Author's Notes:
Mature scene up ahead. And also, since Peeta's the god of the dead, he's a bit OOC here.
Enjoy reading! :D
Chapter 3
I closed my eyes that had been robbed of sight by the god of the dead and when I opened them, I was back to my first reaping, the year before I accompanied Iphigenia. I had thirteen years of life then.
No sun shone between the clouds and the rains that had yet to fall caused the air to swell in a moist heat that clung to us. I was restless and nervous as I stood in the line. My position near the end of the procession allowed me to see the faces of all the maidens before me. Some were stout of heart and betrayed no emotion, some would have howled like the wind on a stormy night had it not been for the stern expressions of the priests, and some had no color on their faces. I thought nothing of these but the small feast my father promised me for supper to celebrate not being chosen. It was my parents's way of calming me, of looking to a future clearly envisioned so the present would not be as harrowing.
After taking a few steps up the temple, I saw a small bird hovering nearby, a feeble, young bird testing its wings and learning the craft it was meant to do. I looked at it as the line moved, bade it to fly higher, try harder in my mind. It flapped its black wings with great effort, much like the thumping of my heart as I neared the flames. I distracted myself with the bird and its attempts. It encircled the tips of the fire, sometimes dipping too close, and I saw from my peripheral one of the priests coming forward, perhaps to shoo this bird away from the sacred fire. I willed the bird to soar away, afraid for the harm I was sure the priest would inflict.
When there were but two maidens before my turn came, a gust of wind tore through the temple and hurled the flapping bird into the fire. I stilled. I saw the tips of its wings catch fire first, the flames licking a pattern of feathers. It opened its beak as if in agony, for one fleeting moment. Then the fire melted its body and my turn came.
At that moment, in front of the sacred fire before I threw the dust in, I realized that we lived our lives like a stream flowing relentlessly down a hill, until something changed the course of our lives. The wind reshaped the fate of the bird's life in the midst of its struggle. My act to save my sister brought me here.
There was a fire that traced my body now.
The god of the dead's hands were rough as they pulled the brooches of my dress from my shoulders and they fell with a soft thud, bouncing off my feet. His breath was a feather's icy caress on the slick skin of my bowed neck.
My dress fell, and I wished its descent to be slower, but I was aware of all the places it touched—the sides of my breasts, the slope of my stomach, the thin skin of my inner thighs, my knees, then my feet—leaving me uncovered and at the mercy of the dark god who wanted my body.
My breaths hurled into the air tremulously. My blindness had heightened my other senses and I felt too keenly every shattering moment of my dignity.
I brought my arms to cover my chest, my nakedness, in a desperate attempt to hold myself together. But his strong hands gripped my wrists and brought them roughly to my side.
"It would be a shame to hide those," his deep voice purred from behind.
Then I felt the pads of his fingers slide down from both my shoulders to trace the skin flanking my spine. The air I drew in flowed like knives into my lungs. His touch was slow and torturous, and then his hands finally rested at the dip in my back.
I heard him sigh appreciatively.
I wished for a flame to consume me.
His hands glided around my hip to encircle my waist and they gripped me hard. I was trapped in his possession now.
He pulled my head by my hair to create an unencumbered path for his lips to trace the curve of my neck that was now exposed. One of my breasts filled his cupped hand as he slowly pressed me to him. I felt his hunger and his mouth skimmed my skin like a prize to be savored. The other hand left my hair and pursued an unhurried path from my chest down my stomach. My mouth parted as I blew another breath out.
My body awakened in shame and every fiery sensation evaporated into a cold trail.
This was agony.
Two strong, opposing forces fought in my mind. One stemmed, searing, from a dormant state as it raced from my center, while the other was rooted in the cohesion of my worth as a person. The latter won, just as I felt his fingers dance in my thighs, teasing its way up. I wanted to shrink away from his touch, wilt like a dying flower's petals.
If I could scream, I would, and beg for my deliverance, from being torn by my passions. Was this my punishment for my mother begetting me unwontedly, that I should feel the anguish she felt at her violation? But I would argue with fate that I had not chosen to be born and yet I existed. I did not mean to be my mother's grief.
There was no one here to bear witness to my agony but myself.
