Part Three
Hecate
"The relationships were never meant to be, but I'd always fallen anyway. Over and over and over again."
We look for answers in everything.
In that sense, even gods are outstandingly human.
However, how I fell in love with Eros has no logic. It has no explanation. It has no reason.
But, as I twirl a lock of his platinum blonde hair, his sleeping face looking so at peace, so at home there on my lap, I ask not how I could have fallen for a man born to break hearts, but how I could possibly not. How I could look at his straight toothed smile and not feel my heart melt in my chest, how his quiet snores could softly interrupt the otherwise soundless night and not be the sound that I'd wanted to hear on replay for all of eternity, how his charming laugh could awaken nothing but love in me.
As the goddess of magic, I'd say I'm the most qualified to state that every moment spent with the god of love has been, just that, magical. Only meeting under starlight, when his disapproving mother would be long asleep in hopes of preserving her petty beauty, the two of us had only precious hours with the other.
We had met on a similar night to this one.
The coast of Caithness, a beautiful stretch of land melting into glass like waters, had been rumored to hold unimaginable magic power.
With a blazing sun overhead, still waters, clear skies, and lush greenery adorning the terrain, it was truly a meeting of many a godly territory. A certain energy setting every blade of grass rigidly upright, as if even the vegetation was holding its breath, waiting for an unearthly event to tip the scale of delicate natural balance the coast had become.
I'd felt it as soon as I'd set foot on the land; the magic was everywhere. Though, it was skewed by the presence of a certain god of love staring at his reflection in the water. Naturally, I'd disguised my appearance, knowing of Eros's... unfaithful nature. I'd never met the unfamiliar god before, but I'd heard the stories - his affairs were common gossip among gods, it was impossible to avoid his love life without avoiding western civilization altogether. It was better I knew who he was then vice versa.
My first words to him were scolding, and what followed was the most wonderfully confusing night of my lifetime.
Five months ago, that night was, and I remember it with such clarity it could have been just five minutes ago. Every night thereafter, this has been our secret rendezvous, me still in disguise, having to alter my appearance to fool the watchful eyes of the stars above. I dress as a different dame each week, nothing but another fling for the god of love.
In a way, him never seeing my face was a blessing. I'm certainly no embodiment of classic, delicate beauty - I'm a force of nature, I'm powerful, I bear scars on my skin. I wear ink like sleeves, each tattoo crudely printed on my dark complexion being a symbol of my power. I'm not beautiful, so, in his mother's eyes, I'm an abomination.
So I hide myself with my own magic, draped in the power of midnight.
And he's still fallen, for gods knows what reasons that man has.
Or, possibly, I think to myself, brushing a stray curl behind his ear, he knows just about as well as I do.
That's the most horrible and wonderful thing about love, I suppose.
أنت تقرأ
The Same Stars (#Wattys 2016)
القصة القصيرة"We're apart, yes. But we're held together by the same stars." Miguel - The boy who lost his mother, and isn't quite sure of anything anymore. Una - The mother who lost her wife. Lou - The man whose withering memory still retains the story that str...
