"What's a soulmate," one of the children asked.
"Well, your father is mine," Leaneíras mused to the child sitting on the floor of the cabin. She shifted her arm, allowing the fabric of her dress to move down. "A soulmate is someone you can carry with you forever."
The child traced the mark that still gleamed on her skin even four millennia later.
She smiled adoringly, "He is half my soul, as the poets say." Leaneíra turned her gaze to look at her blessing from kháos as he spoke with his siblings. He looked at her easily as if he knew she was speaking about him. "You walk in, and my hearts beats differently."
Turning back to the children, she continued on with her explanation. "Your soulmate will be the stranger you recognize. It's like... a best friend, but more."
"Oh," another said. "But why are they so important when not all of them are romantic?"
"Because they inspire you," Leaneíra told them. "And they're that someone that makes you a better person. Well, they help you. You learn from them and they from you. And no matter what happens, you'll always love them."
Her mind flashed back over everything that had happened since she and her friends accidentally revealed the existence of gods.
The various witch hunts because people didn't believe so they were working overtime trying to save demigods and regular mortals. The time that the Pope tried to denounce her, so she showed up in the middle of his sermon, mageia flaring around her and in her eyes and managed to convert him then and there. She dodged the fuck out of Illyria and their worship of her and she was like 87% sure that the place had not existed before she went on her inter dimensional roadtrip.
And there was so much paperwork; oh gods, the amount of paperwork that she had to do was insane.
Lea could hardly go anywhere without being accosted and the stocks for the various companies associated with her and her friends skyrocketed. Drew and Octavian became rich enough to last until the universe imploded and still be well off into the next.
And do not get her started on Usnavi's bodega. He had to start fixing her sandwiches first just so she could have ONE for the day because people were flocking out of the building trying to get them.
Her Mother started writing books and those were sold out. Paul had to transfer to New Delphoí (since they finally renamed Camp Half Blood) to teach.
Genesis weird ass book that he wrote about her had been found, and Hērmês kept it protected so she could not go burn it to the ground before it was reprinted every damn where. It made it hard to be an atheist when she became the very thing she did not believe in!
And the prayers; oh man, the prayers.
DID PEOPLE NOT KNOW HOW TO SHUT THE FUCK UP?
Every hour of the damn day somebody was calling her name. She struggled with it a lot, the irritation forcing itself to the front of her mind and causing countless arguments with Hērmês. Thankfully, he was patient with her frustration, and they managed to work it out as she got used to it, and she sincerely apologized for taking her anger out on him.
That described a lot about their relationship as time moved on. He was very big on communication, so her defense mechanism of shutting down crumbled in face of his sincerity and desire to fix things.
It was very sweet, and she just knew that she would always love him more than he would ever know.
"Lady Leaneíras?"
She blinked, coming back to herself as she looked at the child in her arms. Looking around her, she realized that she gained more of an audience, including her own children with Hērmês; children created through her mageia because she had been very serious when she said that she would never get pregnant.
Leaneíras smiled. "Ah, what were we talking about? Oh, yes. Blessings. Well, a blessing is hmm... It's one person who knew you; the one person in the world that knows you better than anyone else. Well, unless you have a polybond then it is that group of people that know you so perfectly."
"You can have more than one," her child, Salem because Lea was a troll, asked with bright eyes.
Leaneíras nodded. "Your Uncle Percy has three and your Aunt Ártemis has two. A few centuries back there was one person that had ten!"
The children gasped.
"Really?"
"Oh, yes," Leaneíras smiled. "And every single last one of them were special because your blessing or blessings are the ones that believe in you before any else did or when no one else would. Our soulmates are the ones that make life come to life."
"Was that how it was for you and Papa?" One of her stepchildren asked. She currently only had five alive on the greek side of things and about ten on the romans. Though there were whispers about the Fates planning on having her have demigods which no. Just no.
"Something like that," Leaneíras admitted with a quirk of her lips. Their story had been hilarious until Travis decided to capitalize on it and now it was a goddamn valentine's day movie classic with a spin off television show. "Your Father... he was... I knew from the moment that I saw him that the only true love is love at first sight, and then I saw him again, and well second sight dispel all of that."
She trailed off with a laugh and though the kids did not understand, they laughed with her.
"I was not even a whisper in your thoughts," came the familiar voice as an arm wrapped around her waist. "But you were screaming in mine. Ever since I had met Leaneíras, no one else was worth thinking about, and I knew that with her I wanted to have a love like the gods. Ever lasting against time. After all, twas our souls that sealed the deal for this life."