And suddenly, like clouds parting for the sun's radiance, I realized the clarity of my strength arising in my heart like a great flood of light. Despite my desecration, the warmth of comfort will come from within me. I resolved to heal myself every time I think of what had happened to me, pull myself a breath at a time from sorrow's hold.
The god of the dead tilted my jaw up impatiently then I felt him shove me towards the bed. The side of my face hit the crisp sheets painfully and I was exposed to him in a most degrading and vulnerable way.
I reminded myself of my earlier epiphany so that I may not break down when I needed my strength most. I gripped the sheets in anticipation.
But I did not feel the dip of the bed from his body. I gasped when my sight was restored and looked around wildly.
I was alone again and my heart felt like it had plummeted from the cliff of my house and into the crashing waves. I bit my lip so the pain could stem the throb of my blood, this foreign heat I was unaccustomed to.
I lay there unmoving for a long time, convinced that the god would be back to consume me entirely but he did not.
A rustle alerted me and I lifted my head. I saw the silver steps again amid the leafy walls. I pushed myself off the bed and crouched to retrieve my dress.
All the heavy emotions closed on me and my tears fell bitterly. I pushed myself to the pain at the violation of my soul. To know my pain fully allowed me to conquer it, crush it into me like thorns to my chest.
I picked up the brooches from the ground and stepped inside the silken circle of my dress and pulled it around me, fastening it once more. I padded towards the steps. The break in the walls allowed my to get out, but I knew I could not ever go out of this realm. The despair, the doubt that I would not be able to heal my soul jumped in my mind as the tears raged on.
As I reached the silver steps, my mind pushed a bitter thought to the fore, that even if I did console myself, I would still be wandering through this endless, misty realm forever in pieces.
When I opened the door at the bottom of the steps, a cloaked servant approached me and asked where I wanted to go. That jeweled mask of black diamonds they wore over their lips muffled her voice. I told her I needed a bath and we walked the endless hall once again towards the door that led to the bathing chamber.
The floor was cold on my feet.
When we arrived, I was relieved to see that it was empty. I could not deal with people touching me.
I walked to the large pool, seeing the steam rise from the water. I slowly undressed by its rim and stepped into the water. There was a cloth on a wooden tray near the sloping steps. It was rough as though nets had been squeezed together to form it. I took the cloth, dipped it in the water as soon as I settled in the bath, and pressed it to extract the excess.
My hair flowed down my shoulders and I watched as the ends floated in the pool. The cloth in my hand scrubbed against my left arm tentatively first, then I pushed it hard against my skin. I cleaned myself with such raw fervor to drive away the crawling feeling the memory of my encounter with the god summoned.
My skin felt tender as it languished in the water after the unpitying treatment I lavished on it. This was perhaps the way clay felt after my father had scored it with a sharp stick before transferring them to the kiln.
I stood up and walked out the bath and into the spread of cotton cloth held by the servant to dry me. My dress was not in the floor anymore and a new one rested on a small table, which the servant fetched. It glided down my body smoothly like the other one. Half my hair was twisted and plaited up into my head while the other half cascaded over my shoulders.
Afterwards, the servant led me out of the room and into the hall. We walked quite a distance before the next door we entered. Inside a cavernous room softly lit by hundred of candles on either wall, a grand table as long as several of my arms stretched rested in the center of the room. Meats, fruits, and bread spread themselves on top and I had only realized how I had not eaten for a long time. The smell was divine yet my greeting of them was hollow.
The chair scraped as I pulled it when I neared the table to sit. I reached for a fig, opened it and stared at it, and imagined my teeth sinking into its sweet flesh. It did not tempt me. I extended my hand towards the slices of meats, breads and fruits like grapes and pears and filled my plate, yet my tongue did not long for them.
The servant materialized beside me with a golden goblet. It contained the same honeyed liquid I drank before. I took a sip to taste and was enamored with the liquid's lightness; it slipped down my throat with ease. I drank greedily, satisfying a thirst I did not know I had.
The darkly cloaked servant helped me out of my chair and asked me where I wanted to go. And where indeed?
I remembered the field and the golden haired man before the god summoned me and I told the servant where I wanted to go.
We stepped outside the door and I was back in the Elysian Fields, though not on the same place where I met the man with piercing eyes. But the poignancy the realm inspired was the same, the light mists still lay on the field, bathing the small colorful flowers dotting it in a muted serenity and the sky was a soft sheen above all.
