INTERLUDE In which Céleste Delacour learns what a God's love means. (History has always liked to repeat itself and the Delacour family is a fine example)
PS: this is a double update, so please make sure to read the previous chapter before starting this one
The thing about beggared love is that it will never quench one's thirst. Not truly. Instead, it teaches you bad habits.
Teaches you to lick it of knives and be thankful for it, for the crimson that smears your lips so much so that you taste the blood better than the love you have gotten.
Céleste Delacours knows that more than anyone.
She's been born into this world like that, after all.
Already starving.
With a God for a father who is never there and a mother more concerned with her own pain than anything else, it is expected.
She has learned to accept it as a part of her, a legacy of her parents.
But that's the thing about legacies, about parents who still live yet already haunt us.
It follows.
It lingers inside of our very blood, in each tree branch, in each new generation.
Having a daughter, Céleste thinks, makes her take things in perspective.
And seeing her reflection in Adora's eyes sometimes tears a part of her. They might be Derek's eyes, but that hunger in them is hers and was Céleste's mother's before.
What a wretched thing to gift Adora.
But that is the only thing Céleste can give her : a wound that mothers carry and to which their child could never hope to heal.
It is easy to confuse love with abuse, to see warmth while remaining blind to the burns.
There is a fine line between the two: between a truth so twisted it could fool the smartest and a lie so beloved, you never want to wake up from it.
Delacours have always danced this fine line with a grace that most would find daunting.
After all, the Delacour had a reputation to uphold.
Clothes cover bruises easily, and if there is one thing that Mother teaches her children other than cowering in the face of anger, it is how to lie.
Did you catch a cold? Again?
I went outside and forgot my scarf. You know me, I get sick easily. (my mother dragged me across the room and left me outside at the mercy of winter)
What happened to your arm?
I fell (mother threw me into the wall and I fell on my arm)
How did your mother react to your grade?
Oh, she was pissed. I'm not to buy jewelry for weeks. (she tore the exam sheet apart and shattered my favorite vase at my feet. they are still bleeding)
If anything, Céleste guesses that she could be grateful for it.
To lie is to be human.
And none can lie better than a child who has learned fear at the feet of their parents.
She could thank her godly father for abandoning her mother once the thrill of their love had expired. She could thank her mother for the lessons that have made her bones brittle and her neck curved in shame.
But you do not thank the ocean that has drowned you, do you?
So yes, Céleste and Derek Delacour knew violence better than they knew love. They threaded that fine line between truth and lies every day, hoping never to fall.
Yet sometimes, the twins had to wonder what they must do to be worthy of love.
They longed for it, you see. For the promise of something better. Something worth tearing yourself for as their mother did.
They never could understand.
Perhaps you must deserve it?
why weren't they worthy, then?
But that is the thing with the idea of one deserving love. Of thinking you must prove yourself worthy of it.
It turns rotten in your mouth when you watch love being given so freely to those who did nothing to deserve it.
You watch it from behind a glass wall and think, why couldn't it be me?
Mothers and daughters have always existed as wretched mirrors of each other: I am all you could have been, and you are all I might be
Céleste is barely three when she learns that whatever she wants in the greater scheme of things is unsequential.
The world does not stop for anyone.
It does not stop at injustice or at pain.
Mother is a fine teacher in that regard.
Beautiful enough to tempt and seduce a God that had promised her neither love nor protection nor even a semblance of care. Beautiful enough to hold but not enough to be kept.
Something in Mother, Céleste thinks, broke as she was callously disregarded. Mother's pain turned her tenderness into bitterness, and her anger became synonymous with bruises and bloody fists.
Yet, the world did not stop.
It did not stop the first time that Céleste was slapped for laughing too hard as she stumbled into her dance steps.
It did not stop as Mother started to carve herself into bits, took whatever she found flawed, and replaced it with something else.
But no matter the change, the seeming perfection that Mother tried so desperately to make of herself, it did not bring Father back.
Céleste wonders if Mother realized what it taught her, to see the older woman go from Céleste's mirror to something worthy of love.
Probably not.
Mother has always been blind to pain that she did not touch.
And she cares more for the boy who is the mirror of the God she loved so much than the girl who only served as a mirror of someone who had been thrown away.
on her best days that is.
