Tartarus was standing in his bedroom balcony, which provided a splendid vista of his realm. Truthfully, the bedroom was his least used room. It was merely built in his palace for decorative purposes. The pit god never really slept. Not in his palace anyway.
The warm draft carried the scent of fire and brimstone and the symphony of wails to him. He basked in the wicked madness like a cat under a sun beam until a foreign scent invaded his senses – the scent of waterfall mist and pine woods, of sweet fruits and fragrant flowers, of rain forests and arid deserts, of summer wind and winter snow. There was only one being in the entire cosmos that possessed such a wondrous perfume.
"Tartarus," a soft voice called from behind. Tartarus swiftly turned around, his eyes wide, as though Zeus' strongest bolt had struck him. Impossible, he thought. But he recognized that voice. It was a voice that never ceased to haunt him.
"Gaia?" Tartarus breathed. It was no trick of the light. The goddess was standing like a vision in his bedroom doorway. He gulped his throat suddenly dry. It was impossible. "How are you here in the Underworld?" he rasped.
Gaia grinned as she ran towards him, tackling him in a sudden embrace. Her touch proved she was corporeal and this was blissful reality. "Tartarus," she gasped his name as if she could breathe for the first time. "Tartarus!"
The pit god returned her embrace just as tightly. "How?" he choked in disbelief. "You're not supposed to be here. You can't possibly be."
Gaia shook her head. "Hades needed my help to rebuild Elysium. But does it matter? I'm here now," she said. "Even for a little while."
Tartarus cleared his throat as he tried to compose himself. "It's been a while yet I can see you have no problem clinging onto me like a drowning woman. So I am irresistible," he remarked jokingly.
She slapped his chest. "You haven't changed, you insufferable braggart."
"Ow! Neither have you, you violent goddess," he laughed, placing a kiss on her temple and giving her a firm squeeze.
They stayed like that for a while, holding each other in silence. They relished in each other's presence, taking in everything the other had to offer – from the sound of their heartbeats to the warmth of their skins. They weren't holding each other to memorize one another. They've already done that. Now they have simply returned to the person and place they called home.
Gaia grasped a fistful of the clothes on his back. "I've missed you. I've never stopped thinking about you," she muttered breaking the silence.
"It's unbearable isn't it?" he replied, closing his eyes and breathing in more of her foreign yet familiar scent. "It's the finest torture."
She nodded. "Sometimes I wish you didn't haunt me as much. The time apart from you is agonizing. How many millennia has it been? Five? They seem to have blurred."
"Five thousand three hundred and sixty-seven years."
"You've been counting?" she asked, pulling away a little.
He looked away and answered, "Not particularly. I'm just brilliant in math."
Gaia laughed. "You are such a liar. You've been counting!"
Tartarus smiled and stared into her eyes – the earth reflected in each strand of color in her eyes. "Yes, I've been counting," he admitted quietly. "But I'm still brilliant at math."
"You forgot eight months and fifteen days," she added, giving him a chaste kiss. "And you said you were good at math. It turns out I'm better."
"Apparently time doesn't blur as much as you thought for both of us." Tartarus smirked before he leaned and whispered into her ear, "Are you sure you're satisfied with just that kiss?"
"No," she answered, grabbing a fistful of his hair and pulling him towards her in a passionate and hungry kiss. Tartarus returned the kiss with his own fervor, deepening it with every passing second. It has been too long since they've last tasted each other.
Gaia hooked one leg behind his waist to pull him closer. Tartarus responded by grabbing her leg to steady her. Even when they were flush against each other, even with every inch of them touching, they still longed to be even closer. Finally they broke the kiss, both of them breathing hard.
"Take me," she begged, cupping the side of his cheek, their foreheads touching. "Take me right now."
Tartarus quietly shook his head as he brushed the stray strands of hair from her face. "You know we can't. We can't anymore."
Gaia bit her bottom lip. "This is too cruel. I do not know when I'll ever see you aga—"
He cut her off with a gentle kiss, nibbling her lip as he did. "Shh," he hushed softly. "Don't talk about destiny. Don't talk about the inevitable. Don't talk about walking away. Don't talk about leaving. Just let me relish this moment like this." He swept her up in his arms and sat on the edge of his bed with her perched on his lap. Her soft and delicate form fit perfectly within his strong grasp.
