Eros and Psyche

vi |thy wings be burned

FIRE HAD BURNED her.

She was to open her eyes upon a boat heading towards the underworld. The warm, tingling sensation still crawled over her skin, yet it seemed Zephyrus had invited spring into her bosom. Maybe it was Queen Persephone's mercy.

But Psyche's world turned upside down when she opened her eyes.

No, she wasn't in the underworld, in a river of lava, rowing a boat. No, she wasn't in Tartarus, bound by chains to hot coal, her skin melting like wax.

She was sleeping over the soft bed of the soil of a green garden, little birds chirping and squirrels nibbling on her dress.

The beast lives in a garden?

She pinched herself.

Yes, I am alive.

A purple tunic with gold dusted over it clinged to her gentle body.

On her left was a crag, similar to the one she had been left at, but way smoother at its edges and with a little castle built upon it. Psyche decided to visit the place.

She would wait for the beast to come and show his true colours.

✴️ ✴

"Is she well and alive?"

"Yes, Master."

Eros heaved a sigh of relief as Zephyrus smiled. "I must go at once to Mother and inform her of my union with Psyche."

"Not done, yet."

Eros stood confused. "You mean?"

"A marriage is half done if unconsummated."

Oh, rules. "Grateful to you for reminding me, Zephyrus."

But she is so gentle.

Eros, even being the God of Love, felt afraid of even kissing her. What if his lips were too atrocious on her enfeebled, velvety body?

"I shall take my leave," Zephyrus said, flapping his wings and gaining height in the skies.

Eros journeyed across the cliffs and deserts, thinking how life made him fall for a mortal.

It was a curse that love made bittersweet. They said, love didn't exist in Olympus.

It could not survive.

"How long will we?"

He had found his love in a sudden act of frenzy, or did love at first sight existed?

Suffering for love is sweet, ain't it so?

He stepped down on the rocky ground. Before night he had to journey back to his palace, in the abode of eternal spring.

"Have you done the job?"

"Yes."

"Is she now in love with the ugliest creature?" Aphrodite couldn't contain her excitement.

"She has married him."

"Ah!" Aphrodite laughed. "This is my best day."

"I should go back home now." He looked down.

Aphrodite held his hand. "Stay, I shall feed you some delicate wine, elevated by the nectar of jasmines."

"I have promises to keep."

She seemed confused by his words. Ah, a God of Love, hard to understand.

"Go, but tell me the name."

Eros stood silent, clenching and freeing his fists. He brushed back a lock of his flaxen hair.

It was the that her green eyes landed on his downy, golden hair.

"Is that a wedding crown on your head, my son?"

The green and blue eyes locked. Breaths hitching and sweat slipping through the robes, the duo stood under the heat of the rising moon. Even the gentlest beams of Selene seemed to agitate the fire within each.

"She was crying, Mother. She just wanted to be left alone, to be with people who loved her and not used her. Her beauty is a curse."

"What did you do?"

Eros shivered. "I promised her myself, the ugliest creature of the world, who even though is a God of Love, could not save a woman from miseries." Tenderness bubbled in the misty night, tears of love drenching the face of Eros. "This marriage is my redemption."

His body toiled across the soil, tumbling over the flowerbed as Aphrodite's push defeated his stance.

"You married a mortal? That too my enemy!"

Dumbfounded was he at the discovery of her disdain and ignorance.

"How could you?" A hollow was dug into his heart, choking his ability to pronounce the name of his mother.

"She will give you up the moment she knows that you are a God!"

He detested her. Getting up and brushing his tunic, he glared at her.

"I–"

"I curse you!"

Dust blinded Eros, his steps faltering. Her thunder made dry, dead leaves swirl around him, the broken wings of butterflies poking his skin.

"I curse you, Eros! Your wings will now be cut, turned to ashes. It will only return the day she confesses her true love. Till then, be chained to the land."

The wings of Eros slowly burned, turning into silvery ashes.