Leaneíras rolled her eyes. "Don't believe him. What he wanted was an illusion of love."
"Ah, but love is magic, is it not?" Hērmês pressed a kiss to the side of her head before turning to his children. "And Leaneíras is someone that forever will I adore because soulmates are muses, and a bond between souls is ancient, older than the planet."
"And Papa is really old!" came from Salem, and Leaneíras snorted as Hērmês dramatically fainted backwards with a hand to his heart.
"That he is," Leaneíras smiled. "But that just means he has seen a lot of blessings, and that our love will last almost as long as he's been alive."
"But that was with the dinosaurs!"
Leaneíras bit her lip to keep from cackling as she nodded. "You may hurt his feelings."
"You will. You will," Hērmês chanted. "Tis both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so very deeply."
"Will you be like that when you reach his add, mama?"
Leaneíras snorted. "Your dad has millennia on me. He'll be worse, but we may be similar since whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
The conch shell went off in the distance, and they shooed the children off to dinner with Salem happily leading the charge.
Leaneíras turned towards her lover, her blessing and very gently kissed him. "You know, when I first saw you in mindscape all those years ago, I just about stopped breathing the moment you recognized me, as you captured my soul with your gaze."
"I knew you loved me." Hērmês smiled smugly.
"Oh, hush you." Leaneíras rolled her eyes, snickering.
"Do you ever wish that things were different?"
She paused as she thought about it. She had barely been able to finish college because of all the harassment to the point where she and her friends transferred to New Roma University and Minerva University halfway through their second year. Jobs were hard to have because people just handed them positions or started trying to sell their business to them for their favor; not that they even needed jobs.
There was the fact that Thryandia became an actual place with actual beings that they honestly had to rule over and that they somehow accidentally created a world tree like from the norse myths.
There was the fact that once she got over her fear of world walking, Leaneíra went to visit her friends and Kallós and Meinsvarra and Alkína and her sisters. She took Percy and Drew and Medea with her; she took her Mother because damn did Ariadnê did it though Leaneíras was not risking her life by taking her around Livia. Hērmês came with her sometimes, and he had told her that he was thankful that she and Ariadnê were not identical because he was not sure he would've been able to not punch his brother in the face.
She thought about Peitho, and the new lives that she was forced to live over and over again. As she found her soulmate over and over again, and he could never be with her because she either died or he was with someone else and then she died or that one lifetime where he killed her.
Yikes.
Also, karma.
Bitch.
"Mm, no. Despite everything, it is still you." Including those damn stalkers that used to lay across his newly built temples naked! trying to get his attention. "To me, you are a lovely dream. And if I know what love is, it is because of you for love is an open door including the door behind us that neither closed or lock."
Hērmês paused from where his hand was trailing under shirt and thumb brushing against her mark.
He pouted, stepping just a bit away. "You are right."
"As always."
"Debatable," he shot back. "But back to your sweet words... Love; our love in particular, is something eternal, the aspect may change, but not the essence."
"The stars incline us, they do not blind us," she pointed out as she stepped back into his embrace. "From the moment I saw those weird letters on my skin, I knew that it was going to always be you."
"You had a weird way of showing it. Twas maddening."
"You call it madness, but I call it love. And you know as well as I, there is always madness in love and it is all that you need."
"Got that from Drew, did you?"
"Her Mother actually," Leaneíras said, shivering alongside him as they thought about Aphrodítē. So beautiful and so terrifying.
"She adores you," Hērmês informed her. "She's really thankful for the care that you have given Drew alongside Piper when it was clear that you hated the girl."
"I think most of my hatred from her stemmed from Livia and her world otherwise she was nothing more than a nuisance."
"But you still cared for her and tried to help her especially when she unintentionally ascended."
Now that had been a disaster, but Leaneíras had still cackled for at least thirty minutes at the sheer horror on the girl's face.
Though Leaneíras could have went without those three strange women that appeared within Camp Half-Blood after everything; calling themselves— the Wyrd as they were apparently three new fates.
They were all still jumpy from the war so Leaneíras and her friends and family; alongside the gods surprisingly, had surrounded them immediately only for the women to bow before Leaneíras and the others and saying: All Hail the New Gods: the Jaxson Pantheon.
Leaneíras should have killed them, but they had been standing too close to the ash-tree that she had planted from the seed that Quing Posidaeia had pushed into her arms as she left her world.
"Yes, well. I did my best."
