HYACINTHUS

Chapter Twenty-Five

We crossed the river in order to get to the other side.

And I had a realization.

My feet up to their knees in the water, I glanced at Apollo who had already climbed on the other bank.

I leaned down, crouching. What I was going to do felt incredibly stupid and infantile, but Pythia's face appeared in front of me, stern and unwavering.

"Hello, river nymphs", I whispered to the water. They didn't appear, but I knew they were listening. "I was told to request of you that, should my sister ever be in danger, to protect her. She is a wonderful maiden. Please do your best."

"Do you need help, Hyacinthus?" Apollo asked from the other side.

"I'm coming, I'm fine!" I shouted and swam to the other river bank. I could've sworn I saw a few translucent figures glide away underwater.

"Here!", Apollo exclaimed after we had walked some time.

It was a vast field with low emerald grass. On its left, instead of the forest, began a rocky mountain, that I immediately recognized as Mount Taygetus. It was perfect for games of throwing.

It put my arrow and quiver on the ground, and so did Apollo, laying his lyre on top.

Apollo explained the basics, deminstrating each step while he talked. A wind made his hair fly around, like a golden cloud that constantly fell in front of his eye. With his left hand, he kept flicking the strands away.

"You have to have a firm grip, and a firm stance: left foot forward, but your weight on the right foot, back. Hold it flat, at eye level. Evenly spread your fingers. Touch the rim with them. Extend your arm, swing a few times back and forth, move your weight to the front, and - throw!"

Apollo smiled proudly as he threw with all his force.

The discus flew up, and up, as if the ever-so-stronger growing wind made it fly, cut the clouds! I jumped, trying to predict its parabolic motion, turning around. Where was it? It left it out of sight. I really wanted to catch it the first time, to impress Apollo-

Strike.

A sharp-edged object, its impact strengthened thousandfold from its impressive trajectory, strikes me in the back of my head. I lift my hand, and it feels as if the world is slowing down, my heartbeat included, every moment like a fresco on a wall. The discus falls on the ground. It's colored... red? A carmine liquid drips off it. I want to pick it up.

I try to bend to pick it, and my body feels like it isn't mine anymore, I fall, I fall and I don't know why, it's just a presentiment that keeps nagging me, something has happened...

Do you know that sense of finality humanity has talked about from the beginning of time, the presentience of the end, of death, the moment when all your memories come rushing back, until you wake up in Charon's boat?

It's all a lie.

I couldn't comprehend what was happening. There was just this stabbing pain in the back of my head, and the oddly wet grass below me, and the emerald of it that started turning scarlet around me...

And there was a golden God calling my name, and not just him, although it came from much further, from the sky, I heard another voice screaming: "Hyacinthus! Hyacinthus!", a voice I dreamed of every night...

And there he came! Was this a dream? From Mount Taygetus, shedding human tears of grief, descended a winged silvery God, rushing towards my unsightly being on the ground, wailing my name...

And there came Apollo, falling on his knees in front of me, defiant face turned towards the approaching silvery wind God, reaching for his bow and arrow...

And my throat, filled with spilt blood, was unable to produce a sound, as Apollo cried, his voice cracking under the burden of emotions he had never experienced yet:

"Get lost, Zephyros, you hypocrite!"

And a golden arrow, quick as the rage of the God of Sun, flew towards Zephyros, my beloved, my beloved who came for me, my beloved who was blinded by jealousy, my beloved who... killed me.

Struck in the wing, Zephyros fell to the ground with a cry, while Apollo threw away his bow and embraced me, sobbing tears, tears that were salty and pure, holding my bloody head in his hands, desperately trying to heal me with his powers, his powers that could do naught, for my Fate was sealed.

"Hyacinthus! I... I..."

Apollo put his head on my chest, listening to my heartbeat while he could, and his tears wet my chest through the peplos.

I lifted my hands with the last of strength I had and grabbed his face. I put my lips to his eyes gently, trying to kiss his tears away. That only made him weep more, and tears were falling everywhere, the lake of blood around now mixing with the lake of tears.

He clutched onto me, embracing me tightly, as if trying to pass some of his divine, regenerating energy to me. But it was futile. The string of Fate had been cut by Atropos.

He kissed me all over the face, as if trying to etch each little crevice into his memory, as if he was scared his eyes were going to forget. He knew I was going to be no more. But I wonder, which one of us did it hurt more?

Is there a more beautiful death, a more poetic death, than being remembered for dying in the arms of a weeping, loving Olympian God that is calling your name?

He kissed my lips, his warm ones against mine that were growing cold, again, and again, as if he wasn't satisfied with just one kiss, as if he was trying to instill life back in me.

But he was kissing a dead man, and dead men don't belong to the earthly world anymore.

When he realized, when Apollo realized that I had passed on, his eyes widened, the gold of them turning black in grief, and threw his head to the heavens, letting out an ear-piercing cry of rage and pain and loss, a cry that made the ground shake, not only that of the Earth, but even the grounds of Olympus shook, cracks appearing in the walls of the Olympian Temple.

"Curse the life of immortal gods," Apollo lamented, "when the mortals they love are destined to die! For to remember holding your dying lover in your arms is the eternal condemnation of those who are living!"

Apollo stood up and picked up an arrow. He pierced his forearm, and golden ichor came gushing out, falling amidst my own spilt blood. From the golden droplets, flowers sprouted, the exact color of my eyes, the color that was named hyacinthian.

"Alas, my first love has passed", Apollo cried.  "For eternal remembrance, I create you to honor him and his being; you shall be named after him, flower. Hyacinth."

Never more would Apollo grieve a death as much as that of his first lover, and each new lover would just be an empty attempt of replacing him, first and foremost with his sister Daphne, who in a desperate try to reject his advances was turned into a tree with the help of a few river nymphs.

Zephyros grieved in silence, and some say, by particularly strong wind, one can hear a lamenting melody, as if played by a heartbroken harpist.

At the court of the newly crowned King of Sparta, Argalus, an old servant named Eunaide often goes out in the garden and waters a flower with purple-blue petals, colored just like the eyes of a youth that she considered her son, and that her old heart had felt dissapearing from this world.

When you see a hyacinth flower, and bend to pick it and feel its scent, know that it was born from the union of ichor of a God and blood of his mortal lover.

Who would think that just an unassuming little flower could hide such a tragedy behind its petals?