Bound to the Past

Zephyros

Zephyros's thoughts are as varied and unformed as he is in his wind form. It's a comfortable state of being, light and airy, and he breezes past the palaces and gardens of the gods who call Olympus home. The timeless state of the place, strangely draws his focus. How so many eons have passed, and yet Olympus still stands, the pantheon remains intact.

Alighting in the gardens surrounding Zeus's palace, Zephyros ruffles his wings and glances down to make sure he is still invisible. He needs to put his thoughts in order before announcing his arrival. He hovers beside a spring, listening to the music the water makes as it trickles over the rocks. The melody seems altered, more subdued than when he was here last.

His invisible feet leave prints in the muddy banks and Zephyros savors the squishy sensation between his toes. A long, long time ago he had walked a similar bank, his attention drawn by a shining young god splashing in the water with the nymphs who attended him.

Zephyros retreats a few paces and sits under a white poplar tree, his back resting against the trunk, wings tucked on either side. In those days, the days of Zeus's boyhood, hidden by the nymphs from his father, Zeus had charmed all who were allowed to meet him. He was a ball of energy: singing, making up jokes, forever seeking to be the center of attention and to earn smiles and adoration from those he entertained. One nymph, in fact a Titan goddess, was particularly enamored of him. Metis was crafty and wise, the goddess of good counsel. Together, she and Zeus's mother, Rhea, determined how to put Zeus into a position where he could free his siblings and overtake Kronos's rule.

He'd been successful, and Zephyros recalls the Olympian triumph over the Titans, a shiver running down his spine. War changes people, gods included, and Zeus would never again be the same happy go lucky youngster that had charmed so many. He sought to take Metis for his wife, and despite how she resisted him, even appealing to Zephyros to help conceal her on occasion, she admitted that her fate was already sealed and she would have to submit to Zeus. All actions had consequences, she'd explained, and overthrowing the Titans, unsettling the balance of nature, had earned her a large one. Zephyros hadn't known what she meant until the horrible day Zeus swallowed her whole. From then on, Zephyros bowed to Zeus's whims, not because he found him charming, but out of fear. Just as his father had, Zeus had sidestepped fate.

Zephyros swallows the bitter taste in his mouth and allows his mind to drift along with the melancholy song of the spring. He recalls the day Hera and Zeus married, and upon their exchange of vows, Hera insisted her handmaidens follow her example. Iris, Hera's personal messenger, appealed to Zephyros. They were siblings, and similar in not favoring the opposite sex as lovers, but together they could appear to follow Hera's command and not be bitter toward each other.

After Hera conceived Ares and declared herself matron of motherhood, Zephyros and Iris made love once, a beautiful and weird experience filled with yearning. It was only natural their son was a winged god, Pothos, and destined to become an erote when Aphrodite revealed herself. He was the god of desire and longing for one not present.

The memory spawns more as Zephyros broods in the poplar's shade. He yearns for Apollo, the taste of him still lingering on Zephyros's lips as the past floods his mind, how their lives first touched each other.

Though Leto was already pregnant with the twin gods when Zeus married Hera, Hera's jealousy was relentless. Iris complained to Zephyros of the task she'd been set, to secure the promise from every land to not allow Leto a place to give birth. Zephyros, learning from Iris that Delos was one island not rooted to the earth, guided Leto's ship safely there. Neither of them would outwardly refuse Zeus and Hera, but together, they could silently circumvent their errors in judgment, and in a sense, protest the bondage they lived under.

The moment Apollo was born, Zephyros gave up the claim over his own heart. Apollo had it before he even recognized Zephyros was present. When Apollo declared himself the god of music, crafted a lute, and began to sing, Zephyros knew he would always follow Apollo. From the beginning, he accepted he was not a god in the same league, that Apollo was destined to become an Olympian, and that his admiration must always be from afar.

