wood could be found among floating wreckage that washed close, others to tend the wounded.
She moved among them with calm authority, binding wounds, offering quiet words, never raising her voice.
People began to look to her before making any choice.
Ganesh helped where strength or steadiness was needed — lifting fallen stones, carrying the injured, sitting beside those who could not stop shaking.
Yet whenever he was not needed, he returned to the edge.
Listening.
The fire within him pressed gently, constantly, reminding him that with one fierce act of will, he could try to bend the waters themselves.
Each time, he refused.
Keral watched him from a distance.
"You carry restraint heavier than any chain," the asura said one evening, as they stood together in the rain.
Ganesh answered, "Because once I break it, I may never rebuild it."
Keral nodded slowly.
"In my people's lands," he said, "we would call that weakness. Now… I think it is the hardest strength of all."
That night, a child cried out in terror, waking the survivors from fitful sleep.
He had dreamed of water swallowing him again.
Aneet went to him at once, kneeling and drawing him close.
"It's only a dream," she said softly. "You are above the water now."
"But it's everywhere," the boy sobbed. "It won't stop."
Aneet looked into his eyes.
"Everything stops," she said. "Even floods."
The boy clung to her until his shaking eased.
Ganesh watched from a distance, feeling the weight of those simple words.
Even floods.
By the second day, the rain eased slightly, but the waters did not fall.
Food grew scarce.
They rationed what little they had salvaged.
Hunger crept in quietly, just as fear had.
A group of men approached Aneet.
"We should try to swim for it," one said desperately. "There might be land beyond this."
Aneet shook her head.
"There is nothing but water for many days' distance," she said. "You will not make it."
"You don't know that!" another shouted.
Ganesh stepped forward then.
"I do," he said calmly.
They looked at him, anger flickering in their eyes.
"Then why stay?" one demanded. "Why not save us all?"
Ganesh held their gaze.
"Because I cannot," he said. "And pretending otherwise would only drown more of you."
The men fell silent.
Some turned away in anger.
Some in despair.
But none jumped.
Aneet exhaled slowly once they were gone.
"Thank you," she said.
Ganesh shook his head.
"You would have done the same," he replied.
"Yes," she said. "But they might not have listened to me."
That night, Ganesh dreamed again.
He walked through water that glowed faintly, like moonlight on a vast ocean.
Matsya swam beside him, colossal yet gentle.
"Do you still wish to stop the waters?" the avatar asked.
Ganesh did not hesitate.
"Yes," he said. "Every moment."
The great fish turned its eye toward him.
"Then why do you not?"
Ganesh answered quietly, "Because if I stop this, I steal from the world the lesson it must carry into the next age."
Matsya was silent for a long moment.
Then:
"You understand more than you think, fire-bearer," it said.
"Preservation is not only about what survives.
It is about what is remembered."
Ganesh woke with those words echoing in him.
On the third day, the waters finally began to slow.
Not fall.
But steady.
The waves no longer rose higher.
The roar softened to a constant, weary surge.
Aneet noticed first.
"It's holding," she said, scanning the horizon. "Not rising anymore."
Hope flickered through the survivors like a fragile flame.
Ganesh felt it too — a subtle shift in the pulse beneath the world.
"Matsya is nearing the end of his path," he said.
Keral clenched his fists.
"Then this nightmare may yet break," he said.
That afternoon, a woman collapsed from exhaustion.
Ganesh carried her to the shelter of a rock, placing her gently among the others.
As he rose, she caught his wrist weakly.
"Why are you doing this?" she whispered. "You don't even know us."
Ganesh looked at her.
"I know what it means to be left with nothing," he said. "That is enough."
She closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks.
"Then may whatever gods you serve remember you," she murmured.
Ganesh smiled faintly.
"I walk with them," he said softly. "But I serve no one."
As dusk fell, a strange light appeared far across the waters.
A golden arc on the horizon.
Aneet climbed to the highest rock to see.
"It's him," she said. "Matsya."
Ganesh joined her.
They watched as the distant glow slowed, then gradually faded, as if sinking into the world itself.
"The ark has reached safe ground," Ganesh said.
Aneet closed her eyes briefly.
"Then something remains," she said. "That's enough."
That night, for the first time since the flood began, the rain stopped.
Clouds still covered the sky, but the silence that followed felt almost sacred.
The survivors slept more deeply.
Ganesh sat at the edge again, feeling the fire within him settle.
Not gone.
But at peace.
Aneet joined him, wrapping a blanket around both of their shoulders.
"You've barely rested," she said.
He smiled faintly.
"Neither have you."
They sat in silence, watching the endless water shimmer faintly in the darkness.
"Do you think this is what eternity feels like?" Aneet asked quietly. "Watching worlds drown and rise again?"
Ganesh considered.
"No," he said. "Eternity will be walking after this… when no one remembers the flood, but we still do."
She nodded slowly.
"That may be harder."
"Yes," he agreed. "But we chose it."
They fell silent again.
Above them, the clouds began to thin.
And for the first time since the sky had fallen into the sea, a single star pierced through.
Small.
Steady.
Unmoved by the flood below.
Ganesh looked at it and felt the fire within him glow softly.
Not to burn.
To remember.