Hērmês led her to the top floor of the cabin which was still a shrine to her after all these years. The two laid together on the bed that was there. "You always do your best. Look at the worship the minor gods have received over the years when you alongside Jason and Octavian went to capital of each country and state which lists of the gods, and their preferred manners of worship. You started your own cult within the gods since it all comes back to you."
Which had been completely weird and forced her to hide in Livia's world for a while because her sister was terrifying. The day that Leaneíras had brought Livia to her world was the day the world almost ended again because the girl had too much fun sparring against people.
"None of that mattered. I didn't need their thanks and all that other crap. Your love was enough; the part of me that I'll always need. The only thing that kept me going during that interdimensional roadtrip."
"Well, I am the best," he joked. "And you deserve the best so the fact you loved me so much."
Leaneíras snickered. "Don't forget that I met other versions of you. It's just... it was you that I wanted."
Hērmês cooed, pressing kisses all over her face. "Did I mention that I am in love with you and that I think of you every day. I knew everything would work out between us. Mother had always said that love was patient, kind, and beautiful. Like you."
"Charmer."
"For you? Always."
"And you will forever be my always. You will forever be the one that I love, and not whoever the world thinks that you should be. Not even the ones that have died and really have no business being in our business since love is something that not even death can touch."
"You killed those girls, so I don't see why you haven't let the grudge go?"
"They were using your statues as dildos!"
"But they did not matter, my love. No one else matters when I look into your eyes."
"Still, you deserve good things, and I want to be one of them. And I didn't want them to be any of them."
"And they were not. Twas me who animated the statues to throw them out of the temples."
"And they thought it was me being jealous," she huffed.
"I had been so hurt when you did not want to speak with me afterwards. I spent my days waiting for you, searching the crowds for your face. because even in a crowded room my eyes are on you."
"I went to visit Ariadnê. My sister is quite protective, and it was only the fact that she could not world walk that kept them alive until I returned."
He gave a small laugh as she tucked her head into his side. "That she is. She had pointedly reminded me the next time I went with you for a visit that love was a game that two could play. She did not find it all that amusing when I pointed out that I was the patron god of games."
"Yes, she did brag and say that she had the superior Hērmês," Leaneíras snickered. "I told her that I did not care because well, I was careless fool and I fell in love with you anyway."
"And what did she say to that?"
"She called me a sap and threw a snowball at me to cheat at the racing game we were playing."
Hērmês gave a booming laugh. Ariadnê was particularly entertaining as the girl had no understanding of a filter. She had been learning, but Lea didn't have high hopes for it.
"Your siblings are truly entertaining, and they adore you considering all the small things that they do for you with such great love."
"That's because all of them have teamed up to treat me as a baby!" She argued even when her Percy met the other Percys... it got worse.
"The other versions of me do also."
"No need to be jealous, darling. A million times over, I will always choose you. I chose to come back to you, didn't I. It's because I love you. My love for you was what helped me find you. I don't care about those either version of you. All you are is all I would ever need."
Even if she did know way too much about his body than before they even slept together. Make out sessions were a bit awkward when she knew what his dick looked and felt like courtesy of her sisters.
Least it was better than dealing with Kallós' Hērmês who enjoyed letting it all just hang out and about and was a goddamn menace to society that made her blessing tired when they were the same being up til a point!
(Kallós' Peitho had left her and Kallós alone when she brought back word of her endeavors which included ripping the divinity from her counterpart. Leaneíras had never seen someone so pale before or run that fast.)
"You know what they say. You can't control the heart."
Leaneíras shrugged. "Don't care. Either way, my heart is yours. Break it a thousand times if you like. It was only yours to break anyway."
"I did not eat the last slice of pizza," Hērmês sighed, tickling her lightly. It was what she had stated just the day before when she did catch him eating the last slice of pizza!
"Liarrrrr!" The two them giggled like children, the sound of actual children echoing in the background as they played capture the flag. "You know, you are probably the greatest gift that I have ever gotten since you are nothing short of my everything. You are worth every mile that has ever existed between us. It's crazy to think that I didn't fall in love with at the first day, but I knew that I did."
"And denied said feelings for about four years," he snickered, before leaning in to kiss her tenderly.
Leaneíras rolled her eyes. "At least I knew that in the end, that home was wherever I'm with you. My family and friends too of course, but you... My hearts beats for you. You're everything that my heart desires and I'll hold you there until I can hold you in my arms."