Zephyros smiles as the memory washes over him, the long slow days after Apollo's triumph over Python when Zephyros would dance along with him, invisible, and making the trees rustle in his warm, sweet-scented breezes. And then his lips pull into a frown as the memories turn sour. Eros, taunted by Apollo, began the eons long torment for both of them. Iris and he had agreed to dissolve their marriage when it was safe, and Eros, aware of Zephyros's feelings for Apollo, caused him to chase and subdue Khloris and make her his wife. He hadn't realized until many years of serving Eros, how much Eros's resentment had bound his and Apollo's fates. The Hyacinthus debacle … Zephyros squeezes his eyes shut tight. He doesn't want to revisit the torments of the past.

A voice rises from behind him.

"Well, you certainly are taking your sweet time in arriving."

Zephyros looks up as Dionysus approaches from behind a nearby tree. He doesn't appear as he had only yesterday when they had talked, plumper, older. Instead, Dionysus looks as he had in the old days, before Zeus had sentenced him to Camp Half-Blood. He's young, as if not quite finished growing, and with his narrow waist and rounded hips he appears equal measures masculine and feminine. His hair falls to his shoulders in loose black ringlets, and with his violet eyes dancing with amusement, it's difficult for Zephyros to find his voice.

Instead, Zephyros stares at his own feet, only realizing he is now visible. So much has changed in a single day that it doesn't surprise him to find it hard to speak.

Dionysus takes a seat beside him, the fragrance of grapes perfuming the air.

"You look remarkable," Zephyros finally manages, meeting his eyes again. "It seems the return to Olympus has lived up to your expectations."

Dionysus blows out a long breath. "You would think it had," he says. "Unfortunately it's only surface deep. I've been waiting for you, ever since Anteros left. I need to return to Camp Half-Blood, but I need to do it discreetly."

Zephyros cocks his head, not sure he's hearing correctly. "I'm not sure why you would need me for that."

Dionysus's lips turn up at the corners, a teasing smirk. "I don't. But you did take the time to try to talk some reason into me, and I didn't want to listen. It seems only fair I should warn you about what to expect around here." He falls silent for a few moments, watching as several leaves fall from the poplar overhead and chase each other in the wind currents before landing on the grass. "Apparently the old prophecy has finally addled father's brain."

Zephryos lifts an eyebrow. "Which one?"

Dionysus grunts, sounding more like his surly older self again. "The one he heard from Metis, before he swallowed her. The one where she would bear him a son who would be destined to replace him."

"So …" Zephyros starts. "She's still rattling around inside him? I thought … Well, didn't Athena explain that in order to birth her, Metis transformed herself into pure thought?"

Dionysus nods slowly, heavily. "Yes. It seems father has realized that by swallowing her, they have become one entity. Ganymede told me the idea has consumed him. He'd been ranting that the fact some long dead mortal philosophers had referred to him as Metieta proved it. And now he's convinced that any of his godly sons could be the one the prophecy refers to, that as one person, any of his sons would also be one of hers. So this is why we're all being put through our paces. He doesn't know when Metis and he became one, so all are under scrutiny, but …" Dionysus looks into Zephyros's eyes with more focus and sincerity than Zephyros thinks he's ever shown before. "I know madness when I see it, Zephyr. It is my specialty after all. And …"

He doesn't finish his statement, but he doesn't really need to. Zephyros gets it. With the king of the gods suffering from extreme paranoia, working as the messenger of Olympus will be an unpleasant task at the very least.

"I see," Zephyros says. "Thanks for the heads up." Dionysus climbs to his feet and adjusts his robes when another question rises in Zephyros's mind. "What did he do to you?" He hopes Dionysus will not take offense. "To put you in your place?"

Dionysus closes his eyes, frowning. He doesn't answer right away. Instead, he seems to be enjoying the warm breeze that Zephyros carries wherever he goes. Dionysus looks at Zephyros again, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "He had Boreas carry Ariadne to … He had her cast into Tartarus."

Before Zephyros can respond, Dionysus vanishes in a purple mist, and the condolences die on his tongue. If Zeus is so crazed as to chuck his son's spouse into Tartarus in order to control him, then Zephyros is himself walking a fine line. Keeping his marriage to Apollo a secret must be a priority.

He climbs to his feet, heavier than normal. Where love had lifted him up, now it bears down on him, a burden he'd never understood before.