Epitaph Empress
Author's Note: An actual chapter! Don't worry, the whole story wasn't going to be told through poetry - I just like including them at key points and I think it's fairly original. Anyway, enjoy the chapter! Unfortunately, they're all somewhat shorter than my one-chapter stories but - naturally - it's all going to add up to something *much* longer so I suppose it evens out somewhere. Happy reading!
Epitaph Empress
Chapter I
Silence. Not even a fresh chill born of dreary spirits wandering in, lost and solitary entered the throne room of Hades, God of the Dead and Lord of the Underworld. Silence echoed off silence throughout the sombre halls of a kingdom of darkness. All grey stone slabs that made up the dreary domain were bathed in shadow, the vast riches and wealth diminished by decaying stillness that shrouded and encompassed everything, drowning the underground realm in swathes of night and dark loss. From the gates of black oak where loyal Cerberus guarded with vicious vigour to the cold throne room and it's splendid decorum, ruined by shades and clusters of the shadows cast over the Underworld, crying out in a silent wail of grief, the scenery all different, the theme disturbingly monotonous. Everywhere - death, decay, darkness. Nothing more. No light ever shone in the lifeless world of memories and mourning, no laughter ever rang through the lonely halls.
In that chamber of silence and solitude - splendid in vivid detail and carvings, beautiful in its darkness but repulsive in its soulless ruin, without warmth or pity, a solemn room of dust and ancient air, it's musky aroma once grand, now a wretched stench of rot to a young nose, sat the dark Lord in a throne of obsidian. Like his divine brothers he was nothing short of magnificent in his grandeur of appearance but unlike brothers Zeus and Poseidon of rich appeal, Hades - though handsome - was built of the cold element of terror and his very appearance could strike sharp and overwhelming fear in the hearts of the bravest. Like his brothers, he was tall and well-built with sharp, straight and proud shoulders, shrouded in silken materials of onyx-black, even darker hair draped those strong, broad shoulders. His very being seemed like ancient shadows given form, like night eternally fallen, without glittering stars or a solitary and pale surface of a glowing harvest moon. Each muscle, each facet, each dark fabric, each sinew, each separate hair seemed to be created from that darkness that shrouds the most hidden and lost parts of a troubled soul. Tall, imperious and intimidating, his darkness shunning and destroying any sallow remnants of brightness, his aura devoid of the almost human fondness and fumbles of his immortal brethren. He was every inch the God; immersed in his divine duties, with nothing else to occupy his time, without any of the human weaknesses of other immortals, if only because of his alienation from their world of turbulent feelings.
Emerging proudly from the raven-black hair - straight as an arrow's flight - falling like settling dust against draped shoulders was his face, carved from pale marble in starlight, boasting handsome but serious, loveless features. His skin was as pale as alabaster, without a trace of life suggested, his features sharp, and his hair never falling in its sight and wrath, always distanced and devoid of wildness. His jaw and chin were strong, his lips thin and drawn into an emotionless line and his nose thin and proud, like that of a statue, his forehead high, almost bulging. His icy eyes were deep-set and were gravitating and devastating in their hypnotic beauty but without a trace or shred of warmth. They were graced with a thousand sharp blue shades, each one cold almost to cruelty but with the looming shadows of despair faintly hovering within dark irises and candles of the eye, revealing the very soul of darkness. But dark and lonely.
The deep shades of solitude were quickly drowned once more beneath the thick ice of his pragmatic gaze, without passions of his brothers and sisters, without their love and hatred, their joys and sorrows. All he had was one passion - that desperate feeling of an aching loneliness, the longing to dispel it, to bring some brightness into his dreary world of grief and spirits. At many times he had congratulated himself on being so different to his divine family, without their shameless needs and open hearts to ruin with such anger, affection, jealousy, sadness and loss. It made them weak and caused them to stray from their all-important duties. But he was caught in the violent throes of a moment of reflection that told the solemn tale of yet another grim truth - that though their flaws, mistakes and foolhardy ways rarely ended in happiness for all involved and made them so akin to their mortal subjects, they were truly alive and fresh with feeling. Whilst he was as dead as all who passed through his realm of monotony and obsidian.
Of course, their own duties were simpler, whilst his required much more time and sacrifice. It was a sacrifice The Fates must have bestowed upon him as his destiny, he mused and should not be questioned in a malcontent moment. However, these malcontent moments were not rare occurrences. Time slipped by at a snail's pace, tangible but barely without sunlight to record the days and as each lonely moment slipped by into a new black mood he would long for a change. More chances to freely wander and be welcomed into the passionate worlds of those closest to him. Perhaps some company in the empty chambers, echoing of lost life.
