Chapter Text
The moment you died, I felt it clear as day leagues and leagues away from where you were. The moment you died, I clutched at the cavern and all the crevices in my chest, traced all the little cracks that had built up over the years with tear-stained fingers and bloodied nails. The day you died, I lost my heart, my soul, my everything.
And so, for a very long time, I stood very still, still as can be, molding myself into the shape of those little pieces of marble the humans like to make in our likeness. Two bodies, one heart, I liked to think. Though we shared one heart when we were conjoined, our two bodies housed two minds. I must confess, my mind without yours to soothe it grew mad and dazed with instability. In my loneliness, my longing for you, like the stone form I’d assumed, was weathered to dust…
When we were young, younger than life itself, you took my fingers of thought into your hands of conscience and promised me that we would never be parted. And, I believed you with all my heart.
When we were young, but life had begun taking ahold of the earth under the Mother God’s tender embrace, our minds, once intertwined, were torn apart. Those first moments without you were so hard. It was unbearable learning how to be when I had never been without you. But you seemed to get the hang of being very quickly, of being without me.
Suddenly we found ourselves with limbs and senses, and while the rest of us stumbled around, you rose up onto your new feet and grew into your grace. Twirling and prancing and curling and dancing with all the passions new life ought to have, your elegant form enraptured me and all the others. Because we were once one and the same, I too rose up onto my new feet to meet you where you stood. In a field of purple crocuses in dark earth, dark like your new hair and skin, we joined hands and limbs, intertwined like we once were before they ripped us in two. We danced and danced to the beat of our heart and the ghost of a tune in our ears that you had once hummed to me when we were nothing but a fickle shimmer in the air.
My very first emotion was shared with you: a spectral joy. It was as though we were one again. The laughter, the tears, and the smiles all shared between us: two bodies, one heart. When I gazed upon your new form, separate from mine, though it pained me to be parted, I thanked all the gods to have been blessed with the senses to perceive you. My eyes were made to see you, my ears to listen to you, my hands to touch you, my nose to smell you, my lips to taste you, and my mind to remember you.
But your newfound brilliance caught the golden eye of the Sun. He must have been jealous of you; he must have coveted you: you outshone his very reason of existence the moment you were born.
And so, he took you away from me, your other half. He put my heart in his burning chariot, flying you away to a gilded cage atop Mount Olympus where he and all the other godlings liked to fight and fuck and play, leaving behind only the charred remains of our crocus field. For a moment, I felt only despair. Ripped apart and left in the dust without a heart, I thought I had died without ever having known of living.
But then I felt a rhythmic sound in my hollow chest beating to the tempo of our last dance, and I knew that you were still alive. So, I walked and walked and walked a thousand leagues, following the path of his accursed chariot west. I would’ve walked a thousand more had my heart not stopped its pounding in my chest.
I knew then he’d grown tired of your brilliance.
At first, in my despair, I grew monstrous. Then, in my hatred, I grew ugly. Finally, in my loneliness, I lost all that anger and settled into quiet waiting, a silent vigil for the day you’d come back to me. I started walking again, retracing my steps opposite to him and the path of his chariot so that when you returned, you’d recognize our birthplace. The others found me pitiful, tracing your likeness into the dark earth with my fingers. They said to me that, at the very least, you’d enjoyed the affections of a godling, even if only briefly. After all, love is all we can hope for in our misfortune to be born as nature spirits, beautiful yet weak. In my ensuing rage, I almost drowned one of them in the river, clutching her thin neck between my fingers.
Afterwards, I curled up on the riverbank for a very long time, tracing the shape of your dark eyes in the grooves of the pebbles on the shore. Out of fear, the other nature spirits left me alone in my misery, but the little humans became curious.
“Little nymph,” they whispered from a distance, “Why do your tears fall so endlessly?”
I returned only silence.
“Little nymph,” they clutched at my (our) fingers, “Why do you despair?”
In the miserable planes of my façade, I suppose they found salvation.
“Little nymph,” they kissed my (our) toes and tugged at the peplos they’d decided to drape me (us) in, “Please share with us your pain.”