Gaia buried her head on the base of his neck and sighed in dismay. "It's our fault isn't it, this boundary between our realms?"
Tartarus combed his fingers through her long earthy green hair. "It's not our fault. It just is. But if you just marry someone else and forget about me, perhaps you could finally find your happiness."
She hit him again, this time knocking him hard. "What are you saying? I was married to Uranus yet even then you held my heart in your hands. Don't tell me to marry anyone else and smile for the sake of pretense. I do not want to pretend to be happy. I want to be happy." She raised her eyes to lock with his. "What else can I do? I have killed to achieve this elusive happiness yet the harder I try to possess it, the further away it slips it seems."
He pursed his lips and sighed. "It was us. Do not try to burden that sin all alone. You could not have done it without me." Tartarus folded his hand in hers, their fingers interlocking with each other. "You cannot stay here and neither can I with you. Our meetings are few and far too brief but don't fret, I would wait five thousand years more to see you again."
"So would I," Gaia nodded, tears welling in her eyes. "What I wouldn't give for us to become like Nyx and Erebus." She looked up and traced a finger along the contours of his face. "How do you do it? How do you bear this inescapable longing?"
Tartarus tightened his hold and closed his eyes. "I don't. I tell myself every day that you hate me. I would believe it with all my heart. I make myself colder, crueler, and more ruthless as I immerse myself in my deathless duty until I can somehow convince myself that I do not care about you. But then a day like this happens…" He paused and slowly opened his eyes, letting his gaze fall on her. "You hold me and kiss me with such palpable desire," he continued as he let go of her hand to trace her lower lip with a feather light touch. "And all my self-made illusions melt away as if the centuries I spent creating them were nothing."
Gaia sat up straighter, ghosting her tongue along the trail he drew on her lip. "But I can never—"
Once again he cut off her protest with a kiss. "Don't… shatter the only reason I give myself that saves me from falling apart. Just tell me you hate me before you walk away," he whispered so softly it was almost inaudible.
Gaia felt her heart breaking as though her heart had turned into jagged crystals trying to move in weak, quivering beats. The bitter tears that have pooled in her eyes finally fell like a steady stream. "So we have become like this. Has my hatred become your salvation? How long can this lie sustain you?"
Tartarus smiled and shook his head. "I do not know. But once it ceases to be enough, then I shall try to sleep. Perhaps in the realm of dreams, I shall find you there."
She enveloped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer until their noses touched. "Then I shall hate you. I shall hate you with a burning passion to rival your flames. You will be the first and last thought of my day. You shall be my obsession, my fantasy, and my sin." She kissed him again, slowly at first as she let it escalate to searing ecstasy. They fell back into the bed as they became consumed by one another. When she had her fill of him, she broke the kiss and whispered breathlessly, "But in exchange, I want you to never stop desiring, craving, and loving me. I want to be branded and carved in every single crevice of your being. Do you understand me?"
"Aren't you quite the dictator?" He panted, still caught in the haze of her kiss. "How can you expect me to stay sane after such a request? Do you not know that the mere touch of a strand of your hair, the mere whiff of your scent, or the mere memory of you can easily become my undoing? Your name alone drives me mad."
"Your sanity is the least of my concerns. I want you as my prisoner!" she growled. "I will never let you go therefore I expect that you won't either." Her expression and voice softened as she continued, "Because Tartarus, can't you see? I am a bound to you. I count every sorrowful sunset that you're not with me. When I close my eyes, I feel your phantom arms around me and then I pretend that there is no distance between us. But my fantasies can never hold a candle to this moment when I can feel your scorching warmth under my fingertips." She laid a hand above his heart, smoothing over the planes of his rippling muscles. Ah, he was so powerful, so deadly yet so beautiful – the realm of the unrighteous dead. "So hold me close my faithful warden, I beg of you, even if it is only within your thoughts."
Tartarus laughed. "Then you are fortunate. I am infamous for being inescapable." He flipped her over and reversed their position. Her long locks splayed over the red satin blankets. "I will keep you close and feed my flames with my need and greed for you. You will feel my heat from where you are and then you will never have to pretend that I'm with you because I will be."
Tingles of pleasure ran up and down Gaia's spine at his words coupled with his intense stare. "Such bold promises, my love," she replied, stretching her hands languidly above her head.