Derek and she all have their own parts to play
It is almost funny when Céleste thinks about it.
Of how much she loved those eyes of hers, those she shared with her well beloved and hateful mother.
Emeralds.
They are beautiful. Cleanly cut, the color of spring.
Of envy.
Of greed
The Delacours have always been a greedy lot: greedy for tangible love, greedy to drown themselves in its sweetness, after all.
Céleste used to love those eyes.
Truly.
But in the same way a child learns to hate their parents - learns to cower instead of smiling, learns to hold his breath instead of laughing - Céleste learns to hate emeralds too.
They are her mother's eyes.
They are her mother's angry and hateful eyes.
And Céleste cannot help but wonder -
Will she grow up to be angry, too?
"Love is all that matters, Céleste," Mother slurs from her bed.
She is sprawled into it, golden hair painting her silk pillows a fair shade while the stench of alcohol lingers in the room.
The curtains are drawn tight, and the place remains bathed in obscurity like the rest of the manor.
Mother has never liked reminders of Father when she nurses a bottle.
Céleste comes and sits on the bed. It welcomes her weight silently. Mother, without looking, pushes one of her bottles into Céleste's hands.
The teenager knows what to do.
In times like these, Mother wishes for solidarity.
Misery, after all, loves company.
"Love, Mother?" Céleste asks before taking a sip. Her lips turn. The bitterness settles on her tongue like an old friend. Mother says it will become sweet one day once she becomes used to it. it did
Mother carries on, gulping down her bottle with a harsh move that has Céleste almost flinching. "Love is everything. Though you might disagree." Céleste shakes her head in denial, earning herself a sardonic laugh. "I see the way you judge me, Céleste."
"I would never judge you, Mother," she soothes, trying to keep her mother's temper at bay.
After all, you never know when a battlefield turns into a graveyard. In the same way, Céleste is always cautious in fear of upsetting her mother till she grows red in the face as she screams.
Mother sends her a mocking glance. "You lie well, but don't forget I'm the one who taught you so." She says it as if it is something to be proud of. "I'm the one who taught you everything. That is why you are so prized. So beloved by strangers. Because you listen to me."
Céleste takes another sip of her whiskey, the bitterness a familiar sting now as Mother continues.
"A woman - a woman needs love, Céleste. You feel it, don't you? That ravenous beast that craves it so much it will kill you. But don't make my mistake, daughter of mine," Mother cautions, her words oddly clear though she is looking at the wall instead of Céleste. "Once you have it, hold on to it. Never let it go. No matter the cost. Because without love," and her words turn almost prophetic, "without love, you are nothing."
Céleste glances at the half-closed door. She thinks she sees Derek's shadow lingering in the frame like a ghost who knows he will not be welcomed. He never is when he looks too much like Father to their mother's taste.
Emerald and Sapphire meet.
A silent nod.
A silent understanding.
The twins will not be nothing. They refuse to.
maybe that is why the twins are so desperate for their father's love, too
they learned it at their mother's knee
learned to crave a love that did not exist
in hopes of understanding a mother that was never theirs.
Father comes and whisks them away on a random day, though he claims it is their birthday. He is off by two months, but the twins hold their tongues on that matter.
they always were
Not that it mattered. What is a birthday worth to the smile of a Father they knew only as eulogies that tumble from their mother's mouth when she isn't screaming at them?
It is almost ironic how Father barges in while their mother is still there.
Ignores her, as if she is a speckle of dust beneath his shoe and though she only has eyes for him - even knowing it is the last day she will see her children, she only thinks of her former lover - he does not spare her a single glance.
Heartbreak has never looked crueler painted across her mother's face.
Céleste will always remember it. But it isn't heartbreak for her children.
No.
It is for the God that has never loved her.
Céleste tries not to take it personally. If anything, the younger daughter knows all too well how love turns her mother a fool, so desperate to be worth something she would give everything and anything. "
Twins," Father calls out brightly, gesturing to the gates of what seems to be a rustic settlement, a far cry from their gold-glided manor. Céleste sardonically wonders if he knows their names, for the God has only addressed them as the "twins", a unit with neither value nor identity. "Welcome to Camp Halfblood."
He pats their heads softly.
Derek flinches from it, and it draws no reaction from the God of the Sun as he adresses another man who wears a scowl like it is his first instinct and who holds a soda bottle like it is salvation.
Father then turns to them. He smiles. It is neither kind nor loving, more teeth than anything else. Something glints into his sapphire eyes. It's expectations Céleste learns.
Expectations for his first pair of twins. "Like me and Artemis," he would croon proudly to all who would listen, holding Derek and Céleste by the neck like well-loved pets.
Because, at the end of the day, that is all that they are to him.
Twins.
To Love a Father
Oh, but I know my father loves me.
He loves me like his reflection.
Like I am something he built, not knowing that filth teaches filth.
Like I am his in everything that should matter, if only because he is my father.
I love him, too.
I love him when he remembers that there are other people in his world.
Shouldn't that be love? To love another despite his flaws, despite his imperfections.
To always love despite the cruelties he likes to hurl? Despite the indifference?
Oh, but I love my father
because I am his daughter.
It is as simple as that
what other choice do I have?
Some people aren't meant for the fights, for the battles that come with being born a God's blood.
It is not as if they are not born brave or strong.
It is not because Fates has smelled the copper in their laughter as a child and has seen them fit to pick up a sword before their childhood was over.
No.
But Gods never do care about it.
They do not care if the armor suits their children like a suit too big for them. They do not care if they fumble with their swords and cut themselves more often than they cut others.
No.
They want glory.
Of everyone - and most would never believe her - Derek suits the halfblood life as well as ugliness suits Aphrodite.
Most would disagree.
The son of the God of plagues, Apollo's golden boy, anything other than his father's sword?
It almost sounds sacrilegious.
But Céleste knows her brother. And he is not meant for the sacrifices, for the pain that comes in hand with living for their Father.
But Father loves him.
Loves them.
What did they expect?
Being a God's child means to suffer.
But it only becomes a tragedy if the God loves you too.
It is on a particularly high-profile quest that the twins meet their match. Ironic that it is on the twin's birthday.
well, it is not truly their birthday, but can one really argue against a God when he declares it so?
can a child do anything when a parent asks for their everything?
Céleste is a healer, talented enough to gain her father's recognition, but it does little to the wounds that tore her brother apart till he is drowning in his own blood. Victory has made them complacent.
Attention they mistook for love has made them ignorant.
"Please, Father," Céleste prays desperately, her twin brother's head on her lap as her hands desperately glow gold and press at the worst of his wounds. "Help us, please."
Birds chirp. The forest remains silent and peaceful, unmoved in the face of yet another death.
Derek gurgles, something broken and sounding almost like Céleste's name tumbling from his lips alongside more blood.
He moves his hand, a shaking and trembling thing to grasp at Céleste's fingers. He tries to push her glowing hands from him, but there is little if no strength left in him.
Sapphire meets emerald.
It's ok, they tell her.
Céleste shakes her head, a sob building in her throat like a damn about to break in the face of the might of the ocean, as she presses harder onto the wound as if she could will the flesh to knit itself back together and draw the poison out.
No, it's not ok.
She cannot lose him.
Not Derek.
Not her twin, who had wanted to be a pianist when they knew nothing of a God's love.
"FATHER!" Her scream is guttural, desperate. "I BEG YOU. HELP US - PLEASE."
we are your children
we are your favorites
But Father does not answer.
"PLEASE," Mother has always taught Céleste never to beg, never to demand because nothing is owed to her, but it is her father, her father who proclaims to all his love for his twins, for his greatest pride. "FATHER!"
Derek shifts. His handsome features twist into agony, and the bone poking out of his leg is all the more striking.
Céleste looks up at the sky, at the sun that continues to shine brightly, a golden drop amidst the other stars.
"Please-" her voice breaks, a whisper of a prayer to a father who promised them love in exchange for success. "father- do something. Please. I beg you."
help me
Derek coughs and her eyes are drawn to her twin brother.
It's going to be okay, his sapphire eyes promise.
Derek has never lied to her before.
(he's always been the strongest among the two of them. The surefooted one, the one who looked at monsters in the eyes and brought them to their knees with the horrors of plagues. He had always looked broken after using them. Not exactly broken per say, but it makes something within him shatter, to be lost somewhere between his mind and his heart and it all weights so much more heavily on him. )
Everything is going to be okay. Everything will-
His hand falls.
