Son of Love and Fire

Chapter 16

As the worlds was still veiled with the darkness of night, they decided to rest for the night here and move on to do what it was they came for the next morning. Perseus, as is usual, was in no need of rest due to the energy he gained as the sun set over the horizon as they sailed, despite having been shielded from the rays themselves in their concealment aboard the ship. He therefore sat next to the small fire he had lit in the area where the soft grass of the forest dwindled, and the sands of the beach spread out. In his human form with Erimia's head resting on his lap lazily, Perseus fed the bear, who was now a similar size to him at the moment, the berries and roots he had collected from the area quickly beforehand that he knew she loved to eat but was to impatient to find for herself, rather wanting to quickly hunt some animal she would smell on the way.

Perseus smiled as he alternated between looking down at his daughter, who was relaxed as she munched on the food and enjoyed his hand that stroked from her head down her back repeatedly, and the sea that shone as it reflected the radiant glow of the moon. Despite the moon's light still illuminating the sea he could hardly make out any details, this had caught his attention recently as after spending so long as a young child staring across a moonlight ocean, he had formed a habit in doing so regularly, and usually he could make out every detail of the waves that broke even miles from the shore.

The glow of the moon always fascinated him, only coming second to the magnificence of how the sky was painted with an array of colour at both dawn and dusk. He used to watch the light flitter through the trees and highlight the occasional scampering animal through the wilderness, instead, as of late, when he traversed the forest at night the moon's rays strained to even illuminate the leaves of tree's highest branches and it was a rarity for it to meet the ground itself.

He knew from Hestia that the Titaness Selene, sister of Helios, the Titan of the sun, was the one to pull the moon across the sky throughout the night and it worried him how the light she blessed the Earth with had been diminishing. Unlike the many pompous Gods, Perseus held no ill will towards the titans merely for who they are and rather wished to judge everyone for their own actions, as a result his concern for Selene was not solely due to what would happen if something were to happen to her, but rather her own wellbeing. He had long since wished to meet the twins after having been told stories by his mother that only further fuelled his fascination of both the sun and moon, and he thought that he would be good friends with the two kind titans that Hestia spoke of. Such thoughts were only furthered by the pull and connection he felt to both the sun and moon that his mother and himself, believed was due to his connection with both dawn and dusk.

Perseus continued to stare out over the sea, long after Erimia had finished eating and promptly fallen asleep on his lap, her snores sounding like a cute whine as they always had much to her embarrassment after he told her. It was only as the moon had almost hit the horizon, after it completed what used to seem like a graceful glide but now appeared to be an arduous and exhausting flight across the sky, that Perseus pulled himself away from the sight that was troubling him and back to Erimia. He decided that it would be best to wake her now so that they may make their journey to the town most greatly affected by the plague throughout the dawn as to arrive when the sun was up and the place first awakened.

As the pair began their journey, they slowly wandered through the forest that seemed to be filled with an air of death and sickness. The forest was near silent, only broken by the scuttling of a small animal here and there, reflecting the poor state of the islands inhabitance.

As they usually did when passing through nature, especially if it were in a sorry state such as this, the pair began to feed life back into the forest, bringing back lush green colours within the leaves and grass, along with vibrant splashes within flowers across the soft floor. Perseus had a greater connection to the wild and was therefore having a far greater affect, although such powers were obviously Erimia's strongest as her powers seemed greater than that of the few demigods that Perseus had heard of.