"If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Do you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that can't be filled?" -Jodi Picoult

Your Blood, My Tears

I was still living in Arcadia when I met him. He was young, perhaps eighteen years of age. His eyes were dark brown, almost hidden beneath his crop of sun-kissed brown hair. Freckles were sprinkled across his nose, and sun exposure had made his skin dark.

I think I fell in love with him instantly.

I kept my distance at first, watching him and memorizing his daily routine. In the morning he would draw up a bucket of water from a well and take it in to his family. After eating breakfast, he would go out to tend a small herd of cattle. This job lasted until sundown, at which time he would once again disappear into his house.

Weeks passed before I finally made the decision to talk to him. I ventured into the field in which his cattle grazed, my straw hat shadowing my face. When I drew near, he looked up from where he was sitting and smiled at me. The sight was dazzling, and I felt my courage slipping away. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out.

He laughed, seeing my dilemma. "Hi," he said. His voice was luscious. "I'm Krokus." He paused, and his smile widened. "I was wondering when you would come talk to me. I've seen you watching me for the past few weeks."

I blushed.

"What's your name?" he pressed.

"Hermes," I whispered. "They call me Hermes."

"Hermes? What an interesting name. It sounds like something the gods would name one of their children," he laughed.

I smiled in spite of myself. He didn't need to know that I was, in fact, a child of the gods.

"Would you like to join me?" he offered, patting the space next to him. I nodded, but just as I was sitting down a gust of wind blew through the field. Krokus's hair flew about his face, and my straw hat was lifted into the air. My hair was released, falling down to my shoulders, and the sunlight hit my face, effectively ruining my disguise. I cringed, knowing what was coming.

When Krokus turned to face me, his eyes widened and his jaw fell open.

I knew why.

No mortal had eyes as green as mine.

"You're – you're not human, are you?" he asked, his voice breathless. I hesitated before shaking my head.

The ensuing silence was suffocating.

Then…

"I hope we can still be friends," I said tentatively. "I find you very – intriguing."

I didn't think "intriguing" was exactly the right word, but there wasn't any need to scare him further.

"Okay," he agreed, reluctance filling his voice. "But –"

"Don't worry," I cut across him. "I don't live with the other gods and I don't have their standards. There isn't anything to be afraid of."

"Why don't you live with the other gods?"

"I'm the product of adultery, just like the rest of my siblings," I said with a roll of my eyes. "They don't want Hera to kill me. Or throw me from the heavens like Hephaestus – "

"You're an Olympian?" he gasped.

"Sort of," I admitted and then hastily added, "It isn't that big a deal. You'd be surprised at how similar the gods are to humans. Hardly any of us get along and we never agree on anything. The only real difference is that we solve our problems by smiting each other."

"And you're all unbelievably beautiful," he said in such a low voice that I had to lean forward to hear him.

I laughed. "If you think I'm beautiful, you should see Apollon and Aphrodite. It's hard to stop looking at them."

"What are they like?" he asked, his eyes alight with curiosity.

I bit my lip, trying to decide how to describe my two most beautiful siblings. "Apollo is cold, in a way. He hardly ever gets involved in the family feuds. He's very jealous, falls in love every week, and hardly ever stops singing. He's easy to reason with, though. Oh – and he has a lot of hair." I smiled fondly and then paused, considering Aphrodite.

"Aphrodite's a hopeless romantic. She's vain and self-centered sometimes, but we all love her. She's gentle and caring. The perfect woman, I guess you could say."

"Did someone call my name?" a feminine voice said, and we turned around to see Aphrodite, close up and in person.

Although I had seen Aphrodite several times, I never got over how beautiful she was. She had a rose tucked behind her ear and was sitting with her legs tucked under her dress as though she had been there the entire time. Despite her reputation of being haughty, her face had a sweet-natured look.

"I was just telling Krokus about the family," I responded.

Aphrodite looked at me, then at Krokus, and then back at me. A small smile crossed her face. "You two make an adorable couple," she noted, winking at me. I blushed.

Krokus shot me a smile. "I thought so too."

After that, Krokus was my lover as well as my closest friend. We tended cattle together and invented new games in our spare time. His eyes were always filled with laughter, and I found it difficult to stop smiling whenever I was with him.

I had him memorized – the way he threw his head back when he laughed and tilted it when he looked at me, how his hair naturally fell into his eyes and how he reached out to touch my elbow when he was talking to me. How I didn't have to hide my true identity from him.