Even one of the minor godlings seemed to be intrigued.
Under the cover of the new moon, the river rose to meet me in the little temple the humans had constructed.
“Little nymph,” his cold fingers left wet marks on the stone walls, “What vicious man or godling has broken your heart like this?”
I stirred a little at the mention of you, my heart. At this, I deigned to bless his question with an answer. Raising my head from between my crossed arms, atop the stone chair the little humans fashioned for me, I said with little fanfare, “I cry because I have no heart at all.”
At this, his form took shape, fluid features shifting before settling on a face. He clutched my fingers delicately then kissed my palm gently. Then, as quickly as he had come, he melted back into the shadows towards the riverbed.
They say that after the gods were born and the titans fell, humans were molded into shape by an old titan of forethought.
Taking wet earth between his palms, he pressed each piece of clay into the likeness of a deity. They were pale imitations of the gods, but they resembled gods, nonetheless. With careful strokes and gentle fingers, he gifted them with five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
But beyond that, he gifted the humans with a mind hungry for knowledge, a mind curious and inventive and starved of truth.
And beyond that, he gifted them fire. Fire that lit up the dark night. Fire that made things safe to eat for their soft stomachs. Fire that brought more humans together, gathering around flame in patches of communities across the world.
For that, for giving the humans an inkling of godly warmth, he was punished.
A nosy little human overheard my conversation with the river that night. The next morning, he summoned his nosy little friends to plead once more with me, their beady eyes closed in reverence. Though they received no response, one little human would regularly attend me after that. Often, he washed my (our) feet with a bucketful of water from the river. And when he would brush my (our) golden hair with a comb of white bone until all the tangles had unraveled, he would sing a lullaby with his gentle, little voice. By my seat, he kept a hearth aflame, soft coals burning all through the night.
Though the fire burned with vigor, the life in me had gone out. I spent most of my days slumbering until fitful dreams would shock me awake. My nightmares were filled with burning Sun, grey ash, and the last glimpse of your face I’d been able to catch as he took you away from me. How pitiful I must have seemed, reaching for you, for my heart, from the muddy ground.
One fateful day, I smelled acrid smoke, not the incense the humans liked to burn in my shrine. For the first time in a very long time, I rose out of my chair. Padding to the temple entrance, I peered around the white walls washed in moonlight and spotted a trail of embers in the distance. It seemed the little humans had let their Creator’s blessing grow out of their control. Hearing their cries and anguish, my chest ached and twitched, even with your absence. So, I ventured down through the ancient pine forests surrounding my dwelling to make my way to the riverbank. It was here I knelt and pressed my forehead into the wet earth, knees touching the place where I once traced your soft features into the sand. The river rose up to meet me, vacuous form solidifying into handsome features until his teeth took the shape of a crescent smile.
“Hello little nymph,” he crooned, crouching in front of me, “For what purpose have you sought me out? You know, a golden boy like you ought to be bathed in gold, not silver. I’m glad to see you, but next time, let us meet under the Sun’s rays.”
At the mention of him, I grew angry but reigned in my emotions. Lifting my head, I met his ocean-blue eyes with mine and tilted my head to where the smoke curled in lazy circles and screams echoed in the distance, “River, o’ river, do you hear their cries? They beg for salvation, for mercy, for water. Won’t you take pity on the poor little humans and quench the thirst of their flames?”
“You ask me to save those sorry souls,” he mused, finger tapping at his temple, “But what do you offer me in return?” At this, he grinned and bent down, gathering wet earth between his palms. Shaking his hands gently, he washed away the silt until I could see something shining from between his fingers. The impurities flowed away until all that remained was a golden ring.
“Won’t you be my bride?”
The little humans had taken up a routine of leaving offerings around my throne. The temple, once bare and decrepit, was now filled with offerings of woolen blankets, wooden carvings, and seashells from the riverbed. The little human who washed my (our) feet, combed my (our) hair, and tended the hearth seemed to enjoy draping ropes of cowries and other mollusk dwellings of all shape, sizes, and colors onto my (our) body. With his dexterous fingers, I watched him wind twine around his knuckles, poke holes in the shells, and braid them together into beautiful necklaces, draperies, and the like. The little thing, though talented at his craft always seemed so nervous as he covered me in his newest creation, pink staining his cheeks as he looked away from my form. Sadly, this new comfortable routine was often interrupted by unwelcome presences.