"You're never getting rid of me," he told her seriously. "I will follow you to the ends of the universe and back again. I don't think I could survive if I lost you again. I was about to fall about if you stay away for a moment longer. I love you, okay. I will love you until the end of time because all my better days are ones spent with you since you are my never-ending thought and the idea of being separated from you like that again terrifies me."
"There is no spell strong enough to take me away again," she swore. "In fact, the most powerful spell to be loved is to love, and ours will be enough to nullify any that some idiot may try to place on me."
"Take care, my love," Hērmês murmured. "My days are lacking without you and tis only in your eyes, that I see my future. You know that I come from the sky, and the stars only ever speak of you so... I hope it is okay if I love you forever even when people try to take you from me."
Leaneíras rolled over, straddling his waist. "I am not complete with you so yes; I am ready to fall in love. I have been for centuries now. I am not complete without you and I love you more than words can express. Honestly, if I were to live my life again, I'd find you sooner since my love is a planet revolving your heart."
"Ah, let's not wish for that, my love. There were all those pesky grooming comments we had to deal with which is ironic because you didn't even consciously care about me."
"Crazy how in a kiss, you know everything I've kept silent," she smiled while also rolling her eyes. "Still. I don't care what other people think. You are the love of my life, and the light of my love. I love you with all my soul which is kind of crazy because people said that there was no such as love at first sight, but I knew... I just knew... well, if it never happened to them, it doesn't mean it didn't exist, but a part of me had always known that and loved you into the ocean and up in the stars, and my death and my life resided in you and your beauty."
"Yes, I am cute," Hērmês cooed, and Leaneíras rolled her eyes. "I love you too. My life is incomplete without you. Your love glued all my broken pieces even the ones that I did not know I had."
"Tell me about it," she snorted. "But all of it was yours before I could admit it even when I didn't understand that I was craving a love so deep that the ocean would be jealous. I just... I knew that our love was stronger than death, and you have to admit things were a little iffy there when I was still mortal."
A lot of people wanted her dead to the point that they sent across the damn multiverse in an attempt to get rid of her.
Too bad that they were some fucking losers.
"It was also kind of crazy back when I wasn't the one they wanted you to love like we had a choice in it," Leaneíras snorted. "Even in all those other worlds, well for my counterparts, it wasn't love at first sight for them exactly, but it was familiarity. I think because a bit of my personality was starting to shine through. I know Meinsvarra was going crazy when xe started to dream about dating a man."
"You know xe hissed at me when we went to xir world for our 400th anniversary. Very rude of xir actually."
"Yes, well, as we shared a body, xe had to deal with all your declarations of love," Lea smiled. "While xe was dealing with xir own issues."
"Xe'd be lucky to have me. Unluckily for xir though is that my heart is a home built just for you and no one else. I love you more than my own skin, and a soul; my divine essence will not forget that."
"They used Lethe water on me," Leaneíras protested. "And I overcame it each time. My love for you opened all doors, and the resentment that I held for them tended to close them, but it didn't matter because my soul chose yours and nothing could ever change that. I am blessed to call you mine because before you I didn't know how people fell in love at first sight even if you were a weird creepy stalker."
"I can't believe Livia called me your 'stalker-mate' straight to my face. Why were you introducing me like that?"
"I actually said that you were a stalker with delusions of grandeur. She got the stalker-mate nickname from my own inner thoughts."
"Why were you thinking of me like that?"
"Why were you being a stalker?"
"I'm in love with you," he protested. "From the moment that I saw you, I knew that I was in love with you and though it was just the thought of you that I was in love with, I grew to love you as a person. I grew to love you as you are. I am much more me when I'm with you, and even then, I take a step back because all I desire to do is to see you happy and adored and filled with so much. I want you to stay with me forever."
He sat up straight in the bed, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her flush against his body. "Every beat of my heart belongs to you. You are too entangled within my soul. And I know that I would destroy you in the most beautiful way possible and that is why I willingly hand the power that you hold over me into your very hands because my darling, for me, it was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and every sight. I stalked you as you so graciously put it because I could do nothing else if it meant just being in your presence. I just... I will always truly, completely, love you."
He finished his words with a kiss, cradling her face with his hands, and it was a kiss as passionate and tender and gentle and so much just like all others; just like the day on that battlefield when she kissed him for the first time. When she realized that the being in front of her and the love that they shared after everything, and she knew that she never wanted to be apart from him again because that's what it meant to be a soulmate.
Because in the end, there was everything.
Just as it meant to be for all the blessings from kháos.
THE END
WORD COUNT: 4275