There was a night, several months into our relationship, when we fell asleep in in a field beneath the stars. We shared a wool blanket, laying close together for warmth.

At the time, I didn't have a clue that ten gods were up in the heavens, staring down at us in disapproval. Another god was here on Earth, perched up in a tree. His sapphire blue eyes were sparkling with suspicion. He's too young to have already fallen in love with a human, they were all thinking. I had yet to take my place on Mount Olympus.

To this day, I don't know if Krokus's death was accidental or an intervention by the gods. I'll probably never learn the truth.

It happened when we were throwing discus. The goal of this game was to throw the stone slabs as far as we possibly could. Krokus was out in the field, prepared to measure the length of my next throw. "I'm ready whenever you are!" he shouted. So I gripped the discus in my right hand, making sure my fingers were an equal distance apart. I swung my arms in front of me, getting use to the weight, and then took my stance, facing away from the field.

I swung around once, then another half-turn, before releasing the discus. I heard the swoosh as it flew through the air – but the next sound was not one I was accustomed to. Instead of the muffled thud that usually signified a discus hitting the soft ground, I heard a sickening crunch that made my stomach turn.

I squinted across the vast field, dread pooling in the pit of my stomach. My fear doubled when I spotted a lifeless body lying in the grass. "Krokus!" I shrieked, breaking into a sprint. I was at his side in the space of a few seconds, but it was already too late. His skull was crushed in from where the discus had slammed into his head. Blood was splattered across the grass, and small beads were dripping off his head. Lifeless eyes stared up at the sky.

I watched, frozen, as the blood continued to drip.

One drop.

Two.

Three.

And then I blinked.

His body seemed to be becoming more transparent by the minute. I reached out to touch him, but my hand went directly through the body as though it were fog.

Then he disappeared altogether.

In his place was a purple flower. The petals looked delicate enough to break if touched. Three long red stems came out of the center of the flower. Three stems for each drop of blood that I had watched fall.

I blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to fall. Taking a deep breath, I willed myself to appear at Mount Olympus.

Just as I had expected, my eleven family members were crowded together in the throne room. Each and every one of them turned and stared at me upon my arrival. I glared at them. "Which one of you did it?" I growled. I couldn't recall ever being so furious.

"Hermes –"Athena began. Her voice was infuriatingly calm. I cut across her before she could finish.

"Answer me! Which one of you killed him?!"

"It was an accident," Artemis said. "An accident and nothing more."

"You know that's not true!" I shouted.

"I'm sorry for your loss, son," Zeus said soothingly, stepping forward. "And I realize that you feel the need to lay blame. But yelling at your family members isn't going to bring him back."

I wasn't listening.

I had caught sight of Apollo, standing in the shadows with a dark expression. His hair hadn't been brushed and hung down his back in tangles. There were dark circles beneath his eyes.

I pushed aside Demeter and Poseidon and marched up to the archer. "You did it, didn't you?" I hissed.

He shook his head but remained silent.

"Then why do you look like you were up all night?"

"Because I was up all night," he answered in an equally cold voice. "I knew what was going to happen."

"You knew what was going to happen," I repeated. "You knew what was going to happen, and you didn't stop it?!"

"You can't change the course of destiny, little brother. Krokus was meant to die, and so he did. You are still young and have yet to learn the ways of the gods. It is our job to make sure destiny is carried out, not to alter it. You would do well to let go of your grief." He paused, and his eyes narrowed. I had never seen him look so cold. "It is folly to love a human, brother, because we are immortal. You will live forever, watching as others die. Letting yourself care about their fate will only hurt you in the end. We are strong, and they are weak. Their fragility is what makes them so beautiful to us, but to continue to love them would be your downfall." With that, he turned on his heel and walked away. I stared after him, dumbfounded.

Apollo taught me this cold, hard lesson: Gods can never truly love a mortal, because a mortal will die as surely as the night will turn into day. A human's life is like a minute to the gods. They count in centuries. We count in millennia.

Krokus was the last human I let myself love. The attention I now pay to mortals is affectionate, at the most – never romantic. Apollo was right – they are beautiful. Their lives are extinguished almost as soon as they're lit, and yet they accomplish so much in so short a time.

Though I cannot let myself know them personally, I can still love them from afar. I will protect them because their time is short. If they cannot live as long as I, then they can live in relative peace.

Hermes, the Radiant Messenger, is watching over them.

End

"Life is for the living

Death is for the dead

Let life be like music

And death a note unsaid."

-Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems