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There is little such a thing as true astonishment for the god of prophecies. Less yet when He is the one who spreads plague through thy camps, who O so closely watches those that dare preach war to the doomed city to which he is patron.
I foresaw all that; all this. In fact, I've accompanied you since before thy conception, when my father bestowed upon yours Thetis, as a gift. I watched as you strung the harp for the first time, and though it wasn't to me that you prayed, I kept on watching as Zeus graced you with power, Hermes with swiftness, Aphrodite with beauty; when you still laid unaware of how much the later would have you on a chokehold.
She has always been a tad cruel, in the sweetest way. You soon would find out about such when, in what I can only describe as a mockery, She made you even more alike to me. When, for the first time, you set thine eyes upon his dark curls. We discussed your heart that day, me and Her. We never settled on any agreement. We did, in a twist of irony, as would be done to your killer a couple of years later — we let a mortal, you, decide, as we both influenced thine interests in the not so slightest of ways.
Yet, She did a good job on him, didn't She? Bestowed Her strongest of blessings as Her son struck thy heart.
I watched in silence as you, like myself, sang to him when his — though it might seem like the contrary — not at all divine mind haunted his dreams. As he, such as the one dearest to me, slowly let his guard down, steadily falling into Hypnos's arms.
They were also very alike. Twas hardly any different from a reprise as he, almost as princely as thyself, made you a crown out of flowers. It was falling apart by the seams, but it was fine: it was the only one you'd wear with such pride. The Fates mocked me with his choice of Hyacinths intertwined with laurels. You juggled figs such as I played fetch with a disc.
I was there when the two of you painted stars in a centaur cave's ceiling, when you chose him as thy lover, when he swore you happiness; as well as when you got torn apart. When the piece of ocean that you call mother told you of the poisonous words my own mouth had to prophecise. When you covered yourself in a lady's attire, when with another you conceived a son you'd never raise, when a cunning king called out Phyrrah for her eyes shined for the wrong gift. I was there.
Then, when you wrapped thyself in hubris, I wasn't.
When you sided against my children, I wasn't. When you had to pick between Ares and Aphrodite, I wasn't; and for long I would not be.
You spilled the blood of those I patron way too early, yet the Muses still told me of you. Of how, in the free times amongst all the bloodshed, you still offered Them your melodies. I wasn't by your side, yet I must admit you still sparked in me some amusement as you chose all of the Olympians's blessings at once. “Serves him right,” I told Them, “He's always been a greedy creature”.
So when I saw your mother pleading for Zeus's help on thine endeavors, I chose to give you one final look.
You made a mockery of his weeping, yet your hands swept away his tears with the greatest of care. You, all too prideful, told him you couldn't return to the fields where my children, once by you slaughtered, sliced thine friends in half. So he wore thine helmet as the lover of mine held that fateful disc, and you stood behind; praying for any of Us who would hear.
You should have gone to that battlefield.
Twas when the ocean floor shook and rivers fell from thine agony that I knew the Fates had cut his thread short, once and for all.
I daren't look. I could not. Yet I knew all too well that feeling. The dark crimson elixir staining the earth as thy human side faded away alongside the light in his eyes.
They guarded his body, I heard; in those last moments. Amongst them, the cunning king, that once brought you into this, wielding the only gateway out for thine suffering.
And you wore Hephaestus’s gift half-strapped. And you didn`t eat, nor sleep. And you would not let them bury him, you could not, so you held him every night, still, through the smell of rotting flesh. And like so you slayed hundreds, uncaringly, and you dragged that poor prince’s body around my city’s walls. Over and over and over again. I was his patron; I held pity for you both: the killer and the grieving.
And so, for the first time, you looked at me. You looked at me as I’ve looked after you through all these years; you looked at me as did thine philtatos before his death. You looked at me and all I saw was myself, a tad thousand years younger.
I saw, in thy half-humanity, my half-divinity, as my hands turned blood into sorrowful flowers, as I wrote his name over and over on the petals. I saw myself pleading, begging on my knees to have my godhood taken away with my life into Hades. To accompany him into eternity as mere shadows on Styx. So I decided to bless you one last time, with the only gift I couldn’t have.
And here, a god oaths to you. Let us keep this under covers; under golden locks of hair, between the strings of a harp and of death and fate. Others might see us both as opposing sides, yet if so, let them. You, as much as I, know what that arrow, a final blow alongside the spear through thine heart, really meant. Here, a god oaths that you are well taken care of and well lead by Charon into the furthest place I can reach you. Here, the god of light blesses you with it one final time.
May you meet him again, may you find thy spark for the last time, may Persephone, when She returns to Olympus, tell me tales of thy love as nothing more than two souls, forever united until the end of times.