A GODDESSES PARADISE (girlxgirlxgirl)

28; Matrimonium

"In the end, it was the unity of it all that brought them together. It might be delightful to spend all of their limited time alone, it would give a sense of freedom. But even they could admit that the freedom spent in happiness is better than the freedom spent all alone"

🌿

"You can read that?!"

Isaac looks down at the book in his hands with a frown. Of course he can read it, it's written in his language. Why do they look so shocked about that? And why is there a book in his language, here on the island? It's not like his Greek is anywhere near the Ancient Greek they must've spoken on this island... right?

"Of course I can read it... Why is that weird?"

Thea drags a hand through her hair. Too many things are happening at once. She is both stressed about what happened, thrilled about what happened, and scared of what's going to happen, and now suddenly Isaac can read the old book from their ancient temple that nobody has touched in dozens of years? Everything is positive and all, but it's starting to become too much. She feels dizzy and squeezes her eyes shut. Days of crying silently in her bedroom, throwing around things in her office from rage, arguing with Ariadne and praying for things to get better... only for the answer to be given so suddenly and so perfectly seven days later.

"Isaac..."

She places a hand on his shoulder.

"Our people have been trying to read this book for hundreds of years... it holds the answers to everything, and the answer to how we fix the forcefield. You just saved our entire island"

Irene frowns, glancing down at the book and then back up at her brother and Thea.

"Forcefield? What's going on?"

Ariadne chuckles awkwardly. They have a lot to explain, don't they? She almost forgot that Irene doesn't know about what's going on, the crisis they are facing, and why she was so hated a week ago. She doesn't know any of that, because they simply haven't told her. Goodness...

"The storm around this island, it's a forcefield created by Hera. It was weakened, allowing you and Isaac to enter the island, and now we are threatened by groups of other people from your world"

Irene looks genuinely surprised. The storm can't really be seen from the island. All she can actually see is clear blue sky and miles of glimmering ocean. But it's there, Irene can remember it. The way the wind tore her stolen boat to pieces, her hands gripped what was left of the wood and legs gave out. Going through that storm wasn't easy, not nearly as easy as Thea and Ariadne might imagine right now. The forcefield is not weak, but they are right, it is weakened, because how else could Irene and Isaac have passed through?

She is starting to understand why everyone was staring at her these few days before she ran away. Of course one would be tense if someone was invading their home. It doesn't excuse their actions of course, but it explains it. Irene has seen her own people do much worse things in fear of new people.

"I wish you had told me, things would've been simpler..."

Irene tried not to sound accusing, she doesn't want the mood to sour. But they have to address it sooner or later. The fact that they didn't keep her informed about things that deeply affected her was a mistake, and that mistake ended up hurting her and everyone else really badly. She wouldn't have been able to do anything about the public's opinion, even if she knew. But she would've been calmer, more understanding, and the conclusions that she drew about Ariadne and Thea wouldn't have been so broad and accusing. Overall, she is happy that she ran away and met Isaac, happy that she ran away so that the people realized their mistake and -hopefully- stopped hating her. But it was still wrong for them to keep her uninformed.