He hates her the minute she pries the sin-stained lid off his heart. Cracking Pandora's Box. Haunting hell screaming forward, reducing his world to dust and ash and her.
The ice princess, swaddled in skin-tight apple red and white zinfandel flower. Standing cautious, pomegranate pout with the twitch of a smile, ivy eyes widening in horror, perfectly swizzled pony teasing the skin of her neck.
She is Pandora.
Puck never told anyone, but he really like story hour at the library as a kid. Scrunched into a tiny ball of little hands, arms, legs, and toes, he waited with baited breath for fantasy to whirl restless spirits and souls into his imagination. He heard the textbook story of Pandora. The one where they tell you that she was hell-fire in a box, never meant to be released to ensure the Greeks' lives without hitch. They never tell you that she is the definition of beauty on earth.
He was twelve when he found that out. Nestled into a crook of the library chair, the big one that swallowed you whole into a new world of never has beens and might become withs and wait till you see this-es, he found her. Pandora.
A gift to mankind, wrapped delicately in this box. Nothing special on the outside. All the essence of her on the inside. In the tale, Prometheus steals fire for man and then is punished, but you also find out that his punishment was none other than man's disability to cope with her.
At twelve he couldn't cope with her. And then unlucky again at sixteen.
And now after a stint in juvie, he watches her spin epic fairytales romances without him. True, he was never meant to be her prince. But he more than anything wishes that he hadn't been Prometheus either. The dumbass that fucked up her life royally, letting her loose to destroy and conquer without questioning as to whose life would be the first at the guillotine. If he had known, then he wouldn't be chained to yonder mountain top, getting his fucking liver scarfed out.
Fucking Prometheus. What a douche.
And that guy. He stands there stupidly watching her perfectly glossed mouth like it holds gospel. And her eyes that could like, fucking, solve world peace or something that drastic. Once Puck was that guy, staring stupidly at her. And if he's completely honest, he's still that guy standing there stupidly.
She rules so easily over the subjects, back in place. Even has a prince on her arm to match her hair and eyes and mouth. But she is really all he sees. Other than the desolate plain coated in ash and dust.
Pandora, fierce and unrelenting. The perfect display of all he's known as beauty since he was a twelve year old boy cuddled in that chair. The only difference now is that there are no chances of never has beens and might become withs and wait till you see this-es. Those have past, and this is all there is now.
Ash. Dust. Her.
And in his twelve year old imagination, it's different. They take that chance and don't look back. He wishes at twelve that he could have warned him at sixteen about that box.
About Pandora.