Italics is past.
Aster, once as morning star light on the living you shed,
Now, dying as evening star, you shine among the dead…
Chapter 1
She doesn't scream when she falls from the sky, she just stares at the sun to which she flew so close. The drops of melting wax run in slow rivulets down her back. It burns, it hurts, but she doesn't scream. She just stares at her father, the man who's trying to control his wings, trying to fly after her to save her from her imminent death.
Has he forgotten?
That she can't die?
That his wife had a dalliance with a strange man—a man masked who took a promise from her to not see his face—before she married him. A man who rules underworld and is seldom invited to Olympus.
Has her father forgotten that her veins don't carry his blood but a god's ichor?
That she, Elena, is the daughter of a god?
She closes her eyes and refuses to cry even when she thinks she can hear her father scream her name over the wind. She will not die, she knows.
He has to live.
He can't go back to the labyrinth.
He just can't.
When she opens her eyes, she notices that she is inside a modest hut, laid over a bed of something soft. Her body hurts so bad that even the throbbing from the wounds that wax left on her back is not noticeable.
Has she been saved?
Or is she dreaming, still lying broken and golden in some field?
She tries to turn, but finds that her body doesn't obey her at all.
How long will she remain like this?
And where is she? On whose mercy? Who has witnessed gold seeping out of her injuries, betraying her secret?
'Oh, you're awake!'
She is definitely dreaming, for she has dreamt about this voice so many times.
She is scared to look at his face, so before he comes in her line of sight, she closes her eyes tightly.
'Who did this to you?' he asks, but all she hears is the promise that this voice once made to her.
'We will find a way, Elena.'
It can't be him, she knows, but hope—hope is a treacherous poison that she finds suddenly running in her veins to reach her frozen heart, making it beat faster in anticipation.
It can't be him?
She saw him fall to his death when—
'I know you're awake,' he says as she feels him sit beside her head.
She smells paints and clay and turpentine and it is all so familiar that her treacherous eyes open on their own accord.
What is this?
He still looks the same. The same blue black hair, eyes the color of summer sky, skin the same pale color for which she used to tease him once, familiar claret lips that she remembers staring at, dreaming about.
'Who are you?' she asks in a trance.
She is sure she is dead, for he can't be alive.
Is this the respite her head is going to give her before she is thrust back into her immortal body, her broken psyche?
'I don't know,' he says. 'They call me Pygmalion.'
Damon. She wants to scream. His name is Damon. Her Damon. Damon who died when her father pushed him off from the highest tower of Athens.
One crime for which she can never forgive herself or her father. A crime for which she has paid thousand fold, and yet, here he stands, hale and whole, the same kindness in his eyes, the same smile on his lips.
'Damon,' she whispers. 'I'll call you Damon.'
Maybe he doesn't listen, or maybe he doesn't care. He leaves a bowl of liquid by her side and gets up to walk out of her sight.
The feverish dreams claim her again. Her eyes close and she is again in the labyrinth, running away from the center, towards the opening she can never find…
She catches the eye of Niklaus of Aegean in the Athenian court where she sometimes makes an appearance to persuade her father to leave behind the higher intellectual pursuits and relegate his attention to ordinary things such as eating.
She knows they whisper about her in the court and in the corridors of the palace. Goddess, they call her. Reborn Athena, reincarnated Aphrodite.
She scoffs when she hears them talk, when they lower their eyes in reverence when she passes. For she knows she is no divine being. She has no virtues, no cruelty that gods call their own. She is a simpler creature, one whose world revolves around reading and taking care of her genius, albeit forgetful father.
But their whispers aren't too far off the mark. She may not be an actual goddess, but she's the daughter of a god.
A very important god.
One who calls all the riches beneath this earth his own, one whose lordship extends over all souls when they leave their mortal shells, one who calls death his own, one who sometimes calls on his only progeny to alleviate the loneliness of his underworld court.
Hades is his name. The god who fell in love with her mother, a Nexonian princess and claimed her for his bride on the promise that she won't try to look at his face. He came to her in the darkened night and tried to love her as much as his frozen heart was capable of.
But humans, they are always curious about the things that are forbidden to them, aren't they? Her mother too chanced a peek at his face one dark night when he'd been sleeping, frightened off by the tales of her monstrous husband that her sisters often whispered in her ears.
A drop of wax from the lamp fell on the god's cheek and he vanished, leaving behind her mother who'd already been pregnant with her, discarding her for all her days to come.
She's inherited her frozen heart from him.
A heart incapable of feelings.
So, when Niklaus of Aegean chances a peek at her, the luminous maiden that people whisper to be a goddess, he wants her for his own. His priests, they whisper in his ears, she could bring the wealth back to his land.