He had never taken a bride, never found a Goddess that stirred the longing and passionate fires within him that often visited the loins of his brother Zeus. Nor had any Goddess showed any affection or desire to have him as a husband and become his Queen. Without the necessary feelings that accompany a need for marriage, it seemed unnecessary to his logical mind to even consider having a Lady to bring life and love to his cold world yet he knew from a wise mind that there was much joy to be found in matrimony and love. Perhaps a wife would be a desirable thing within his lonely life? Company alone would be enough at times. But then, he was driven by the sting of feeling completely at a loss - he had nothing to offer a bride but a world of torment and misery. It was hopeless.
Then his pragmatic self returned on swift wings, beating the carcass of pointless despair from his mind, flinging it out unceremoniously with violent urgency. He had no need for a wife! Yes, he was the loneliest of Gods without company, life or laughter but none had ever stirred any living feelings within him. He was reminded of his duties to his realm, not to drift away into the realm of Aphrodite on a flight of fancy. Perhaps indeed he had a great heart, but it was not to be found.
A brief, chilling shudder coursed like heated blood through the dead chamber, the sound of yet another soul departing from the world of mortals, flying on stale, stifling air and descending into the dying lull of his domain of spitting shadows, clawing at the remaining life in the stronger spirits. He sighed for a moment, determined to take his stray thoughts away from the hauntings of loneliness, of the staining emptiness of the teased wound it created inside his own hollow spirit. All seemed to be both part of and built from time's relentless enmity, all lost in such a dark, eerie realm of isolation.
With imperious agility, he stood up and majestically strode away from his dark throne and the huge, empty chamber, without any sound independent of him. A brief but burning hate against it raged momentarily within his heart before being frozen in a bone-chilling frenzy of shrouding shadows and piercing ice. He felt the main hall without pith or feeling and wandered for a brief moment of freedom from the bony grasp of his duties, a chance to break away from the same four walls for a moment. Each step was well thought-out in appearance, his dark presence looming dangerously over faded souls and he proudly walked through the mourning cloisters of the Underworld, stopping only to pat the three threatening heads of Cerberus and to gaze over the river Styx. To gaze at the tangible sorrows it represented, misery given form, their cries shattering against cold walls. For a moment, he understood and plunged headlong once more into a driving melancholy. This was his life, his soul, his duty. To tend these caterwauling spirits and rule in the decaying turrets of his castle of shadows.
He paused, taking in his world, before retreating once more back to the frozen embrace of his throne room, to carry out the bonds of his duty. He pushed away these creeping, climbing thoughts that wrapped their long, grey fingers around his mind and dreams and returned to the familiar hold of logic and reason. There he remained in his solitary kingdom, with a wish in vain for just a moment of light, a single example of life.
Even if it was merely a single flower.
Author's Note: An actual chapter! Don't worry, the whole story wasn't going to be told through poetry - I just like including them at key points and I think it's fairly original. Anyway, enjoy the chapter! Unfortunately, they're all somewhat shorter than my one-chapter stories but - naturally - it's all going to add up to something *much* longer so I suppose it evens out somewhere. Happy reading!
Epitaph Empress
Chapter I
Silence. Not even a fresh chill born of dreary spirits wandering in, lost and solitary entered the throne room of Hades, God of the Dead and Lord of the Underworld. Silence echoed off silence throughout the sombre halls of a kingdom of darkness. All grey stone slabs that made up the dreary domain were bathed in shadow, the vast riches and wealth diminished by decaying stillness that shrouded and encompassed everything, drowning the underground realm in swathes of night and dark loss. From the gates of black oak where loyal Cerberus guarded with vicious vigour to the cold throne room and it's splendid decorum, ruined by shades and clusters of the shadows cast over the Underworld, crying out in a silent wail of grief, the scenery all different, the theme disturbingly monotonous. Everywhere - death, decay, darkness. Nothing more. No light ever shone in the lifeless world of memories and mourning, no laughter ever rang through the lonely halls.
In that chamber of silence and solitude - splendid in vivid detail and carvings, beautiful in its darkness but repulsive in its soulless ruin, without warmth or pity, a solemn room of dust and ancient air, it's musky aroma once grand, now a wretched stench of rot to a young nose, sat the dark Lord in a throne of obsidian. Like his divine brothers he was nothing short of magnificent in his grandeur of appearance but unlike brothers Zeus and Poseidon of rich appeal, Hades - though handsome - was built of the cold element of terror and his very appearance could strike sharp and overwhelming fear in the hearts of the bravest. Like his brothers, he was tall and well-built with sharp, straight and proud shoulders, shrouded in silken materials of onyx-black, even darker hair draped those strong, broad shoulders. His very being seemed like ancient shadows given form, like night eternally fallen, without glittering stars or a solitary and pale surface of a glowing harvest moon. Each muscle, each facet, each dark fabric, each sinew, each separate hair seemed to be created from that darkness that shrouds the most hidden and lost parts of a troubled soul. Tall, imperious and intimidating, his darkness shunning and destroying any sallow remnants of brightness, his aura devoid of the almost human fondness and fumbles of his immortal brethren. He was every inch the God; immersed in his divine duties, with nothing else to occupy his time, without any of the human weaknesses of other immortals, if only because of his alienation from their world of turbulent feelings.
