Work Text:
Ulysses stood in front of the easel. He had finally taken a moment to step back and admire his work. He looked at it from afar. He tilted his head and fidgeted with the quill that hung around his neck. Something seemed wrong. The art itself was perfect. It was an oil painting stylized as if it was painted for the Sistine Chapel. He’d tilt his head back up. Maybe the way his head was tilting made it seem off? No, that wasn’t it. Something was missing. There was a strange sense of emptiness within the portrait.
He picked up his notebook from the table behind him. He flipped through endless pages. He stared down at the sketch he had drawn right after Wenona’s execution. Her features captivated him dearly. He could spend an entirety studying every inch of Wenona’s body as if it were the Pyramids of Giza. He held the book up beside the portrait. They were the same, nothing was missing, but why was it so empty?
He set the notebook down and looked over at the clock next to him. It was 11 p.m. Wenona would’ve been asleep by now if she wasn’t trying to haul Ulysses into the bed next to her. He groaned, but found the motivation to put himself to sleep. He staggered to the bed inside the room. It was a bed large enough for two. He stared at the empty spot next to the imprint on the mattress. It made his heart twist into a knot. He eventually crawled into the bed and pulled the quilt over top of him. He hugged a stuffed teddy bear in his arms. It was childish, he knew it, but the bear gave him the warmth that he used to have wrapped around him. His eyes fluttered shut, and his mind was taken into unconsciousness.
He found himself sitting on the shore of an island. The waves crashing down barely touched the tip of his toes. The sand shuffled underneath his feet. The trees behind him remained calm and still. All was serene. Suddenly, a mellifluous harmony broke the silence. It was perfectly aligned with the crash of the waves. The voice yearned for him even if it never spoke a word. It continued to hum and pull on Ulysses’s heart. It didn’t take long for his resolve to falter and for him to begin to unearth the origin of such a graceful voice.
After a deliberate search, he found it. Ulysses stared at the large waterfall that was directly in front of the voice. He used his book to cover his head and he stepped through the waterfall. It was then his gaze finally laid upon her. Ulysses finally set eyes on Wenona once more. Her body captivated him once again. Her lower body remained underneath the water. The water was dark, but the walls were lit with bioluminescence. Wenona finally turned her head to meet Ulysses’s gaze. Her song slowly fading into a halt. The two stared at each other for a long moment. Ulysses’s heart softened but hardened once more. Her features lacked humanity. She was still incredibly beautiful especially with her hair down and soaked. Her chest bare with no sense of shame. Despite this impeccable beauty, something was wrong. She looked wrong. That same sense of emptiness flooded his senses again.
Wenona lended Ulysses a hand as to beckon him in the water. His face contorted into one of confusion and disturbance. She waded through the water and gently ran a cold, wet hand down his thigh. Ulysses’s cheeks flushed and turned into a rosy red color. It was just the two of them together. Slowly but surely, Ulysses began to undress, taking off each article of clothing one by one. Wenona’s eyes stared up at him with love and longing. He slowly dipped into the water. The water was freezing, but he was so close to her again.
Ulysses finally managed to submerge himself in the water. Wenona smiled with an uncharacteristic softness. She raised a hand to cup his cheeks gently. He placed a hand on top of hers, terrified of losing her touch. He leaned into the palm, and soon after kissed it gently. Wenona rested her other hand on Ulysses’s waist. The two slowly moved closer to each other. Ulysses’s hands traced from her shoulders to her arms. He adored the callousness of Wenona’s skin. It proved how Wenona persevered through the trials, and how she came out on top. He eventually worked up the courage to run his hands from Wenona’s chest down to her hips.
While Ulysses traced her torso, she removed her hands from his face and waist. She gently ran her hands along the arms that traced her body. After he’s done outlining her gorgeousness, she places Ulysses’s hands delicately in her palms, she kisses each and everyone of his fingers. Ulysses’s face reddened at the act. This love was so foreign, so far away, yet Wenona was here showing him a greater love than any deity could provide him with.
Wenona looked back up at him. Ulysses’s face saddened as he stared at Wenona’s features again. It was empty. All her actions were futile. None of this truly mattered. Wenona was dead, and she’d stay that way. As Ulysses finally brought this realization upon himself, Wenona’s feature began to deteriorate. Her face suddenly began to lose its color and the features dissolved along with it. Her body followed the same route. Ulysses wanted to shout, he wanted to protect her, but he froze instead. He watched as his beloved melted before his eyes into nothing more than another water molecule.
He cupped his hands in the water, desperately searching for any piece of her that remained. He splashed the murky water onto his face, and everything faded into darkness. He heard the atrocious sound of his alarm clock next. It was nothing more than an uncoordinated cacophony compared to the angelic sounds of her hums. He rolled over to stop the clock. He sat up and stared down at his hands. They were wet yet the rest of him remained dry. He looked over to a picture frame that sat on his bedside table. It was supposed to hold the only photo he could find of his beloved, but it was gone now. He needed to let go of her now. She was nothing but a nagging feeble memory in the back of his mind that tore him into bits.
It was time for Ulysses to forget about Wenona’s features entirely.