I sensed the servant depart and I walked towards the small hill in the distance. I ran after a few steps, wanting the rush of air to spark some life back into me, for me to feel something else.
I ran up the hill where a lone tree stood, its weeping branches drooped like tendrils to the ground as though its white leaves were a burden. Atop, I scanned my surroundings and allowed the scenery to deny the hopeless feelings within me. I went inside the tree's embrace, glad for a shelter, and sunk to the ground, sending the fallen petals upwards to be carried by the soft wind that passed. I wished there were animals here to play with, just as I did in the woods by my old home. But the fulfillment of this wish was as distant as the stars I would never see anymore.
I lay down on the soft grass and looked at the sky between the tree's spindly branches. It was changing color, splashed with indigos and oranges, but never from light to dark, as though the sun or whatever shining orb that lit the underworld hovered over the edge of the horizon but never fully left.
Memories of my family snaked their way into my thoughts once more, and before I cried again, I resolved single-mindedly not to think of them, not when the wound of our parting was still a gaping cleft in my heart.
My thoughts drifted to the god of the dead that brought me here and at once, I flared in anger, confusion, bitterness, and fear, like a great raging fire that greedily drank up its fuel of wood. I knew our encounter would not be the last one, nor would he stop again as he did.
I thought of the ills he must have in store for me, wondered the reasons that inspired it, and what of my new place in this world. I felt tired of thinking about everything that has happened to me, wishing that I could return to that time when I was unaware of my destiny.
Deflated, I turned to my side, rested my head on my arm while I curled into me and closed my eyes, grateful for the sweet peace my sleep would give.
He gripped his adamantine throne as he drained the last of the honeyed Ambrosia from his goblet. He was alone in the Trivium.
The white flames on the wall quivered, a reflection of the furious passion that still thrummed through him from his encounter with Katniss.
He had to stop where he did or else his plan would not work.
He knew humans too well, weak and prone to all manner of pleasure. He knew immortals a great deal and their arrogance. Both were present in a gratifying entanglement in the girl and he would stoke that just as a blacksmith stoked the fire where his metals would become pliant for him to bend to his will.
And already, from their brief tryst, he sensed the girl arousing and responding to him, even if it was just a sigh. She would be confused, that he knew. But he would be patient with her, seducing and coaxing every mewl and moan until she abandoned her high walls of pride and propriety and he reduced her to a writhing woman who would take everything he would give her for his enjoyment and pleasure, until she became enslaved by her fear of him and what he can do to her. Only then would he have taught her a lesson for her earlier insult to him.
The blue flames that showed him anything he wished to see told him that Katniss was in the Elysian Fields.
Good, he would go there and see the effect of their encounter on her.
A servant materialized from her black smoke to give him more Ambrosia, which he drunk without pausing. Then he marched out the Trivium and into the adamantine hall.
He went out a different door and plucked a pale cream narcissus flower for Katniss.
The tree on the hill stood far but he took his time. This would not take long, for he knew there was to be another judging of souls at the Trivium.
He climbed up the hill and gently pushed the curtain of branches aside, some of the wilted leaves detaching themselves to flutter around him before they fell to the ground. He walked towards the sleeping girl.
Katniss lay there, coiled to her side on a bed of grass and tiny mauve hyacinths. The white leaves were a veil to her rich, dark hair splayed out underneath her serene face. Her fingers curved gently inward from delicate wrists.
He knelt beside her carefully and gazed at her sleeping face, taking amusement in her senses forsaking their alert duties as though beguiled by the harmonious notes of a lyre. He took the narcissus and tenderly traced the high bone of her cheek, down the slope that ended in her chin, and further down the neck he mapped earlier.
She was a spellbinding sight in all her innocence and he breathed her essence in.
She slowly stirred and he withdrew the flower. He moved to sit and rest his back against the rough bark of the tree in order to not startle her.
The girl sat up, unhurried in her movement, and looked to her side, her hair falling gracefully down the bare skin of her back uncovered by her dress.
"You're awake," he called to her in a voice different from the rough one he used earlier.
She turned towards the sound.