“Princess!”
I turned sharply at the sound of a boisterous laugh, swiveling my neck around to give the liquid shape behind me a dirty look, “You know I’m no princess, river, o’ river.”
“I told you, call me Jenson! The other gods call me Xanthos, and the humans something even more silly, but we need not be so distant, you and I,” his form curled and twisted until his tall figure stood to my right. His wet fingers ruined the work the little human had put in to making my golden hair neat and orderly as they carded through the locks in messy, erratic patterns. “You know, I didn’t think you’d say yes, but you could’ve at least entertained the idea,” he pouted annoyingly, clutching my fingers in between his. He examined the new shells around my wrists, then his golden ring hanging from a thin chain on my neck, “If you’ll not be my wife, then what about my lover?” He batted his eyes, water dripping onto my clothes from his long eyelashes.
I regarded him with reservation. “Even if I had a heart, loving you would be an impossible task,” I sniffed.
He cackled, leaning closer and tugging my hands closer to his chest, “What attitude! Ah, but that’s what I like about you, Princess.”
I glared at his roaring laughter and tore my hands away from his grasp, “I already told you, I’m no princess.”
When you and I were first born, the world had not taken form. But in our rebirth, we were cursed to be nymphs: born with all the beauty but none of the power. If I were a princess, at least I’d have the latter.
“I can’t keep calling you little nymph forever though. There’s so many of you, and you’re so much more special compared to the rest of them,” he tapped a finger on his head, water dripping from his temples. His finger paused, “What is your name then, golden one?”
At this, I frowned, you and I hadn’t had the chance to grant each other names, torn away from my side as quickly as you were. After you were gone, I couldn’t name myself. Anything I could have called myself would pale in comparison to a name given by you. I looked away from Jenson’s piercing ocean-blue gaze and frowned, “I don’t have one.”
“Ah, I see,” Jenson’s kind eyes considered my crestfallen form, “Let me bestow one upon you then.” He smiled warmly, wrinkling around the eyes appearing on his false face, “I remember when I first found you. You were full of neîkos, full of strife. I had thought your tears would never stop salting the earth by my river,” he chuckled, tracing the fullness of my cheek with cold hands, “But now, you’ve taken it upon yourself to become the champion of our lessers.”
He paused, tilting my head up until our foreheads met, ocean-blue eyes blazing. As water dripped down the planes of my face, he closed his eyes, “For this, for the salvation, for the victory that you grant others, I shall call you Nike.”
They say that the River Styx is most sacred among the gods.
When the king of the gods was young and titans still ruled, he asked for allies near and far to resist his father’s reign. Among all the deities in the world, the River Styx was the first to side with him. For this, for her allyship against the titans, her kin, she was granted a name invoked only in the most dire of situations. When one swears by the River Styx, they are bound, not by their honor, but by all the forces in the world to fulfill their oath.
For this honor, her name is uttered with gritted teeth and contempt. No self-respecting god would ever want to let the syllables of her name wrap around their tongue, cursing them into subservience. Her name is used sparingly, hardly touching the mouths of gods, much less any mortals.
But what of the punishment for breaking such an oath? I’m not sure. No god, not even the ficklest, have dared to try.
The leaves fell, budded, and fell again countless times. The collection of dwellings the little humans lived in grew and grew alongside my temple by the riverbank. What was once rugged stone and cobble was now polished marble. My little priest never stopped his handiwork, hanging Jenson’s shells along the walls. They lay interspersed among the stones of the paths leading from my temple to the village and beyond, iridescent surfaces dotting the land. It seemed that the river god’s work hadn’t been forgotten nor gone unappreciated.
My little priest had grown so old, his youthful face now full of wrinkles. His back bent like the ancient pines in our birthplace. I remember when the wind blew, the trees would creak and groan, branches twisting until the passionate West Wind lightened his blows and let them rest for a moment. Sadly, my worshipper would receive no respite from the clutches of old age. Such is the fate befalling all mortals.
“Khrysos Nike, o’ golden Nike,” my little priest clutched the ends of my robes with his wizened fingers. The hearth burned strong as ever, warm light licking the edges of the walls, greedy as the day it had almost consumed the village. He bent his neck, bowing like the reeds that bordered the edges of Jenson’s river, “May I ask Your Grace a question?”
I gazed down at the little human who had washed me, clothed me, and loved me for all this time, “Yes, little one.”
At this, he paused and knelt even more closely to the ground. His eyes were shut tightly, as if the darkness could ward away all the evils and hide him from everything else in the world. The titan of forethought once gave man sight, but he withheld his powers of precognition. Now, they are plagued with anxiety and fear. What an unfortunate fate the little humans faced.
“I feel death approaching,” he swallowed and took in a single drawn-out breath with great effort, “Before I pass, may I make one more request of Your Grace?”
Taking in his pale countenance from my marble throne, I nodded.
“For safe passage to the Underworld, can Your Grace please make sure they bury me with a coin to pay the boatman’s fee?”
The poor thing, a few short moments lived in the waking world are nothing compared to an eternity, an eternity in the depths of the Underworld no less. What a pity.
“I swear on the River Styx, you will be buried with gold.”
At that, he did not lift his head still, like a reed unbroken yet bent. He paused, seeming to gather his thoughts, his wits, or even, perhaps, his courage.
“Nike, Khrysos Nike, will you please pray for me?”
Before the accursed Sun rose the next day, my little priest was cold and still.
“Fret not, Princess, he was the happiest man alive when he died.”
The river, o’ river’s liquid form curled around me, fingers dripping on my shoulders. His head leaned over my own to inspect the body clutched to my chest. I’d rocked him into eternal sleep to the crackling of the coals in the hearth.
“What do you mean,” I responded, offended on my little priest’s behalf.
Jenson chuckled at my incredulous expression, “Anybody would be happy to die in your golden embrace, but this man in particular,” he squinted at my little priest’s wrinkled face, “Ah, I remember how he gazed upon your form. This man wanted you all to himself for all his life, and he only ever had the good fortune to experience that for a single night of his life. Whenever I came to visit, he’d make himself scarce, returning to his own abode petulant and lonely, biding his time until I left your temple. And whenever you would get into one of your melancholic moods, he would spend hours and hours picking out the shiniest shells from the shallows of my river.”
At that moment, I realized that my most ardent worshipper had never told me his name. I looked back at him, my eyes falling upon his knobby fingers. Marks from twine he’d winded around his knuckles for all those seasons wrapped around his fingers in imperfect loops and curls. His fingers had once known such grace. My chest ached and ached and ached and—
“Oh, Princess…Nike, please don’t cry.”
Tears dripped down my cheeks, falling into the fabric of my little priest’s chiton. I closed my eyes and brought my hands to my face in an effort to stem the flow, all to no avail. My breath hitched and my arms shook and my chest ached and ached and—
“Oh, by Zeus…you really are something special,” Jenson wrapped his cold arms around me, briefly giving me a ghost of an embrace before gently moving my fingers from my eyes. Golden nuggets and shining pearls covered my little priest, dripping around the folds of his robes. Another tear fell, adding another jewel to the pile. Shaking off Jenson’s hands, I wiped my face and stood up, the precious stones clattering onto the ground from my sudden movement.
I turned to face Jenson, “Will you please help me bury him?”
Using the water from his river, he washed the gold, the pearls, and the body into the currents. We walked along the shore until we reached a young palm tree near the riverbank. Talking to the tree in sweet tongues, I persuaded its roots to make some space for my little priest, then placed a golden nugget beneath his tongue. Jenson first pushed the body in, then the jewels until he was so covered, I couldn’t see him anymore. The water soaked into the dark earth, leaving only treasure behind.