Like a puppet whose strings were cut abruptly and cruelly.
Céleste sucks in a breath, but there is no air. There isn't anything.
Nothing but the sapphire that still holds her gaze.
But even as she cannot tear her eyes from the shade, even when the blue does not lose its shine, Céleste knows.
That Derek is gone.
And if growing up with a mother who knows violence better than anything else has taught Céleste how to survive, then it is Derek's death that teaches her how to hate.
For most people, it's history now.
But for me, whenever I close my eyes, it all comes back clearly. As if I have never left the scene.
As if my brother is still dead, at my feet.
(where were you, Father?)
The first thing that Céleste notices in her newly born daughter are her eyes.
It is said that most babe change eye color after a short while, you just need to give it time for the pigment to settle.
Yet, inexplicably, Céleste knows better.
She recognizes that particular sapphire hue - too divine for mere mortal logistics to apply. She would know its shade blind, she knows it at its brightest and at its dullest.
"She's a beautiful baby," one of the nurses breathes as she settles the baby in Céleste's arms.
Céleste laughs. She thinks it sounds exhausted but there is joy brimming within her heart as she takes in the little babe that grasps at her finger in a tight grip.
"She is," she agrees. If her grip gets tighter, more possessive, it does not change much. If anyone were to know their story, they would understand. "My precious Adora."
The nurse smiles. "A fitting name for a baby so loved."
Yes.
She would have thought otherwise, funnily enough. Ask her five months prior and Céleste would swear not to want it. That creature that is closer to the Gods Céleste loathes so much more than anyone else.
But humans are made for company.
And slowly, without noticing, the halfblood has grown to cherish the small buddle of love that swells her belly. She would whisper to it at night. She whispers it now, too. "It's just you and me, little love. Just you and me."
Céleste doesn't know what wakes her.
Perhaps it is the cold that bites at her skin savagely, perhaps it is because though there is always light within her bedroom, it has dimmed almost eerily so.
Or perhaps it is because she has gotten so used to him, to his presence that lingers with something otherworldly and one she had found soothing.
Her eyes flutter open.
The first thing she sees is a large shadow in front of Adora's crib. Fear sizes her chest, pure desperation making her choke as she desperately tries to sit up and rush to her little love.
She only falters at the lightest, brightest small giggle.
It's the ringing of bells, the peaceful chirp of a singing bird.
Everything beautiful held within a small sound.
Thanatos - because that is him, that lover of hers that has managed to make her smile when she had forgotten how to, that lover of hers that has made Céleste her mother once more - shifts, settling their daughter in the crook of his arms.
If Céleste didn't know better, if she could close her eyes for the briefest moment and ignore her lover's godhood, she could pretend them a family. In a perfect world, they would be a fine family.
Not a perfect family - Gods know how their blood has rotten till it left its mark to anyone who bears it - but a family all the same. A family that Adora deserves.
But this is not a perfect world, far from it, and instead, Céleste can only clench her hands into fists as she takes in the sight of the God of Death holding her daughter.
He looks soft, dare she say almost besotted, something she has never seen him wear. Something like wonder and awe crawls over his face as Adora giggles once more. Céleste knows that her own father has never held her.
Not as a babe, nor ever.
Something bitter swells into her mouth.
why couldn't her Father be like that?
Not a God.
Just her father.
"Little Godling," he coos at her sweetly. It is the next words he utters that freeze Céleste's heart. "My little halfblood."
Halfbood.
It is a mark, a curse. One that promises only pain, it is the leash on which the beasts are led to slaughter.
Thanatos should know better to call her daughter that. But he is a God.
And Gods will be Gods.
"You shouldn't be here." Her words are soft. Gentle. Kinder than what a God deserves, but Céleste gives it nevertheless. Thanatos falters and tilts his head. His finger is held tightly by Adora, who gazes up at her parents with bright, naive sapphire eyes.
Derek is looking right at her.
"I think we would have been much happier never being a halfblood," Derek whispered to her once.
Céleste had laughed. Laughed because she was still high on the euphoria of being acknowledged, the first taste of poison that already longs more of.
(Derek had always been the best one of them)
Céleste blinks.