Her eyes widened when she recognized him. He smiled sweetly at her, stood up, and walked to where she sat.
He crouched by her side and produced the lone narcissus and gave it to her.
"For you, because I angered you before. I am sorry."
He watched her face struggle to recollect the memory before she spoke, holding the delicate flower against her chest.
"Thank you. I also want to apologize for my behavior. My anger was misdirected," she replied.
His smile did not waver as he shook his head.
"How have you been?" He asked gently.
And he saw an emotion he did not expect flit across her face: sadness. She did not reply and looked down, her hair shyly following her movement to shield her face from him. Her reluctance may have been unanticipated but he would not let the opportunity of getting to know this girl pass.
He stood up and held out a hand for her. "Come. I would like to show you something."
She looked up at him with heavy eyes before pushing herself up with the help of his hand. He withdrew it from her when she had stood.
They walked down the hill and into the nearby woods, their path lined by tiny cream blooms that grew low on the ground. The branches on the trees bent to create an arc over their heads, with more white leaves falling around them. He led her towards the bridge at the end, suspended over a gentle stream of tinkling pewter.
Katniss was quiet and reserved.
Soon, they arrived at their destination: a circular marble edifice with a domed roof supported by columns.
"What is this?" Katniss asked as she looked up from between two pillars.
"It's where the memories of the souls go, before they are reincarnated," he answered.
They descended the spiraling floor, the wall twinkling with rows and rows of memories, each stored in a transparent globe.
Katniss took one that glowed when she neared it. She looked at it intently, the globe like a giant drop of tear on her hand, frail and trembly. It must have been showing her its contents.
She dropped the memory suddenly and gasped.
The hazy images floated like wisps of smoke, then a heartbreaking whisper spewed out from her as she watched the ascent of the contents,
"Grandmother," was the single word she intoned with such sorrow.
He looked at one image, gathered it in his hands, and watched the scene where a small girl with two braids, a younger Katniss, raced ahead in a beach with the sun dancing on her skin while an old woman smiled fondly at her.
He turned to Katniss and she was crying now.
"I'm sorry!" she mumbled. "I'm so sorry! I did not mean to drop it. I didn't think I'd see her again."
She sniffed and continued, "I'm in shambles now and I'm sorry you have to see me like this. Seeing my grandmother again brought back all the memories of my family."
He was at a loss for what to do as her shoulders slumped when the sobs overtook her.
Finally, he walked to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him with her glistening, watery eyes.
"I did not even get your name. Who are you?"
He swallowed before replying. "My name is Peeta."
She smiled weakly and wiped her nose with her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you Peeta. But would it be fine with you if you took me back to the hill? I would like to be alone for now."
He nodded, and she added through her tears, "But I appreciate what you did. Thank you for showing me around and for being so kind."
Peeta felt a dull thud at his chest. It was a peculiar sensation.
He led her out the vault of memories and back to the tree, with only her quiet sobs as the companion to the sound of their footsteps as she trailed him.
This girl was proving to be troublesome, he thought as he sat on his throne, alone again in the Trivium.
He had given her the name he had not used for a long time, not since the divine wars with their Titan progenitors ended. It was long and vicious, and neither side was winning until the gifts of the Cyclopes to him and his brothers tipped the scale of fate to their favor. The god of the sky received his thunderbolt, the god of the sea his trident, and he his helm of invisibility. After their triumph, they divided the realms to be ruled. He was unknowledgeable of the world then, having spent his life in the belly of his father who swallowed him whole upon his birth. He incarnated himself to roam the mortal realm and know more of the souls he would rule over. Fruits of that journey were the dandelions in the Asphodel Meadows—a small token he took for things he was not fond of remembering.
He rested his chin on one palm while his other hand drummed on his lap.
Katniss never did as he expected her. He had wanted to see a changing girl, but certainly not a hysterical one.
She was an annoying puzzle, he thought, sighing.
The memory globes sparked an idea in his head.
Peeta summoned the blue flames and they filled the court.
"Show me the girl's family," he whispered.
At once, he saw a man sitting on a wooden stool. An oven burned by and the man's skin glistened with sweat. This must be the mortal father of Katniss, the one who brought her up even though he did not sire her.
The man was painting a red vase, even though surrounding him must be hundreds of vases.