She dislikes Niklaus of Aegean. He stares far more invasively than he has right to. He looks at her as if she's something to eat, to devour. She dislikes being ogled like one would a broodmare. She often hides in the library to escape his roving gaze.
And it is one such occasion when she meets him—her Damon.
When awareness returns to her, she finds her eyes opening to the dark. The night has fallen. She can smell the heat slowly leaving the leaves outside this hut to form drops of dew. She remains immobile and tries to take deep breaths to assess her recovery.
Breathing no longer hurts too much.
She moves her fingers, gauges the state of her bones.
The area around her remains dark.
Where is he? Did she conjure him again as she had all those times before in the labyrinth?
She might have, she decides. After all, she's afflicted with her godly father's ennui and madness.
She pushes against her bed of softness and sits up. There is nothing much to look around save for walls of dried soil and thatch. The only soft thing inside this barren space is the fox pelt on which she has been sleeping since she was brought to this place.
She tries to stand up, unaware that muscles in her leg are still torn, the bones still new and weak from regeneration. She falls. It is not unexpected. What comes as a surprise to her own self is the cry of pain that escapes past her lips.
This pain is nothing like the pain she received daily at the hands of Niklaus and his priests. Flashes of scorpion stings, gleaming bronze daggers and scores of fire ants rush past her eyes. She wonders why she screamed right now.
Is it because she hopes he would come running to check up on her—her Damon?
And he does.
In the darkness that she has learned to fear during her stay in the labyrinth, his strong arms encompass her frail self. He picks her up and lays her back on the fur.
'Don't try walking yet,' he says gruffly. 'You'll only hurt yourself.'
His eyes may not see her face properly in this shadowed corner, but she sees him. Her demi-god eyes, she's never been thankful for them but she's now.
Dust clings to his hair which flops on his brow; drops of sweat have made a trail from his forehead to the edge of his jaw. His blue eyes seem distracted and his mouth is pressed in the straight lines of irritation.
'I've work to do. Call for me if you need something.'
He walks away.
She just lies there and stares after him, still unsure whether he is real or a figment of her imagination.
The library of the Athenian palace is a sacred place. Nobody dares enter it for variety of reasons. Some say goddess Aphrodite cursed a maiden who eschewed her worship and decided to spend all her time amid rolls of papyrus that detail the works of historians of repute such as Armathas and Orier. Some say Artemis beheads any man who enters its halls for this was the place where the rogue who chanced a peek at Artemis' naked form took refuge. Others fear the wrath of Apollo and many cower at the prospect of offending Zeus.
Elena has no such fears. Her father Hades' wrath keeps her safe from the eyes of all her godly relatives.
And so, she often hides in the library, and loses herself in a tale of courage and ambition or frustrates herself while trying to understand the working of one of her father's numerous creations.
She has never chanced a peek at any other being in this place. No god, no human or a being from underworld.
So, it comes as a surprise when she finds her usual place occupied by a male deep in thought while he gazes at a lone peacock feather.
'How can these be eyes?' he asks.
She is stumped.
Without turning in her direction, he beckons her closer. She can do nothing but do as he silently commands. The force of his bizarre behavior has erased her normal response in situations such as these.
'See the brilliance of colors?' he asks. 'The indigo and the green? And that sheen of copper and yellow? No eyes have so many colors.'
'These are the eyes of Argus, of Hera's faithful giant, hundred in numbers, so that he could keep Io away from Zeus,' she blurts.
'See that's the story, but do you really think that's what happened?'
'Yes,' she answers immediately. 'My father Hades says Aunt Hera is generous when it comes to those who serve her.' The moment the sentence is out of her mouth, she claps a hand on her mouth to shut herself up. She's never told anyone about her godly father before. People hazard guesses and they whisper, but nobody knows that she really is the offspring of a deity.
She can't believe her stupidity. Why did she say all that?
Is it because he looks like the statues that her uncle Hephaestus carves in his moments of peace and gifts to her father? Beautiful perfect beings with kind eyes and an easy grin?
'Hades, eh? I'm Damon, and one of my ancestors I believe was the son of Athena.'
Years from now on, she's still going to remember the massive stone pillars with leaves carved at the base, one that she's been staring at to avoid looking at him. She's going to remember the way sunlight filters in from the lattices and dust motes play in it jubilantly. She's also going to remember the way he steps in her line of sight and she's forced to gaze at his face, in his blue eyes.
'Do you often come here?' his lips are curved in a smirk and she deduces that he's the kind of male that her aunts have warned her about, ones who steal your heart when you aren't looking, but before this day she has never had any reason to listen to her aunts harp about males and their desires because of her adamant belief that she lacks a heart.
That non-existent heart is pounding in her chest and she feels warm all over as if she's taking a bath in warm springs.
