I loved him once.
I sat upon the hills of fertile earth with green, vibrant grass and laid my eyes upon him. He glowed like the sun itself was embedded in his heart and soul. His skin was tan and smooth, shone with sweat as he passed over the fields and turned his eyes to me. And oh, his eyes were beautiful. The sky was captured within those crystalline depths, and I feared for a single moment that should I continue to gaze into his eyes my heart would fall- fall like a bird with broken wings back to earth, a fall to end in catastrophe.
He spoke to me in golden tones of honey, warm words of marriage promised. Splendid words, words to flatter and words to seduce. I was young and unafraid of him and his warmth. I was unafraid of his hands that shaped prophecies and shaped the morning light. He promised I would be his wife, like many others had, and that he would ask for Demeter's blessing with his prized possession. A lyre of gold used to pluck songs of sweetness, of love. For once in my young immortal life I wished it so. I wished for the warmth the sky offered from dawn to dusk, and to hold it in my arms during the night. I wanted to have him for myself, to fend off the darkness of the midnight hour. I wanted his company between sheets of satin and pillows of soft feather. I wanted him. And soon I found I loved him. And he loved me.
I loved him once.
With his bright smile and dimpled cheeks, all of which were gone in a swift night. Him and other suitors were rejected, banished from my presence. But the gods are persistent men, with lust and desire in their bones like blood and water in mortal men. So mother took me from the hill atop the world, fleeing in fear of losing me. I was a child, I did not know what she had done. How she had ripped away from me the sun until morning came and something in my heart told me the sun was no longer as close as I wished it to be.
Demeter wished me to forget the suitors names and faces, put us both to work amongst the mortal men who saw me rarely. I was mother's hidden treasure, surrounded with nymphs and hidden from wandering eyes of mortals. These men would whisper to me from beyond my reach and I wanted not for them. The days rolled on and the nymphs became my sisters, until soon the promise of warmth was but a faint memory no thicker than a piece of thread. Amongst these women, sweet and sensual, I danced and grew. I became a woman without feeling the burden of what that was like, of what that meant.
I loved him once. And then the earth shook beneath me.
Lost in a daze, swearing my name to be called in the fields of endless flora by a voice unknown, I was out of touch. The earth rumbled beneath my fingertips and in fear, I drew away. I called for my sisters, I called for my friends before the darkness came in the presence of a man who wore it like a cloak. This man as pale as ivory and beautiful as he was terrible. The earth shook, and he took me in his stride; hands groping at my waist and hoisting me into his chariot.
The earth swallowed us whole and behind me I heard begging, pleading, crying- my sisters could do nothing but watch this man from darkness take me away from the warmth of sunlight. In the darkness, I remembered sun. I remembered warmth and I remembered the skies captured in eyes now so far away, so out of reach. As the days went on, there was only darkness in my life, in the hours and in the minutes. Soon darkness became my dress and my words and my heart. I fell in love with the darkness, found comfort and home there. I found a home in him.
'I loved him once,' I think, sitting on my throne of stone and riches. I loved him once, on a hill of green and warmth. But my hand held the hand of darkness, and I did not miss the light. Not even as he stood before me, the Queen of the Underworld, and laid his sky coloured gaze on my face the way he had eons ago. I did not miss the sun, nor the warmth, nor the green hills on which we met. I wanted only for the darkness, and the curve of the King's face against my chest; his breath on my skin and his hands on my hips. I wanted my King. The sun had rose on my face once, and darkness came, and darkness stayed.
I loved him once. And loved him no longer.