Author's Note: Hello, lovely reader. This is a short little story that I wrote when I was going through a very hard time. I dedicate this to all of you who may be going through the same, and here's to hoping it may help you like it helped me.

Ie Paian

The last light of day was fading into inky darkness when he finally appeared next to her.

His movements were as quiet as a cat's, everything about him pure grace and elegance, and his presence might have gone unnoticed if it weren't for the mysterious, ethereal air that he seemed to bring with him wherever he went.

He sat beside her without uttering a single word, and together they watched the sun disappear beneath the horizon. It wasn't until the stars began to appear above them that he spoke for the first time that night. "I heard you praying."

It was a long moment before she replied. "I couldn't tell," she whispered, and her words were empty, broken. "You never came."

"I'm here now," he pointed out, and even though he wasn't looking at her, she could see the troubled expression on his face. He'd always been good at identifying with others, even if it didn't always show.

"Why did you take so long?" she demanded as the familiar anger began to creep back. Anger made everything so much easier.

"Time has a different meaning to you than it does to me." He finally turned to face her, and as she gazed at the furrow between his eyebrows, the worried lines around his mouth, she couldn't help but think, as she had many times in the past, that he was still painfully beautiful.

"I needed you!" Her stomach was twisting into familiar knots as she flung accusations, because accusations were all she really had left. "I needed you and you weren't there!"

He listened, just as he had always listened. He listened to her scream her heart out to the heavens, embraced her as her body was wracked with agonized sobs, and held her limp body when she had no more strength to do anything but gasp for breath. "Why didn't you help?" she whimpered. "Why didn't you do something?"

"I couldn't help you," she heard him whisper, and when she looked up, there were tears in his eyes. "Not this time."

She didn't say anything. He reached for her hand, and she felt his long fingers wrap around her own. "There are things not even I can control," he murmured in his sweet voice. "Though I can bring death to almost whomever I wish, and most times can save someone from its doorstep, I cannot change fate. If I could, I promise you…"

His voice broke off and his hand tightened almost painfully around her fingers. "I would have spared you this pain," he finished softly. "I hope you know that, dear one."

Perhaps she did know it, somewhere deep down, in a place full of hope that she had long ago lost touch with.

She leaned against his chest, burying her face in the soft fabric of his shirt. "Why did it have to be this way?" she mumbled. Tears were burning like fire behind her eyelids, but this time she refused to let them fall.

"Life is a mystery, one that not even I will ever be able to solve," he said, and even after everything, his voice was still like music. "I know you've been left with many questions because I've been in your place more times than I care to count. Immortality is as much a curse as it is a blessing."

His vague words made her wonder just how many people he had come to love, only to watch them grow old and die while he remained young and beautiful.

"I know you're angry," he continued. "I know you want to hate your father for leaving you, and curse the gods for allowing it to happen, but fate is unavoidable. It will follow you wherever you go, for better or worse, and there is nothing I can do to change that…no matter how much I want to."

She listened numbly as his words continued to flow like water. "The only thing I can do is promise that I will always be with you, even when you can't see me with your eyes; though my blood does not run through your veins, you are one of my children. I'll be there when you marry the man you love, when you hold your children for the first time, and when you finally depart this world for the one beyond."

She gazed upon his ancient face, at his eyes that had seen unimaginable things, at the lips that so many prophecies had fallen from, and believed him. At some point in time, too many years ago for her to remember, her heart and this god had become one in the same. He had always been there, in the bright light of the sun, in the arresting magnificence of newly bloomed spring flowers, in the brilliance of beautifully written songs. She had no doubt that he always would be there, for how many years had he already walked upon this earth?

She turned her head to look at the night sky and the blanket of stars that stretched on for eternity. There were no clouds to mar their brilliance.

She didn't know how long she continued to admire the beauty of the Universe, but when she finally tore her eyes away, there was only empty space beside her.

He was gone.

But that ethereal air that signified his presence was still there, and she knew that he was still watching over her. She turned back to the night sky with all of its twinkling stars and smiled.

Ie paian, Apollon. Ie paian.