Emerging proudly from the raven-black hair - straight as an arrow's flight - falling like settling dust against draped shoulders was his face, carved from pale marble in starlight, boasting handsome but serious, loveless features. His skin was as pale as alabaster, without a trace of life suggested, his features sharp, and his hair never falling in its sight and wrath, always distanced and devoid of wildness. His jaw and chin were strong, his lips thin and drawn into an emotionless line and his nose thin and proud, like that of a statue, his forehead high, almost bulging. His icy eyes were deep-set and were gravitating and devastating in their hypnotic beauty but without a trace or shred of warmth. They were graced with a thousand sharp blue shades, each one cold almost to cruelty but with the looming shadows of despair faintly hovering within dark irises and candles of the eye, revealing the very soul of darkness. But dark and lonely.
The deep shades of solitude were quickly drowned once more beneath the thick ice of his pragmatic gaze, without passions of his brothers and sisters, without their love and hatred, their joys and sorrows. All he had was one passion - that desperate feeling of an aching loneliness, the longing to dispel it, to bring some brightness into his dreary world of grief and spirits. At many times he had congratulated himself on being so different to his divine family, without their shameless needs and open hearts to ruin with such anger, affection, jealousy, sadness and loss. It made them weak and caused them to stray from their all-important duties. But he was caught in the violent throes of a moment of reflection that told the solemn tale of yet another grim truth - that though their flaws, mistakes and foolhardy ways rarely ended in happiness for all involved and made them so akin to their mortal subjects, they were truly alive and fresh with feeling. Whilst he was as dead as all who passed through his realm of monotony and obsidian.
Of course, their own duties were simpler, whilst his required much more time and sacrifice. It was a sacrifice The Fates must have bestowed upon him as his destiny, he mused and should not be questioned in a malcontent moment. However, these malcontent moments were not rare occurrences. Time slipped by at a snail's pace, tangible but barely without sunlight to record the days and as each lonely moment slipped by into a new black mood he would long for a change. More chances to freely wander and be welcomed into the passionate worlds of those closest to him. Perhaps some company in the empty chambers, echoing of lost life.
He had never taken a bride, never found a Goddess that stirred the longing and passionate fires within him that often visited the loins of his brother Zeus. Nor had any Goddess showed any affection or desire to have him as a husband and become his Queen. Without the necessary feelings that accompany a need for marriage, it seemed unnecessary to his logical mind to even consider having a Lady to bring life and love to his cold world yet he knew from a wise mind that there was much joy to be found in matrimony and love. Perhaps a wife would be a desirable thing within his lonely life? Company alone would be enough at times. But then, he was driven by the sting of feeling completely at a loss - he had nothing to offer a bride but a world of torment and misery. It was hopeless.
Then his pragmatic self returned on swift wings, beating the carcass of pointless despair from his mind, flinging it out unceremoniously with violent urgency. He had no need for a wife! Yes, he was the loneliest of Gods without company, life or laughter but none had ever stirred any living feelings within him. He was reminded of his duties to his realm, not to drift away into the realm of Aphrodite on a flight of fancy. Perhaps indeed he had a great heart, but it was not to be found.
A brief, chilling shudder coursed like heated blood through the dead chamber, the sound of yet another soul departing from the world of mortals, flying on stale, stifling air and descending into the dying lull of his domain of spitting shadows, clawing at the remaining life in the stronger spirits. He sighed for a moment, determined to take his stray thoughts away from the hauntings of loneliness, of the staining emptiness of the teased wound it created inside his own hollow spirit. All seemed to be both part of and built from time's relentless enmity, all lost in such a dark, eerie realm of isolation.
With imperious agility, he stood up and majestically strode away from his dark throne and the huge, empty chamber, without any sound independent of him. A brief but burning hate against it raged momentarily within his heart before being frozen in a bone-chilling frenzy of shrouding shadows and piercing ice. He felt the main hall without pith or feeling and wandered for a brief moment of freedom from the bony grasp of his duties, a chance to break away from the same four walls for a moment. Each step was well thought-out in appearance, his dark presence looming dangerously over faded souls and he proudly walked through the mourning cloisters of the Underworld, stopping only to pat the three threatening heads of Cerberus and to gaze over the river Styx. To gaze at the tangible sorrows it represented, misery given form, their cries shattering against cold walls. For a moment, he understood and plunged headlong once more into a driving melancholy. This was his life, his soul, his duty. To tend these caterwauling spirits and rule in the decaying turrets of his castle of shadows.
He paused, taking in his world, before retreating once more back to the frozen embrace of his throne room, to carry out the bonds of his duty. He pushed away these creeping, climbing thoughts that wrapped their long, grey fingers around his mind and dreams and returned to the familiar hold of logic and reason. There he remained in his solitary kingdom, with a wish in vain for just a moment of light, a single example of life.
Even if it was merely a single flower.