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Prelude ♰ Nothing Child
INT. OLYMPUS — 2009
He remembers the first time he sees her: pale-gold ringlets and fathomless dark eyes, an eldritch black against the pallor of her skin— not unhealthy, her delicate cheekbones flushed from the cold, salty wind that lashes at anyone who nears the shore; and he remembers thinking there's something harsh about the high contrast in her coloring— but the edges of it are soft and gentle and alluring in their own right.
But right now her coloring is sharp as ever; there is nothing dull about the edges— they are bleeding, cutting, maroon spills down to kiss the marble floors of Olympus.
He has always thought of her as a goddess— immortal, devastating and beautiful, the fine bones of her face ethereal and eldritch eyes almost violet in the light of the chaos that unfolds around them. But gods do not bleed red, they bleed gold; and is whatever pours from the open wound at her shoulder anything but crimson?
She smiles at him, as she always has. He feels a knife in his heart twist; has there been a time where he didn't love her? He's loved her ever since he knew what the word meant, perhaps even before— and this is how she dies? Did it not matter, did the Fates not hear any of his pleas?
He would rather die himself than lose her. She's strong, she'll survive it if he ever leaves her alone, but even the mere idea of losing his best friend, of walking the earth another day without her by his side— is enough to kill him.
He knows it; to love is to die. She is his greatest sin, and now he is paying the price for it. And he can't help but wish she hadn't taken the blade for him, wish that he'd seen it before she did.
He loves her. Shouldn't that be enough? Isn't that enough?
When the war is over, she says, and he feels tears pool in his eyes at the sound of her voice. It has always been melodic, like most of her kind— a sweet, pretty song— but now it is nothing more than an exhale, nothing more than the silent death that creeps around the edges. Lurking, waiting, assured that she will leave him in moments. You should try caramel ice cream. It really is a godsend.
He almost laughs: at the simplicity of what she is saying, the way she's acting as though the war will be over, as though they will win, as though the sun will dawn another day and he will survive to do such a mundane thing as buying ice cream. (Like there'll be a tomorrow that he could bear to spend without her.)
He regrets it now, not trying it with her on all the other times she'd insisted, on all the other times she'd begged him to.
It's never occurred to him, ever, that each moment with her could be his last. In his eyes she has always been there for him— perhaps he has taken her for granted, assumed foolishly that she would live as long as he does and die on the same day that he does.
