-1Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
Chapter 2
I remember the first time I saw her, during one of my few appearances in the great hall of Olympus. I later learned that it was the only visit she had ever made to the pantheon, no doubt because of that mother of hers. She was astonishingly beautiful. Her hair was a rich shade of auburn done up and tied close with a light blue ribbon that matched her gown. She had a high forehead that lead down to a lovely, curved nose, which separated her even, almond-shaped eyes. Her mouth was small but full, the color of garnets. She had a graceful jaw line, with delicate cheek bones and slightly hollowed cheeks, which lent her a look of intelligence rather than the air-headed simpering look of most of the mortal young ladies I had seen, though they were few. While they were alive, that is.
Her body was something to be celebrated; the line of her neck and throat draped down into elegant shoulders and a finely shaped collar bone, just visible above the modest neck line of her gown; her bust was well-formed and gave way to a small waist and slim hips. The gown she wore tied at the tops of her shoulders, showing lithe arms that looked capable of lifting more than just a serving pitcher of water without snapping. I studied her face and form from across the hall, and I do not think she noticed me. It was her debut as a young goddess, but she was not paying the least bit of attention to the stares and appraisals of others. She sat demurely enough, at least while her mother was looking. Other times she would try to charm butterflies into her hands, and they would come right to her; perch their colorful bodies onto her outstretched hand. After an especially large and beautiful butterfly had settled on her hand, she decided to let it go into the crowd of gods and goddesses. The creature flew in zigzags between the guests until it flew right up to my face, paused, and brushed its wings against my cheek as it continued by. I felt for one electrifying moment, as if it was her touch on my face instead of the butterfly. Flustered, I melted into my surroundings before my own bright butterfly would see the blush that had risen up under my skin. Had I really just thought that; had I really been affected, and even moved by a silly girl and her penchant for butterfly taming?
I left her debut without ever introducing myself. But because I do not usually attend in the first place, it was considered a compliment that I even left my duties to make an appearance. I do not find the company of my brothers and sisters to be at all satisfactory, in fact it is on the contrary. Each one of them is more vain and superficial than the next (with the exception of only a few), their constant chatter and dithering was distasteful to me. I knew however, that my icy social skills had little to do with my early departure on this particular occasion. It was her. I was the God of the Underworld, fearsome to behold. A being whose name mortals would not dare utter, lest they incur my wrath. For centuries I guarded, and ultimately judged every soul that had enjoyed, or squandered a human life. I became angry, furious that this girl could affect me so. Had I not suffered and worked to become what I am? A warrior, unfeeling and strong with a life in which passion and sentiment only meant weakness. My duty was everything, and I knew that desire only clouded judgment. I stormed back to the underworld that night, incensed and infuriated because of this sudden flaw, this veneration for some girl I had never even spoken to. Upon entering the plane of asphodel, with all its soothing and familiar gray tones… I blew up the first shade I saw.
Over the next several days I endeavored to forget her. But something kept springing up in my memory: her eyes. They were by far her most entrancing and striking feature. So when I spent hours staring at her through an opening in the world near where she played, I told myself that it was because I was investigating what made her eyes so unusual. Each day I watched her, I felt as if I were getting closer to something or reaching a breaking point and every step she took on the soft grass above was a step that brought me closer to that point. Until one day it clicked, some tiny bit of a revelation made itself known to me. Her eyes were what made her so different; well, not just her eyes, but what they revealed of her inside. Then other subtle things came to my attention, and I wondered why I had not seen it earlier.
Her mother, Demeter, was the Goddess of the Harvest; she was the embodiment of the earth's bounty. Her hair was a light brown, long and unruly; her figure was rounded and full--ripe, in a sense, and her eyes were glassy blue like the bright afternoon sky. She was beautiful in her own right, but she was all daylight and mother-of-the-earth, not something I was interested in. Her daughter, I came to learn, was not all that she seemed at first. Her hair, was a darker, redder shade than her mother's, wavy but smooth and flowing; her figure was rounded, but not plump or full, it was slender and seductive, and her eyes were a luminescent, twinkling silver. She was a child of the daylight, but though her countenance and form held all the beauty and lightness of the day, her eyes reflected the night. She could have a place in the night. With me.
As that last thought crossed my mind, my jaw fell slack. And I realized that I needed her. I needed her in spite of my better judgment, in spite of my infuriation and misgivings. Already she was in my blood, and my lungs, and had been in my head since the first time I saw her. I longed to have her beneath my fingers; to touch her; to pick her apart and consume her in pieces until I was filled with nothing but her. I was hungry for her and, by my own river Styx, she would feel the same way about me.