'I'm Elena,' she hears herself whisper shyly. 'And I'm always here…'
When her eyes open again, it is morning. She can feel the heat of sun from behind her closed eyelids.
'You need to eat this,' he says as he comes near her soft bed, holding a steaming bowl. He smells like trees and dew, like sunlight and warm stone.
His blue eyes twinkle when she meets his gaze.
'You never did tell me your name,' he says.
'Elena,' she squeaks.
With a smirk he leaves the concoction for her and walks out. He seems different in the light of the day. Younger, relaxed and having no memories of her at all.
If this all is real—she still believes that this is one elaborate dream created by Morpheus to trap her in sleep but still—then she is certain he is her Damon.
He can be no one else.
This time when she laboriously sits up, there is no one to caution her to not get up. She plants her feet on the ground and tentatively puts her weight on her legs. She stumbles and pain shoots up from the base of her feet to the very tip of her fingers, but she endures it. Walking takes deep breaths and painful grunts on her part, but she persists.
When she walks out of her temporary place of stay, green is all she can see.
Tall, thick, brown trunks of trees that look ancient and their branches reaching up to heavens, adorned with leaves old and new, flowers of soft white and yellow. The grass at the base of their roots gleams when sunlight filters through canopy, falling on perfect drops balanced precariously on the steep, sharp edges.
He is polishing a stone in the light of the sun, the movement of his hand rhythmic and certain as if he has done this thousand times before. Surprisingly, his gaze is not on the subtle luminous surface of the basalt, but at the distant trees that sway slightly on the song of the wind.
She should go back inside. He looks lost in his thoughts and somehow it seems an imposition to intrude upon him and his thoughts.
She takes a step back and his head suddenly moves in her direction.
'Elena?'
The way he says her name is so reminiscent of the scant days she desperately wants to relive again that she is robbed of her voice. He is her Damon. And he is calling her name again.
He is not dead at the base of the tower, his body broken like one of her father's inventions. He is her Damon, and he is somehow alive.
'Would you like to join me?' he asks.
She nods for she doesn't trust her mouth to not utter something stupid…
She meets him in secret, in the alcoves where dust clings to ancient tomes and the rustle of papyrus whispers about dark, dangerous secrets. In the beginning, it is innocent—the curiosity they feel about each other. Days pass in blur, in euphoria of having someone else with whom they can discuss things they've read about, or things they find irrational and weird.
A touch on palm, a stray tendril pushed behind her ear, a lingering gaze on her part—it's all innocent in the very beginning. But as days pass and Niklaus of Aegean shows more interest in her, she finds herself escaping the court to hide in the library where she knows Damon will be waiting for her.
Her father is too enamored with the sadistic ruler of Aegean and his quick, glib tongue to see beneath the façade Niklaus projects. Ego and pride have always been her parent's glaring faults and she has never hated his mortal shortcomings until now.
The chance to design the world's most intricate labyrinth for Niklaus of Aegean is a chance her father can't pass. He spells it out for her in clear terms. She listens to him and nods once in acquiescence before retreating to her chambers.
Her father departs for Aegean the same night.
From the very next day, she dutifully entertains Niklaus of Aegean and his cronies, playing the submissive, obedient daughter. The complain of discomfort never passes her lips when Niklaus holds her a little too tightly, when he roughly pinches her skin when no one's looking when she refuses to let him taste her lips.
She stops going to the library.
She won't show her face to Damon, she decides, until she's worked off the debt she owes her father for rearing her.
She can't let him see how pathetic she truly is, how mortal, despite being a god's daughter…
The sun is slowly sinking beneath the horizon.
They are still sitting amid the pieces of stone.
'You should go inside,' he says suddenly, turning in her direction, looking at her with an unexplained emotion in his eyes.
'It's not too cold yet,' she deflects. She wants to stick by his side. Even if this is a dream, she is happy to be in his company.
'Who are you?' he questions after moments of companionable silence. His question isn't accusatory, but her heart speeds up in dread. Will he tell her to leave his sight if she reveals her identity?
'I'm E-Elena,' she answers hesitantly.
'A goddess?' he counters.
She lowers her eyes, bracing herself for the demands, and the greedy aspirations that often follow the assumptions.
'You were bleeding gold. You have to be careful in these parts. Mortals have turned savage in absence of miracles…'
And that is it. He doesn't say another word on the topic and they sit in silence, watching the sun set, painting the erstwhile blue sky with pink, orange and yellow.
She's never before seen such beautiful sunset.
'I don't remember my nights,' he says suddenly. She looks at him in confusion for she doesn't understand what he means.
'When sky turns Prussian and daughters of Eos light up the sky, I go to sleep and he awakens…'
It's a two shot and pretty weird. I thank you for reading my bizarre words…