This work is inspired by a YouTube video posted by Ivoryyy, posted February 18, 2021.
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Crumbling pillars. Destroyed ceilings. The stones that had once proudly stood in my mother's name were now scattered all around the decrepit frame of her temple. The old olive trees stood guard to the deteriorating structure I had once called my home, aged with knots and scarred branches.
I walked up to the trees, brushing my hand against an old trunk.
"I'm back," I whispered, and their leaves swayed in the still air in welcome. I stepped through the grove, the sagging branches skimming my cheeks as they did when they were younger, murmuring their greetings.
"Welcome, child of Athena," they sighed. "Welcome home."
I climbed the stairs into the temple, the once-flawless stone now cracked with age. The sun's setting rays reached between the pillars to no avail as Helios pulled further away across the great expanse of the sky, and before long, I was once again immersed in the familiar darkness, bathed in the cool twilight breeze and moonlight of my youth, all those eons ago. It was time.
I lay on the cool and fractured stone with slow, measured breaths, sinking into its timeless steadiness. Through the space where the ceiling once proudly stood, the stars painted the figures of Orion and Pegasus, dancing across the night sky in the soft glow of Artemis's moon. I closed my eyes, letting out a single breath.
Images flashed in the darkness behind my eyelids. Golden fields, groves of young olive trees heavy with fruit, the salty spray of an incoming ocean tide. Nymphs splashing in sparkling streams, dryads giggling amongst the dancing trees, satyrs with panflutes at their lips. A bright, bright white light...
I opened my eyes, dazzled by the brilliant glow.
"Welcome home, child," my mother's voice rang out, echoed by the clouds surrounding Mount Olympus. "Welcome home."