The paintings were all exquisite in detail: a toddler reaching out for her mother, a young girl spiritedly running, a young woman comely in her gait. They all bore a resemblance to Katniss, whether in the corner of a smile or the swish of a braid or the spark in the gray eyes that seemed to glow from the paintings.
He looked at the father's somber face, as though the world poured its grief into its lines, as he persisted in his work. Katniss and her father furrowed their eyebrows the same way.
Peeta moved on to look at her mother, frozen in bed even though the sun had been high. Her hair was matted and she wore a vacant expression despite the tears that pooled on her bed. There was a tray of untouched food by the floor. She lay on her side like Katniss did when he saw her under the tree.
Then a younger girl came into the view, the one he had chosen if Katniss did not volunteer.
She was alone in the market, bartering her father's vases for commodities and buying vegetables she placed on a rough, woven basket that was too large for her slim arms. She was built smaller than the people surrounding her as she fought her way out of the city. He watched her carry the basket uncomplainingly up the high cliffs and into her home. After placing the vegetables on the table, the sister moved to the room where the mother lay, took the tray of food that she fed to an ugly cat, and went to the kitchen to prepare their meal.
This girl's fortitude was admirable.
He wanted to know more so he searched back to the reaping and saw how fiercely Katniss clung onto her mother before the ceremony, how her sister sunk behind the temple's pillar in tears as Katniss was taken by the priest, and how her father's eyes never left her face as she walked towards the ship.
He saw the days her family spent after the reaping were the same, a monotony of events unpunctuated by any joy but only that of a struggle to fill an absence.
He had never before inspected a human's life so closely, and he cursed his weakness for doing so.
I felt the tightness left by the tears that had dried on my skin. I had been lying here under the shade of the tree for a long time after Peeta left me, the white flower resting on my chest.
Time was inappreciable here and the hours spilled into each other.
There was no night, just the shifting of the sky, and I slumbered whenever sleep beckoned me with its dark temptation of respite.
I did not know how many hours had passed since my encounter with my grandmother's memories, since I saw them disappear into the air as immaterial as the specters of loneliness that haunted me after.
I hummed quietly to myself. I needed anything to fill my sense of hearing.
Then in my grief, against my will like almost everything that had happened to me, I closed my eyes and imagined that I was back home, that I was racing up the cliffs towards our house, that the sun imparted its warmth down my back and the sea provided a lullaby with its waves. I ran with my hands outstretched as I felt the tall grass tickle my legs and I hurried towards the salt-aged door. I heard the bustling laughter of my family again; probably father tickling Prim.
I had done this many times before that the picture in my head was so vivid, my hand actually outstretched, and it was as if the messenger had never brought me here to the awful realm of the god of the dead, but I was back at my house.
But I never opened the door because the tree hissed from a gust of wind and it broke the spell, and I was slowly pulled back to the underworld as the vision dissolved. I was under the tree with the stooped branches, lying in grass that was shorter.
The trail of tears refreshed as I crushed the petals of the flower in my hand.
A mortal had never before claimed space in his thought the way Katniss did, he thought, agitated.
He had only moments ago checked on her and he saw that she was still crying, like her mother. All these silly mortals did, it seemed, was cry and grieve when they had parted.
Peeta rubbed his forehead wearily.
Katniss acted the most atypical of all.
First, she willingly took her sister's place in the sacrifice, knowing full well it meant her death, which goes against what other mortals had been doing for they never prayed the loudest as when their lives were in peril. Then came her professed dislike for the gods and the way of the world as ordained by fate.
He thought back to their encounter in his room. It was only now that the thought occurred to him, that perhaps he had been wrong in reading her lack of enthusiasm, her lack of response to his actions. Her trembling and her look of defiance did not stem from pleasure, judging by the river of tears she must have cried by now. The realization turned into a cold heavy stone.
Impatiently, he summoned one of the Fates. It was the apportioner who answered his call this time and he asked her without delay when she arrived in trails of smoke.
"Why is she here? Tell me the true reason," he asked, almost pleadingly.
The old woman with the bent back walked towards his throne slowly before she replied.
"Ah my liege, it is most unfortunate that the answer does not lie with me but with her. Has thou forgotten that which we had all agreed upon at the end of the divine war? That the mortals were to carve their fate with their actions?"
