The Same Stars (#Wattys 2016)

Love Is Fearless

Not knowing.

Not knowing why, just being thankful that it is.

And further proves my theory that love is fearless.

Of all people, I'm in no position to say this. I hide my appearance out of fear of what people more powerful than I would do if I'd revealed it.

But, the fact that love in itself is a powerful enough statement that it has to be hidden speaks for itself.

Yes, we look for answers in everything. But there are none to be found in love. And that's what it makes it such a force to be reckoned with.

Sometimes, love has to be restricted. One sided love, where one takes advantage of another's naiveté, which can't be considered love at all - love twisted with evil intentions is not the same as its pure-hearted cousin.

On the contrary, sometimes love is needlessly hated. Love, believe it or not, belongs to everyone, and upbringing can twist love into a deranged, unnatural thing. Forced one sided thinking can make love something much less noble, poking exclusion into a thing that knows no discrimination.

Love, it is such a powerful statement because it's a refusal to care about anything else than the person you give it to. It's such a strong statement in a world of default hatred and judgement, as it's nonsensical and intimate and purely good.

It's powerful because of how easy it is to not love. It's deliberate to be proud of your affection, even if the falling part seems hopelessly out of your control. Love of yourself, love of anyone, it will all be opposed by those who deny themselves and others of that simple, four letter word, so easy to say but so difficult to explain. We love the wrong people sometimes, but it is not that your love is perfect, it's your refusal to stop loving that is so abrasive, so uncommon,

So fearless.

And it's no easy task, especially when your love faces adversity like my own. I've spent many millennia in question of my own self worth, scrutinized as ugly and strange in the eyes of the more powerful. But, upon the sudden realization that I had the ability to love, I began to wonder -- why could I not treat myself like I treated Iris and Aurora, my sisters not by blood, bound by something much stronger; love. If I was allowed to love others, then why not myself?

Self loathing does not go away overnight, and nor does judgement of others. It's a process of self change as much as it is self acceptance. Soon, I'd come to terms with the fact that I just wasn't that special - that I deserved no more hatred from myself than anyone else did.

How ironic, how the punisher of men has gone on a conquest for love. Though it is true I am merciless, it is only to those of twisted minds, with a worldview so backwards and estranged they'd become unable to recognize human emotion. Upon distributing justice to both gods and mortals, I'd learned that we weren't so different; eternal being or not, it's your choice to love, and, likewise, your choice to hate.

Love is, to some degree, a choice. It's a choice to act on it, for example. And the fact that it depends so much on just that, choice, makes it so terrifying - there's always a fear that you won't be chosen.

But yet here I am, and here he is. The most unlikely pair to become star crossed lovers, fallen prey to an inevitably doomed fairy tale.

And yet here we are, together, knowing that this will end. As a woman who has an endless lifetime, I have a newfound appreciation for deadlines. Maybe this is why mortals tend to be more mentally fragile, living a constantly unstable life, where each breath is a countdown to their last.

A bit morbid, but it's their ephemeral lifetimes that make mortals much more alive than gods could ever be.

And so, sitting here, completely and utterly hopelessly and irrationally in love, I have never kept such close track of every breath, of every heartbeat, never, in a million years, felt so wonderfully human.

Even now, I can feel the natural magic in this place, amplified by the own surreal attraction that swells within my heart. The simple contact of his cheek rested on my thigh is exhilarating, the warmth of his soft breath a constant reminder of why I will never let this love go, even when it's long gone.

I'd anticipated my inevitable introduction with Eros, though in my mind the conditions were very much different. He was the usual lust-driven moral-less man, the literal epitome of those who fell prey to my punishment. My sisters both had encountered him, Iris, being more involved in the goings on of Olympus, had been a witness many a time to his affairs. Aurora, who painted the colors of the sunset as day gave way to night, also caught Eros in the midst of his infamous flings. They both, understandably, held a certain distaste for him. The three of us are all close with Artemis, the eternal maiden that rules the hunt, well known for her dislike of the opposite sex. She could barely speak the god's name, as the man who had won my love had broken the hearts of many others. Under her influence, and from what I'd heard, it was easy to hate Eros.

But then I'd met him.

His looks had been jarring enough to halt my speech, in likeness to that of an angel, of luminous skin and pretty facial features.

Now, I'd punished a lot of good looking men in my time, as evil isn't restricted to appearance. In fact, evil tends to make a person uglier, and I'd always met these men at their worst - when they were raving mad and the darkness buried inside of them burst free. Evil has such an unnerving ugliness that it destroys even the most beautiful features. So it wasn't so much a problem with his appearance, as it was how untouched his features seemed.

It wasn't the unstable kind of untouched, where people are simply unaffected by their horrid acts, or the arrogant kind of untouched, where they were outwardly sure but inwardly unstable.

He was, simply, good.

He didn't say a thing when he met my eyes, simply gazed back at his rippling reflection, forcing me to catch his attention if I wanted to engage with the god. So we sat side by side, the night still with comfortable silence between us, before he caught my eyes with his own and spoke.

The first thing he'd ever said to me was "I don't know what love is anymore."

He'd said it casually, despite the pain his words entailed, which, somehow, made his statement more sincere. Almost like he'd thought of it for a long time, and the question had just been sitting there for him to ponder.

I replied, simply, "I don't know what to make of you anymore."

Slowly, we both got answers to our questions.

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