Salt wells into her eyes.
Derek's eyes are looking at Céleste. Asking if she was allowing history to be repeated.
no.
Céleste won't.
"I've come to see my daughter, Céleste." Thanatos takes a step closer. "Is it now a crime?"
The halfblood doesn't let him distract her with witty words and quick and easy banter that have made her manor light in laughter it had never seen before. "You can't be here, Thanatos," her voice surges as the urgency almost overwhelms her. She speaks as if her time is counted, as if she is Cassandra right as the wooden horse enters Troy. "You cannot love her."
The cold settles heavily in the room. Ice creeps in the darkest corners. The wails of death and the call of the raven echo. "She's my daughter."
Daughter. Halfblood. Tool.
They are all the same in God's eyes.
Céleste knows that better than anyone.
One could almost take it as a plea with how softly Thanatos utters that remark. His focus has sharpened his eyes yet it does not take away the confusing that hides in how he holds Adora close to his chest as if the babe could disappear in his shadows and never leave him.
But once, Céleste's father had taken a hold of the twins with the same possessiveness.
History will not repeat itself.
"I know-" Céleste's voice hitches, the single dissonant in a grief-stricken melody.
"If you know, then why must you take her from me!?" Death rages silently.
"Because she's my daughter, too!" Adora startles at her mother's cry and gives a whimper. Thanatos tries to soothe, humming under his voice. "Because I know what it is like to have a God for a father and - it broke me, beloved." It's the first time that Céleste has called him that since she has discovered him a God. "Can you blame me for wanting to give her all I never had?"
love. stability. a childhood. never to live in a lie
"But I- I love her." Maybe it is the beloved that jars Thanatos so for he is almost like a floundering boy in front of her. Like someone in front of their first love with all of the softness of youth and new things. Céleste smiles sadly, the smallest curve of her lips. It somehow tastes bitter.
"I'm sure you think you do." She gently takes Adora into her own arms. Thanatos frowns, but relents, too afraid to startle their daughter. "But I will not let her be your experiment of love, Thanatos. I will not leave her starving for something that will never last."
"Perhaps I could surprise you," he responds. But already, the fight has left him, the hassle too much of a burden for the God of Death to continue.
After all, he is Death before anything else.
He is Death before he is a father.
The empty words prick at Céleste's shattered heart. Perhaps. Perhaps not.
"We don't know that. Spare her the pain of fickle love, Thanatos. Don't hurt her."
It is a plea.
From one lover to another.
From one parent to another.
From a mortal to her God.
Thanatos is solemn as he smiles brokenly. "I won't."
Céleste smiles, too. Her heart, broken and shattered in the back of her throat. She thinks it tastes like heartbreak.
Like the ending of something that could have been great.
The God carefully puts Adora back into her crib. He lingers there, stares for a while before bending down.
"Goodbye, little Godling," he whispers. The word Goodbye sounds almost painful on his tongue. The black-haired man presses a soft kiss on Adora's forehead. "Know that you are loved. Wherever you are, whenever. You are loved, precious Adora."
Céleste averts her eyes. She cannot bear to look at such tenderness. Not when she knows it to be a lie. Thanatos straightens, lips pressed together into a fine line.
They do not say goodbye before he fades away into the shadows. But the mother can feel his accusation, his anger that makes him sharper and all the more godly.
Do not look at me like that, she thinks, blinking rapidly.
She turns to Adora and gathers her in her arms.
I am doing this for her.
Céleste Delacour knows she will die when she yanks Adora into her arms and shields her precious child with her own body.
It does not take a genius to know so.
But there is no hesitation in her actions, no falter in her heart in face of death. Because though no child can hope to save her mother, the mother would raze the world if it meant her daughter could smile.
Right as the hydra opens its mouths, fangs clinting and its breath heavy in poison, Céleste closes her eyes as she presses her lips on the crown of Adora's head.
After Derek's death, she had promised herself never to beg again for her Father.
For any God.
Perhaps she could have asked her Father to save her. Could have thought of him, of the love he had promised and once, delivered. She could have begged him for mercy.
Instead, Céleste closes her eyes.
"I love you, Adora," she whispers. "All I did, I did was for you."
AUTHOR NOTE: Don't be shy to let me know what you think :3