He closed his eyes and inhaled in frustration. It was useless to have summoned this crone. It angered him more that he knew beforehand that she would not yield anything he did not already know.
He waved his hand away to dismiss her. When she only smiled serenely at his plight, he shouted at her forcefully to leave.
But the apportioner did not depart but merely asked him if he had looked more into the girl's family, as it may provide an indication of what he can expect of the girl.
He replied that he did, but that it was futile.
"Did you look closer, my liege? Especially with the sister?"
He gave her a long, measuring look before they turned towards the blue flames.
It showed the sister, walking once more but now at night, the moon setting her skin faintly aglow. Her feet marched on a dusty road until she knelt before a low stone mound by the mouth of an empty field.
She placed a lily on the stone and whispered,
"I miss you everyday, Katniss." She closed her eyes as pain overtook her small frame.
When she opened them again, she continued her stream of confession.
"I'm so sorry you were the sacrifice, that I was not strong enough to stop you and your stubbornness. I'm sorry that there's nothing for us to even bury, that all your possibilities were taken away. That I won't have any nieces or nephews to look after…" Her voice broke as her tears overwhelmed her and she stopped speaking.
Peeta looked at the girl with a hardened gaze.
When the girl composed herself, she smiled at the stone as though it understood her sorrow.
"I'm still not used to not having you around. Father has not stopped painting since the reaping. He's been painting around the empty space you left behind.
"And mother has been too desolate. Not even father or I can bring her out of the pit she dug herself in.
Then the girl tucked her hair behind her ear, still kneeling before the stone.
"Remember when we were young and I would cry a lot when I scraped my knee from following you around and you would either scream at me to stop or soothe me as I cried? Well you're not here anymore to hold me, and I've been crying too much I wonder how I still have tears…"
He watched the salty beads carve a path down the girl's face in the same manner as her sister's.
They reached into the other days and saw the sister coming to the stone mound every day, talking to Katniss, sometimes crying, sometimes smiling, but always with a mournful air.
The blue flames extinguished themselves. He had seen enough.
Peeta ran a hand through his hair as he exhaled heavily and turned to the Fate, whom he asked to leave.
The apportioner only smiled before she vanished once again in smoke. Then the council entered for the next judgment of souls. He saw them appraise the white flames that licked the walls high.
Peeta sank back to his throne.
He watched as the boatman led the souls into the Trivium from the door that connected the room to the sea of Erebus where the souls crossed.
A servant came with another goblet of Ambrosia as the councilman read the proclamation.
The souls before him were like a herd of sheep, like the mortals who would be too lost if it had not been for the guidance of the gods.
He viewed their lives with indifference as the blue flames recalled them. There were many souls to be judged this time and he impatiently sipped from his goblet as his council pronounced where the souls would go.
When it was finally his turn to pass down the punishment for those who would be sent to Tartarus, he meted out the same ones as before, save for this group of men who had pillaged a small village, taken its women against their will, and killed their babes by their feet.
He did not like the fear their eyes glinted with, nor the tremble in their jaw as they tried to not look at him. He had found the punishment for them.
"These souls shall be tied to the chairs of forgetfulness while flames seared their bodies and their earthly lives played before them so they see what they had done yet have no recollection of them for eternity in the pit of Tartarus."
One of the councilmen, Minos, turned to him, perhaps to argue the necessity of such a grave punishment they had not passed before. But Peeta silenced the councilman with an icy look that dared him to defy the god and be sent to test the punishment in behalf of the souls.
Peeta's forehead was on his palm, eyes closed, as his finger swept the rim of the goblet where he drained the Ambrosia. He had been sitting on his throne since the souls and his councilmen had left.
A clap of thunder, a rumble of the skies in his realm, announced the untimely presence of his brother and he looked up and saw him, god of the sky, the supreme deity, in the middle of the Trivium's square court. The splendor of his dark-haired brother was uncontained and his fearsome aegis was luminescent from the flames of the Trivium.
It had been some time since he last saw his brother and had been dealt his impatient and unsmiling expression.
Peeta did not stand up and merely cocked his head to the side as if to ask why his brother was here when none of the Olympians deigned to go to his realm.
"We need to talk," came his brother's gruff voice.
