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Melinoë reached the top of the mountain in record time. It wasn’t exactly unusual for her, but it still filled her with a quiet pride. After all, she had handled Prometheus without Heracles’ spite this time. Surely, Typhon would fall just the same. Still, just to be safe, she brought along a keepsake. Something precious. From someone she valued deeply at the Crossroads.
The charm would keep her afloat should the worst happen, but more than that, it meant she would carry a part of him with her when she claimed her victory. And perhaps, she thought, she could use it for the little idea she had in mind, something inspired by that odd quest Odysseus had sent her on with Knuckle Bones.
“You’ve been to the surface, haven’t you?” she asked one evening, just before setting out for a run. Her arms were folded over his bare chest, chin resting on her hands. She lived for small moments like this - his touch trailing down her bare back, the warmth of his breath in the dim tent.
“Oh, numerous times, Princess,” Lord Moros murmured with a faint, sleepy smile, but he would never fall asleep in her bed. She did not know why and she did not ask. “It can be so beautiful.”
“So… you’ve seen the sun?” she gasped, wide-eyed. It was still early in her trials, she’d only just learned how to lull a Cyclops to sleep, though Eris barely gave her a moment’s rest between plumes of fire and smoke.
“Yes?” His brow furrowed slightly, puzzled by her tone. He tilted his head toward her. “Is there something special you’ve been meaning to ask, Princess?”
“No,” she said softly, eyes fixed on the faded painting in the corner of her tent. “I’m just curious.”
She lifted the Engraved Pin from her cloak as the first rays of dawn reached her skin, warm, golden, alive. A whisper of magick shimmered through the air, and in an instant, the veil between realms trembled. The Doom Incarnate appeared beside her, his form caught between shadow and light, eyes wide in startled confusion.
“Princess?” he breathed, his voice rough with disbelief. “What-where are we?”
“Lord Moros,” she said, smiling softly. Her heart leapt at the sight of him, and for a fleeting moment, she almost reached for him. But then she saw the faint translucence of his outline, the reminder that he was no more than a Shade in this form. Her hand fell gently back to her side. “I thought you might enjoy a change of scenery,” she said, her tone light but laced with warmth. “And… it’s quite the view here on Olympus.”
He turned, and the rising sun caught in his eyes like molten amber. For a long moment, he only stared, the marble peaks, the endless sea of clouds, the goddess standing before him, radiant in the morning light.
Finally, his lips curved into something between awe and affection. “Quite the view,” he murmured, his gaze lowering to her smaller form. “Is an understatement, in this case, Princess.”
They held each other’s gaze for a long, suspended moment before Lord Moros suddenly turned away, to the horizon, to the light. It was as if something had dawned on him along with the sun itself.
Melinoë took the chance to truly see him, bathed in gold, framed by the morning sky. His violet eyes glimmered, shifting toward amber like those of his radiant kin. The wind played through his long white hair, carrying it in gentle waves. He looked divine, more so than any god she had ever seen upon Olympus.
And as she watched him, haloed in sunlight, a realisation struck her. Eos. Of course. The goddess of dawn must have done this on purpose. Melinoë could almost feel their watchful eyes upon them, the gods above, witnessing Moros, her betrothed, taking in the glory of the sunrise for the first time at her side. It wouldn’t surprise her if Eos herself appeared before them that morning, radiant, triumphant, offering her blessing. What a moment it would be for a first meeting. Far grander than the one she and Moros had shared long ago, when she had crept back into the shadows after a failed attempt - unseen, uncelebrated, and alone.
Far from anything divine. After all, she was the other goddess in his life.
It had been an honour, Melinoë thought, to share her time with him, to taste the same nectar, to sip Ambrosia, even to linger in the scent of her bath salts that clung faintly to him. But the Fates had woven that thread long ago. And he had admitted it himself: there was never an outcome with her in mind.
The Princess of the Underworld could only smile, softly and sadly, as the truth settled over her like twilight after dawn.
The pull from the keepsake caught him off guard. Moros had known it was possible; he had used it often enough to reach his Princess across the veil. And yet, standing there beneath the newborn sun, breathless (such a mortal feeling) with Melinoë beside him, he found himself undone by the simplicity of it all. The light, the warmth, the quiet presence of the one who had summoned him, it was almost enough to make doom itself hesitate.
For a long moment, Moros could only look at her. The light touched her first, gold catching in the pale strands of her hair, turning them almost molten in the dawn. Her one black eye making a sharp contrast to the otherwise golden touch. It shimmered over the faint markings of power on her skin, tracing her like a blessing. In that instant, she didn’t look like the Princess of the Underworld. She looked alive, radiant, eternal.
He had seen countless dawns, watched suns rise and fall over mortal empires, but never had the light seemed so sacred. Not until it met her. She also watched him, eyes bright with both pride and sorrow, and the sight pierced him deeper than any prophecy could. He was the Doom Incarnate, fated to witness the end of all things, yet in that heartbeat, he wished only to linger, to stay bound to her through the warmth of a single sunrise.
It was love, he realised, impossible, fragile, and already slipping from his grasp. And then, in that same heartbeat, another truth struck him like a divine revelation.
The morning light, he reminded himself of the quote, whose luminance breaks through the darkness and reveals the beauty of the world.
The thought caught him so completely off guard that he had to look away, tearing his gaze from the goddess before him. His breath caught, again, that maddeningly mortal feeling, as he turned toward the horizon.
The prophecy had never been about Eos.
It wasn’t Eos who embodied that dawn. It was her. He had been promised to Melinoë from the very beginning. But the revelation brought no comfort. If anything, it hollowed him out. Because he was Doom. The end of all things. And standing here beside her, bathed in light, alive with purpose, he felt like a stain upon her radiance.
He had no right to this feeling, this impossible tenderness that bloomed inside him like sunlight reaching where shadow should reign. Every thread of fate that touched him frayed, every destiny he brushed withered at its edge. He glanced back at Melinoë, her golden hair catching fire in the light, her expression soft yet strong. She deserved beginnings, not endings.
And yet, despite everything he was, he couldn’t stop looking at her, as if, in that fleeting morning, Doom itself had found something worth sparing.
“It is stunning, Princess,” he whispered to her, but she didn’t grace him with her beautiful heterochromatic eyes once again. A shame, but the dawn was probably even greater for her, who was bound to the Underworld. Who knows how many more sunrises she would have the occasion to witness? Who was he to even compare himself to such a view?
She did answer with a simple hum, but he could sense something had shifted between them.
His sisters had a very bizarre type of humour, indeed.