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But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savour rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind.
CIRCE / MADELINE MILLER
You are seven.
You are not dead. There are daisies behind your hair and mud under your nails. A scrape on your knee because you tripped in the forest trying to catch a butterfly. Ma is scolding you as she tells you to sit on the chair; as she bandages your knee and says, Lian, have care. This world is not for you.
Not-for-you. You play the words in your head. You are alive. You are not dead, yet.
You are eleven.
You are not dead. There are no flowers behind your ear this time because you run too much, and they fall off. The mud is there, though, it always is. You like it too — there's so little out there, in the world. Aiaia is better.
Ma takes you to the beach where it's just you two. It's fun, splashing around in the sea, and Ma smiles watching you until you disappear under. A joke, you'd thought. One of Ma's visitors had planted the idea in your head. Funny. That's what you'd planned; to give her a jumpscare.
But it ends with you clutched in her arms, knees sinking into the sand, her tears mixing with the saline water that's soaking your clothes. You are alive, you are alive.
The wind chills you to the bone, and death seems so far away.
You are fifteen.
You are not dead. Sunlight pours from the window. Knees and elbows aching, sweat rolling over your brow, you're bent over on the floor. Ma is teaching how to brew. How to make the medicine that has kept you alive all these years.
There is magic in everything, she explains. Magic made you and magic made me and these flowers.
You don't ask why. These golden flowers sprouted from spilt ichor. You cannot understand it, because you are mortal and destined to die and anything but the divinity that runs through your veins. But it's working; it's giving you the time you deserve.
When the day ends, you know how to take care of yourself. You are alive. You are not dead, but you are dying.
You are older now.
You are not dead. The forest is gone, replaced by a school. Two demigods are pillaging through it and freeing the prisoners, and really, it's all falling apart, and you are coughing up blood in the sink, but you are alive.
You understand that's the only thing Ma ever cared for; that you are alive.
Time is everything.
Lauren Tsai Lian Zhao / WITCH OF AIAIA
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&&&
As Described / All Others
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Content warning: Character death, graphic descriptions of blood, death, gore, eating, PTSD, violence, foul language, recreational drug use, mental illness.
Author's Note:
📍Digging into this story FINALLY because of all the plagiarisers. Pissing me off. Like. I am physically refraining from saying things I actually want to say because I'm SO mad. But anyways. Lian's story is a corruption arc. Apollo's just there making music about her ig. 📍 Making the moodboards for this is a TASK. The pinterest board is so green istg. 📍 Lian's a siphon, lol. Just thought I'd drop the bomb ig.