"What a pleasure to see you too, brother. To what do I owe this visit?"
"I need your little pet." Ah, always direct to the point and frugal with words, he thought.
The god of the sky continued. "If you did not know yet, she's the daughter of the god of harvest, bringer of abundance, and he wants her returned to the mortal realm."
He regarded his brother coolly. "No."
He heard the god sigh. "Brother please. He stopped the earth from yielding the fruit of its seeds and the mortals are dying from hunger."
Peeta rolled his eyes disdainfully. "And how is that my problem? It seems the situation would only give me more constituents to rule over and less of them to pray to you."
"Don't be a fool," the god of the sky whispered, "We all need the mortals."
Peeta shook his head, as though thoroughly amused. "No, you need the mortals to provide you with endless honor. The souls here can sustain me enough."
His brother narrowed his eyes. "Did you plan for this then?"
He barked out a laugh. "No, of course not. I only had to let fate run its course. It's something that her dear father should learn. And perhaps you as well, since you are here despite the understanding that we were never to meddle with the fate of mortals."
It seemed his brother reached the end of his patience as another clap of thunder boomed. "I will not have this defiance! You will hand her over now." And his brother walked up the short steps menacingly towards his throne.
He stood and met him halfway, spitting out his answer as the flames responded to his emotions. "She's mine and she will stay here with me. She chose me. She bound herself to me the moment she took her sister's place and not even her godly father can tamper with her choice that had been given freely," he finished savagely, staring his brother down.
"A compromise then," his brother offered, despite the angry lines on his forehead.
"No." And he turned back, his cloak sweeping in an arc. "And you can show yourself out," he shouted to his brother.
He left the Trivium heavy with anger and in search of Katniss.
After I had cried, the effort exhausted me and I slept.
When I awoke, everything was still the same, the mists still swept through the fields, and an ache still raged in me.
I stood up slowly, stretching my arms and legs that had been asleep, the motion waking me thoroughly. The life I led here, with no definite duties, where I can play amongst the grass or run wherever I pleased, would have been a child's dream, but it held an empty allure to me. I rubbed my eyes to remove the crusts that had formed. In the distance, when I opened my eyes, I saw a river.
I felt my feet move towards the river, where I can end all this. I was not strong enough after all and I drew no comfort from myself, despite my earlier promise.
The feelings that the god of the dead inspired with his unwelcome touch invaded me still, like the time when I almost drowned and I could not stop the water from entering me.
It was a long walk towards the river but I felt like I drifted there, even though I was sure many small flowers lay crushed in the trail I walked.
As I neared and saw the river, glinting like a liquid looking glass, I knew that I would soon empty myself of this hurt, that the shadows of hopelessness would not follow me anymore, and I would stop wishing for everything that had been. I would have no past and no future.
I was about to dip my feet into the river when a strong force gripped my arm and pulled me back.
I was met with the bluest eyes belonging to the only other being I had seen, apart from the cloaked servants with the jeweled masks that covered their mouths.
"Let me go!" I cried.
His gaze was stern. "No. Do you know what river this is?"
I shook my head, uncaring.
"It's the river of forgetfulness," he intoned as if it held meaning to me.
"What do you care? I only want everything to stop!" I bemoaned.
Then I dropped to my knees, my left arm still a pole that pointed skywards because Peeta held my wrist. We would have made a strange portrait by the river.
He noticed my inability to struggle and asked, "Have you even been eating?"
I shook my head and said nothing, devoid of any worry over my weakened state.
I heard him hiss in anger when I felt another presence nearing us and I saw the darkly cloaked servants.
"No!" I wailed.
I stood up and gripped Peeta's black tunic frantically. "Please, I don't want to go back to the god of the dead."
He shook his head apologetically. "It will be all right Katniss," echoing the last words my parents said to me at the reaping.
Then he pried my hands from his chest and handed me to the servants.
They surrounded me, like before, and I trudged heavily against the grass.
I looked back at Peeta and I was sure both our eyes held the same sadness and regret.
He walked towards the door he came from in the Elysian Fields and was back at his palace. He turned right with haste and walked further, until he reached the door that led to the mountain of the gods and went inside.
