Part 2
Eros knew how to play the human heart as well as Apollo did his lyre. He considered himself the expert on mortal passion and emotion… though he rarely experienced the latter himself. The organ that lay within his chest, life-sustaining and beating just as it did with all living creatures, was merely for show; it was useless, and if it could be made of something other than muscle and flesh it would be of the same lead as his arrows that forced one to apathy.
Apathy. That was his weapon that gave him control over such feeble things as emotion and the heart.
For the opposite of love is not hatred, but apathy.
And he saved it for last.
The god began with hatred; with contempt, and loathing. His victim had never experienced such things. She was sweet, kind, and gentle, and as such had never garnered such negative responses from even the surliest of sailors or the most bitter of widows.
The day after their first meeting, with the sun high in the sky and beating on the backs of the people in the market, he dressed as a commoner, with only his golden head revealed to shine like a beacon to her covetous eyes. He could see her even through the throngs of people, a single beautiful maiden that looked around herself constantly, not out of paranoia but of want. His body called to hers, and when he slipped through the crowd and purposefully brushed their hands for only a second, he could hear her gasp.
She followed him out of the market, to the hollowed ruins of a house burned down just days before. The young family had already evacuated, leaving only the skeleton of the house with its crumbling walls and few pieces of furniture, blackened beyond repair.
She spoke first. "My love, I've found you." He didn't hide his snort of disdain; tears glistened in her eyes but didn't fall. "Will you take me?"
Eros leaned against a solid part of one of the remaining walls, his posture careless. "Does a god of love lower himself to take a creature such as you?" He smiled, charming and malicious. "You are a spawn of the evil of Pandora's box, Charissa."
Lowering her eyes, she sank onto a three-legged stool that wobbled. "Why do you say such things?" Her voice trembled, pleading. "How can you?" Reaching out to him.
He came towards her, crouching with a straight back to peer at her, smile still on his face. "If you touch me," he said kindly, cruelly. "I will kill all that you love."
Her eyes widened and, disregarding his words and positive that he wouldn't kill himself, her hands grasped at his tunic. "But I love you!" she exclaimed, desperate for him to see.
His body went very still, and in the shadows cast by the sun's rays through the ruins he looked like a marble statue, frozen in this moment of desolation and rejection. Slowly, his gaze moved down, focusing on her hands, one of which had fluttered down to his and grasped his fingers tentatively. Eros rose.
"You bring this on yourself."
Charissa was hurt, but not deterred. He would see; he had to! He was merely toying with her – more than she knew – to make the chase sweet and the victory even sweeter.
His hurtful words played over in her mind, and she gave a choked laugh, half a sob, as she stumbled to her home. Removing her shawl - it was so very hot, and there was a burning deep within her that scorched the inside of her skin – she ducked her head and entered the little house that she shared with her parents and sisters.
"I'm home, Mother," she called, voice distant as already she had forgotten why she was here, rather than with Eros. Shaking her head to clear it, Charissa looked around her at the barren rooms, cold on this hot day. "Mother? Father?"
Silence greeted her, and she made her way to the back, to the kitchen. Her family sat casually in chairs, dinner already laid out before them. They turned to face her with welcoming smiles that contradicted everything around them and tried to reassure her that the sense of foreboding gliding over her was only her imagination.
The winged god in the corner went unseen, Hermes' stolen helmet perched on his head. He'd return it when he no longer had need of invisibility; he could cloak himself with his own heavenly powers, erase his presence from the sight and hearing of mortals… but Eros wanted her to feel him there. So close, and so untouchable. With a smirk, he pulled back the string of his bow, four arrows lined neatly in a row. The heavy lead bolts flew as he released, hitting their marks of the hearts of the family neatly.
Unlike the haze of pleasure that clouded the mind of one struck by his golden arrows, the lead arrows caused a feeling of ice flowing through veins, piercing the heart and thrusting contempt onto the first person seen by the afflicted one.
The family's smiles turned to disdainful glares as their eyes became flat and empty at the sight of her.
Her hands came clasped together over her heart protectively. It was so surreal, but undeniably tangible and absolute.
One by one, they turned away.
The apathy worked best when she bore witness to his utter disregard for her infatuation with him. In the little broken house that he'd denied her in, and in the green meadow where they'd met, he took his mortal lovers – women uglier than her, young boys whose beauty rivalled hers, and one self-proclaimed witch – and seduced them. Her weeping was drowned out by the sounds of passion.
When a particularly vocal lover of his had departed, discarded like all the others – because no mortal could ever truly satisfy a god, and taking one after the other broke her piece by piece – she must have been shattered enough to step forward from the shadows, a voyeur to his mockery of love.
"Was she good, my love?"
Turning, Eros arched one golden brow at the sight of her, unsurprised. She was hunched forward ever so slightly, as if trying to lean into him without moving from where she stood. Head tilted, her hands were clasped laxly together.
"Did she taste of figs and berries, Eros?" the girl inquired, leaning farther. "Did you drink of her, her hateful, spiteful mouth that makes the fruit go bad in spring?" Her tone was strange, more unnerving that despite her jealous words she spoke so softly. Charissa began to sway slightly, back and forth, her hands moving with the rhythm of her body. "You danced together, did you not? Hear the cries of those who are innocent and dance to the music… Cry, cry my heart, for the king has not cancelled the party."
The white dress that must have fit her once but now hung drab on her body and pooled at her feet, hid the movements of her steps as she swayed and came forward, so quietly that he didn't notice until she was right in front of him as she finished speaking. With surprising speed she reached out and buried her fingers in his golden hair, an ecstatic moan escaping her at the contact as she pressed her lips against his own.
He grabbed her thin shoulders, fingers digging hard enough to bruise, and wrenched her away from him. Shoving her down, she collapsed, and when her dull blue eyes rose to his face he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and spat on her. Memories of the first time he had done so suddenly filled his mind, and he though that the only difference then was those eyes.
"I will find my pleasures," he hissed, voice thin and malicious and anything but seductive. "You taste of ashes."