“Do you have a knife?”
Jenson glanced at me, worry evident in his eyes and the lines on his brow, “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
He handed me a thin kopis with a beautiful, iridescent handle of nacre and a blade of burnished gold. With my right hand, I took the dagger and gathered some of my hair in the other before carefully cutting it. Then I bent down and reached into the grave, placing the golden lock on the shining pile before coaxing the palm tree once more. Dark earth and curled roots swallowed the body and my tears, soil shifting until it all that was left was a gently sloping mound. Wielding the blade once more, I made a small incision on my palm with the sharp edge of the blade and squeezed until my golden lifeblood dripped onto into the soft earth.
Suddenly, the kopis was wrenched from my grasp, my wrist grabbed and pulled until I was forced to swivel, coming face-to-face with Jenson’s angry visage.
“You lied to me,” he said in low tones, “Don’t do that again.”
I looked away from the fury in his eyes, “I’m not sorry.”
“Look, I…” he sighed, then drew me over to the riverbank. He ventured into the shallows, then gestured for me to join him. He took my wounded palm in his cold hands and dipped it into the river, closing his eyes to focus. I examined the smooth planes of his face. His charming form was a good imitation of true life, but under the light of the Sun, it was easier to see a sort of transparency in his body, especially near his ocean-blue eyes. When I squinted, I almost convince myself that I could see his irises through the thin skin on top.
After waiting for a few more moments, he softly opened his eyes and lifted our hands out of the water, smiling at me, “There, good as new, Princess.”
I turned my hand over and saw that my palm had been healed without a scar in sight. I held my hand up to the Sun, then observed Jenson’s gentle demeanor, “Thank you.”
“Ah, well, don’t mention it,” he rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly bashful, turning away from me to gaze into the pine forest ahead. “Actually, on second thought,” he swiveled around, taking my hands between his and gazing at me intensely with excited ocean-blue eyes, “To thank me, won’t you be my wife?”
I rolled my eyes and pushed him away with such force he fell into the river, his body disintegrating into liquid and reforming once more, “Don’t push your luck.”
“Ha!” he grinned, or at least tried to until his face finally shifted around until it looked right again, “Shooting me down with such passion! You never let me down easy, you know?”
“When will you finally give up?” I sighed, exasperated, “You know I won’t agree to any of your silly proposals. Most of the other godlings would’ve given up by now.”
“Well,” he started, “I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t know when to give up. From the moment we met, I knew that you were the one for me. That night, even with the Moon’s weak efforts, I spotted your golden visage from my river. Even under only curdled moonlight, you could’ve outshone the Sun at his zenith,” he paused, then poked a wet finger into my cheek and teased, “Ha, I’ve got you blushing now!”
I glared at him, cheeks warming without my approval, “Then, just so you know, next time you ask, I’ll make sure to shut you down even harder.”
“That’s okay, that’s what I like about you.”
After I buried my little priest and he passed on to the next world, I spent my days in the temple and my nights by the river. A certain emptiness had taken ahold of me. Had I been alone, I might’ve drifted away like I did after my long march to heaven, but Jenson proved good company. We would spend some of our nights beside the hearth, hungry flames licking at the drops of water he left trailing in his wake. When the Moon did not drive their silver chariot across the sky, we would walk along the riverbank, the quiet of the night interrupted by our voices and the stories we exchanged.
“I was born in hot gas and foam beneath the raging waves of the sea, but I didn’t stay long. Too enamored with the surface, I left my home, my mother, my father, and all my sisters, and climbed ashore, carving my path across the land until at last I reached the mountaintops. There I flowed for an eternity and more, until I met you.”
His eyes twinkled with mirth, yet as I held his gaze, I couldn’t help but sense a deep longing within him. Even after an eternity, it seemed he still yearned for the sea.
“When I was born, I opened my new eyes to a freshly born crocus field, purple extending as far as I could see. The earth was soft and pliant beneath my toes as I twirled and swirled and danced in mesmerizing patterns with all the other newborns, taking care to avoid the blooms with gentle steps. But then, well…then I took a rather long walk, a journey of sorts, looking for my heart.”