"Do you doubt them?" he asked, kissing the spot just below her jaw.
"How could I?" She shivered as she angled her head away to give him better access. "I remember those days when you had devoured me in this same bedroom like it was yesterday…"
Tartarus hummed as he continued to give her neck his attention. She slowly brought her hands down to rake her fingernails through his hair, massaging circles into his scalp. He wanted to take her, to relive the memory she spoke of, but a force paralyzed him, preventing from moving any further. He grunted in frustration and defeat.
"…but we can't anymore," Gaia continued, hollowly echoing his earlier words. "I can offer myself to you and you can long for me but nothing will ever happen between us now." She turned her head away from him, her hair falling over her face like liquid. "I hate it. I'm dying from my need of you yet I can never quench it. We're even forbidden to see each other except for miracles like this. Had I known this would happen, I would have never goaded Cronus into killing him."
"Gaia," he called her name as he gently turned her head around to face him and smiled. "This is a price I am willing to pay. For the thought of him sleeping with you, the thought of him laying a heavy hand on you, and the thought of remaining your secret lover were more unbearable than not being able to touch you any more than this. That was a madness I could never continue to take."
She nodded silently before Tartarus shifted to lie beside her. Again they fell into that comfortable silence as they wrapped each other in another embrace, their eyes locked in a steady gaze. They stayed like that for a while as though time had ceased to flow between them. Their quiet peace was broken when a fresh stream of tears suddenly trickled down Gaia's face. "…I have to go. My time is up," she whispered despondently.
"So soon?" he asked, wiping the water in her eyes with the pad of his thumb.
"I had delayed the making of Elysium for as long as I was able yet Hades had been quite impatient," she answered quietly. "I hurried here as soon as I could but now Elysium is complete and I must go."
"Yes, that boy has great plans for us," Tartarus said with a sigh. "The young master of Chthonia."
"I wish I could have seen it." Gaia laughed through her tears. "How the naughty rebel son of Chaos stomached to genuflect to my grandson."
He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Genuflecting to him does not change who I am."
"No. I guess not," she replied, nuzzling her nose against his. "I'd be disappointed though if you do not give him a little bit of trouble. It would be wholly unfair to all of us who had to put up with you."
Tartarus smirked. "I don't give trouble. I give color to an otherwise monotonous immortal life."
"Ha! I have never heard of a more obvious lie. You do give trouble... but then it is true that you also paint an array of colors in my life. With you, I have tasted the darkest depths of despair and the pinnacle of ultimate euphoria." Gaia grinned, placing a hand on his cheek. "My life would never have begun without you… and yet I find myself leaving you once more."
"And I can never stop you from walking away." Tartarus answered. "It is painful but—"
"— It's inevitable," they both said at the same time. Those words seemed to have a living weight as wave after wave of sadness consumed them. Their cruel destiny, which they have realized a long time ago, crushed them mercilessly. They could never be together no matter how much they longed for each other. They live in two different realms and led two very different lives. She was a life-giver while he was a death-dealer. Love was forbidden for beings like them. Their union had created nothing but destruction and strife and thus the Fates had pulled their threads apart. They had declared a law that separated their realms forever.
Gaia slowly stood up, her movements mirrored by Tartarus. "This is goodbye then," she breathed giving him one last hug.
"Until we see each other again."
She smiled at that. Could the Fates allow them to meet like this again? She would never know. This could perhaps be their last meeting until the end of time. "I shall begin my torment anew and I shall hate every moment of it. I shall direct unto you – the source of my despair – the weight of my sorrow."
Tartarus nodded. "And I will be here, thinking of you and remembering you."
Gaia slowly pulled away, her form already fading. "Goodbye," she said with a sad smile, her voice becoming a hollow echo.
No… don't, he thought as he reached to hold her hand but air was all he had grasped. Finally, she disappeared completely, leaving a small rain of light behind and a red rose. Tartarus knelt down and picked the red rose from the floor. Slowly, the flower turned black as it died in his touch. He smiled bitterly at the copy of the symbol of their love – the eternal adamantine black rose. It was a symbol that held a multitude of meanings and memories that went back all the way to their childhood. He delicately closed his fingers around its thorny stem and held it as if it were made of fragile illusions just like the goddess who gave it to him and brought it close to his heart.
"…Goodbye."
Until we meet again.