He saw the messenger of the gods greet him with a nod by the gate of clouds. The residence of the other Olympians was a coiled fortress of gold and marble at the very top of the ridged mountain. Just as the others did not visit him in the underworld, he was also rarely present in this common realm.
Peeta took one of the chariots at the foot of the mountain, cursing that he did not bring his own. The white winged horses were not to his taste. But still, they brought him up to the top where his brother resided.
He alighted from the chariot and into his brother's balcony where he heard the grunts and pants that shivered in the air from the open window like the gauzy curtains.
His brother was chiefly infamous among the gods for his lovers and indiscretions that outrivaled even the goddess of love, pursuer of passions.
Peeta rolled his eyes as he heard a shout and more moans. He was sure his brother was not bedding his wife, judging by the sounds of pleasure and the absence of scraping nails and torrid shuffles.
He loathed waiting for anyone but he let his brother and his brother's lover finish.
When they did, Peeta unceremoniously walked in, never mind that they were still in their suggestive position while they savored the heights of their passion, before they could begin another round and he was made to wait once more.
He was amusingly surprised when it was indeed the goddess of marriage, lady of the sky, who was in bed with his brother.
"We need to talk," Peeta said nonchalantly, echoing their earlier conversation.
"About what?" His brother panted out. His knees gave out and he collapsed on top of his wife.
"About the compromise."
The masked servants brought me to another room from the hall of endless doors.
I lay in a bed as soft as clouds, veiled in the finest silk, and it brushed against my skin tenderly when I shifted my position. It was not the same room where I encountered the god of the dead. It was smaller and darker with rough walls.
There were candles beside the bed and the small flames were my only source of light.
I wished I could hurl my foolish hopes of being released from here into the fire, just like the bird I saw at my first reaping. I envied the uncertainty of existence of that bird, because had it known it would die in the sacred fire, it would not have flown there. Yet it did, blissfully unaware of its doom, unlike me.
I knew the god of the dead would be coming soon to claim what he did not before, and I felt fear as I never had, a dreading of what will come to pass.
I shifted to my side to look at the candles. What my grandmother said to me one night, that a light seems to burn brighter because of the darkness it finds itself in, fluttered through my mind. But I did not have any spark left in me to stoke a flame. And the memory of grandmother caused the other memories of my family to crash down on me like furious waves, and I wished that a hole would open in my chest and consume my memories, for I knew better than to hope for such a thing as seeing my family again.
Author's Notes:
Thank you for reading! We had a quiet chapter here but don't worry, the action will come.
I also want to extend my thanks and endless appreciation to everyone who read, reviewed, placed this on their alerts, and listed this story under their favorites. I can't sufficiently express my joy over what you guys did :D
And now some notes on Greek Mythology:
-According to the myth, Persephone came to such a deep depression over being abducted by Hades that she weakened and did not eat anything, hence the portrayal of Katniss here.
-The narcissus flower that Peeta gave Katniss was in the original bouquet of flowers that Persephone gathered in the plains of Nysa before Hades sprang up from a chasm in the earth and took her away.
-A separate myth over the narcissus flower tells that there was once this beautiful boy named Narcissus who was the son of a nymph and a river. He scorned love and all those who fell in love with him. The goddess Nemesis then condemned him to spend the rest of his days admiring his reflection in a pool, finally finding love in himself. He died and was turned into a flower that bears his name.
-Erebus is where the souls crossed with Charon coming into the underworld.
-There was indeed a chair of forgetfulness that Hades used as punishment for two heroes who went to the underworld in the hopes of wooing Persephone.
-The divine wars were the Olympians's war with the Titans over supremacy. The defeated Titans were imprisoned in Tartarus but not all were banished, like Prometheus, Hyperion, Ocean, and others. The Cyclopes, the giant, one-eyed beings, gave Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades their principal weapons and armor (thunderbolt, trident, and helm) for the war. Zeus also had the aegis as his breastplate.
-Lastly, you may have noticed that I used the titles of the gods instead of their names. This was inspired by the Homeric Hymns where the gods were referred to in titles after their name. Hades was called Host of the Many because of the numerous souls he ruled over in the underworld. Some of the other titles I used were made up, like "heir of the trident" for Poseidon, "giver of abundance" for daddy "Demeter," and "pursuer of passion" for Aphrodite.
That's it! See you soon! :D