“Did you ever find it?”
“…No.”
I once walked for leagues and leagues and leagues chasing the Sun. The soles of my feet, once soft, grew hard from stepping on cobble rather than the soft earth of our cradle. The air was saltier, the soil harder, and the rocks sharper where he took you. I didn’t like how the pebbles beneath me scraped and tore at my feet, but I didn’t like that we weren’t together even more, and so I continued my long trek to reach heaven. My heart pumped steadily; each beat paired with my step. There was a certain feeling, a compulsion of sorts, that led me along the path of your abduction as though it had been such a terrible deed, the world itself saw fit to leave marks for me to follow. Or, perhaps, you had knowingly left them behind for me.
In the veins of a leaf that happened to fall upon my head, I saw your beckoning fingers. In the bend of a river that split my path, I saw your bashful smile. In the vast blue of the sea, extending from one world to the next, I saw your beautiful soul, the way it felt when we lived in true, unrestrained chaos when we were young, before life itself wrapped its spindly fingers around us and split us in two.
Yet, when I found myself at the very base of the mountaintop that could reach heaven, I stumbled once, then twice. I continued putting one foot in front of the other until I collapsed to my knees, clutching at my chest. It felt as though a great cavity had opened and shriveled up. I tried to take one deep breath in after another. My heart’s beating slowed down and down and down.
And then it stopped.
The winter after I buried my little priest, I was sent a new one, covered in purple and gold. One of the nosy little humans must have witnessed the burial rites and spread the news, because suddenly my shrine was busier than it had ever been before. Every day, the new priest would bring me a bundle of grains, a cut of meat, and anything else the people had to offer and ask, “Khrysos Nike, o’ Khrysos Nike, won’t you cry for me?” When I handed him a pearl, his eyes would shine and his smile would widen, clutching the stone close to his chest. He’d bow, head almost touching the floor, and praise me, calling me golden and glorious. Then he would turn to the murmuring crowd outside my temple, raising his hand to the sky to the sounds of cheers.
My home had become very loud, so I began spending more and more of my time away from it all, from the noisy humans, the new priest draped in pearls, and the gleam in their eyes as they traced the tear tracks along my face with wide smiles. Jenson proved a good companion, a deterrent of sorts for the mortals. They dared not to interrupt my visits with the river god.
Once, the trademark curiosity of humans led them to crowd the forests by the riverbank as I made my way over, their beady eyes squinting to catch a glimpse of the river’s liquid form personified. As he emerged from the water, his face was deeply displeased, more upset than I’d ever seen his usual jolly self be. He flooded his riverbank, great waves washing away the interlopers, the innocents, and everything else in between until his fury had been satisfied. Only two spots were left untouched: the palm that cradled my little priest and the sand beneath my feet.
“Those greedy things. They forget their place. They should count themselves very lucky to have your favor, and yet they seek more,” he glared into the tree line where the humans had hidden themselves, water churning in great spirals. Holding my hands gently, he turned to me, intense expression softening, “For as long as you care for them, I won’t go out of my way to bother them, I swear it. However, they ought to remember their station. Man is our lesser.”
After that, when I made my way down the shell-dotted path to meet my old friend, the humans stayed far away from the river.
One evening, I gazed at my reflection in the river for a very long time. In my melancholy, I had gone to seek out Jenson’s company again, but he needed to leave for the ocean, for his family, to attend a meeting between all the waters of the world. Something was afoot. His eyes were wary, darting around nervously, unable to hold my gaze. Noticing my concern, he reassured me and said that he’d be back before dawn. Then he kissed my fingers goodbye and melted back into the currents that flowed to the sea. First, I thought to return to the temple, but I couldn’t stomach another uncomfortable session of forced tears and gleaming smiles. So, I sat by the riverbank and pondered for a very long time.
I examined my shaky image in the water. My golden hair that Jenson loved to admire, that the humans loved to praise, seemed dimmer than before. I plucked a strand of my hair and brought it up to the setting sun. Did it look thinner than before? Sighing, I dropped it, letting the water wash it away. My gaze fell upon something in the wet earth. There, at my feet, there lied a pebble, smooth as can be, warm and dark.
For so long, I had tried to keep myself from thinking of you, and yet right there lay another sign of you. In its colors, I saw your eyes, shining with joy and wonder when we were first born. I looked back at my face in the river. There, on my nose, you pinched me and said, laughing, if I wrinkled it any more than that, it would get stuck. There, on my cheek, you traced a crescent on my dimple and called me your moon. There, on my brow, you kissed me for the very first time.
You once told me that my eyes were more beautiful than the sky and the stars, that my fingers of thought you once held with your hands of conscience were far prettier in person than in the primordial chaos we once inhabited. You once said that we were blessed to have been split in two, that you were blessed to have been given eyes to see me, ears to listen to me, hands to touch me, nose to smell me, lips to taste me, and a mind to remember me. To see what you saw in me, I leaned a little closer to my reflection.
Strange, it looked different than before.
A splash, and all I could feel was cold.
On my failed journey back from heaven, I met a pretty nymph with hair red as a flame. She told me that you were very lucky to have the love of a god, if somewhat briefly. She said that if you were dead, it was because you hadn’t pleased him enough. That you weren’t deserving of his love. Perhaps, the Sun had picked you up and realized you weren’t so beautiful, that you weren’t so special after all. So, he dropped you from the sky, and you fell into the sea never to return.
I remember how her neck seemed so fragile between my palms. It was thin, like the cranes that liked to pick between the crocus flowers in our birthplace. I thought if I squeezed any harder, the bone would snap, and the devil would be dead. She clawed at my wrists, face turning a deep fiery red. Her nails left long marks on my arms, blood dripping into the river, staining it a rusty color. The current was unrelenting, her breath leaving bubbles in its wake below the surface.
She wanted to be beautiful, and I wanted her to suffer. I wanted to tear her copper locks from her head and make her ugly. Her lack of breath didn’t make her any quieter than before, but her pitiful gasps were much easier to listen to than the poison she spat before. I held on until her talons stopped their digging and the corners of her eyes sagged.
Then I realized that these hands weren’t mine alone. They were yours once too. I didn’t want to dirty them with someone else’s blood. These palms had once kissed yours as we spun in circles and circles in one of our dances, twisting and laughing and crying with joy.
After that, I swore I would never do harm to another with these hands, half yours, ever again.
Now, I see. The water is so cold. The deep beckons.
The hands on my neck turned and tightened, anger behind the actions unseen but felt. I heard a noise in the water, moaning and screeching beside me. Fingers tore at my clothes, ripping the fine fabric to shreds. One of those bony digits caught upon one of the shell necklaces my little priest once made for me, twine snapping cleanly, scattering shells everywhere. Suddenly, I burst out onto the riverbank. Gasping for air, I tried to claw myself out, but wet hands pulled me back under. Again and again, I emerged for a single breath only to be submerged again.
On one of my attempts to leave the water, a shrill voice bemoaned in my ear, “Why does he love you so? Why not me? What is so special about you?” Down, breathless, and up again, gasping for air. A different voice this time, anguished and angry, wailed, “You’ve bewitched him, I know it. Let him go!”
The water is cold, and the deep beckons, but this body is only half mine. It’s half yours, and I’d be damned if I ever let any part of you go again.
My limp arms, bursting with a want for life, squeezed and twisted the naiad’s wrists around my neck until her fingers loosened. When another tried to recapture me, hands outstretched, I bit down until I felt soft flesh give way and a screech pierce the air. I crawled ashore, peplos in tatters. My heart was as quiet as ever, but my chest heaved, lungs hungry for breath. My fingers shook, grasping at the mud underneath my hands. I brought my knees close to my chest and curled up on the riverbank.
Silence.
A rustle in the bushes. A cautious step in the mud. A shadow blocking the light of the Moon. Soft hands draped the warm fabric of a worn himation upon my shoulders. I looked up to meet dark eyes curled in concern. They’re your eyes.
“Are you alright?”